Consumers in the U.S. purchased close to $1 billion in hard seltzer from March 7 to May 30, 2020, the first three months of the pandemic, compared to $1.5 billion for the whole of 2019, according to Nielsen. In the week ending June 6, the start of the summer season, hard seltzer sales—which have been […]
Archive | Food/Beverage
A Toast to Beer-Branded Foods
Hard liquor labels tend to get most of the attention when it comes to the extension of alcohol trademarks into food categories. Examples include brands of cognac (Courvoisier licensed into truffles), bourbon (Jim Beam into potato chips), and liqueur (Bailey’s into bakery goods). But some of the big names in beer have also been increasingly […]
A Sweet Way to Stay Strong
Sugary comfort foods meet hardcore health and wellness in a handful of recent deals involving sweet-treat brands being licensed for protein powders: Just last week, Hostess Brands teamed with Bodybuilding.com for Remix Nutrition protein powders in Hostess Twinkies and Hostess Chocolate CupCakes flavors. Additional Hostess snack cake varieties may be added to the line of […]
Contemplating Kombucha
Brands of kombucha, a fermented, sweetened black or green tea, have been increasingly active as partners for collaboration, with a focus on limited-edition products, over the past three years. A pairing of the River Cottage cooking brand and Equinox Kombucha, announced in July, is one of the most recent examples. Alliances to date have featured […]
Piece of Cake
By Karen Raugust on June 1, 2020 in Celebrity, Food/Beverage, House and home, International, Licensing
U.K.-based celebrity chefs, cooking show presenters, and especially bakers have been at the center of a number of licensing, collaboration, and representation deals, and/or new products or promotions, over the past few weeks: Jane Devonshire, a past MasterChef winner who is known for her gluten-free cooking and cookbooks, retained Start Licensing as her agent for […]
Meal Kits: Reprieve or Turnaround?
Meal kits represent one consumer product segment that has benefitted from the stay-at-home orders in place during the last two months in the U.S. (and longer in some other regions) to stop the spread of COVID-19. Research has shown that this sector appeals to consumers, especially younger adults, at least in theory. Prior to the […]
Taking Cereal in a New Direction
Since about 2018, cereal companies have been frequently forging inbound licensing deals or other forms of partnership with marketers of sweet snacks, from candy to cookies to ice cream. The result has been a proliferation of breakfast foods such as Nestlé Drumstick cereal from General Mills, Peeps cereal from Kellogg’s, and Hostess Twinkies cereal from […]
Considering Keto
The ketogenic (keto) diet has been gaining traction for several years. But, until fairly recently, prepared foods and beverages billed as keto-friendly have mostly been the purview of specialty marketers, especially in the health food and natural products space. A key trend late last year and in 2020 has been the entry of more general-market […]
Where’s the Beef?
Plant-based meat alternatives that serve as substitutes for hamburgers or chicken have hit the mainstream in a big way in the last month or two, with the Impossible and Beyond brands being at the forefront. These are plant-based alternatives to meat, which emulate the taste and feel of the real thing, as opposed to the […]
Sugar Rush
About a year ago, we wrote about sweet snacks making their way into the cereal category. That trend has intensified since then, with a long list of candy, ice cream, and cookie brands being licensed for breakfast cereals: General Mills debuted Nestlé Drumstick and Honey Maid S’More cereals, as well as Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Crème […]