Heather Rodman

Most cannabis brands are building Pizza Hut. They should be building Domino’s. Here’s why: 1) Specialists win. Domino’s built a tech-based delivery company that happened to sell pizza: Faster delivery. Better routing. Tighter menus. Operational excellence. Pizza Hut tried to be everything: Dine-in experience. Buffet. Delivery. Takeout… and it eventually killed them. Cannabis is full of Pizza Huts: Vertical companies with no mastery everywhere, brands selling across six categories with no core consumer. 2) A+ operations beat gimmicks. Every time. Domino’s didn’t win because their pizza was perfect. They won because their ops were. Zero ordering friction Optimized delivery logistics Data driving decision making Brutally efficient cost structure Meanwhile, Pizza Hut chased stuffed crusts, novelty SKUs, and short-term promotions. Sound like any other industry you know? 3) Domino’s built operations shifting consumer habits. They rode a huge shift in America in the early 2000s: families got busier (and poorer), and they stopped going out as much. Pizza Hut was built for a world that was disappearing and could not adapt fast enough. Cannabis is at the same inflection point… But we still see too many brands building for the equivalent of dine-in Pizza Hut: Overbuilt stores and under built online ops. Packaging built for shelf appeal with no thought of operational efficiency. Endless promotions on repeat. 4) Pizza Hut became a side project inside a bigger machine. When Pizza Hut got folded into Yum! Brands (and before that, under PepsiCo), it stopped being a focused operator and became a portfolio asset. These things have very different incentives: Quarterly optics > long-term excellence Synergies > product quality Committee decisions > founder-level conviction No one woke up every day obsessed with making Pizza Hut 10x better. It was just one line item. Meanwhile, Domino’s lived and died by one thing: being the best in the world at delivery pizza. Cannabis is heading straight into this trap… MSOs stacking brands without real operators behind them. Holding companies treating brands like SKUs. Financial engineers replacing builders. If your brand becomes “one of many,” it’s already dead. Cannabis companies have a choice: Be Domino’s: Focused. Operationally elite. Tech-enabled. Built for how people actually consume. Obsessed ownership. Or be Pizza Hut: Bloated. Reactive. Dependent on promos. Managed by committee. Slowly losing relevance.

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Sluggers Hit x Seed Talent training just landed on the platform & Arizona budtenders are going wild! In late February, Sluggers Hit sent products to market exclusively in Curaleaf locations across the Valley. 🌄 The California-based company is focused on expanding their Arizona product line with support from single-source, local producer Flow Arizona, and Curaleaf, the company’s exclusive retail debut partner! The brand hosted their AZ launch last month, welcoming budtenders, staff & friends to celebrate. ---> Collabs like this sustain the industry by fostering creativity, inclusion & interconnected growth systems. "Josh Schmidt, Sluggers Hit Vice President, notes the solventless ice hash for Sluggers’ distinction from the saturated pre-roll market. While other pre-rolls consist of flower or trim, mixed with terpenes and THC diamonds, the hash in Sluggers pre-rolls creates an incense-like smoothness." - via Phoenix New Times - Read On Here: https://lnkd.in/gKC6-qQx < Pick Up Sluggers Today! > Curaleaf Nirvana Center Dispensaries Zen Leaf Dispensaries The Flower Shop Ponderosa Dispensary Sol Flower Health 4 Life Lunchbox ℍ𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕥𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕕 𝕊𝕝𝕦𝕘𝕘𝕖𝕣𝕤? . . . #cannabisindustry #sluggershit #flowarizona #collaborationscommunity #brandtraining #seedtalent

