Welcome to The Week in Consumer Packaged Goods, a weekly round-up for marketers from Quad Insights that covers the latest must-know news surrounding the CPG space.
Tyson Foods debuts first branded plant-based chicken nuggets
Tyson Foods built its empire on meat, but amid sluggish sales across its chicken, pork and beef products, the company has launched its first plant-based nuggets that bear the Tyson brand, VegNews reports. (While plant-based meat alternatives aren’t new for Tyson, all of its past faux meat products have been sold under its Raised & Rooted brand, which was first introduced in 2019.) The new product, simply dubbed Tyson Plant Based Nuggets, are rolling out at Target stores across the country in both regular and spicy versions, adding a new competitor to a market sector that’s already worth nearly $450 million, according to analysts at Future Market Insights.
E.l.f kicks off new campaign with Paralympian
Cosmetics brand e.l.f. is launching a new series of video profiles of heroic figures, starting with 19-year-old Paralympic swimmer Anastasia Pagonis, who has been blind since the age of 14 and regularly discusses her disability and athletic career with more than 2.5 million TikTok followers, Ad Age reports. The vignette is the first installment in the company’s new “Show Your(s)e.l.f.” ad campaign, which debuted on YouTube on Thursday. It marks the latest piece of e.l.f.’s marketing strategy that has recently been defined by a number of other high-visibility efforts, such as a Super Bowl commercial earlier this year that starred Jennifer Coolidge. Click here to check out the new video featuring Pagonis.
Mondelez to sever Russian operations by year’s end
Mondelez, facing increasing scrutiny in the Nordic region over its presence in Russia — coupled with recent announcements by companies including Scandinavian Airlines and retailer Elkjop that they intend to stop carrying Oreos, Toblerone and other Mondelez brands — confirmed on Thursday that it has scaled back its Russian operations and plans to “make it a stand-alone business with a self-sufficient supply chain” by the end of 2023, Reuters reports. Effective immediately, the U.S. company will be “discontinuing new capital investments, new product launches and our advertising media spending in Russia,” Mondelez said in a statement. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, more than 1,000 companies have voluntarily pulled out of Russia, according to tracking conducted by the Yale School of Management.
Further reading
• “Unilever to Acquire US Premium Yogurt Brand Yasso” (MarketWatch)
• “Bud Light dethroned by Modelo as top beer seller in U.S.” (Axios)
• “Illinois rule forbids placing co-branded alcoholic beverages near soft drinks” (CBS News)
• “Nestle to collaborate with venture capital fund” (Food Business News)
Thank you for reading this week’s edition of The Week in Consumer Packaged Goods. We’ll be back next Friday with another round of the week’s must-know CPG news.
