the Joshua Schall Audio Experience

Joshua Schall

Welcome to the Joshua Schall Audio Experience On my podcast, you’ll hear episodes of my popular short-form Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) news segment "Consumed", a long-form CPG entrepreneurship interview segment "Formula For:", deeper dive segments "Deep Dish CPG", public speaking engagements, and any of my new and current thoughts that I record specifically for this audio experience! Leave a review on iTunes and let me know what you think!

  1. 1d ago

    Genius Strategy of Medici | Inside Peter Rahal’s Billion-Dollar Food Empire

    The Secret Weapon Powering Peter Rahal’s New Food Empire 🤫🧪Peter Rahal is aggressively tearing up the traditional CPG playbook. While most modern food brands follow a predictable loop...launch a trendy product, scale online via performance marketing, and hope for an acquisition by a legacy CPG conglomerate, Peter Rahal is engineering a quiet structural revolution to dominate the future of nutrition. In this video, I'll pull back the curtain on Medici, Peter Rahal’s newly established holding company. By unifying hyper-optimized consumer brands under the same corporate umbrella as proprietary, cutting-edge food technology, Medici is building an undeniable dual-engine competitive moat.I break down how its flagship brand, David Protein, exploded to a reported $300 million in revenue in less than two years. But protein bars are just the beginning. From a high-protein frozen dessert line that sold out in under 30 minutes to shelf-stable canned wild-caught cod, Rahal is reshaping consumer platforms. Discover the master plan behind Medici’s decentralized "house of brands" architecture...including the upcoming candy brand HallPass and savory line Svelte Snacks. Most importantly, we reveal Medici’s "secret weapon," which is the vertical integration of Epogee and its revolutionary EPG alternative fat technology, which slashes fat calories by 92% without sacrificing mouthfeel. Finally, we look ahead at Medici's next logical strategic moves to conquer the low-calorie sweetener space and monopolize the very molecules we ingest daily.

    11 min

  2. 2d ago

    [MONDAY MINUTE] Why Modern Consumers Don't Trust Your Corporate Brand Voice

    Stop clinging to that "pristine" brand image, as the old CPG playbook of polished, sterile messaging is fundamentally broken because it ignores how trust actually works today. Modern consumers don’t want abstract brand voices…they want believable like seeing how your product fits into a messy, real, lived-in life! Arguably, this is why social commerce is exploding…as it’s more real life than sales pitch. So, start putting humans at the center of your CPG brand…whether it’s a founder or an employee with actual skin in the game. Individual personalities are the only things that scale now because video platforms are literally built to distribute people, not logos. Likewise, tap into niche creators who already speak the language within your specific cultural intersection. However, remember that collaborations aren’t just for "reach," they represent your CPG brand’s community and societal class…which can earn you the right to expand laterally (when strategically appropriate).

    1 min

  3. 6d ago

    Why Barebells Just Bought Its Secret Weapon | Vitamin Well Group Acquires EMPWR | Protein Bar Market

    Why Barebells Just Bought Its Contract Manufacturer (The Protein Bar Wars) 🚀 The protein bar market is trapped in a "sea of sameness," as most brands use the exact same ingredients and contract manufacturing cloned recipes. Except for Barebells, which completely disrupted the global market by making protein bars that taste like actual candy. In this video, I break down the massive strategic acquisition by Barebells' parent company, Vitamin Well Group (backed by Cinven), to buy EMPWR Nutrition Group...the secret engine behind Barebells' success. Discover how mega-cap private equity scales a consumer platform, why "form factor" is the ultimate intellectual property, and how this deal completely rewrites the strategic optionality available as they compete against major incumbent protein bar brands like Quest Nutrition. Also, I'll provide insights on the following: 📉 How customer concentration leverage allowed Cinven to buy a top-tier manufacturer at a massive discount.🍫 Why the mechanical process of making a "candified" multi-layer bar is an underacknowledged nightmare—and why owning it matters.🎯 How wiping out the co-packer middleman frees up cash for prime retailer real estate and aggressive discount.⏱️ How owning the production schedule allows Barebells to prototype and test wild seasonal flavors ahead of competitors.🔥 What happens to the 100+ other global brands that currently rely on EMPWR for production? So, is the asset-light business model dead for wellness CPG brands? Watch to find out!

    9 min

  4. Jun 30

    Novelty vs. Routine: Brutal Business of "Fun" Supplement Formats

    Is This the End of Vitamin Pills? Are you tired of swallowing giant supplement capsules every single day? You’re not alone. Nearly 40% of adults suffer from "pill fatigue," defined as the physical and psychological burnout of maintaining a complex, multi-bottle daily routine. In this video, I'll dive into the radical shift toward what I dubbed "Frictionless Wellness." Next-generation wellness CPG brands are abandoning traditional pills entirely to treat the mouth as the ultimate biological highway. By bypassing the gut and liver, these innovative direct-to-mouth formats deliver rapid oral absorption without the need for water. But can these "bleeding-edge" innovations cross the strategic chasm into permanent consumer habits, or will they get crushed by heavyweights like Celsius energy drinks? Key Takeaways Oral Absorption: Direct-to-mouth delivery skips the harsh stomach acid and liver first-pass effect, potentially shaving 30–60 minutes off nutrient onset timesCandy-fication vs. Efficacy: Brands face a brutal balancing act between packing a clinical dose of an ingredient and making a functional candy taste tolerableMilligram Ceiling: Form factors like pouches and strips physically cannot hold heavy macronutrients, limiting their ability to replace full nutritionNiche Utility Wins: The future belongs to hyper-specific use cases—like fast-acting sleep strips or focus-driven modern oral pouches for long road trips

