Three Dairy Giants All Buying Functional Nutrition, Salt & Straw's $200M Exit, and David's $90 Ice Cream | Unpackaged Goods

The three largest dairy companies in Europe are all acquiring functional nutrition brands in the same year. Over $2 billion in deals in two weeks. And David sold protein ice cream for $90 a six-pack and sold out in 28 minutes.

This week on Unpackaged Goods:

Nestlé is buying yfood at €450M — first acquisition under the new CEO. Lactalis acquired Protein Works at $75M in sales. Danone already bought Huel for $1.15B. Three dairy giants, three functional nutrition acquisitions, same year. Traditional dairy is flat. Functional nutrition is growing. They have the manufacturing and distribution. They don't have the brands. So they're buying them. All of them. At the same time.

In this episode I break down:

→ Why three European dairy giants are all acquiring functional nutrition simultaneously — and what it means for every founder building in the category
→ Bridgepoint paying $460M for Obagi Medical and building a $1.8B dermatological skincare portfolio
→ Salt & Straw exploring a $200M exit while PE circles the entire ice cream category
→ Ryl Tea raising $20M after growing 157% while iced tea declined 1.8% — Purchase Capital running the OWYN playbook again
→ David protein ice cream selling out in 28 minutes at $90 per six-pack — the Supreme model applied to functional food
→ Smash Kitchen approaching $100M in year two — why Glen Powell's brand is working where other celebrity CPG fails
→ ODDITY collapsing 30% after CPA spiked 83% — the DTC warning every brand needs to hear
→ Helaina partnering with Nestlé for breast milk-identical infant nutrition proteins
→ Trek One Capital acquiring Good Karma Foods and No Cow to build a plant-based platform
→ California Naturals closing an 8-figure Series B with a former Glossier exec as new CEO
→ BERO Summer Shandy launching at Target — non-alc beer goes seasonal
→ Frosh kids juice boxes at Target from Ciara and Russell Wilson
→ Huel Lite Ramen and Magic Spoon Protein Oatmeal — functional formats keep expanding
→ AG1 launching Omega-3 at Walmart — expanding beyond the hero product
→ MAC Energy securing pre-launch cut-ins at Kroger and Albertsons before July 12th
→ Distribution: DryWater at 1,300 Target doors, Cure at 1,227 Target stores, Neuro and O Positiv at 235 Costco each, High Level Science at 1,000+ GNC, Ketone-IQ at Casey's, Plant People at Wegmans

The feeding frenzy is here. The brands that built real velocity during the correction are now the most attractive targets in a decade. Cheaper than 2021. More proven than 2023. Growing faster than the acquirers' organic businesses. And ODDITY collapsing 30% when CPA spiked 83% is the warning: the market rewards repeat purchase and punishes bought growth.

Build something real. The buyers are waiting.

🥣 Subscribe to The Deeter Digest: https://deetseatsnyc.substack.com/
🎙️ Unpackaged Goods podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6moZEYjORSb5XZ7LVu8b3f?si=6c656c85e78e487a
📸 @deetseatsnyc on Instagram/TikTok
🥒 Pickle Advisors: pickleadvisors.com

#CPG #ConsumerGoods #Nestle #yfood #Lactalis #ProteinWorks #Danone #Huel #Bridgepoint #Obagi #SaltAndStraw #RylTea #DavidProtein #SmashKitchen #ODDITY #Helaina #BERO #Target #Costco #Walmart #UnpackagedGoods #DeeterDigest #FeedingFrenzy #FunctionalNutrition #BuildAccordingly

