Express Checkout #5

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Festivus for the rest of us!! I hope everyone has had a nice and relaxing holiday season so far. I cannot believe that 2023 is upon us already. 2022 has been an incredible year, filled with ups and downs, and I'm excited for what 2023 holds for me personally and for us as an industry!

And send me your thoughts on Glass Onion! Daniel Craig carried that movie in my humble opinion.

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I'd like to start with two very fun stories I caught this week. One, was that Zara went viral on TikTok for selling a $32 straw broom...sometimes I wish I could make these up. The second story was that knitwear brand Sheep Inc's goal of complete transparency has led them to offer up sheep selfies, real-time live streaming, and on-farm facial recognition. They're also rolling out documentaries under the "Farmflix" banner, examining how the farms operates from the inside. I, for one, would love to see a sheep take a selfie.

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🔥 Big News of the week 🔥

• Perfetti Van Melle Group is acquiring Mondelez’s gum business for ~$1.35 billion

• Mars Inc. is acquiring the whole-fruit snacking brand Trü Frü. Founded in 2017, the brand has proven strong appeal in the better-for-you category and will be a good addition for Mars as they further expand into that category

• According to a recent SEC filing, Magic Spoon is raising ~$121M in new funding in 2023. This comes just a couples months after raising an impressive $85M in June 2022

• H&M is in some murky water with Justin Bieber as the singer made H&M pull down various merch. What's the issue? Apparently Bieber never signed off on any of H&M's new merch!

News from the week (12/19 - 12/25 🎄)

🛍 Retail

• Gucci has opened up its first permanent storefront dedicated to its Valigeria line of luggage. If you’re in Paris anytime soon you can find the 2,900 sq ft store at 229 Rue Saint-Honoré (please get me something)

• Rite Aid is set to close more underperforming stores in 2023. This comes after they already shuttered 145 stores. Last week the company reported a quarterly loss of more than $67M and projecting more into 2023

• Primark is expanding its reach; the discount retailer has opened its first location in Brooklyn, NY

• According to a recent report from Creditcards.com, nearly half of all Americans are holding onto $21 billion in unused gift cards

• After years of shrinking its real-estate portfolio, Barnes & Noble plans to grow its store count by 30 next year. And they’re not alone. Other big-box stores are also expanding after closing many of their doors in the past few years. Burlington, Ross, TJX Companies plan to open 283 stores across in total

🛒 CPG & Consumer

• The Ordinary and Dr. Dennis Gross announced that they will be increasing prices starting in January '23, according to company Instagram posts. Rising costs was the main offender, as it is for many brands across CPG these days

• Constellation Brands is expanding beer production in Mexico with a $1.5bn investment to grow its production capacity in Sonora. They’re looking to grow annual production to 11m hectolitres+…that’s a lot of beer 🍺

• Cool cool cool....recent FDA tests have found that 10% of imported honey is adulterated with undeclared sweeteners

• The former head of influencer marketing at Casper just launched a face mask brand called Kindia. The brand launched with two hydrogel face masks—Aura Bounce and Aura Drip

• Middletown Public Schools, a Connecticut district comprising of 4,800 students, is adding Impossible Foods to the menu. I'm excited to see the continued proliferation of alt-meats into everyday life. Especially when it's the best tasting alt meat on the market, in my opinion

• Nestle has started testing its first animal-free milk product, Cowabunga, in select Safeway stores in San Francisco. The product is made using Perfect Day's fermented whey protein. Perfect Day is used in a lot of products, but I think the Nestle deal is the biggest validation for the tech

• The no- and low-alcohol category surpassed $11 billion in 2022, growing more than 7% in volume across 10 key global markets. Hard to sleep on this category anymore, it's gaining steam! I think the CBS Sunday Morning video and Wirecutter roundup were great indicators of some mass adoption starting to take place

• UFC in Australia and New Zealand announces Delgados as its official tequila aoda partner 

• Sports merchandising firm Fanatics is now valued at $31 billion after its latest reported round of funding

• Athletic Brewing and WHOOP have announced a partnership that will explore the effects of alcohol on sleep, recovery, and fitness. This is very inline with the non-alc brewer's strategy of integrating themselves into the fitness and running space. You can even find Athletic at Fleet Feet shoe stores

🏭 Supply Chain

• USPS is set to deploy over 66,000 EVs by 2028. This will end up being one of the largest EV fleets in the nation

• FedEx is planning to cut an additional $1bn in costs on top of $2.7bn cut they announced in September, citing lower demand

