AISLE INSIDER ALERT: Khloud built its brand on protein popcorn and is now expanding into protein tortilla chips… because no snack is safe from protein anymore.

Khloud protein chips are made with whole grain, non-GMO corn and deliver 7g of protein per serving. They’re gluten-free, kosher, and made without seed oils.

The chips are officially rolling out nationwide at Target starting April 8, with online availability on KhloudFoods.com April 21.

From protein popcorn to protein tortilla chips… something tells me this isn’t the last Khloud snack we’ll see.

xoxo,
Grocery Girl

Where to Catch the Grocery Gossip

If you liked this post, you know where to find me…

• TikTok: @grocerygirll  

• Instagram: @grocerygirll

• YouTube: @grocerygirlll  

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Follow for clean snacks and aisle gossip.

Food collabs are officially everywhere right now.

Brands are teaming up and turning familiar foods into things you don’t expect. Snacks are showing up in new forms, flavors are crossing over, and categories are mixing in ways they didn’t before.

And it’s not random.

It’s one of the easiest ways to get you to stop mid-aisle. You already recognize it but it feels new enough to try.

And let’s be honest, you see it, you get curious… and somehow it ends up in your cart.

Here are the latest food collabs taking over shelves right now…

Erewhon x Barbie

Erewhon, the smoothie spot that somehow turns $20 drinks into a line out the door, teamed up with Barbie.

And it makes sense. This isn’t really about a smoothie. It’s about being seen with it.

The Birthday Wish Smoothie is bright pink, tastes like vanilla cake batter, and is basically designed to be photographed before you even take a sip.

Very sweet. Very aesthetic. Very Erewhon.

These collabs aren’t about flavor first anymore. They’re about how fast they show up on your feed. And Erewhon knows exactly what they’re doing.

Every collab becomes a limited moment, making people feel like they have to get it now or miss it.

Expect more of this. Drinks built for content first, taste second.

This wasn’t made to be the best smoothie. It was made to be posted.

@barbie

Barbie on Instagram: "The Birthday Wish Smoothie by Barbie"

Date Better x Pistakio

Date Better, known for its healthy, indulgent treats made from Medjool dates, teamed up with Pistakio, a creamy pistachio spread made with real pistachios and no artificial anything.

They dropped a chocolatey date bark layered with pistachio butter and toasted coconut. No refined sugar, no fillers, just real ingredients.

And pistachio is everywhere right now, one of the fastest growing dessert flavors, especially with the rise of Dubai chocolate.

A very “of course they did this” collab and honestly, the healthy Dubai chocolate we’ve all been waiting for.

Fruit Riot x Sour Patch Kids

Fruit Riot, the brand known for frozen fruit coated like candy, teamed up with Sour Patch Kids, the classic sour candy we all know.

Together, they created a sour pineapple frozen fruit with a tropical mix flavor, bringing that Sour Patch Kids taste into Fruit Riot’s format.

At this point, Fruit Riot has basically become the queen of collabs, with past drops featuring OLIPOP, Warheads, and even SpongeBob SquarePants.

Sweet, sour, frozen… and yes, it’s going in your cart.

@grocerygirll@fruit riot x @SourPatchUKI, it’s as good as it sounds. Limited edition so if you see it, grab it👀 #target #fruitriot #targetfinds #newattarget

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NO CAP! Soda Pop x ICEE

NO CAP! Soda Pop, known for its better-for-you beverages, teamed up with ICEE, the iconic frozen drink.

They turned those classic ICEE flavors into a ready to drink soda. Same sweet, icy flavor, just in a can you can grab off the shelf.

This is exactly where beverages are going. Nostalgia is driving innovation right now, especially with Gen Z, who are constantly trying new drinks and flavors.

It’s ICEE, just without needing the whole machine situation.

Fronen x Smash Foods

Fronen, known for its better-for-you ice cream, teamed up with Smash Foods, a brand that makes “superfood” jams and snacks using real fruit.

The classic PB&J, turned into ice cream with creamy peanut butter and sweet grape swirls from Smash Foods, made with just 9 ingredients, sweetened with honey, and free of dairy, gluten, soy, gums, and seed oils.

But this isn’t just a flavor. PB&J is one of the most nostalgic combinations in food right now, and brands keep bringing it into the freezer aisle because it’s familiar and easy to say yes to.

Clean label + childhood flavor is where everything is heading.

Your childhood PB&J… just living in the freezer aisle now.

Cocokind x OLIPOP

Cocokind, the skincare brand known for clean, simple formulas, teamed up with OLIPOP, the prebiotic soda brand.

They turned OLIPOP’s nostalgic soda flavors into a limited edition lip balm. Same sweet, familiar flavor profiles, just in a beauty format instead of a drink.

Food brands are moving outside the aisle and into categories like beauty, because the branding is strong enough to travel.

It’s not really about the product, it’s about the flavor and the feeling attached to it.

So yes… your soda is now lip balm.

Brightland x Sumo Citrus

Brightland, known for its premium olive oils, teamed up with Sumo Citrus, the company behind those large, easy-to-peel citrus fruits you see in stores every winter.

Together, they created a limited-edition olive oil infused with Sumo Citrus, bringing that bright citrus flavor into something you’d actually use every day.

Even the most basic ingredients, like olive oil, are getting upgraded with flavor and branding, turning something functional into something people actually get excited to use.

Olive oil… suddenly the most interesting thing in your kitchen.

The Final Word

These food collabs aren’t random… they’re calculated.

They’re one of the fastest ways for brands to get attention right now. By tapping into another brand’s audience, a familiar product starts to feel new again.

Most of these launches are limited on purpose. Not because they have to be, but because scarcity drives trial and gets people talking faster.

