CPG Reads: Inside Grüns’ Costco launch + are you talking to the right person at your retailer?
Hello to our CPG leaders in Category Management, Insights, and Sales. We’re experimenting with a new format this time. Instead of one deep article, we’re sharing a few things that have been on my mind lately: posts, articles, and podcast episodes from across the CPG world that we think are worth a look.
What CPG teams can learn from Grüns’ Costco launch
We love this one. Fred Hart’s post on Grüns showing up at Costco caught my attention because Grüns is one of those brands we’ve been watching for a while. If you remember our earlier piece on Dr. Squatch, Grüns draws from the same playbook (the founder cites Dr. Squatch as inspiration). The advertising is funny, the packaging is bold, and the brand doesn’t take itself too seriously. But there’s real substance underneath, and the Costco move is where it gets interesting for GTM teams.
Three takeaways for CPG teams:
1/ The packaging does serious work. From a distance, the Grüns palette has an almost out-of-home poster quality to it: bright green, bold yellow, playful gummy bear imagery. It looks closer to Haribo than a multivitamin, which is the point. But up close, the messaging shifts to credibility: 21 vitamins, 6g fiber, 60+ ingredients, and an “Ages 14+” callout that reframes it away from a kids’ product. That two-speed design (grab attention from far away, build trust up close) is something you don’t see enough at Costco, and it’s worth studying.
2/ Costco rewrites the value equation. Online, Grüns runs about $1.94 per pack. At Costco, it drops to about $1.14, with more packs in the box and no subscription commitment. For a premium daily habit product, that’s a meaningful shift. Costco makes trial feel easier, more tangible, and less risky.
3/ Built for scale, not just trial. The Costco rollout didn’t happen on buzz alone. It came after Grüns had built traction across Walmart and grocery, with velocity, repeat rates, and supply chain readiness behind it. Costco then becomes a way to scale reach and demand, not just a proof of concept.
The lesson here: DTC brands don’t win in retail by simply showing up. They have to make the value obvious, the product easy to understand, and the benefit credible fast.
📖 Read more: Fred Hart on how Grüns is showing up at Costco.
Before you build your story, find out who can actually say yes
This one hit a nerve. Matthew Geddie (a CPG strategy advisor) posted about this recently and the comments section lit up with people saying, “This is exactly what it feels like right now.” And I get it, because I’m hearing the same thing in my conversations with clients: do you actually know who can say yes at your retailer? Not who takes the meeting. Not who asks good follow-up questions. Who can actually approve the idea, sign off on the plan, and move it forward?
Geddie’s point is sharp: years of cost-cutting and restructuring have stripped decision-making authority from many buyer roles. What looks like resistance is often someone who learned that saying yes to something they can’t deliver is more dangerous than saying nothing at all. The meeting feels productive, but the deal dies afterward, when your recap gets forwarded to a decision-maker your team has never met. As one commenter put it, “alignment without authority is a dead end.”
If you can’t reach the person who can truly approve the plan, you’re not really selling. You’re just briefing. The fix is straightforward: before you build a single slide, trace where the real “yes” lives in the organization.
📖 Read more: Matthew Geddie on why productive buyer conversations can still stall without real decision-making authority.
Shoppers aren’t just trading down on brands. They’re trading down on stores.
This isn’t new news. You already know shoppers are feeling the squeeze, and you’ve probably had the private label conversation a dozen times this year. But this detail from a recent Alvarez & Marsal study caught my eye: 42% of shoppers now plan to switch to less expensive stores, up from 31% last fall. That’s not brand switching. That’s store switching. And to me, that’s the more interesting (and more concerning) trend.
When a shopper switches from a name brand to private label, the retailer still wins the trip. When they switch to a different store, the trip is gone. For Category and Sales teams, the question shifts from “How do we defend this SKU?” to “How do we help our retail partners protect the trip?” That’s a different conversation, and I think it’s one worth having.
While You're Here
🎙️ The DNA of a product-led company. This Founders episode on Michele Ferrero, the founder of Ferrero has stayed with us. Think about this: Nutella is one product, sold everywhere in the world, just in different jar sizes. Ferrero Rocher has one main product, just in different pack counts. And nobody knows the recipe for Nutella (it’s not even patented, because once you patent something, everyone can see how it’s made). Today Ferrero is one of the largest food companies in the world, and this episode helps explain why. [Listen here]
🎙️ Grüns: turning a boring category into something people talk about. In this podcast episode, Chad Janis (CEO and Founder of Grüns) walks through the brand’s origin story and how they landed on gummies. What stands out is how obsessed this team is with marketing: they’ve turned a supplement space that most people ignore into genuinely funny, interesting, shareable content. Worth a listen if the Costco piece above caught your attention. [Listen here]
Headed to Sweets & Snacks Expo next week?
We put together three resources a couple of weeks ago that are worth a look before you go. Read them here.
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