Happy Tuesday. This week, we’re sharing:
🏆 How a brand went from TikTok post to Fancy Food Fan Favorite in under a year.
✌️ How TRIP went from a CBD drink in the U.K. to a $300M+ brand in the U.S.
🛒 Bon Appétit Pantry Awards ‘26, Target hires its first Chief AI Officer, The Buy-It-Again Economy
You got into Core-Mark. You got into McLane. So why aren’t you in stores?
Getting into a national wholesaler is a big step. Getting mid-market c-store chains to carry you is another story. This is where a lot of emerging brands get stuck: they have distribution, but haven’t gotten buyers to say yes.
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Meet Juliette “JuJu” Clark, the 20-something founder betting that the next big thing in caramel is… dates.
And she may be onto something. Her brand, Daramel just won Fan Favorite at the Summer Fancy Food Show 2026.
JuJu isn’t new to this. At 18, she started TANDM Surf, an inflatable surfboard company, with her family, launched it through Kickstarter, and landed a deal on Shark Tank with Robert Herjavec and Daniel Lubetzky.
So when she started making date caramel at home, she did what came naturally: took the idea straight to TikTok. The response was immediate. People wanted it.
JuJu’s turning that early demand into an actual CPG business, building a brand world, and giving an ancient ingredient a very modern format. Daramel isn’t on shelves yet. People are already trying to get their hands on it.
00:18 - The mind behind Daramel
04:23 - I was eighteen at the time that I pitched
09:13 - You can’t be attached to your home recipe
14:06 - Gotta spend money to make money
18:54 - I wanna Labubu-ify it
23:09 - When I got the award, I was moved to tears
28:09 - It felt like being at summer camp for CPG
18: The age JuJu was when she landed a deal on Shark Tank for her first company
8 weeks: Length of the Hudson Kitchen bootcamp that took Daramel from home recipe to production-ready
100: People who showed up to a Daramel matcha pop-up after one TikTok post
Stop perfecting. Start asking. JuJu made a TikTok account and announced she was starting a date caramel company… all before she had a product to sell. The response pushed her from "maybe" to "doing this." In early days, social media wasn’t marketing. It was market research with a thousand-person focus group, for free.
Community is built, not launched. JuJu has run the same play twice. With TANDM Surf, she demoed the boards on their hometown beach and local fans became Kickstarter backers. With Daramel, she posted about a Daramel matcha pop-up on TikTok and 100 people showed up. It isn’t that grassroots is cheap. It allows the people closest to the product to become the most invested.
Your home recipe has an expiration date. JuJu’s first Daramel formula failed its shelf-stability review at Cornell, forcing her to rethink the recipe and switch from controlling for pH to controlling for water activity. The new formula was even better than the original. In CPG, a formula isn’t finished when you love it. It’s finished when it works for the business.
Proof beats positioning. JuJu had three minutes to pitch Daramel at Summer Fancy Food 2026. Her slides were light on text and heavy on photos. And instead of telling the judges her ideas for grassroots community building, she showed them the results of her Daramel matcha pop-up in Washington Square Park. She gave them a story, a picture, and a real-world example.
Cheap is only cheap if it works. JuJu makes her own content because she’s good at it. She spends on food science and brand design because those are areas that could cost more in the long run. “Sometimes I’ll be… cheap, no better way to put it,” she says. “But you do have to spend money to make money.” The question isn’t what you can do yourself. It’s what you should. If DIY costs you time or a better result, it’s not saving you money.
Market signal → Distribution used to create discovery. Now, discovery is creating distribution. Brands are building demand on social, testing products in the real world, and collecting preorders before they hit shelves.
The “should I actually build this?” test
Before taking a CPG idea from “this is cool” to “I’m starting a company,” answer:
Market: Do people want this? And why now?
Founder: Why me?
Product: Can I make it at scale?
Money: What do I have to spend before I make a dollar?
Capability: What should I do myself? What should I not?
Partners: Can these people grow with me?
Moat: If someone copies it tomorrow, what do I still have?
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TRIP didn’t sell CBD. It sold calm. Now it’s worth $300M.
Contributing writer Usman Gulma looks at how TRIP turned a niche CBD drink in the U.K. into a $300M+ brand that cracked the U.S. market.
Bon Appétit Pantry Awards ‘26: And we spotted a few GTM alumni: Sfizi, Bezi, Wa-Chaa!, Honey Department, and Bawi.
The Buy-It-Again Economy: When Awareness, Consideration, and Purchase looks more like Habit, Confirmation, and Purchase.
The grocery trip is changing: Gen Z and Millennial consumers are spending more time looking for grab-and-go options at the hot/cold bars and delis.
Target hires its first Chief AI Officer: And simultaneously promotes Purvi Shah to SVP of UX, to create digital experiences that “feel distinctly Target.”
Purely Elizabeth sells to Ferrero for $850M: Marking the confectionary company’s step into the breakfast and better-for-you space.
Refreshers as a recession indicator? “The number of refreshers hitting the market between this January and May quadrupled.”
Gen Z’s new drug of choice? Caffeine.
Plant milk goes high protein: MALK is moving beyond alternative to dairy, with itsatest extention, Whole Malk, delivering 5g of protein per 100ml.
2026 Flavor Trends Report: 4 major flavor forces are bold mashups (guava habanero, sumac lemonade), authentic global cuisine (Filipino cuisine, Peruvian dishes), wellness driven ingredients (botanicals, fermented foods), and modern nostalgia (s’mores, fruit punch).
Califia Farms goes bananas: Launching two new limited-edition coffee offerings: Banana Crème Almondmilk Latte and Simple & Organic Banana Crème Almond Creamer.
Wegmans is highest-ranking food retailer on 2026 PEOPLE® Companies that Care: Other food retailers include Publix Super Markets at #4; Target at #29; Hy-Vee at #55, and c-store operator Sheetz at #73.
Aug 17-Dec 2 (Virtual): In the Room with 4 Retail Buyers
Aug 18 (Virtual): McKinsey’s The State of Grocery North America 2026
Aug 18-20 (Denver): Newtopia Now
Aug 19 (NY): GROW New York 2026
Aug 19 (Virtual): Selling at Walmart: Why, When, & How to Win
Aug 19 (Virtual): Workshop: AI for CPG Brands
Aug 21 (Application Deadline): Hudson Kitchen: The Food Business Bootcamp
Aug 24 (Virtual): The 6th Annual Shelfie Awards Ceremony (Live Winners Reveal)
Sep 2 (Virtual): The New Grocery Shelf Is AI: What Brands and Retailers Need to Know Now
Sept 8 (NY): The BFCM Pre-Game with Shopify
Sept 15 (San Diego): Taste Radio Meetup
Sept 16 (San Francisco): Taste Radio Meetup
Sept 16 (NY): The Drink with Benefits Summit
Sept 22-24 (Las Vegas): Shoptalk Innovation Week
Oct 1 (Malibu): Founderland
Oct 1 (Application Deadline): Founders & Founders by Startup CPG
Oct 5 (Nomination Deadline): 16th Outstanding Independent Grocer Award
Oct 7-8 (NY): Food HealthTech Live
Oct 20-21 (Call for Speakers): Consumer Goods Sales & Marketing Tech Summit
Oct 20-22 (Irving, TX): Rooted Expo
Oct 28-29 (Miami Beach): The Miami Beach Food & Beverage Expo
Oct 31 (Application Deadline): Startup CPG Pavilion at Winter FancyFaire*
Nov 15-17 (Chicago): PLMA’s 2026 Private Label Trade Show
Dec 3-4 (LA): Nosh Live