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Welcome back. Alrighty. So we're back. It was home, unfortunately, for my grandmother's funeral, but it was a wonderful celebration. Good to see my mom and my sister and some extended family. So great celebration of life. She was to make a mean apple pie. So alrighty. So we're gonna rip through this. And we got a lot of news. We'll go through it all. Uh it was a big week, so a lot of where are my segments? So family size, I think that's coming up soon. Mackenzie and I got some guests coming up. Um look now, we'll cover the housekeeping things and then we'll dive in. So if you haven't followed us on Instagram, TikTok, or subscribe to our Substack, head to the link in the bio. We have a newsletter once a week that comes out that I think is really good. The podcast comes out once a week. And then we have content on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. And so you can go check it out. Every day we have counter service, our daily news series, which uh is great. It also makes them going and doing this podcast. Wait, what happened? That was five days ago. So a lot is happening really quickly in CPG. This podcast, too. It's only gonna include stuff from my newsletter from Sunday. So we'll have to wait for till next week to hear about Tom Brady and his new coconut water. Go nuts. But we'll mention it. And so that's just how we operate. And if you haven't yet, please rate us five stars, leave us a review. It really helps with positioning us to new listeners. So I'm getting text messages. So I'm like, ooh, la la la. All right, but we're here, we're recording, we're gonna get this edited because I've recorded a couple that I haven't posted, and so that's annoying, but we're gonna do it. So segment one, the dairy giants are buying nutrition. So I want to start with the pattern that we've seen. We've seen a couple of acquisitions in the better for you easy nutrition space. And so the three largest dairy companies in Europe are all acquiring functional nutrition brands in the same year. So let's lay it out. Danone acquired Huel for $1.15 billion. Complete nutrition brand, shakes, powders, bars ready to drink, global distribution, and they were acquired earlier this year. Nestle now is acquiring the rest of Y Food for 450 euro. So they're a German meal replacement brand. They have distribution in 30 plus European countries, nearly 150 million in revenue with double digit growth. Nestle took approximately 49% in 2023. Now they're buying the rest. So they're like, we really want to own this entire thing. This is a fast growing business. This is the first acquisition under the new CEO, Philip Navertil, which is my grandma's last name, my grandpa's last name, Navertil, spelled the same way. And then LactTales acquired Protein Works. So that was a UK-based supplement and functional nutrition brand, around 75 million in sales, and they were founded in 2020 in Liverpool. So you have three dairy giants, three functional nutrition acquisitions in the same year. So I think why this is happening simultaneously. Traditional dairy consumption is flat or declining across Europe and North America. Milk consumption per capita has been dropping for decades. Yogurt growth has plateaued in developed markets. Cheese is stable but low growth. Meanwhile, functional nutrition, protein shakes, meal replacements, supplements is growing double digits. So the consumer who used to drink a glass of milk in the morning now drinks a protein shake or green supplement. So why dairy companies are the natural acquire? They have manufacturer infrastructure built for liquid and powder products. They have cold chain logistics and supply chain expertise. They have distribution relationships with every retailer on the planet. They have RD capabilities for formulation and food science. What they don't have is brand equity and consumer loyalty in functional formats. The consumer doesn't associate Nestle with daily well-ness supplements the way they associate gruns or fuel. So they're buying it, all of them, at the same time. So the the implications. If you're building a functional nutrition brand, real velocity, every dairy company in Europe is a potential choir. The Done wrote a check for 1.15 billion. Nestle wrote a check for 450 million euro. And Lact Tails wrote an undisclosed check. The buyer pool has never been deeper, and they're not done. There are obvious bases remaining. Sleep supplements, gut health beyond health, sports nutrition. Unilever is buying into the same thesis, different angle. Between Denone, Nestle, LactTales, and Unilever, the four largest consumer companies in Europe are building functional nutrition platforms, portfolios through MA. So the Nestle Wai Food details. 