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I went to Expo West two weeks ago, the Super Bowl of consumer brands.
80,000+ attendees. 3,000+ exhibiting brands. The energy was electric.
I spent a few days walking the floor and talking to brand founders and operators.
Though Expo West focuses primarily on natural products / packaged goods companies, there are tons of insights that could be relevant for all consumer founders.
Here are the top 10 consumer product trends that you should know about.
p.s. some of the consumer insights in today’s piece come from research by Listen Labs, the leading AI-powered consumer research platform used by brands like Nestlé, SKIMS, and Anthropic to run thousands of customer interviews in hours, not weeks. More on them at the end.
1/ GLP-1 is still the biggest macro force in consumer products
Crazy stats: 22% of U.S. households now have at least one person on a GLP-1 medication.
This is important because 74% of GLP-1 users feel fuller faster and 80% are willing to pay more for products with added health benefits. GLP-1 is directly impacting how consumers purchase and what their grocery cart looks like.
One impact is portion sizes. Many brands are coming up with smart packaging strategies like single-serve formats, smaller packs, snackable SKUs, to cater to this segment of consumers who eat 4 times a day in smaller amounts. Behave's gummy bears pack 19 grams of fiber into a 1.8-oz pouch. Sana Honey launched Honey Spoons with snackable single-serve honey formats.
However, the behavioral change runs deeper than portion sizes. Listen Labs surveyed 67 GLP-1 users and found these medications are triggering what users describe as a full lifestyle reset, rewiring their relationship with food and alcohol.
One opportunity lies in savory, low-sweetness protein products. 86% are now eating protein first at every meal. However, 26% find protein supplements too sweet, and 37% are actively hunting for savory protein alternatives like broths and jerky.
2/ Protein’s format war
Protein has entered every format. Protein jello, protein coffees, protein sodas, protein pretzels, protein ice creams, protein chocolate, protein ramen. I felt it immediately while walking the floor at Expo West.
This connects directly back to the first point regarding GLP-1.
When people eat less overall, every bite has to count. These "surprise" formats allow brands to differentiate in a crowded market while meeting consumers' desire to boost protein intake without overhauling their diets. Nobody wants another dry protein bar. They want protein hidden inside things they already love.
3/ Gaps in prebiotic drinks space
Poppi sold to PepsiCo for $1.65B. Olipop raised at a $1.85B valuation. Many people think the category is saturated. It's not.
SPINS data from Expo West showed digestive health drinks grew 16% in dollar sales last year.
Despite the rapid growth, Listen Labs research shows a few gaps in the market.
The first is trust. Only 58% find claims like “prebiotic” or “gut-healthy” believable.
Price is another barrier, with 85% saying it’s the main reason they haven’t permanently switched from regular soda to prebiotic sodas.
Also, consumers aren’t always replacing soda with these drinks. Instead, 50% see them as complements for different occasions, like daytime wellness or mindfulness, while keeping traditional soda for “treat” moments.
4/ Creatine is leaving the gym and entering everyday food
Bulletproof launched Coffee + Creatine, creatine-powered instant black coffee. Lifeway Kefir's Muscle Mates pack 20 grams of protein and 5 grams of creatine into an 8-oz kefir shake. Both products reached mainstream retail within months of launch.
Creatine has 40+ years of safety data. It's one of the most research-backed performance ingredients in existence. Until now, it's been stuck in the gym.
This is the exact same playbook protein ran 15 years ago. Then probiotics. Then collagen. Supplement ingredient gets enough consumer education, crosses the safety/familiarity threshold, and suddenly it's in everything.
There is no dominant "creatine brand" yet.
I predict there is going to be an AG1 for creatine by the end of 2026.
5/ Beef tallow and the rise of ancestral ingredients
The momentum for beef tallow is palpable.
MASA. Beefy's Own. Legacy Roots. All frying in beef tallow and positioning it as the cleaner alternative to vegetable oils. The anti-seed-oil consumer movement found its preferred fat.
The Food Institute called it explicitly: "The seed oil backlash has officially arrived. Beef tallow — once a pantry staple before the low-fat era — is making a significant comeback, particularly in the snack aisle."
The broader theme is that ancestral ingredients are coming back across the board from organ meats to bone broth.
