A growing — albeit still relatively small — sector within the Halloween costume industry consists of licensed garments based on food, beverage, and restaurant brands. These products allow kids and adults to trick-or-treat or attend holiday parties, this weekend and throughout the scary season, dressed as their favorite snack item, its package, or its brand […]
Archive | Food/Beverage
Where There’s Smoke, There’s a Licensed Product
Barbecue restaurants, celebrity barbecue experts, and barbecue lifestyle brands have been particularly active in collaborations and brand extensions over the past couple of years, jointly creating new menu items, retail sauces and seasonings, and related products: This past August, Memphis barbeque restaurant Rendezvous, a favorite of Elvis Presley, paired with the singer’s estate for an […]
Looking to Cheese as an Ingredient for Brand Extension
Cheese brands have increasingly been featured in outbound licensing initiatives, extending for example into the realms of apparel, accessories, and beauty; food service menu items and co-packaged snack pairings; and promotional partnerships. In the realm of traditional food-to-food brand-extension programs, the cheese category is better known for its inbound licensing efforts, with flavor brands like […]
A Bold Blend of New Wine Collaborations
The recent news connecting alcoholic beverages, including wine, with certain negative health effects, coupled with an ongoing increase in the number of consumers opting for alcohol-free lives, has had an impact on category sales. Alcoholic beverages in the U.S. saw dollar sales decline 2.6% in the first half of this year compared to the first […]
Heat Wave
Hot sauces have been one of the most licenseable property types in the food-to-food licensing space for some time, and there continues to be a steady flow of new collaborations and licensing deals, as well as new brands entering the business. This has led to an ever more diverse range of spicy flavor profiles and […]
Drink In the Beauty of These Collaborations
“Beauty beverages” have represented one of the fastest-growing sectors within the consumer health and wellness industry over the past several years. The space consists of functional beverages (including ready-to-drink versions, mixes, and menu items) that are designed to promote beauty from the inside out, with the focus often on better skin, nails, and hair. The […]
Mining Meat Pies As A Licensing Opportunity
A recent deal bringing Guinness into the Cornish pasty category is just the latest collaboration in this small niche of the licensing business. A Cornish pasty is a small savory baked pie, typically made with beef, potatoes, rutabagas (called swedes in England), and onions encased in shortcrust pastry. First developed in the 13th century, pasties […]
Spreading the Love for Butter-Themed Collabs
By Karen Raugust on March 12, 2026 in Design and content themes, Food/Beverage, Licensing, Lifestyle
Butter began catching on as a pop-culture phenomenon in the early 2020s, attracting significant mainstream notice in 2025 and remaining top of mind in early 2026. The trend manifests itself in many ways. Flavored butters (from truffle and miso to cinnamon-sugar), and butter boards for mixing and serving them, are everywhere online (hashtag #ButterTok). There […]
Putting Weight Behind GLP-1 Friendly Foods
GLP-1 is changing the way Americans and global consumers eat, and is just starting to give rise to opportunities for licensing and collaborations. The benefits of the hormone GLP-1 were discovered in the mid-1980s. The first FDA approval came in 2005, when Byetta became available for patients with type 2 diabetes; Ozempic followed much later, […]
Inside Scoop: Baked Goods and Ice Cream
Baked goods like cookies and cakes go hand-in-hand with ice cream as a taste treat. Several major players in the two categories have formalized these pairings in the last year through licensing deals bringing baked goods brands into the ice cream aisle or expanding existing efforts in the space: This month, Bimbo Bakeries USA’s Entenmann’s […]