450 million valuation on 150 million in sales. It's roughly a 3x multiple. Double digit growth in 30 plus countries. It's the patient capital playbook. Nestle took 49% in 2023, watched the brand perform, watched it outperform, and bought the rest three years later. Same playbook as Constellation with Hopwater. When Nestle's new CEO's first move is to acquire a meal replacement brand, it tells you exactly where the company's gross strategy is pointed. Segment two, Bridgepoint builds nearly a $2 billion dermatological empire. While the dairy giants are buying functional nutrition, Bridgepoint is doing the same thing in professional skincare and medical aesthetics. Let's dive in. So let's talk about the portfolio first. They own Obagi Medical, which was acquired for $460 million this week from Walden cost. Approximately $500 million in 2024 from Gryphon investors. Laboratories Vivacy, approximately $830 million in 2023. Total, nearly $2 billion across three deals in $3.1.8 billion. So what Bridgepoint is building? A professional grade skincare and medical aesthetics platform. Boggy brings dermatological skincare, aging, photo damage, acne, discoloration. He brings mass market, retinal skincare, vivacy brings medical aesthetics, thermal fillers, and injectables. Together, they span professional to mass to medical. The Waldencast angle is interesting. Waldencast is selling Obagi to focus entirely on milk makeup. Makeup did 110 million in revenue and 15 million, 15.2 million in Ibita in 2025. Rather than managing two fundamentally different brands, professional dermatological care and trendy and cosmetics, Waldencast is concentrating on the brand with the clearest growth trajectory. Founders are leaving to run Obagi under Bridgepoint. That's how committed they are to the Obagi opportunity. Again, that's very interesting. Everyone's always up in arms about PE takeovers and how it's not a good fit. And here you have two founders and operators who are saying we'd actually rather be under the PE umbrella. I think that's something you'll probably see more of down the road. Where PE lines, founders say, hey, I don't want to stick around with a product that doesn't make sense or doesn't have a product market fit or portfolio that just is too hard to manage. So the Obagi deal structure, $366 million in cash, $30 million in vendor notes, and up to $64 million in earnout, tied to various milestones across the next two years. The earnout means that Bridgepoint believes there's near-term upside beyond just the price. So why this matters? When a PE firm spends nearly $2 billion in a category, they're not making opportunistic bets. They're building a platform thesis. Professional grade skincare and medical aesthetics are two of the fastest growing consumer health categories. We covered the peachy investment from Stride a few months ago. Botox and wrinkle management is in the same lane. The consumer is spending more on professional skincare, medical aesthetics, and derma and dermatological treatments than ever before. And Bridgepoint is building the entire consumer journey from daily skincare to professional treatments to medical aesthetics. Segment three. Oh, this one's gonna make me hungry. So Salt and Straw is exploring an exit for nearly $200 million. And they hired Piper's bank. So they have 50 scoop shops around the country. I think they have two in New York. Really good ice cream. I originally was introduced to them in LA and Venice. So they're doing over 100 million in sales, and they have Dwayne the Rock Johnson on the cap table. I love ice cream. My whole family loves ice cream. So the timing of all of this is interesting. The last couple of weeks we've talked about Blackstone and C DNR, how they've been circling the Magnum ice cream company, which I've actually seen now more in the wild. I'm like, oh, there it is. Oh, oh. So, anyways, the Unilever spinoff, the Ben and Jaris, Talentes, Yasso like 8 billion. What else is happening in the ice cream world? Jenny's hired the former Barry CEO as its new CEO, and something we'll get to a little bit later, but David launched its own ice cream that sold out in 28 minutes. $90 for a six-pack. So the entire ice cream category is getting institutional attention simultaneously in different areas. So let's go through the salt and straw profile because I love this place. And they have great ice cream. They have premium ice cream with cultural positioning. When I think about it, I think of like a cool trendy ice cream shop on Venice Beach. I think that's where I was first introduced to it on Abbot Kinney. They have great seasonal flavor drops. If I remember correctly, that's what I got was something seasonal. They always have something good. They have 50 scoop shops across the US, so they have a pretty good footprint. They have a strong CPG business. I don't know, actually. Oh, I've seen their pints in the wild. And they do over 100 million in sales. Their investors include Carp Riley, Enlightened Hospitality, and Dwayne The Rock Johnson. Carp Riley also backed Drybar before its sale to Wellbiz. So the valuation question. 200 million on roughly 100 million sales is 2x. That's a fair multiple for a premium ice cream brand with both a scoop shop business and a direct-to-consumer business. The question for any buyer is is the value and shop model beyond the 50 stores? Or is it the brand in the CPG pints in the cultural cachet? If it's scoop shops, you need real estate and operations partners. If it's CPG, you need distribution. If it's the brand, you need someone who can monetize cultural positioning across multiple formats. So who's the buyer? PE firms would likely see the margin improvement opportunity. 