hosting a cpg taste test night
+ the latest news in consumer!
📰Latest Consumer News:
Celcius is buying Alani Nu for $1.2B🥂
Fox generated over $800M in ad revenue for the 2025 Superbowl Coverage📹
Maazah launches lentil dips at Lunds & Byerly’s
Mooj Foods is a brand founded by UChicago students that will sell high-protein paneer - sign up for the waitlist!
Ripi, a frozen stuffed pasta brand, just launched!
Now for my taste test night…
Bringing Consumer Girl to life has been an absolute blast and I didn’t think I could make it happen so early in my little passion project life. However, in late January, I got a chance to host my second CPG taste test night!
I chose seven brands to highlight throughout the evening and coursed each brand into an appetizer, entree, dessert, or drink.
I took these brands and slapped it onto a menu, making it a fun multi-course experience where we could embed the flavors into different bites and sips in a way that made all the brands cohesive with each other.
I know it’s extra but what better way to celebrate CPG than this!! Despite heavy competition to gain relevance and shelf space, I’m absolutely floored at how good and successful some of these brands are.
I’ve come across these brands in a series of ways. Oat Haus was all over my TikTok and LinkedIn, with such a unique brand position. This early brand has a strong founder presence - Ali Bonar is super active on her platforms and shares the candid highs and lows of building Oat Haus. Recently, she posted about switching from sunflower oil back to olive oil because the customers wanted it back! Despite supply chain challenges and increasing costs, they were able to bring back a core ingredient in their formula because customers wanted it.
On the other hand, I stumbled across Chia Smash when I first heard about Lunr Capital, a Minneapolis-based firm that helps finance consumer brands heading into retail. Chia Smash is one of their portfolio brands, and when I saw that the ingredients were truly CLEAN, I was sold. The flavor is just right—not too sweet, yet full of the fresh, juicy taste of real fruit. And of course, anything sweetened with dates is 💯.
When perusing for another appetizer to use, I checked out Whole Foods’ 2025 predictions list and found Jaju Pierogis. Frozen foods, more broadly, are experiencing growth due to shifts in what consumers are eating. Consumers are keen to spend on global flavors, smaller portions, and healthy foods. As emerging brands align with these consumer preferences, the US frozen food market experienced a 54% growth in 2024.
Since deleting TikTok, I’ve been a bit slow at finding new brands in CPG but fortunately, one of my friends saw Sauz all over her TikTok and sparked the idea to test out this brand. And now they show up all over my social media feed 🙂 I was intrigued because pasta sauce market has been pretty consistent with its brands that I didn’t realize there was an opportunity or need for disruption. Ragu, Preggo, and even Carbone may face competitive pressure from Sauz because of its unique flavors, impeccable marketing detail, and the young Gen Z founders’ scrappiness to get things done quickly. The brand started in 2023 and has already hit the shelves at Target!!
I’m an ice cream FIEND and have been raving to try Alec’s ice cream. I love a brand with crazy flavors and the brand’s thesis highlights clean sourcing without compromising taste. This is the first “regenerative organic and A2 craft ice cream”. This means that Alec’s dairy ingredients are sourced from regenerative farms, which use better farming and grazing practices. Sweet Science is another brand I just happened to spontaneously pick up on my Whole Foods adventure. Turns out, it’s a local MN brand that uses all-natural ingredients. Its coffee flavor sources the coffee from one of my favorite coffee shops, Five Watt❤️
Lastly, similar to Oat Haus, I had seen De Soi all over my social media. It was one of the first brands that caught on to the non-alcoholic movement. I just found out that Katy Perry is one of the co-founders of the brand - love a hidden celebrity brand! Now, Scout Brisson takes on as CEO and she’s killing it! Her LinkedIn posts are incredibly raw and powerful, continuously sharing how she’s bullish on the NA culture.
We, of course, used a scoring sheet to rank and take notes of each item. Sauz’s Creamy Calabrian Vodka sauce and Sweet Science’s Coffee Toffee blew our taste buds away.
All to say, a successful night, and many more to come <3
🛍️Things I’ve been loving:
undercover chocolate crisps - dark chocolate & sea salt🍫
broccolini and oyster mushrooms - new veggies in my routine meals now
Sachajuan shampoo and conditioner does my hair so well😌 but a little out of budget
gyms and offices with glass window walls (a huge serotonin boost!)
uber’s ability to refund ASAP is a huge testament to its customer service
Also - I came across a letter I wrote to myself before I started college to open after I graduated. One of the things I said at the end of it was “…hopefully you’re writing a blog or something”🤗 It all comes full circle, even when you don’t know it!
Thanks for reading,
Sanjana
This dinner idea is actually my dream