2022 CPG Insights Event
Thank you to everyone who came out to our Insights Event on Tuesday, 2/22. It was incredible to see everyone and get together IN-PERSON! A huge thanks to Umai Marketing for hosting, Austin Eastciders for their location, and our incredible speakers for sharing their insights and thoughts on the year ahead.
If you weren’t able to make it, we missed you, BUT we have captured the biggest takeaways from our CPG experts below:
COVID changed grocery, how people buy products, how they cook at home, and created pent-up demand for innovation and exciting products. These changes have created new opportunities and investors are looking at CPG as a growth industry.
Jeff Jacobs, Director of Marketing, EPAC
Plant-based is here. When we think about plant-based or natural products, we need to consider taste - no one will eat food that tastes like paper - and also affordability. Affordability enables scale.
When thinking of your audience, don’t limit yourself. For example, focusing only on people with Celiac limits your market, but if you consider everyone who wants to decrease their gluten intake, the market is much larger. At Gathered Foods, for Good Catch, we focus on flexitarians, a much larger group than strict plant-based-only eaters.
Christine Mei, CEO at Gathered Foods
Probably the biggest buzz phrase for 2022 will be supply chain disruptions. Everyone will be vulnerable from ingredients to packaging and distribution. But hopefully each sector will recover quickly and things will smooth out soon.
Mason Arnold, Co-Founder of Mostly Green Life
Secure funding NOW. We are at year 13 in a 10-year cycle and we’re at a valuation inflation point, funding will drop off sooner rather than later. That may sound like doom and gloom, but remember, that dropoff will only last 18-24 months - but prepare by going after capital now.
Marc Nathan, VP of Client Strategy at Egan Nelson
In 2021, 45% of the growth in the natural-products market came from smaller brands - not big brands. So when we say natural is here, we mean it, and the opportunity for emerging brands is still huge.
Will Geerer, Director of Retail Services, NielsenIQ
COVID has had a long-lasting effect on how consumers engage with and purchase from brands - primarily we saw a huge push toward e-commerce. We think that this shift will stay as technology has made online purchasing a seamless experience. One trend helping consumers purchase online is live shopping on social platforms like IG & TikTok - this is continuing to be a strong sales tool that can bring back the personalization for the consumer which previously only happened in retail. The other big opportunity is NFTs, and NFTs in CPG are an emerging opportunity, especially when it comes to raising capital.
Alison Smith, Co-Founder, Umai Marketing
The reality is that people want to be delighted and try exciting things. This insight led us to launch a blueberry muffin-flavored coffee that did incredibly well. We are continuing to innovate in this direction due to the overwhelmingly positive response and success.
Jacquelyn Jeanes, VP of Operations at Super Coffee
