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Expo West is next week! 🎉 The Bubble Goods team is excited to see so many of the brands who sell on our platform in attendance this year. 😊 Download the full Guide to Expo West, and say hello to some of our favorite Bubble Goods Approved Brands! 👋 🌶 FLY BY JING 🍅 Yo Mama's Foods ® 🍝 Sauz 💧 CURE 🍄 Pan's Mushroom Jerky 🥣 18 Chestnuts Vegan Soups 🧀 Fair & Square 🥥 The Coconut Cult We love seeing so many independent food makers showcase what they do best - make high quality foods. ✅ If we missed anyone, drop a link or comment to share / boost visibility! Special thanks to this year's Guide Sponsor PennPak Solutions - your premier choice for supplement, powder and bar manufacturing. Jing Gao Ari Raz Noah Simon-Waddell Winston Alfieri David T. Habib Alexander Duong Ilona Kossoff Lauren Picasso New Hope Network #expowest #bubblegoods #cpg #foodandbeverage #expowest2024 #healthandwellness

Liquid I.V. sold for ~$500 million to Unilever in 8 years. For 6 years, they did under $1 million in sales. Here’s their story… Liquid IV is an electrolyte drink mix. It contains 3x more electrolytes than leading sports drinks. Today, they’re in over 35,000 stores nationally. And have sold nearly 1 billion units. This journey started when Brandin Cohen got a scholarship to play golf in college But he got several injuries that crushed his dream of going pro. After graduating, he went into ticket sales for pro baseball team, Arizona Diamondbacks. Often, he’d be in the dugout before games, hanging with the players. He quickly noticed these athletes drinking Pedialyte, the hydration drink for kids. The only alternative was unhealthy sports drinks, which had even more artificial ingredients. As a former athlete, it didn’t make any sense. These were the best of the best. They had all the resources. So he went and talked to the team’s nutritionists. They taught him about “oral rehydration therapy” At the time it was being used in developing countries to help those with dehydration. And that’s where the idea for Liquid I.V. was born. In 2012, Brandin founded Liquid I.V.. After formulating for 2 years, they launched DTC. In 2015, a mom-and-pop agreed to put them on the shelf. 3 months later, they were in 100 SoCal stores. One of which was a Whole Foods. In the early days, Brandin would go in and sample the product every weekend in WF by himself. After 2 months, it became the best selling item in the department.  By 2016, they were in 10,000 stores. And 20,000 by 2017. The following year, they… - doubled revenue quarter-over-quarter - hit number 1 on Amazon’s Best Sellers - raised $5 million in growth funding From the beginning, Brandin was passionate about giving back. The product was developed based on WHO guidelines. A year after launch, they donated 500 servings to a homeless shelter in Skid Row. In 2018, that mission grew when they partnered with Direct Relief. The partnership allowed Liquid I.V. to help those affected by poverty globally. From Uganda to Nepal. The next year, countless Hollywood celebrities joined the cause and invested. - Kendall Jenner - Justin Bieber - Kevin Hart - Demi Lovato That drove exponential brand awareness. By early 2021, over 500 million servings had been sold in the US alone. With a team of ~50 people. They had also donated over 10 million servings including 5 million to front line workers during COVID. Today, that number is 36 million servings, globally. Although Brandin stepped down as CEO later in 2021, His love of helping people is forever imprinted as one of Liquid IV’s core tenets. In coming months, Liquid I.V. is on track to hit $1 billion in sales.

1st half 2023 recap on the Liquid Water Enhancers category 💧 Just above of $800M in category projected sales on 19% growth vs year ago. ✔ Total households, up 9% ✔ Average spend per household, up 9% ✔ Purchase frequency, up slightly 0.2% ✔ Spend per Trip, up 9% ✔ Spend per Unit, up 8% ✔ Units per Trip, up 1% Yep, you are seeing that correctly and it's surprising (at least to me). Liquid Water Enhancers are up across all major consumer demand metrics. One of very few categories posting growth across households, trips, dollars and units. ❓ Why is it surprising? Because Powdered Drink Mixes tend to get all the attention. Perhaps because Liquid Water Enhancers are a third the size in sales. It could also be a perceived lack of innovation that has kept Water Enhancers under the radar. Or maybe it’s innovation that hasn’t resonated with consumers. It’s a younger category than most think. In 2011, Kraft Heinz launched Mio, which still holds pole position today, and created the category. A pretty incredible breakthrough innovation considering Mio was almost a Crystal Light line extension in liquid form. It could also be a lack of big CPG investment in the category that hasn’t kept it top of mind. Relative to other lines in Kraft Heinz, The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo portfolios, Water Enhancers are likely too small a piece of revenue to warrant significant marketing investments. ❓ Now, why shouldn’t it be surprising? For starters, Water, the peanut butter to Water Enhancers jelly, has been on a tear. The adjacent category, Still Water, is roughly $22B in projected sales on 8% growth vs YA. Next, and equally important, consumer demand for hydration and functional anything couldn’t be hotter. Water Enhancers are an additive that solves for both. Call it Additive Functional Hydration that also happens to provide improved taste in a variety of flavors. This feels like such a sleepy category given all of the activity and focus around Powdered Drink Mixes. One might say it’s ripe for disruption. Cirkul has been one of the most notable newer entrants resonating with consumers in the category. Who are the other new brands making moves in the Liquid Water Enhancers category? If you’d like more info or know someone that would, tag and send over a DM. Source: Numerator #cpg #foodandbeverage #startup #data #consumerinsights #categorymanagement