That is why you are seeing more of them, not less.

And it is only going to keep growing. Expect more cross category collabs, more nostalgia driven flavors, and more moments where you stop and think, why is that in this aisle?

At this point, it’s basically a race to see who collabs next, and you bet Grocery Girl will be watching very closely.…

xoxo,
Grocery Girl 💋

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Where to Catch the Grocery Gossip

If you liked this post, you know where to find me…

• TikTok: @grocerygirll  

• Instagram: @grocerygirll

• YouTube: @grocerygirlll  

• LinkedIn: Grocery Girl 

• Substack: grocerygirll.substack.com

Follow for clean snacks, hot shelves, and a little aisle gossip. See you where the labels sparkle and the drama’s organic.

Attention aisle insiders… something nostalgic is sneaking back onto shelves.

Peanut butter and jelly.

Not just as the sandwich you grew up with, but as a flavor suddenly showing up across better-for-you brands.

Bars, bites, frozen treats, stuffed dates, even protein snacks are starting to use the same combo.

Lately, Grocery Girl has been seeing the same flavor combo pop up across brand after brand. Different formats, different categories… same PB&J moment. Let’s get into it.

Why PB&J Is Suddenly Everywhere

Peanut butter and jelly has something most new snack flavors don’t. Everyone already knows exactly what it tastes like.

It’s nostalgic, instantly recognizable, and it works across almost any format. Peanut butter brings the richness and protein, while jelly brings the sweetness and fruit.

Together, the combo hits the perfect balance of comfort and indulgence.

But the real reason Grocery Girl keeps seeing it pop up is because it fits exactly where the snack aisle is heading right now. Better-for-you brands are leaning into familiar flavors consumers already trust, while upgrading the ingredients, macros, and formats.

Instead of inventing the next strange superfood flavor, brands are taking something everyone already loves and giving it a wellness upgrade.

That’s why PB&J is now showing up as protein bites, snack bars, stuffed dates, frozen desserts, and freezer snacks.

Same flavor everyone grew up with, just redesigned for the modern snack aisle.

The Snacks Leading the PB&J Comeback

Which brands are leading the PB&J comeback, you may ask? Grocery Girl did a little aisle digging.

IQBAR – PB&J Protein Bites

IQBAR is leaning into the PB&J moment with its PB&J Protein Bites, a poppable protein snack.

Each serving has 5g of plant-based protein and 5g of fiber, delivering the nostalgic peanut butter and jelly flavor in a convenient, portioned bite.

The classic PB&J combo… now showing up in the protein snack aisle.

Mid-Day Squares – PB & J

Mid-Day Squares also jumped into the PB&J moment with its PB & J snack bar.

The bar layers peanut butter and strawberry jelly into the brand’s signature soft, brownie-like protein square, delivering 6g of protein and 4g of fiber. It’s also dairy-free and gluten-free.

Another brand proving PB&J isn’t staying in the sandwich aisle anymore.

Smash Bites – Peanut Butter & Concord Grape

Smash Bites brings the PB&J flavor into snack form with its Peanut Butter & Concord Grape superfood bites.

These gluten-free peanut butter balls are flavored with Concord grape and pack 8g of protein, turning the classic PB&J pairing into a small, snackable bite.

Same peanut butter and jelly flavor… just rolled into a clean protein snack.

Realsy – PB & J Dates

Realsy takes the PB&J flavor combo in a slightly different direction with its PB & J stuffed Medjool dates.

Each date is filled with peanut butter and topped with a layer of jelly, recreating the classic peanut butter and jelly taste using just 4 real ingredients. They’re gluten-free, vegan, high in fiber, and low glycemic.

PB&J, just packed inside a date.

Fronen – PB & J

PB&J even made its way into the freezer aisle.

Fronen launched a PB & J ice cream, made with just 9 ingredients and 100% free of dairy, gluten, soy, gums, seed oils, and other additives.

Because PB&J clearly isn’t stopping at snacks. Now it’s dessert.

Jams – PB & J

Remember those Uncrustables you used to eat as a kid? The ones sitting in the freezer after school?

Jams made the cleaner version.

Their PB&J pockets are made with real fruit jelly, no seed oils, no artificial colors, and pack 10g of protein.

Same peanut butter and jelly pocket… just a little more ingredient-conscious.

The Final Word

At first glance, it might seem random.

But when the same flavor keeps showing up across bars, bites, frozen snacks, and protein treats, it usually means something bigger is happening in the aisle.

Peanut butter and jelly checks a lot of boxes for better-for-you brands.

It’s nostalgic.
It’s instantly recognizable.
And it’s easy to reinvent across different formats.

And right now, brands seem to be leaning into exactly that.

A familiar flavor people already love, just redesigned with cleaner ingredients, higher protein, and modern snack formats.

The childhood classic isn’t going anywhere. It’s just getting a rebrand.

Until the next aisle trend…

xoxo,
Grocery Girl

Where to Catch the Grocery Gossip

If you liked this post, you know where to find me…

• TikTok: @grocerygirll  

• Instagram: @grocerygirll

• YouTube: @grocerygirlll  

• LinkedIn: Grocery Girl 

• Substack: grocerygirll.substack.com

Follow for clean snacks, hot shelves, and a little aisle gossip. See you where the labels sparkle and the drama’s organic.

February delivered a few surprises in the grocery aisle…

A movie star entered the chip aisle. A protein brand added creatine. Honey ditched the jar. Granola added collagen. Even canned vegetables got a rebrand.

If you weren’t watching closely, you might’ve missed it.

Good thing Grocery Girl doesn’t blink.

Here’s what the aisle is talking about…

Honey Department

Honey Department launched Thick Honey, a creamed honey designed to be smooth, spreadable, and mess-free.

