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1800Hotline 033 // p&g bets $3.8b on supplements, an amazon-native brand lands 2,600 walmart doors, and breakfast starts coming in a can
a THC brand refusing to pick a lane. baking debut that skipped the wait. plus gummies patients actually remember to take.
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hey and happy thursday,
kind of a quiet week in the number of headlines, loud week for M&A. p&g wrote a $3.8b check for a supplement brand that built its reputation without ever needing to go viral. gorilla commerce goes from amazon-native brand to real shelf space. and target’s cereal aisle now has a can to compete with.
let’s get into it.
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AI recommends brands it trusts. Yours probably isn’t one of them yet.
You’ve heard this before: open up ChatGPT and ask it to recommend a store selling what the product you offer. Odds are your brand is not in the answer (only 1 in 4 stores are).
Another number: 1 in 4 U.S. shoppers are now treating AI as their primary source for purchase research, with 46% starting on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Claude, up from 25% in just 2024.
Most brands respond by optimizing their own site *harder.* And that has worked with Google rewarding the best content. AI, however, rewards trust. Backing that thesis up:
85% of what AI says about you comes from third-party sites, not your homepage
The content AI cites most (think expert reviews, “best of” lists, comparison posts, product videos) is exactly what an affiliate network produces
Lists drive 45.8% of AI citations, more than any other format
All interesting to dive into. And all in a free ebook you can grab from a partner of 1800DTC, UpPromote below. They’re the #1 affiliate marketing app on Shopify, serving 250,000+ Shopify and Shopify Plus stores. Great friends.
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Brand We’re Watching: NOON
America is getting its first ever breakfast in a can. Starting this week, NOON has landed in Target nationwide, making mornings a bit easier and giving you every reason to skip the drive-thru.
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Founded in Australia by Tamir Triguboff and Cade Fleming, NOON is a grab-and-go complete breakfast that’s built from real milk and whole oats.
Each can packs 20g of protein, 5g of fiber, no added sugar, and no seed oils. Naturally sweetened, they’re built to keep you full past your morning meeting (and ounce for ounce, they even out-protein competitors like Muscle Milk).
Hitting 1,850 Target doors for $8.99 a 4-pack, in Milk Chocolate, Creamy Vanilla, and our favorite Honey Banana. Delish. On Target’s website too.
Unwrapped w/ Sam from ZALT
A stranger’s comment had 6,000 likes. ZALT’s beginning stemmed from there: the first ever Electrolyte + B Vitamin pouch. There’s no nicotine or caffeine.
Second CPG brand for Sam. Check out his story on our IG.
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P&G Pays $3.8B for Thorne, Biggest Wellness M&A Move of the Year
Procter & Gamble is acquiring Thorne, the practitioner-trusted supplement brand owned by L Catterton, for $3.8 bil. The deal slots Thorne into P&G’s Personal Health Care division, expected to close later this year assuming all goes well on regulatory approval.
Thorne built its rep the slow way: NSF Certified for Sport products, vertically integrated manufacturing in SC, and a client base of healthcare practitioners and pro athletes over performance-marketing customers.
“Thorne strengthens our position in premium wellness with a trusted, science-backed brand that complements our existing portfolio.”
P&G Health Care CEO, Paul Gama
Thorne CEO Colin Watts framed it as staying “true to the values and standards that have always defined Thorne.”
Founders in supplements and wellness should consider that credibility earned with practitioners and athletes, not ad spend, is now an asset that legacy CPG will pay the biggest premium for. More strategies like this will circle the category.
Gorilla Commerce Built a 9-Fig Business on Amazon; Launching in Walmart Stores Now
Gorilla Commerce crossed nine figures in sales selling slip-resistant bath mats, mostly through Amazon, becoming a top-ten private label seller on Amazon U.S. So simple it’s crazy, right?
Now, it’s showing there’s more in the tank than just being an Amazon brand. Last month, Gorilla Grip landed in more than 2,600 Walmart stores, two years after the company first tested Walmart’s marketplace.
A lot of Amazon-native brands stay Amazon-native, treating other channels as a hedge on top of that. Lining up with a strong retail window for their product with the back-to-college crowd, Gorilla Commerce took a leap and went physical retail at scale after proving themselves.
Investors Double Down On Uncle Arnie’s Two-Track THC Approach
Uncle Arnie’s just pulled in $2 million from existing investors, and the money is riding on two horses in a dual-market strat. The cannabev brand isn’t picking between recreational cannabis and hemp-derived THC.
Operators typically treat the split as an either/or bet, usually by which regulatory lane looks friendlier. Uncle Arnie’s is going with a wide net instead, keeping a foot in the channel for state-licensed dispensary and the hemp-derived market that ships across state lines. Reach beating focus while the category’s rules stay in flux seems to be the wager here.
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PiiPER debuts a vibrant baking portfolio in Target and Walmart, nationwide, from day one Frostings, glitter dust, decorating sprays, hitting shelves at Target and Walmart simultaneously. Seven SKUs launched total. Baking brands hitting the debut stage usually claw for one retailer before earning wider placement like this. PiiPER said not us, betting a color-forward, visually loud portfolio can win attention in a commodity aisle full of the usual names. Stuff does pop looking at it.
High-income shoppers are carrying Wayfair's Q2 Wayfair's upscale Perigold banner grew over 35% in Q2, a bright spot even as the housing market stays a little unsettled. File it in high-income shoppers that can keep spending when the market pulls back for the rest. K-shaped economy kind of thing.
Goodles launches a Twirly Mac line, leaning into bold and spicy flavor New sub-line "Twirly Mac" debuts with flavors like Hotshot Jackpot, a chili garlic cheddar mac that smacks you with the heat, while holding the brand's core strong pitch of 14g protein, 7g fiber, and 21 plant-based nutrients per a serving. Good to see a recognizable better-for-you brand pushing further into flavor innovation instead of just riding a health claim.
Cann taps Dwyane Wade for a golf-themed THC flavor Another athlete-backed functional beverage play, this time aimed squarely at the golf crowd. Great name for it too. Celeb equity keeps proving out as a distribution shortcut in cannabev.
Hims & Hers says its first gummy prescription is driving a high adherence rate Swapping a pill for a gummy format is boosting the consistency in patients taking their prescription. Cool, broad product-format lesson that we’ve heard before, applying well beyond telehealth: friction at the point of use may be the sticky point. Remove the barrier.
that’s a wrap for field notes this week.
trust is getting priced in and that’s a big lesson this week. p&g opened up their wallet for a brand built on doctors and athletes, and gorilla commerce paid its dues in real stores instead of staying comfortable on an algorithm surfacing them. build hard, cash in mentality around.
see you tuesday.
— Zach and the 1800Hotline Team
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