• As demand shrinks, Amazon is trying to sell empty space on its cargo planes. The e-commerce juggernaut has an impressive 100 planes at its disposal and just can't seem to fill them all

• Software company Lectra has agreed to acquire a majority stake in textile supply chain traceability platform TextileGenesis, buying 51 percent of the company for ~$16.2 million

• Knight-Swift has become the first major carrier to utilize Embark Trucks’ autonomous driving software on one of its tractor trailers. This is a major step toward the commercialization and adoption of autonomous trucking

💻 eCommerce

• Bobbie and Uber Eats partner on a pilot to deliver the European-inspired organic infant formula to mothers across NYC. The pilot will be available from December 20th to January 31st

• Global sustainability tech platform Clarity AI is partnering with the BNPL provider Klarna to promote environmentally conscious brands to 150M shoppers

• Digital grocery is expected to grow in 2023. According to a Grocery Doppio survey:

  • 87% of shoppers will use e-grocery next year with a 16% increase in the number of pickup orders

  • E-grocery sales totaled $14.bn in Nov '22, up from $11.8bn in Oct

  • Digital grocery accounted for 17.1% of all November grocery sales!!

• Amazon has announced that it will be raising fees for online merchants that use its Multi-Channel Fulfillment program. MCF allows online merchants like BigCommerce, Wix, and Magento to integrate with Amazon’s huge network of fulfillment centers

💸 Funding, Exits, M&A, and VC

• Designer Brands, owner of DSW, has acquired shoe maker Topo Athletic. They set a goal earlier this year to acquire more brands and double sales from its own footwear portfolio by 2026. Designer Brands operates more than 640 stores and has brands like Jessica Simpson, Crown Vintage, and Lucky Brand in its portfolio

• L Catterton’s Latin America fund has led $70M round into Razor, Germany-based aggregator of e-commerce consumer goods businesses. They buy FBA businesses, similar to what Thrasio does

• VF Corp is considering selling JanSport. The expected deal value is ~$500M. VF currently owns brands like Supreme, North Face, and Vans

• L Catterton's a hungry beast. They're adding to their DTC portfolio with an investment in BloomChic, a plus-size digital retailer founded in 2021 for an undisclosed amount

• Bunge, a global agribusiness firm and ingredients producer, is set to invest ~$550M in a new US facility to manufacture soy protein concentrate. Soy is a key ingredient in many plant-based foods on the market

• EvodiaBio has secured $6.4M in funding to grow its tech platform that uses fermentation to produce aromas for the food & drink industry. This tech can help make better non-alc beer options

• TSG Consumer Partners has acquired Radiance Holdings whose current portfolio is approximately 85% franchises and includes Sola Salons and Woodhouse Spas

🧐 Interesting reads

• So Every Spirit Wants to Be Bourbon Now? (via VinePair)

• Sears Rise and Fall: From World's Biggest Retailer to Bankruptcy (via Business Insider)

• Christmas 2022 dinner: Inflation drives up food prices and meal costs (via Axios)

• The Vineyard Falconer: How Trained Birds Protect Wine Grapes (via VinePair)

• How upcycled food companies tackle their biggest challenge (via Food Dive)

• Immune Health Category Outlook (via Joshua Schall)

💡 Reports and research

• Commerce Trends 2023: Industry Report - This one is a doozy, I highly recommend reading it through

• State and Major Locality Minimum Wage Updates for 2023 - looks like it's rising in some states (report from Ogle Tree)

• Pod Food Trends 2022 - State of Grocery

• Nestle has unveiled their expected trends for 2023:

  • Snacking continues to soar

  • 'Smeals' are here (here's a good breakdown) - 3 meals a day no more!

  • Plant-based rises

  • Functional Food and Beverage

  • DTC (lots of large brands are pushing this route, Pepsi has seen lots of success with snacks.com)

• 2022 Marcum Food & Beverage Survey - a survey of executives at food manufacturers, restaurants, distributors, retailers and agriculture producers

  • 71% reported revenue increasing from ‘21 - ‘22

  • 69% project revenue to rise over the next 12 months

  • 65% have a positive outlook over next yr

  • 69% ranked inflation and rising costs as greatest challenges of ‘22 and into ‘23

🐦 Interesting Tweets

• Launching your own product in the New Year

• Where your can buy the best of any clothing

• Hot take: most Gen Z consumers don't even know what quality fashion looks & feels like

Thanks for reading! I'll be back next week with more commerce news straight to your inbox. If you have any suggestions, feedback, or stories or posts I missed, let me know!

Nate :)