If you’re not familiar, creamed honey is real honey that’s been slowly crystallized to create a thicker, silkier texture. It doesn’t run like liquid honey. It spreads almost like soft butter.

This version is a single-source blend of Wildflower and Mesquite blossom honey, packaged in a squeezable aluminum tube instead of a jar or plastic bear.

So instead of pouring and hoping for the best, you squeeze and control it. No drip down the bottle. No crusted lid. No sticky cabinet shelf.

It’s made for toast, yogurt, cheese boards, pancakes, tea, coffee, even savory dishes. Same 100% raw honey. Just reformatted for how people actually use it.

Finally, honey with boundaries.

Smash Kitchen - Potato Chips

Smash Kitchen just entered the chip aisle, and yes, it’s the brand co-founded by Glen Powell, the actor best known for Top Gun: Maverick and Anyone But You.

Until now, Smash Kitchen has focused on upgrading classic condiments like ketchup, mustard, mayo, and BBQ sauce using clean, non-GMO ingredients. The brand is built around making everyday staples with simpler ingredients.

Now they’ve launched non-GMO, kettle-cooked potato chips, available exclusively at Walmart for $3.47 per 6-ounce bag.

Flavors
• Classic Sea Salt
• American Style BBQ
• Hot Honey BBQ
• Rosemary

With clean ingredients, national Walmart placement, and Glen Powell attached, Smash Kitchen is officially hard to ignore.

LASSO

Gelatin is back. Just not the neon, sugar loaded kind.

LASSO was created by Clarke Pennington after realizing most gelatin cups either max out your daily sugar or replace it with artificial sweeteners and dyes. Even the better for you options usually rely on gums.

So he rebuilt it.

LASSO turns gelatin into a macro focused snack. Each cup contains
• 10g grass fed, animal based protein
• 5g prebiotic plant fiber
• No gums
• No refined sugar
• No artificial colors
• Non GMO ingredients

It is naturally sweetened with fruit juice instead of aspartame, sucralose, or cane sugar.

Flavors
• Crisp Apple
• Watermelon Lime
• Orange Cream

It taps into that childhood gelatin moment, but without the sugar overload or artificial colors you grew up with.

Esspo

Esspo is a sparkling coffee made with real cold brew.

If that sounds confusing, here’s what it means: it has the caffeine of cold brew, but it drinks like a lightly fizzy soda. It’s not creamy like a latte. It’s not bitter like straight black coffee. It’s crisp, slightly sweet, and carbonated.

Flavors:
• Cherry Vanilla
• Classic Vanilla
• Sweet Lemon

This is built for the 3pm moment when you want energy but don’t want another heavy coffee or a sugary energy drink.

It’s vegan, gluten free, and avoids the artificial, overly sweet formulas that dominate the energy aisle.

✰ Insider detail ✰: it’s co-founded by Philippe von Borries and Justin Stefano, the founders of Refinery29, along with Katharine Leitch. So this isn’t a random beverage launch. It’s a media-savvy team entering a crowded category with a very specific angle.

Cold brew is established. Energy drinks are loud. Esspo is positioning itself right in the middle.

Sparkling coffee with real caffeine. That lane is getting competitive.

Drizzy

Peanut butter, but make it squeezable.

Drizzy is a 100% natural peanut butter made from freshly roasted Kingaroy peanuts, a region in Australia known for producing some of the country’s highest quality peanuts thanks to its red volcanic soil and warm climate.

But the real differentiator is the format.

Drizzy comes in a squeeze bottle. Not a jar. No stirring. No oil separation. No bent spoons. It’s designed to actually drizzle over oats, smoothies, fruit, toast, or straight from the bottle.

The founders spent months dialing in roast levels and texture to get it ultra smooth and consistently pourable, without additives or palm oil.

What’s inside
• Pure Aussie roasted peanuts
• No additives
• No palm oil
• About 4g protein per tablespoon

It’s positioned as clean, simple peanut butter, just engineered to flow.

Because wrestling a peanut butter jar before 8am? No one asked for that.

Nurri - Protein Creamer

Protein officially entered the creamer aisle.

Nurri, the better for you dairy brand known for its high protein, low sugar, ultra filtered milk shakes, just launched a protein creamer.

It’s made with real dairy, ultra filtered, lactose free, and contains 5g of protein per 4 tablespoons.

So yes, your coffee can now include protein too.

The texture is rich and creamy, slightly sweet, and designed to work in coffee, dirty soda, or even desserts. This expansion makes sense. Nurri built its brand on high protein dairy drinks. Now it’s launching a protein creamer, something people use in their coffee every day.

Protein isn’t just in the shake aisle anymore.

Coconut Cult x MALK

Spotted in the fridge: a very clean collaboration.

The Coconut Cult, known for its super concentrated probiotic coconut yogurt, just teamed up with MALK Organics, the plant milk brand famous for ingredient lists that are almost suspiciously short.

They launched the Vanilla MALK Shake. It’s an organic, dairy free coconut yogurt made with MALK’s coconut milk.

Coconut Cult already attracts the serious gut health shopper. MALK already attracts the label reader who refuses anything extra.

Put them together and you get exactly what this is: a high probiotic coconut yogurt made with one of the cleanest coconut milks on shelves.

Purely Elizabeth – Purely Glow

Purely Elizabeth launched a limited-edition granola called Purely Glow.

At its base, it’s what you’d expect from the brand: organic oats, roasted pistachios, real vanilla bean, sea salt, and coconut sugar.

But this blend includes more than just pantry ingredients.

They added collagen peptides, coconut water powder, and biotin — nutrients typically found in beauty supplements. So this isn’t just a new flavor. It’s granola formulated with skin and hair support in mind.

