• 📈 Oatly Reports ‘Encouraging’ Start to 2024
• ⚾ ITO EN Partners With LA Dodgers Star
• ♻️ Tracking Circular Packaging's Evolution
• 🐦 APHIS, USDA Issue Avian Flu Testing Reqs

Profitable, sustainable growth is driven by retail execution at the store level. Today's most successful brands turn to the concept of a perfect store to build an optimal retail presence inside brick-and-mortar retailers. Learn more

The Simply Good Foods Company (SGFC) is bulking up its brand roster. 

The publicly-traded company announced Monday afternoon that it has secured an agreement with United Nutritional Brands (an affiliate of Purchase Capital LLC), and minority investors to acquire plant-based protein shake maker Only What You Need (OWYN) in a cash transaction valued at $280 million. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

What does this mean? For SGFC, OWYN represents the third entry in its brand portfolio and one that aligns with the Atkins’ and Quest Nutrition producer’s fundamental tenants: “high protein, minimal sugars and low levels of net carbohydrates,” emphasized OWYN president and CEO Mark Oliveri in a release. 

OWYN’s range includes top-nine allergen-free shakes that are sweetened with monk fruit and come in a range of flavors under four distinct protein-focused lines; the company also makes two varieties of protein powder. The alignment between SGFC and OWYN should allow both to tap into numerous synergies and share resources between SGFC’s house of brands, including collective R&D expertise.

“OWYN reaches a new, incremental consumer segment which strengthens our category leading presence with retail customers. We are confident our go-to-market capabilities will accelerate profitable growth through accelerated distribution gains, increased household penetration and leveraging our cost-efficient supply chain,” Tanner said in the release. 

The OWYN team, including Oliveri, will join SGFC and continue to lead the brand following the close of the transaction. According to SGFC president and CEO Geoff Tanner, the company expects OWYN to reach $120 million in net sales this year, spanning both measured and natural channels. 

Read the full story to get all the deal details and catch up on how OWYN has grown. 

Net losses may still be steep ($45 million), but Oatly has plenty to be positive about in reading its latest earnings report: thanks to strong performance in North America, those losses are falling, while margin and revenue are on the rise. CEO Jean-Christophe Flatin called the earnings report “encouraging.”

• In North America, volume growth (+11.4%) helped drive revenue up 4.6% ($2.9 million), more than half of which is coming from retail. 
• Across the entire business, revenue improved +1.8% year-over-year to $199.2 million (+1.2% on constant currency basis).
• Supply chain efficiencies are driving real margin gains, Oatly reported: Gross profit margin was 27.1% (+9.7% YoY) in Q1, with gross profit up to $53.9 million ($34.1 million in Q1 2023). 

BevNET Insiders can read all the details from Oatly’s Q1 earnings here.

ITO EN’s “Oi Ocha” unsweetened green tea brand announced a new partnership with Major League Baseball sensation Shohei Ohtani that will pair the Tokyo-based tea maker with one of the biggest sports icons in Japan.

🍵 29-year old Ohtani said he is a “big fan” of the brand and it has remained “an important companion” in his time living in America, in a press release.

💰 The two-way baseball superstar and two-time MVP signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers in December on a record 10-year contract worth $700 million. 

Circular models – where products are sold in infinitely reusable packaging – have emerged as an idealistic solution for the CPG industry’s waste reduction efforts for one simple reason: there’s no waste created.

🔄 While most circular solutions companies based their business on the old milkman model, like Loop, Dispatch Goods and The Rounds, there have been challenges to scaling up those systems in a modern day economy for large-scale operations.

📦 Figuring out the ideal packaging format, working to shift consumer behavior all while building out the necessary infrastructure and logistics have remained persistent challenges. 

🔊 “We’ve been able to prove that, from a health and safety point of view, we can cycle something as sensitive as baby food. There’s nothing that you can’t cycle,” said Tom Szaky, CEO of Loop. 

Read the full story to read about the state of circular models and hear why a few believe they have a winning approach.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued new guidance for testing dairy cows for bird flu. The federal order comes after inactive virus particles were detected in 1 in 5 pasteurized retail milk samples.

🐮 The new regulation bans the interstate movement of lactating dairy cows from infected herds for 30 days from the most recent collection of positive test results from any animal in the herd. 

🧑‍🔬 Additionally, laboratories and veterinarians must report positive results and serology diagnostic results in livestock to APHIS and the USDA. 

💭 “While it is still unclear exactly how the virus is spreading, the virus is shed in milk at high concentrations; therefore, anything that comes into contact with unpasteurized raw milk may spread the virus,” APHIS told Politico. 

👀 As of April 26, the USDA has confirmed HPAI H5N1 detections in 33 dairy herds across 8 states including Kansas, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas.