Skinny Pop brand warrior nods to Amazon’s growing food clout

Bloomberg

The man who helped put Skinny Pop in lunch boxes all over America is embracing Amazon.com Inc., the scourge of the grocery business. The biggest food companies, notoriously slow to respond to consumer whims and losing market share to nimbler upstarts, desperately crave innovation to keep ahead of Amazon’s threat. And Jason Cohen, the Skinny Pop guy, has been there for them.
In the past, Cohen, a former insurance salesman who formed Halen Brands Inc. with fellow Van Halen enthusiast Leigh Feuerstein, placed brands like Skinny Pop and Veggie Straws with Costco Wholesale Corp. Once the products surpassed $50 million in annual sales, Cohen sold them to big companies happy to embrace winning trends.
“He’s made himself the link between the new brands and the older, larger companies,” said Carl Jorgensen, director of global thought leadership for retail consultant Daymon Worldwide. “Facilitating that is a very valuable service.” Now Cohen is rolling out a new product, a plant-based protein drink created by a husband-and-wife team of former Ivy League athletes, on Amazon. It’s an acknowledgment that e-commerce, the latest complication in the food business, has become impossible to ignore.
“If we don’t focus on that, we’ll be a dinosaur in three or four years,” Cohen said. “It’s a very expensive proposition to make a mistake on.”
What Americans eat and how they eat has become increasingly vexing for Big Food. In the past three years, as customers dine out more often and gravitate to the latest private-label products, the 10 biggest US food companies have seen roughly $16 billion in revenue evaporate. Amazon, with its purchase of Whole Foods and its well-established distribution system, threatens to eat Big Food’s lunch.
The day the Whole Foods acquisition was announced, the largest food companies in the US, including Kraft Heinz Co., General Mills Inc., Mondelez and Campbell Soup Co., lost almost $8 billion in market value combined. Food companies have long relied on acquisitions to drive growth and propel innovation, and they’ve started targeting smaller and smaller brand developers. General Mills Inc. and Kellogg Co. and others have in recent years tried launching venture funds aimed at sniffing out hot new products.
Other funds are also searching for the next big thing. AccelFoods, with $40 million aimed at developing the latest in natural and organic products, has backed about 30 companies since 2013. CircleUp Network Inc. has helped more than 250 food and beverage companies raise about $385 million.
Cohen said he hopes to get the vegan product into Whole Foods next year. But for now, he’s trying to sell it on Amazon.