Purely Elizabeth is already known for premium, ingredient-forward breakfast staples. With Purely Glow, the brand is merging the breakfast aisle and the supplement aisle.

If you already mix collagen into your coffee or smoothie, this simply moves it into your bowl.

Koia – Elite Strawberry + Creatine

Koia launched its first protein shake with creatine built in.

It’s called Elite Strawberry + Creatine.

Each bottle contains:
• 32g plant-based protein
• 1,000mg creatine monohydrate
• 6g fiber
• 4g sugar
• Made with avocado oil, no seed oils

Koia is already known for dairy-free, low-sugar protein shakes. That part isn’t new.

What’s new is the creatine.

Creatine is typically sold as a separate powder people mix into water or add to shakes to support strength and muscle performance. Koia has now combined it directly into a ready-to-drink bottle.

No scooping. No extra step. Instead of protein plus a separate supplement, it’s pre-mixed.

The line between the protein aisle and the supplement aisle is getting thinner.

IQBAR – PB&J Protein Bites

PB&J is back. Just not the lunchbox version.

IQBAR just dropped PB&J Protein Bites, exclusively at Sam’s Club.

Per serving:
• 1g sugar
• 5g plant protein
• 5g fiber

IQBAR built its name on plant-based, high-fiber, low-sugar protein bars with functional ingredients like Lion’s Mane, MCTs, and magnesium.

Now they’ve taken that same formula and turned it into poppable bites.

If you grew up on PB&J, this is the version made for people who now read labels.

Fly By Jing – Hot Pot Bomb

Hot pot is a meal where a pot of flavored broth sits in the middle of the table and everyone cooks their own vegetables, noodles, meat, or tofu directly in it.

Fly By Jing, founded by Jing Gao, just made that easier to do at home.

They launched two pieces:

Mini Electric Hot Pot
A plug-in tabletop pot with adjustable temperature control, a glass lid, heat-safe handles, and a power indicator light. It’s designed to sit in the center of your table and feeds up to six people.

Fire Hot Pot Base
A bag of Sichuan-style soup base. You add water or broth, heat it in the pot, and it becomes your cooking broth. It’s seasoned with ginger, star anise, clove, and Sichuan pepper for that signature spicy, slightly numbing heat.

Instead of going out for hot pot, you plug in the pot, pour in the base, and cook everything at home with friends or family.

No reservation. No waitlist. Just plug it in and start cooking.

Row 7 – Tinned Vegetables

Tinned fish had its moment.

Now vegetables are getting the same treatment.

Row 7 Seed Company launched a line of organic, chef-cooked vegetables packed in tins and ready to eat.

Inside the sampler trio:

• Sweet Prince Tomatoes – peak-season tomatoes sealed at their sweetest and brightest.
• Sweet Garleek – a garlic-leek hybrid cooked confit-style in a balanced sweet-savory vinaigrette.
• Badger Flame Beets – golden beets that are mild, naturally sweet, and packed in a bright vinaigrette.

These aren’t backup pantry vegetables. They’re selected for flavor, grown by organic farmers, cooked by chefs, and meant to be opened and served as-is.

Add them to pasta. Spoon over salads. Set them out with good bread and call it dinner.

The tinned fish era made pantry protein cool. Row 7 is doing the same thing for vegetables.

The Final Word

If you want to know what’s launching before it’s everywhere, you’re exactly where you should be.

See you next month.

xoxo,
Grocery Girl

Where to Catch the Grocery Gossip

If you liked this post, you know where to find me…

• TikTok: @grocerygirll  

• Instagram: @grocerygirll

• YouTube: @grocerygirlll  

• LinkedIn: Grocery Girl 

• Substack: grocerygirll.substack.com

Follow for clean snacks, hot shelves, and a little aisle gossip. See you where the labels sparkle and the drama’s organic.

It’s a dill-seasoned, salty, tangy popcorn with 7g of protein per serving, and you can buy it right now on Gopuff, KhloudFoods.com, and at Albertsons.

The launch includes a Galentine’s campaign and a collab with Good Girl Snacks, built around the tagline “Get yourself a better pickle.” Yes, that’s the actual tagline.

If you love pickles and also live in the protein snack aisle, this one’s for you.

xoxo,
Grocery Girl

@khloudfoods

Khloud on Instagram: "Sour ex? Salty situation? Time for a bett…

Where to Catch the Grocery Gossip

If you liked this post, you know where to find me…

• TikTok: @grocerygirll  

• Instagram: @grocerygirll

• YouTube: @grocerygirlll  

• LinkedIn: Grocery Girl 

• Substack: grocerygirll.substack.com

Follow for clean snacks and aisle gossip.

Expo West is the Super Bowl of natural food and wellness. It’s one of the biggest food and wellness trade shows in the world, which means thousands of brands, endless booths, and more free samples than any human needs in one day. It also means you can walk for hours and still miss the stuff that actually matters.

So instead of wandering around with a tote bag full of random snacks, here’s a Grocery Girl–approved list: five brands going to Expo West that you’ll want on your radar. They’re also featured on Beacon Discovery, which is a product discovery platform built by the producers of Natural Products Expo. It’s main focus is to help retailers and buyers find emerging brands worth paying attention to.

Not going to Expo West this year? You’re not out of the loop. More than 70% of the brands you’d see at expo west are on Beacon Discovery, which means you can still spot what’s new and interesting without stepping foot on the show floor.

If you’re going to Expo West, this is your cheat sheet. If you’re not, consider this your list of brands that you should now.

Let’s get into the grocery gossip…

Churn

Butter has been stuck in the same role forever. It lives on toast. It shows up at the end of recipes. That’s usually where its job description ends.