The consumer appetite for "what our grandparents ate" is translating directly into product categories.
6/ Tariffs are forcing a reformulation wave
Not surprisingly, tariffs have created significant market uncertainty. This has prompted many brands to expand manufacturing in the US.
ADM announced a $26M investment in its Kentucky facility specifically to expand U.S.-based reformulation capacity. BioVivo Science's VP said on the floor that "U.S.-made ingredients" is now a strategic priority, not just a preference.
58% of consumers already prefer brands that use domestically sourced ingredients. That preference existed before the tariff pressure. The tariffs are accelerating a consumer trend that was already moving.
7/ Opportunities in non-alcoholic drinks
As a big fan of non-alcoholic beer, I was excited to see so many emerging NA brands exhibiting at Expo West.
BERO (NA beer). De Soi (NA aperitifs). TÖST. Fresh Victor (cold-pressed mocktail mixers), just to name a few.
The market is exploding. The NA beer market hit $24B in 2025 and is growing at 7.8% CAGR toward $50.8B by 2035.
Listen Labs research shows that NA is no longer for “non-drinkers”. It is being adopted by "moderators" who want the sensory excellence and social ritual of a drink without the alcohol content. GLP-1, as mentioned in the first trend, is another large driver for NA. 38% of people on GLP-1 medications report drinking less alcohol because their interest and tolerance have plummeted.
There are still many opportunities in NA.
NA spirits: wide open. De Soi and CleanCo are tiny. NA wine: product quality still lagging, which means the first brand to crack taste can still have massive upside.
8/ TikTok Shop is booming
TikTok Shop grew 120% YoY in H1 2025. $500M+ in U.S. sales over Thanksgiving/Cyber Monday 2025 alone, the largest social commerce event in U.S. history.
Larger brands ($30M+ revenue) joining TikTok Shop grew 95% in the same period.
Many consumer brands have been able to experience explosive growth with a thoughtful TikTok Shop strategy.
Maëlys, the body-care brand, became the top-selling body-care brand on TikTok Shop in 2024 with $108.5M in total category sales by building a creator flywheel around before-and-after transformations. The halo effect compounds off-platform too. A viral TikTok video drives Amazon searches, which boosts rankings and leads to more retail velocity. Retailers are also looking at TikTok Shop as a strong data point for purchasing decisions.
TikTok is no longer just an awareness channel.
The ones treating it as a full retail channel with its own inventory strategy, creator partnerships, and supply chain are winning.
9/ The best marketing at Expo West came from a controversial brand that didn't exhibit
David Protein didn't exhibit at Expo West 2026. Well…let’s say it wasn’t entirely voluntary.
Despite the controversies around the brand, David Protein certainly nailed marketing.
Peter Rahal, the founder who built RXBAR, sent multiple white box trucks circling the Anaheim Convention Center during the Expo. Each truck featured a cartoonishly muscular cow alongside an image of an ice cream pint and its stats: 30 grams of protein. 260 calories. 2 grams of sugar.
Brands inside the convention center spent loads of money on booth design, signage, and sampling just to get noticed. David generated more buzz than almost any of them, from outside the building.
10/ The new celebrity brand model
Everyone knows celebrity brands are popular.
However, the celebrity model has shifted over the past few years. Celebrities used to take endorsement checks. Now the best ones are taking equity and operating roles and building products that are genuinely an extension of who they are.
Hailey Bieber spent years obsessing over the "glazed donut" aesthetic before Rhode existed. The product was an expression of her actual personal brand. Rhode launched in 2022, generated $212M in revenue, and sold to e.l.f. Beauty for $1 billion. This happened in three years, DTC only, with just 10 products.
Involved celebrity co-founder + brand aligned products = value unlock
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A word from our partner
Every trend in this post is an industry-level signal. The real question is whether it's your brand signal.
That's what Listen Labs helps you figure out. They run AI-moderated customer interviews at scale, with the depth of a focus group and the speed of a survey. Brands like Nestlé, SKIMS, and Microsoft use it to validate product concepts, test messaging, and understand what actually drives conversion. Results in hours, not weeks.
If you're trying to figure out whether GLP-1 nutrition, women's health, or any of these trends maps to your customer — Listen Labs is the fastest way to find out.
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See you next Tuesday,
Leo
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