• 🆕 This Week’s Hot New Products
• 🛑 Sundial Foods Shuts Down
• 👀 Marketing: B.S. Blocker, No-Salt 
• ⏪ Lessons From The Rise of Regen Ag
• 📰 What We’re Reading: Tortilla Chips, Retail Trends and Kencko’s Post-Fire Growth

Instant consumption means instant insights. Over the course of the past year delivery platform Gopuff tracked a 166% increase in orders for cottage cheese, a 131% year-over-year spike in orders for Tart Cherry Juice and saw searches for cucumbers rise 28% in August. 

What do all of these items have in common? Their surges in popularity were all driven by new social media trends (see: Cottage cheese is cool now, sleepy girl mocktails and how to eat an entire cucumber, respectively, for the receipts). The platform saw this impact immediately, with each ingredient notching order increases just as its respective trend reached peak virality. 

Beyond social media feeds there was one other cultural event that convinced consumers to continue to checkout: The Super Bowl. 

• Overall, orders were up for ice (113%), Tostitos (332%), alcohol (75%) and hot sauce (154%) during the big game.
• But the real winner may have been Lindt Chocolate, which saw a 231% increase in orders via the platform in the hour after its ad aired during the game.

However, viral moments and football fanatics didn’t heavily shape the most popular products purchased on the platform in 2024. In fact, grocery staples largely took over the list with the report claiming the category has become more popular on Gopuff than ever before. 

• The most ordered items include Basically Purified Water Bottles, Simply Lemonade Raspberry, Organic Valley Grade A Free Range Large Brown Eggs, the very simple and humble (read: brand-less) banana and Chester's Flamin' Hot Fries.

The year also saw shoppers seeking value more than ever before, and Gopuff believes that trend will continue into 2025, stating that retailers offering loyalty programs, discounts and budget-friendly prices on grocery staples will win out. In December 2024 alone, 1 of every 3 products sold on Gopuff came from its Deals Center.

As for emerging brands, social media will also take on even greater importance in 2025, the report claims, stating it will play an outsized role in product discovery and purchasing decisions. Over the past year, the platform’s emerging brand-focused “Just Dropped” collection was its most popular category, and its “Latest & Greatest” segment also saw a spike in popularity.  

Curious what else steered the CPG industry in 2024? Check out Nosh’s curated year-in-reviews for more insight. 

Today is Friday, and you all know what that means…. it's new product gallery time! We’ve rounded up the hottest new products and packaged them into a neat array. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s inside:

🥤 Daily Harvest unveiled its latest product line: high-protein smoothies. Offered in three flavors at launch – Dark Chocolate, Vanilla Bean, and Mixed Berry – each smoothie contains 20 grams of protein per serving. 

🥄  Better-for-you cereal maker Magic Spoon has made its first foray into the granola category with the launch of Magic Spoon Protein Granola, available in Mixed Berry, Peanut Butter, and Honey Almond varieties. 

👀 Lexington Bakes is going beyond brownies with its Chilled Oat Bars, which are set to launch this quarter, according to a LinkedIn post by founder and CEO Lex Evans. 

Check out the full gallery on Nosh.

Nestlé-backed plant-based meat startup Sundial Foods has ceased operations after five years, according to a LinkedIn post. 

⏪ Founded in 2019, Sundial Foods developed a novel protein-structuring technique to create its chickpea alt-chicken product, which it claims contained as much protein per serving as an equivalent serving of actual chicken. 

🤝 Sundial sold the IP for its processes and products to an undisclosed European acquirer with “greater scale and resources” at the end of 2024. The company also filed a certificate of surrender with the Secretary of State in California on Dec. 19, reported AgFunder News. 

💭 “While this is the end of our journey as Sundial Foods the startup, we hope it is the beginning of a larger journey for what we’ve built,” said the company in the LinkedIn post. 

⛔ In other alt-meat news: An online auction for the assets of the now-defunct Motif Foodworks – which announced it would cease operations in September – is set to begin next week, according to AgFunder. 

🌶️ TRUFF is partnering with dishwasher detergent brand Finish to offer football fans an exclusive recipe for TRUFF Hot Honey Bacon Cheddar Dip – an elevated, truffle-infused twist on a classic game-day snack. 

🧂 Salt-free seasoning brand Dash is teaming up with Peloton instructor Hannah Corbin, who will create and share recipes and meal prep ideas highlighting the brand’s top varieties, including Garlic & Herb and Lemon Pepper.

⛔ RXBAR is calling B.S on unrealistic “New Year, New You” rhetoric in its latest campaign, which features billboards and a B.S. Blocker Truck “designed to shield people from toxic messaging” throughout New York City.

Regenerative agriculture-supporting CPG brands will need more than just a solid business model to be successful. It's going to take time, research and, of course, capital.

Anthony Corsaro is helping lead that charge, having recently founded the ReGen Brands ecosystem, which aims to help grow the movement through research, community and investment. During Nosh Live he shared his insight on why this movement is at an inflection point, the challenges it must overcome to succeed and how this new platform is taking on the task.

Check out the full video here.

🪄 The Atlantic examines the evolution of tortilla chips, including how the snack “lost its magic” due to cost and convenience and how a growing number of companies are seeking to restore the magic with masa made from single-origin, heirloom corn. 

🛒 A majority of grocery shoppers across the U.S. traded down to private-label brands amid high food prices in 2024, and Walmart – the nation’s largest retailer – won big, while Target suffered losses, according to The Associated Press. 

⏩ Tomás Froes, the CEO of smoothie powder producer Kencko, details the company’s return to growth after a devastating fire destroyed its only factory in 2023, in an interview with Inc. Magazine.