Churn starts from a simple idea: butter shouldn’t just be a finishing touch.

This is high-butterfat, European-style butter made with all-natural ingredients, but the real difference is how it’s meant to be used. It’s flavored and built to cook with. You drop it into a hot skillet to sauté. You brush it onto grilled meat. You spoon it over roasted vegetables. You’re not just adding fat anymore. You’re building flavor from the first step.

The flavors aren’t there for show. Pesto. Hot honey. Parmesan & pepper. Truffle. Maple & cinnamon. This is butter you actually cook with. The kind that replaces your oil, your sauce, and your last-minute drizzle. Churn makes the whole dish taste intentional.

The higher butterfat is what makes that work. It carries flavor better, browns better, and holds up in the pan instead of burning off or disappearing. The result tastes planned, not like butter was tossed in at the end.

Why it’s one to watch: Churn makes simple meals taste like you actually put in the effort with almost no extra work. Same pan. Same recipe. You just add Churn butter for real flavor. It’s a small change that takes vegetables, meat, and pasta from fine to finished.

Evergreen

Frozen waffles have been playing the same game forever. Easy? Yes. Tasty? Sometimes. Actually good for you? Let’s not lie to each other.

Evergreen exists because someone finally decided that breakfast doesn’t have to choose between convenient and nourishing.

These are frozen waffles made with 100% whole grains, real veggies, avocado oil, and natural sweetness. No preservatives and no seed oils. The kind of ingredient list that makes sense when you actually read it, instead of making you quietly close the box and pretend you didn’t.

The smart part is how easy they are. You throw them in the toaster and that’s it. You get protein, fiber, and hidden veggies in something that still tastes like a waffle.

Evergreen now comes in two lines, Mini Waffles and Thick & Fluffy Waffles, which means they’ve covered both the quick snack and real breakfast.

Why it’s one to watch: Evergreen takes a freezer aisle staple people buy out of habit and turns it into something you actually feel good about buying. It keeps breakfast fast and easy, but fixes what’s inside the box. When a product fits into real mornings without asking people to trade convenience for quality, that’s the kind of change that sticks.

One Trick Pony

Natural peanut butter has been playing the same game for years. Clean ingredients. Terrible experience. You open the jar and it’s either a dry brick on top or a puddle of oil at the bottom. Then you stir. Then it leaks. Then your counter smells like peanuts for the rest of the day.

One Trick Pony didn’t fix this with a fancier recipe. It fixed it with the container.

The recipe is as clean as it gets: organic Argentinian roasted peanuts and salt. No oil. No sugar. No additives. The difference is the jar is designed to be stored upside down. When you do that, the natural oils slowly move back through the peanut butter on their own. So when you open it, it’s already mixed and smooth instead of separated and dry on top.

They even fixed the part everyone’s learned to live with for no reason: a thick, leak-proof lid that keeps the oil in the jar instead of all over your shelf.

Why it’s one to watch: Nobody needed another peanut butter. They needed someone to finally fix the experience. One Trick Pony didn’t change the recipe, it changed the container. Same peanut butter. Smarter container. And in a category that’s been copy-paste for years, that’s exactly the kind of practical, obvious innovation that actually gets people to switch brands.

Laurel’s Coffee

Canned lattes usually fall into two categories: watery or bitter. Sometimes both. They’re something you drink when you’re desperate, not something you actually look forward to.

Laurel’s fixes that.

These are canned lattes made with full-fat, gut-friendly A2 dairy, which is why they’re actually creamy and smooth instead of thin and gritty. They taste like real coffee shop drinks, not coffee-flavored milk that’s been trapped in a can.

The flavors make sense for real life. There’s a Classic Latte for everyday. A Dirty Chai when you want something spiced. A Matcha Latte for when you want caffeine without more coffee. Different options, same promise: it should taste good first.

Why it’s one to watch: Laurel’s is doing what canned coffee should have done years ago: making a latte that actually tastes like a latte. When something this easy tastes this good, it stops being a backup option and starts being part of your routine.

Protein Pints

Most protein ice cream gets bought for the macros and tolerated for the taste. Protein Pints exists to end that tradeoff. Each pint has 30 grams of protein, and it still eats like real ice cream. It’s creamy, it scoops easily, and it skips the icy, chalky texture that shows up in so many high-protein brands. It tastes like actual dessert, not something you have to convince yourself to eat.

That’s why people keep buying it. The protein is what gets them to try it. The taste is what makes them reach for it again.

Why it’s one to watch: Protein Pints proves you don’t have to trade flavor for nutrition. It fits into how people already eat, hits real protein goals, and doesn’t feel like a compromise. That’s how something stops being “diet food” and starts becoming a regular buy.

So… What’s the Point?

Expo West is loud. It’s overwhelming. And it’s easy to walk out with a tote bag full of samples and no real sense of what was actually worth paying attention to.

The brands that matter are the ones quietly fixing obvious problems. Butter you can actually cook with. Waffles that are easy and still good for you. Canned lattes that taste like real lattes. Peanut butter that doesn’t turn into a household hazard. Protein ice cream that still tastes like ice cream.

That’s the pattern here. None of these brands are trying to reinvent food. They’re just making everyday products work the way they always should have.

Expo West shows you everything. Grocery Girl shows you what’s worth remembering.

xoxo,
Grocery Girl

Where to Catch the Grocery Gossip

If you liked this post, you know where to find me…

• TikTok: @grocerygirll  

• Instagram: @grocerygirll

• YouTube: @grocerygirlll  

• LinkedIn: Grocery Girl 

• Substack: grocerygirll.substack.com

Follow for clean snacks, hot shelves, and a little aisle gossip.