    14 min

  5. Jun 29

    [MONDAY MINUTE] Why Everyone is "Texture-Maxxing" Their Food Right Now

    Here’s something I told a client, but they couldn’t come to grips with it. The "anything-goes" science foods era is dying…and society is firmly heading into an Age of “Sensory Grounding.” Texture has become a personality trait. I’m talking about "texture-maxxing" everything…you know freeze-dried, crispy, chewy, and velvety mashups. Also, in this economy, consumers want quality they can actually feel and trust…whether that’s the emotional safety of handmade sourdough or the fermented, fiber-packed, and sour canned veg prepared by long-lost “old-school Grandma” methods. It’s about craving quality and reliability over wild food trends…seeking a strong value proposition for every dollar spent.

    1 min

  6. Jun 26

    TikTok Shop "Omnichannel Flywheel" Explained | Why Most Supplement Brands Fail on TikTok Shop

    Is Your Supplement Brand Looking at TikTok Shop All Wrong? Most supplement and health brands treat TikTok Shop as an isolated sales channel. They look at direct dollars spent versus immediate revenue out, and if the margins aren’t instantly positive, they call it a failure. That legacy mindset is costing brands millions in lost growth. In this video, I'll break down why a performance-siloed view of TikTok is holding you back, and how the fastest-growing brands are using it to fuel a massive, multi-channel flywheel effect. TikTok Shop is currently the 4th largest health ecommerce retailer in the US, generating over $800 million in the vitamins and supplements segment alone over a recent 52-week period. But the real value isn't the sales inside the app. And I'll discuss the predictable multi-channel consumer loop that begins with a massive surge in Amazon branded search volume, shifts towards an ecommerce windfall on Amazon, and then that viral online discovery spills over into physical retail, leading to a massive lift in offline revenue and total distribution points. But to unlock this, leadership has to abandon traditional DTC playbooks, give up absolute creative control, and embrace a "loose reins" affiliate strategy to scale content volume. Watch the full video to learn how to let the algorithm act as your ultimate creative director and achieve true attention arbitrage.

    8 min

  7. Jun 25

    Fake Trump Manufacturing Boom? Messy Reality of American Factories

    Trump promised a manufacturing boom, but the truth thus far has been arguably much messier (at least across the CPG industry). On the one hand, CPG giants like Mars, Chobani, and Coca-Cola announced they’d spend billions on new manufacturing facilities. Although with interest rates staying relatively higher…and construction costs skyrocketing, we’ve seen a strategic rebalancing. And yes, Tyson Foods, General Mills, and other massive CPG companies are selling factories just to stay lean…but the larger strategic narrative can be defined as "making more with less." So, what’s going on? The expected CPG manufacturing boom has been stealthy…with companies not necessarily building bigger but retrofitting existing factories to be smarter. And within a sector that relies heavily on immigrant workers, automation and high-tech robotics are critical to replace the labor they can't find. Output is rising, and efficiency is increasing…yet manufacturing jobs are slightly dipping. This is a complicated story, but likely only the beginning of a new industrial era.

    1 min

  8. Jun 23

    Why Your Favorite Beverage Brands Are Silently Going to War | CPG Industry Aluminum Crisis

    The beverage industry is hitting a catastrophic wall, but it isn’t just standard inflation. A high-stakes "metallurgical siege" is unfolding at the exact intersection of consumer packaged goods (CPG) and defense economics. In this video, I break down why aluminum costs have recently surged on the London Metal Exchange and what this means for the future of grocery shelves and beverage coolers. From China's strict production caps to Middle East tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, global supply chains are fracturing. But the biggest threat? The Pentagon. Under federal law, defense contractors have prioritized access to American metals. As the U.S. modernizes its military arsenal under a $1T+ defense budget, the CPG industry is left fighting for the residual scraps...artificially inflating baseline costs and crushing profit margins for everyday brands. I'll dive deep into the companies caught in the crossfire, why the famous 2021-2022 Celsius Holdings survival playbook won't work today, and how "form-factor agility" (moving from cans to powder stick packs) will separate the survivors from the bankrupt in the late 2020s. Also, I'll be examining topics like: Why the U.S. only produces 1/3 of its required primary aluminumHow military procurement dictates commercial grocery marginsWhy venture capital is abandoning weak-margin CPG brands for defense technologyThe folklore of Celsius Holdings importing cans from Europe, and why protectionist tariffs killed that strategy for 2026 Why brands can no longer shrink past the standard 12-ounce sleeveHow functional wellness beverages hold the ultimate leverage over traditional soda and beer.

    11 min
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4.8
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About

Welcome to the Joshua Schall Audio Experience On my podcast, you’ll hear episodes of my popular short-form Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) news segment "Consumed", a long-form CPG entrepreneurship interview segment "Formula For:", deeper dive segments "Deep Dish CPG", public speaking engagements, and any of my new and current thoughts that I record specifically for this audio experience! Leave a review on iTunes and let me know what you think!

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