February Aisle Report

The latest food launches everyone’s whispering about...

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

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