Seriously. Most of the products people are excited about right now didn’t get popular because they had the best placement in a store or the biggest ad budget. They got popular because someone posted them on social media, people cared, and suddenly everyone wanted to try them.

Social media isn’t just marketing anymore. It’s where products get tested, hyped, roasted, and either take off… or disappear.

You can literally watch it happen in real time:

• A random creator posts a snack.

• The comments ask where to buy it.

• The brand sells out.

• Then retail starts paying attention.

That’s the new order of operations.

More and more, brands are being built for the camera first, not the shelf. Packaging has to read on a phone screen. The product has to make sense in 10 seconds. And if it doesn’t look good, pour well, rip open well, or get a real reaction on video? It’s kind of dead on arrival.

If you want to know which products are actually pulling that off right now, keep reading…

Strip Jerky

Jerky has been stuck in a time warp for years. Loud packaging. Weirdly sweet flavors. That aggressive smell that makes you feel rude for opening a bag anywhere near other people.

Strip feels like the first brand that looked at the jerky aisle and said, “Yeah… we’re not doing this anymore.”

Strip Jerky started because the founder, Nicole, loved jerky but hated what jerky brands had turned it into. Everything felt over-processed, way too sweet, and still somehow pretending to be “healthy.” So she built the version she actually wanted to eat.

She uses real cuts of beef (inside round), keeps the ingredient list short, and lightly sweetens it with honey so it stays balanced instead of turning into candy.

But Strip isn’t just getting attention because of the product. It’s getting attention because of how Nicole is building it in public.

She shared a raw, unfiltered TikTok about the unhinged stuff she did building a beef jerky brand, and it pulled in over 490,000 views. No polish. No PR voice. Just founder chaos. And instead of hiding the messy parts, she’s made them part of the story.

That’s the reality now. People don’t just follow products, they follow the process and the story behind the brand. And Strip proves how powerful it is when a founder builds out in the open.

Cotto

There are a lot of high-protein snacks that hit all the macro targets and still somehow make you feel kind of blah.

Cotto starts from a simple idea. If food is supposed to make you feel good, it should also taste good.

The brand comes from Kendall, who’s always felt her best eating more protein, just not from most protein snacks. Too many of them are packed with gums, thickeners, and additives that leave you feeling heavy instead of energized. The problem wasn’t protein. It was how brands were adding it.

Founder Kendall decided enough was enough and set out to make her own high-protein snack. She already loved cottage cheese, but the chunky texture made it useless for anything beyond eating it straight. So she reworked it into something smooth and creamy, and suddenly it wasn’t just cottage cheese anymore. It was a real dip you could scoop with chips, veggies, or whatever you had nearby.

And just like Strip Jerky, Cotto isn’t growing quietly behind the scenes. Kendall shares the testing, the tweaks, and the whole build in public. You don’t just see the finished product. You see how it’s getting made and why.

The brands people care about now aren’t just selling something. They’re letting you watch it come together.

Rotten

Rotten is what happens when someone builds a candy brand like it’s a whole experience instead of just a snack.

At a glance, the packaging does all the work. It’s loud. It’s weird. It looks like it escaped from a ’90s Nickelodeon show. You don’t “discover” Rotten. It kind of jumps at you. And that’s the point.

Most “better-for-you” candy brands try to look calm, clean, and responsible. Rotten does the opposite. It leans into chaos. The name is unhinged. The characters are unhinged. The whole thing feels more like a cartoon universe than a food brand. And somehow, that’s exactly why it works.

Founder Michael Fisher didn’t want to build another candy that begs you to believe it’s “healthy.” He wanted something that feels like candy first. Loud, nostalgic, and unapologetically fun. The better ingredients are there, but they’re not the headline.

Rotten isn’t just selling gummies. It’s selling characters, storylines, and a whole visual identity that actually shows up in social media feeds. The packaging reads instantly on camera. The brand is recognizable in one second. You don’t need to explain it. You either get it or you don’t.

That’s what makes Rotten interesting right now. It’s not trying to win by being the “smart” or “responsible” candy. It’s winning by being memorable.

When every candy bag starts to blend together, Rotten makes sure you never confuse it with anything else.

David Protein

The world definitely needed another protein bar. Just kidding. But David at least shows up with 28 grams of protein, 0 grams of sugar, and 150 calories per bar. Those numbers are the whole point. That’s an unusually high protein-to-calorie ratio for a bar, and it’s why people are actually paying attention.

The product does its job by being brutally straightforward: high protein, no sugar, low calories. No gimmicks. It’s built around the numbers, and that’s exactly what people notice first.

But what really pushed David into the spotlight is the branding. Their latest campaign, Devour, featuring Julia Fox, put up billboards with the line: “Men disappoint. David satisfies.” It immediately set off debate. Some people saw it as a flip on old-school, male-only protein marketing. Others saw it as awkward, try-hard, or just plain weird. Either way, it spread fast.

People screenshotted it. People argued about it. People shared it. That was the point.

When a product that clear meets a campaign that provocative, you don’t just get awareness. You get attention. And right now, that’s the currency that actually moves brands forward.

She’s the Sauce

Sauce has always been treated like the thing you’re supposed to feel a little bad about. The extra. The “maybe skip it.” The empty-calorie afterthought.

She’s the Sauce flips that idea completely.

Instead of treating condiments like a guilty pleasure, this brand treats them like part of the meal. The sauces are made with clean, whole ingredients and are built to actually add nutritional value. Each one is made with protein and fiber, not just flavor and vibes.

That’s what makes it stand out. Most sauces either taste good but are basically just sugar and oil, or they try to be “healthy” and end up thin, bland, and sad. She’s the Sauce is the best of both worlds. You get real, savory flavor plus protein and fiber that actually add something to your meal.

