Your first hire and how to compensate them

plus, almond prices are up, natural colors and other FDA news, more on creator brands, and lawsuit over "100% agave" tequila; California agave farming made the NYT

This week —

• Employee incentives & comp plans — I’ve got a doc link for you

• Almond prices are up and tariffs are a nothing-burger

• Diageo being sued over tequila. California agave farming taking off

• Are celebs good CPG creators? or brand partners?

• Natural colors are depressing

• The milk is safe

Let’s get to it!

✅ Next time you’re at the tequila bar, ask for a California agave spirit

The NYT is noticing agave sprites and you should too. If you missed it, here’s my interview with Stuart Woolf , the largest commercial agave grower in California.

There’s a class action lawsuit claiming Casamigos and Don Julio tequilas “consist of significant concentrations of cane or other types of alcohol rather than pure tequila" and can’t be called “100% agave.”

Traceability and transparency in California specialty crops like olive oil and agave is the next big trend.

The global market for agave based spirits like tequila and mezcal have seen so much growth, surpassing whiskey, it’s now the second most valuable spirits subcategory in the U.S.

✅ Almond prices are up

The last 6 months we’ve seen shorting in the US market while prices kept going up so that today, almond prices sit at about $3.25 for Standard 5%. Tariffs will not depress prices because instead of selling to China, volume has moved to India. Of all the nuts, almonds are still a value. Cashews are in low supply, and pistachios can’t keep up with demand making market prices a premium to almonds.

✅ A new level of brand partnership. Nepo baby.

Brooklyn Beckham has a brand partner, Barilla Group. Beckham has his own CPG brand, a hot sauce called Cloud23 (not to be confused with Khloe Kardashian’s Khloud)

I've argued creator brands are different than celebrity brands (and partnerships) in that they are developed and owned by individuals who have built their influence through digital platforms. What both have that most brands don’t is an audience. The importance of audience cannot be underestimated.

What do you think brings a better audience? Creators or celebrities?

✅ If General Mills had stuck with the 2016 natural colors reformulation, your box of Trix cereal and other fun cereals would look like this ⤵️

Sensient’s synthetic colors revenue for foods and beverages is about $110 million and now that artificial colors will be phased out reformations in food & bev moves back to an innovation Tier 1 priority and flavor houses like Sensient are on it. Welcome Simply Ruffles Hot & Spicy.

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✅ The FDA is pausing dairy lab proficiency testing

This is a clarification. The news that hit last week made it seem like the FDA used to do the testing. Not so. The FDA program that evaluates third-party labs annually is being DOGE’d rethought. Dairy is still being tested (thank you Donna Berry). More to come on this.

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✅ Velocity over distribution and how to match that up to sales incentives

I get into the velocity discussion and more on the Shelf Help podcast with Adam Steinberg. Adam runs the production design company, KitPrint. Check it out if you need production ready packaging design in days.

Sales incentives

Capital efficient growth means getting high velocities for your hero SKUs before moving into more retailers — which has implications for sales because you’re essentially asking sales to sell a little, then stop. But salespeople aren’t wired to slow down once they’ve got momentum. This can lead to frustration and turnover. Let’s fix it.

New sales KPIs:

• Saturate a small market

• Drive velocity at existing accounts

• Hit gross margin targets — not just top-line sales

This means sales should own the P&L per account — and needs to track it. Be sure to ask any sales candidate:

• “What reports will you provide, and can you show me an example?”

• “How will you track against our KPIs?”

• “How often will you be in the field, checking execution?”

How to compensate the VP of Sales (or any exec hire)

As part of the founding team, you’ll want your salesperson to participate in the long-term success of your brand. Even if you do everything to ensure you’ve hired the right person, you’ll never really know until you start working together.

Here’s my quick doc on equity compensation link here and if you want to understand more of these terms, or if you’re worried about option pool dilution, I highly recommend you read more here from Term Sheet Pitfalls by Daniel Faierman & Chuck Cotter.

If you need help sorting this out, get in touch with me.

All my best,

Jennifer