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Case Study#4: 🧀 Miyoko’s Creamery Category: Plant-Based Dairy (cheese, butter) Founded: 2014 by Miyoko Schinner Headquarters: Petaluma, California Brand Tagline: Phenomenally Vegan ⸻ 💡 The Brand Story Miyoko’s was born out of a deeply personal mission. Founder Miyoko Schinner—a classically trained chef and long-time vegan—wanted to recreate the taste, texture, and experience of traditional dairy, without compromise. Frustrated by the lack of quality plant-based cheeses and butters, she applied her culinary expertise and food science experimentation to create gourmet, cultured vegan products that actually tasted like dairy. But Miyoko’s was never just about food. It was about: • Revolutionizing dairy with compassion • Redefining what vegan can taste and feel like • Normalizing sustainable, ethical food choices Her bold belief? “Animals don’t belong in the food system.” ⸻ 🧬 What Makes It Unique • Cultured, fermented products made from cashews, oats, and legumes—not ultra-processed fillers • Culinary-first approach: products developed like real cheese and butter, not substitutes • Transparency: Emphasis on clean ingredients and traceable sourcing • Luxury positioning: Elevated packaging and branding akin to artisanal European dairy ⸻ 🚀 Growth & Disruption • Raised $50M+ in funding (including from Ellen DeGeneres, Cult Capital, Obvious Ventures) • First plant-based cheese brand to partner with mainstream food service (restaurants, airlines, stadiums) • Expanded from cheese wheels into butter, cream cheese, and ready-to-eat products ⸻ ⚖️ Recent Challenges In 2023, Miyoko Schinner was ousted from her own company, reportedly due to disputes over growth strategy and vision. It sparked significant backlash from the plant-based community. Despite this, she remained a powerful voice for ethical food innovation and launched a new project: “The Vegan Good Life”, focused on food justice, innovation, and activism. ⸻ 📈 Strategic Strengths • Cult following among vegans, flexitarians, and chefs • Premium product positioning allows for higher margins • Clear founder story = strong brand authenticity • Sustainability and animal ethics embedded at the brand’s core ⸻ Would you like a competitive SWOT analysis, a case study-style summary, or investment outlook on Miyoko’s

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The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans was released last week, and I’d love to see more commentary from CPG folks on it, especially those in baby and childhood categories. From an industry perspective, I’ll give credit where it’s due: the rollout clearly succeeded in one way -- people are talking about it for the first time in years. The consumer-facing experience is polished, accessible, and very “DTC-ified.” And the “eat real food” tagline aligns both with nutrition science and where I believe consumer preferences are ultimately headed (hot take: savvy consumers will eventually trade supplements and protein-spiked junk back in for actual real food, please don’t hate me). But if you work on this side of the industry, you don’t just look at the upside-down triangle graphic and call it a day. You read the appendices. You look at recommended serving sizes. You convert cups to ounces to calories and back again because these details have real consequences. They inform FDA guidance, labeling rules, and what we can and cannot say on packaging. I’ve spent hundreds of professional hours doing exactly this over my career, including the last several years working in one of the most sensitive subcategories of CPG: baby food. So I was a bit surprised (and honestly disappointed) to see that this edition appears to remove calorie-based dietary pattern examples for children that were included in 2020. Parents want that specificity even if most never read the DGAs themselves. Overall, my take is that the guidelines are… fine? There’s some conflicting messaging (please keep your saturated fats in check people), but the spirit is consistent: eat real food, diversify nutrient sources. Food policy is always political, but it’s worth noting that the 2020 DGAs were also released under a Trump administration, so more continuity exists here than headlines suggest. I wrote more about this from the lens of someone who lives both sides of it, professionally and at home, on my Substack. I’ll drop the link in the comments.

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NextFoods, Inc. ,Parents of GoodBelly+ Cheribundi just raised $10M led by ECP Growth If you build in functional CPG, this is a great mini case study in how growth actually gets funded and what operators should pay attention to. 1) Doors matter… but turns are the business They’re reportedly sitting at 24,000+ points of distribution nationwide and grew footprint about 10% in the last two months. That’s solid. But here’s the real lesson: door growth only works if velocity shows up. 2) A brand refresh can be a revenue lever (when it creates clarity) GoodBelly’s recent packaging/brand refresh was tied to a reported 40%+ lift in retail velocities. “Brand” isn’t colors and fonts it’s speed of understanding at shelf. If a shopper gets it faster, conversion goes up. Period. 3) The shot category is crowded so specificity wins GoodBelly reformulated its 2oz Wellness Shots and launched them nationally at Whole Foods. The formula callout that jumped out to me: 3g of prebiotic fiber. The lesson: in crowded formats, you can’t be “general wellness.” You need to own a job (gut, sleep, recovery) and build your product + messaging around that single outcome. 4) Innovation + retail expansion is the 1–2 punch They’re aiming that capital at innovation across gut health, recovery, and sleep, while also pushing deeper into national retail. And there’s more in the pipeline: they’ve previewed a quart-sized GoodBelly item with 11g plant-based protein targeted for Q1 2026. My founder takeaway: capital doesn’t fix a business it amplifies it. If your positioning is crisp and your product delivers, funding helps you scale faster. If not, it just helps you burn faster. If you were deploying $10M in functional CPG heading into 2026, what’s first: velocity, innovation, or sharper positioning? #CPG #FunctionalBeverages #Wellness #TrevorHague