And visually, it works. The branding is clean and confident and shows up well on camera. It doesn’t look like a diet product. It looks like something you’d actually keep on your counter and reach for.

In a world where people are reading labels more closely but still want their food to be enjoyable, She’s the Sauce fits cleanly into that shift. Same meals. Better sauces. More going on nutritionally. No weird additives, no artificial colors, no preservatives. Just condiments that finally pull their weight.

Grüns

Grüns figured out something a lot of wellness brands ignore: people are tired.

Tired of swallowing pills. Tired of mixing powders. Tired of turning “being healthy” into a whole production every day.

Instead of another green powder or another handful of capsules, Grüns turned foundational nutrition into gummies. Something you can actually eat without a shaker bottle or a blender.

The pitch is simple and kind of genius: one grab-and-go pack of gummies, made from 60 different ingredients including fruits, veggies, and vitamins.

This hits right at what a lot of people feel but don’t say out loud: pill fatigue. The brand isn’t just selling nutrients. It’s selling relief from the daily chore of “being healthy.”

That’s why it caught on fast. Turning something that feels like a responsibility into something that feels closer to a treat.

In a space crowded with tubs, scoops, and pill bottles, Grüns did the obvious thing no one else was really doing: it made taking your nutrients feel easy, and honestly, kind of enjoyable.

Sourmilk

Most brands rush to get on shelves as fast as possible. Sourmilk did the opposite.

Instead of sprinting into retail, they started by building demand the old-school way: in person, one cup at a time.

Sourmilk is a NYC-based Greek yogurt brand founded by two best friends, Elan and Kiki, who met at Stanford and decided to build a yogurt specifically for gut health. The product itself is simple in a good way. You get the probiotic benefits people usually chase in supplement form, but in an actual thick, creamy yogurt packed with protein and healthy fats. Real food, real function.

But the way they launched it is what actually makes them interesting.

Over the summer, instead of chasing a big retail rollout, they took Sourmilk to the streets of New York and ran what they literally called “Drug Deal pickups.” Hand-stickered cups. Direct sales. No fancy setup. They sold around 8,000 units this way, basically turning yogurt into something you had to know about to get.

And there’s real power in that. When you hand someone your product yourself, you’re not just moving units. You’re building trust. You’re getting unfiltered reactions. You’re hearing exactly what works and what doesn’t. Every cup came with a conversation. Every sale came with feedback you can’t fake in a survey or focus group.

This wasn’t a gimmick. It was a way to prove people actually wanted what they were building before scaling it.

Sourmilk is a good example of what building demand first actually looks like. Not hype. Not buzzwords. Just founders showing up, selling their product face to face, and letting real people decide if it’s worth coming back for.

NO CAP! Soda Pop

Soda has been stuck in a weird place for a while. Either it’s a full sugar bomb, or it’s a “diet” drink that tastes like it’s punishing you for wanting something fun.

NO CAP! sits in a totally different lane.

This is soda built for people who still want the experience, just not the crash. Zero sugar. Zero calories. Zero caffeine. No artificial colors. But it still looks, feels, and drinks like an actual soda, not a wellness experiment in a can.

The cans are loud, playful, and impossible to miss. The flavor names read like the internet wrote them. Strawberry Dream. Bussin’ Berry. Apple Rizz. Sour Watermelon. It’s very clear who this is for, and it’s very clear this was designed to show up on camera before it ever showed up in a cooler.

Underneath the branding, the formula is doing something smarter than most “better” sodas. Each can has fiber and includes prebiotics and postbiotics, so you’re not just drinking flavored bubbles. And unlike a lot of the category, there’s no caffeine, no aspartame, no sucralose, and no artificial colors trying to sneak in.

What makes NO CAP! interesting right now is that it doesn’t treat soda like something you need to quit. It keeps the cold, fizzy, sweet soda experience and just takes out the sugar, calories, and caffeine that usually come with it.

And the ICEE collaboration makes that even more obvious. Taking one of the most nostalgic frozen drink brands and dropping it into this new, better-for-you soda format is exactly how you get people to pay attention without needing a 10-slide explainer.

What this points to is pretty clear. The next wave of drinks isn’t about telling people to stop wanting soda. It’s about rebuilding the soda moment with cleaner formulas, louder branding, and products that are made to win attention first and shelf space second.

Same craving. Same cold can. Different rules.

BamJam

BamJam makes a protein-packed fruit spread that’s meant to replace the sugar-loaded jams most people grew up with.

If you’ve ever looked at the jam aisle and realized you’re basically spreading dessert on your toast, BamJam is built for that moment.

Instead of leaning into sugar, BamJam focuses on real fruit and real function, so it actually fits into a more protein-forward, intentional way of eating. It’s designed to work with things like PB&Js, yogurt bowls, and toast without turning the whole meal into a sugar bomb.

The smart part is that it doesn’t ask you to change your habits. People already use jam. BamJam just swaps in a version that makes more sense nutritionally.

And this is why it works right now. You don’t need a long explanation to understand it. It’s a simple upgrade to something people already eat, which is exactly the kind of product that spreads fast when food gets discovered on phones instead of in aisles

Bloom Nutrition

Bloom didn’t get big by accident. It got big by being absolutely everywhere.

At some point, TikTok and Instagram basically turned into a Bloom commercial you didn’t ask for but kept watching anyway. Morning routines. Gym days. “What I eat in a day.” Different creators, same green scoop, same shake, same sip. Over and over.

This wasn’t one viral moment. It was saturation. Bloom went all-in on high-volume creator partnerships and made sure their product showed up across hundreds of feeds at the same time. Not subtle. Very effective.

That repetition is the strategy. When you see the same brand used the same way over and over, it stops feeling like an ad and starts feeling like the obvious choice.