50 scoop shops with strong unit economics could be optimized and expanded. A strategic like Unilever could pull plug on salt and straw, like Unilever could plug salt and straw pints into the same distribution that moves Ben and Jerry's if they still owned ice cream. A hospitality group would value the scoop shop in the cultural events. Most interesting buyer might be whoever acquires Magnum Ice Cream Company. Adding salt and straw as a premium craft positioning to a portfolio of scaled ice cream brands creates range across the category. Segment four. So Rao T closed a $20 million Series C from purchase capital. Brand grew 157% during the 52-week period ending May 17th. The broader Iced T category is declining 1.8% in the same period. So let that contrast T up 157%. IT is a whole category down 1.8%. That's not riding the wave. That's creating one in a category that's shrinking. Why purchase capital matters? They backed Owen when exited in 2024 for $280 million, roughly two years from investment to exit. The playbook is documented. Find the brand with the category defying velocity, invest at a gross stage, scale aggressively, exit to strategic. Rile T at 157% growth is exactly that profile. And the iced T opportunity. And these brands haven't meaningfully up, and these brands haven't meaningfully innovated in so the consumer that's moved to functional beverages, better for you positioning, and premium ingredients in every other category still drinking the same iced tea from 2010. Rile T is giving them reason to switch. 157% growth means they're not just adding new consumers, they're actively stealing share from other iced tea companies. So the exit math. They backed Owen to a $280 million exit. If they can repeat that trajectory with Ryal T, the $20 million investment produces outside returns. The iced tea category is bigger than the plant-based protein category that Owen competed in. If Ryal T even captures a small percentage of the $8 billion iced tea market, the exit multiple is enormous. Every strategic in beverages, KDP, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo is watching a brand that grows 157% a year in a category. Alright, drumroll, please. Everyone's been waiting for segment five, David Protein Ice Cream. So this was the story that really captivated the internet. Um people started to receive pints in the mail. I then later found out the person in charge is one of my good friends' sisters, and so uh I texted him to see if I can get some pints and see if he can text her. And so um shout out to Alec. Shout out to his sister. Um, if you're listening to this, I hope I get my hands on some pints. Promise to promote it. I'm a big fan of David. I'm a big fan of uh I think what he's doing is incredibly eat just commands the attention of the consumer. And in a way that like a star, an athlete, really like some of your like top business leaders of top companies, the way he's able to get his consumers to buy products almost instantly, whether it's the cod, whether it's the ice cream. It's remarkable. So Peter Holzkellanet. He followed me on it, which was pretty cool. And if he listens to the pod, Peter, I'd love to get together sometime. So let's dive in. They launched with four flavors vanilla bean, peanut butter, double chocolate, and cookie dough. I want to try them all. They sound so good. Uh, 30 grams of protein, one to two grams of sugar, 210 to 260 calories per pint, and a six-pack cost $90. And they sold out in 28 minutes. So $90 for six pints. It's about $15 a pint. To put that in perspective, most pints at the ice cream store are about $10 in New York. Unless you're looking for a deal. Or unless you're getting the Whole Foods private label, it's like $5. Ice cream's expensive. Hagendas, Jenny's, Ben and Jerry's, they're all in that six to eight dollar range, I would say. But in New York, a bodega, oh my god, you're gonna see all those at $10. It's insane. Ice cream pints are like one of the most expensive things, I would say, in New York. And for someone who loves ice cream, it's brutal. And the the one I had last night, I forget the brand, but it was $10.99. But still, David is charging almost three times some of his brands or some of the the bigger, cheaper brands. $15 is a lot. And they sold out in under half an hour, which is wild. Why this works for David? Peter Rahol, as I was saying, has built the most interesting brand in CPG. David's consumer isn't just comparing its protein ice cream to Hagandoss, they're buying David because it's David. Same consumer who bought the protein bars through a class action lawsuit, canned cod and gold tins for $40, and now $90 ice cream. The brand premium is unmatched in functional foods. So the premium model applied to CPG. So, so this is the Supreme model applied to CPG. Limited quantities, premium pricing, sellout fast, create scarcity, generate social proof, every sellout creates demand for the next drop. Every $90 six pack that disappears in 28 minutes makes the next one sell out in 20. It's the same psychology that built Supreme into a billion-dollar streetwear brand. Rahole is applying that to protein food. The real question, the DC drop model clearly works for David, but can $15 pints work at retail? If Whole Foods puts David's pints, they won't because they have value loss, next to Jenny's at $7 and Haganas at five, will it move? I think so. And the answer really determines whether protein ice cream is a line extension for David or full business. My guess, David keeps the ice cream brand as a D2C drop model and uses the sellouts as brand marketing that drives protein bar sales at retail. A $90 ice cream