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In more fun* beverage-industry news for Colorado businesses that use Shopify. Shopify's recently championed addition of SMS marketing to their core email functionality comes with a MAJOR asterisk. For context, Wine Dispensary is an aptly named wine, beer, and spirits retailer. Marketing of alcohol products is precluded by Shopify's current SMS policy. Given the state of the beverage industry's decline, we desperately need to increase the proportion of food products we sell. SMS is a great channel for that and we were approved by Shopify to send SMS messages earlier this year... but none of the messages we send actually go out?! I just got off the phone with Shopify Support. They won't let us send SMS messages simply because of our company name and industry classification. The content of our marketing messages doesn't matter. If we were a grocery store that sold alcohol? All good! Send SMS messages! If we were a pharmacy that sold alcohol? All good! Send SMS messages! Food retailer that sells alcohol? All good! This is such an incredibly poor policy implementation by Alexandra Clark, Harley Finkelstein, and Ian Goldin. Thanks Shopify!

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How do you run a rebrand for a $400M (30,000 door) brand? Andrew Thomas just orchestrated a rebrand for Archer Meat Snacks (formerly Country Archer), one of the fastest-growing brands in the meat snack space. Andrew, the VP of Marketing at Archer, joined Shelf Help: The Tactical CPG Podcast, to offer up a masterclass. He breaks down the strategy behind dropping “Country,” the rebrand process from beginning to end, and what it takes to execute a full pack change across mass, club, and natural channels. We also dive deep into how to win and what’s changing at Target, Walmart and Whole Foods, and C-stores, and how Andrew uses an “agency recruiter”. Episode Highlights: 🎯 Why the name “Country Archer” had to go 📦 How Archer’s new cream-and-orange packs were built for shelf impact 🏪 What mass retailers want to see before approving a packaging change 🛒 Multipack strategy for club vs. conventional grocery 🔄 Resetting 30,000+ facings without breaking everything 📈 How to time a national rebrand to hit seasonal buyer resets 💬 Key language shifts that helped Archer win broader household appeal 🔥 Tactics for launching new SKUs in Target and Walmart 📊 Retailer scorecards, velocity benchmarks, and what buyers really care about The link to the full episode is in the comments. Make sure to follow on Apple, Spotify and Youtube to be the first to know when a new episode drops. Keep an eye out for clips of all the key highlights.

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Too many products can kill a brand. But not if you do it right 🤔 Take Nature Valley. Built their name on hearty oat bars. Best crunch ever. But look how far they’ve stretched their portfolio in just a few years. Protein bars, oatmeal squares, soft-baked bars (including muffin bars). Biscuit sandwiches with nut butters. And now… wafer bars (peanut butter one is my favorite 🥜). Today, they have a snack for every craving. This is what Innovation agility looks like. Well done Balki Radhakrishnan 👏 👏 Here is why this works 😎 🙌 👉 Consistent brand truth: whole grain oats 👉 Solid health halo: no artificial flavors, no artificial colors, no high fructose corn syrup 👉 Relevance: from energy seekers to indulgence snackers, they’ve got something for everyone But I can still spot few areas of untapped potential 😇 🚀 10 g protein. 200 calories. 5 g sugar. In a 20 g protein category, that won’t cut it. Either cut the sugar. Or stack functionality. 🚀 Where’s the fiber? We’re drowning in protein, but fiber is the real gap. Wholesome + functional = win. 🚀 Add regional flair. Dates. Cardamom. Pistachio. Authentic, exciting and a deeper emotional connection. Agility in innovation isn’t about flooding the shelf. It’s about stretching with purpose. To meet new needs while staying true to your core. Should brands go wider with more products or go deeper into one need? #Innovation #FoodandBeverage #HealthandWellness #HighProtein #HighFiber #Localization #UnmetNeeds #LineExtension #SKUProliferation General Mills

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