Bloom didn’t rely on one big viral hit. It relied on consistency at scale. By the time someone went to buy a greens powder or a supplement, Bloom already felt familiar, like the brand they’d already seen everywhere.

That’s feed-first growth. You don’t convince people with one perfect ad. You win by showing up so consistently that your product becomes the obvious choice. And Bloom executed that playbook perfectly.

One Last Insider Note

One last insider note. This State of the Aisle blog is a two-sided reveal.

It’s a collaboration, so you’re seeing the aisle from both angles.

Grocery Girl covers the consumer-facing hype. What shoppers love. What’s trending. What’s suddenly everywhere.

CPGConnect flips the lens to the business side. How these brands are scaling. Where they’re landing on shelves. What’s powering the momentum.

Same brands. Two different lenses.

Read both and you’ll see exactly where the aisle is going.

So… What’s the State of the Aisle?

If you take anything from this, let it be this: the aisle doesn’t start in the store anymore. It starts on your phone.

The brands breaking through right now aren’t winning because they bought the best shelf or ran the biggest campaign. They’re winning because people care enough to talk about them, film them, share them, and argue about them. Attention comes first. Distribution follows.

Strip Jerky, Cotto, Rotten, David, She’s the Sauce, Grüns, Sourmilk, BamJam, Bloom, and NO CAP! all look different, but they’re playing the same game. They’re built to show up fast on a screen. Their stories are easy to understand. Their packaging reads in one second. And their founders and teams aren’t hiding behind “brand voice” or vague claims. They’re building in public, on purpose.

That’s the real shift. Social media isn’t a bonus channel anymore. It’s where products get tested, judged, hyped, ignored, or made relevant. It’s where demand gets proven before a buyer ever looks at a sales deck.

The new shelf is the feed. And the brands that win there are the ones that get a real shot at winning everywhere else.

By the time everyone’s talking about it, Grocery Girl is already on to what’s next.

xoxo,
Grocery Girl

Where to Catch the Grocery Gossip

If you liked this post, you know where to find me…

• TikTok: @grocerygirll  

• Instagram: @grocerygirll

• YouTube: @grocerygirlll  

• LinkedIn: Grocery Girl 

• Substack: grocerygirll.substack.com

Follow for clean snacks, hot shelves, and a little aisle gossip.

Hey aisle insiders, Grocery Girl here. Meggo Sweets is a candy brand I kept seeing on social media. It’s not in stores yet, but once you look at how it’s made, the attention makes sense.

Let’s get into the gossip…

What Meggo Sweets Is

Meggo Sweets makes candy with real fruit sugar. There are no sugar alcohols, no artificial sweeteners, and no added fiber meant to dress up the label. The sugar is reduced, and that’s it. Nothing replaces it.

Founder Megan Lanoux explained why she drew that line:

“While low-sugar candy sounds great in theory, many alternatives left me bloated from excessive fiber and artificial sweeteners with unpleasant aftertastes.”

Meggo didn’t aim for sugar-free. It reduced sugar and stopped there.

“We believe it’s okay to enjoy sweets, just choose a better, real version in moderation.”

That thinking defines the ingredient standards. No artificial dyes. No seed oils. No cane sugar. No sugar alcohols. No fake sugars like monk fruit, allulose, or stevia. Megan Lanoux focused on reduced fruit sugar and keeping the ingredient list clean while still making something that genuinely tastes good.

As she puts it:

“Sweet stuff without the fake stuff.”

Why the Brand Exists

Meggo Sweets started in Megan Lanoux’s NYC apartment.

Megan works full time as a celebrity makeup artist and is constantly moving between long shoots and travel days. Candy was easy to grab, but nothing felt good to eat consistently. As she put it:

“Between long shoots and constant travel, I was always reaching for something sweet, but everything on the market was either overloaded with sugar or made with ingredients that didn’t make me feel good.”

The better-for-you options didn’t solve that problem either. She wanted candy that still felt indulgent, nostalgic, and fun, just made better.

So instead of waiting for someone else to build it, she did it herself.

Where the Name Comes From

The name “Meggo” wasn’t random. Megan explained that it comes directly from her own life:

“Meggo is a play on my name, Megan, and a nickname many of my friends started calling me in my early 20s.”

She wanted the name to reflect the energy of the brand.

“It felt playful, confident, and a little cheeky, exactly the energy I wanted the brand to have.”

The Real Gossip

This brand didn’t come together quickly. Meggo Sweets took five years.

Megan has said that most people don’t realize how much trial and error happened behind the scenes. During that time, she tested countless formulas, taught herself food science, and did all of it while juggling a full-time makeup career.

As she explains:

“Meggo wasn’t built overnight. It was built slowly, thoughtfully, and very hands-on over five years.”

The Grocery Girl Verdict

Meggo Sweets took five years to do what most candy brands rush. Less sugar. No sugar alcohols. No artificial sweeteners. No filler to game the label.

That combination is rare.
And that’s exactly why this one keeps coming up.

✧ Verdict: Grocery Girl Approved ✧

XOXO,
Grocery Girl

VIP Access: Your Meggo Sweets Insider Perk

If you’re reading this, you’re part of the club.

Meggo Sweets shared an exclusive 15% discount with Grocery Girl readers. Use code GROCERYGIRL15 at checkout.

➩ Shop Meggo Sweets Here

Where to Catch the Grocery Gossip

If you liked this post, you know where to find me…

• TikTok: @grocerygirll  

• Instagram: @grocerygirll

• YouTube: @grocerygirlll  

• LinkedIn: Grocery Girl 

• Substack: grocerygirll.substack.com

Follow for clean snacks, hot shelves, and a little aisle gossip

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