Executive Briefing
The real reason Big Food is going DTC
A tiny case study in Covid-era commerce.
By Dan Frommer on Saturday, July 11, 2020 at 10:35 am
The direct-to-consumer e-commerce boom has made it easy for food startups to launch, start selling, iterate, and grow quickly. These include ideas like Magic Spoon, a “healthy” breakfast cereal for adults, Omsom, a smart new take on meal starters, and Nuggs, which has shipped 1 million pounds of faux chicken nuggets over the last year.
But over the past few months, as the Covid-19 crisis has flipped everything upside-down, several of the largest “legacy” food and consumer packaged goods companies have also started to launch their own e-commerce stores, selling products directly instead of through distributors and retailers.
In late June, for example, Nestle launched a direct-to-consumer site for Chameleon, a cold brew coffee brand it acquired in 2017. In May, PepsiCo got a shocking amount of attention for launching Snacks.com and PantryShop, offering snacks and drinks from its brands like Frito-Lay and Gatorade. Kraft Heinz, meanwhile, launched Heinz to Home in the UK, selling canned foods, sauces, and weird ice cream kits.
Why?
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