may not be a revenue play. It might be a marketing play that happens to generate revenue. The protein ice cream category. Frozen one just launched nationwide at Target. Smear Case is approaching a thousand doors with their cottage cheese ice cream. Halo Top still exists. But nobody else is charging $90 for a six-pack and selling out in 30 minutes. David is operating in a completely different lane than the rest of the protein ice cream brands. Segment six, Smash Kitchen is approaching $100 million in revenue. So according to Inc. magazine, Smash Kitchen, Glenn Powell's brand, is supposed to surpass $100 million in retail sales by the end of 2026. The Clean Condiments brand debuted at Walmart last April, and now they're in nearly 15,000 doors. So from Walmart launched to 100 million in nearly two years. How'd we get there? That's exceptional by any standard. 15,000 doors across any category is exceptional. The velocity is remarkable. Each product line leveraging existing Walmart relationships and shelf presence. So why Smash Kitchen is working where other celebrity brands fail? The products are repeat purchases beyond Glenn Powell. Clean condiments at Walmart is a massive category with genuine consumer need. The brand isn't asking consumers to buy something that they don't already use. It's out to buy a better version of what they already use. Hot sauce, ketchup, chips, dressings. These are everyday products. The celebrity gets the trial, the product drives, repeat purchase. And the category condiments and snacks is massive. Segment seven. So Oddity share price dropped nearly 30% after Q1 net revenue declined 26%. The company reported a net loss of $21 million compared to over $37 million in net income in Q1 of 2025. And the cost per acquisition spiked to 83%. So what happened? Oddity is a beauty tech company that owns Il Magique and Spoiled Child. Their model is D2C first, powered by AI and data for product recommendations and customer acquisition. The thesis was the technology could make consumer acquisition more efficient than traditional beauty brands, but this court approved the opposite. Their CPA spiked 83%. So when your cost to acquire new customers nearly doubles, the math breaks. So why this matters beyond oddity. Every D2C first brand faces the same structural challenges. Customer acquisition costs trend upward over time. Facebook and Instagram ads get more expensive as more brands compete for the same eyeballs. The brands that survive the rising CPA are the ones strong enough with repeat purchase to amortize the acquisition cost over years of retention. Suggests either algorithms competition intensified or the consumer moved on. Probably all three. Smash Kitchen is approaching $100 million in Walmart. Retail Discovery, not paid digital, not paid digital acquisition. $900 million through retail distribution, not dependency on Meta's advertising algorithm. The brands with retail distribution as their primary growth engine don't face the same CPA risk that other D2C first brands do. Retail has its own costs slotting fees, trade spend, promotional support, but they're more predictable than digital advertising costs. The lesson here: D2C is a channel, not a business model. The brands that build D2C only are building on rented land. Meta's algorithm, Google's bidding system, and TikTok's discovery feed. When the algorithm changes or CPA spikes, your growth model breaks, your growth model breaks. The brands that build retail distribution alongside D2C have the diversified growth engine. Every D2C first brand should be looking at this and asking, what happens if our CPA doubles? Segment 8. Helania in the food tech partnership. So Helena announced a landmark multi-year partnership with Nestle to develop early life nutrition products using proteins identical to those found in human breast milk. So this why this might be the most of the year. Proteins identical to human breast milk produced through precision biology, developed and scaled through Nestle, the largest infant nutrition company in the world. If the products reach market, they fundamentally change infant nutrition globally. Infant formula has been based on cow's milk protein for decades. Alright, let's wrap this up. So the Nestle signal. Multi-year development partnership with a biotech company unless the technology is mature enough for commercial development. This isn't a research grant. This is product development partnership. Nestle has the regulatory expertise, the manufacturing infrastructure, and the distribution to bring the market the product to market globally. Helena has the technology. Nestle has everything else.

unknown 22:43

Oh, it doesn't want to cooperate. Okay, so let's get here.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Okay. We're all done. Camera's getting old. Okay. Alright, segment nine. Rapid fire. Funding. Launches. Distribution. We're going quick.

unknown 22:55

Whew.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Alright. California Naturals. They closed an eight-figure series B round. Led from aligned ventures. Former Glossier exec Hidden Hyatt is stepping into the C L Catardin brand that's at Target, Ulta, CVS, H E B, and Sprouts. That's scaling phase begin. Smash. Leave us five stars. Rate and review us. That would mean the world to me. Please. My camera's going crazy. So uh that's it. We out.