Blog

Interact Wrapped 2024

Juice, jüs, joos!

Beyond Buzzwords: How Wellness Brands Can Connect

Step Design - Head vs Heart of Rebranding

Biting into the State of Meat-Snacking

Has the entire sport of tennis been rebranded in the United States?

AI's Double Edged Impact on Branding

Branded Collaborations: The Future of Dynamic Partnerships

Stance on AI

Less is More & The Power of Communication

The Journey to Creating a Timeless Brand

Cheers to Change: Kendall Jenner's 818 Tequila Reinvention

7 Brands from Sweets&Snacks Almond Moms Don’t Want You To Know About

Branding with the Stars

There’s no question that celebrity and influencer backed brands are on the rise. Alani Nu (Katy Hearn), Chamberlain Coffee (Emma Chamberlain), Feastables (Mr. Beast) and Prime (Logan Paul and KSI) are just a few of the darlings of the CPG industry and symbols of the new wave of brands.

What the old dogs of the pet industry can do to fend off the Third Wave of Pet

Can an old dog learn new tricks? As we’ve attended the Global Pet Expo and Superzoo over the last few years, this question has been nipping at the heels of the Pet Industry's largest and most prestigious brands as they watch a new, disruptive generation of pet brands dogpile into the industry.

Bringing Sunshine to Supplements: Reviving a Legacy Brand

How do you help a brand with a rich history find a brighter tomorrow? A closer look at the Nature's Life brand redesign.

Breaking through the Resistance to Change

It seems change is all but guaranteed, and often a sign of progress, but for most of us it’s a tough pill to swallow, particularly in CPG. Briefs are safe, consistency is prioritized over upside, and revolution is a dirty word. On top of that the bigger a brand gets, the more resistant to change it typically becomes.

Creativity with Consequence

Consumers don’t care about design awards. While recognition from industry peers certainly feels good, what we really care about is Design Effectiveness - the ability to use the power of design to drive businesses forward by creating greater consumer connection.In CPG, where a brand's most tangible touchpoint is packaging, any redesign should increase velocities, sales, repeat purchases, shelf space, category share, distribution and/or brand affinity. Yet sadly, this often isn’t the case.

7 Deadly Sins of Expo West

The Interact team made the annual pilgrimage to Expo West, the sacred gathering of almighty natural products. There we roamed to see the holy trinity of products - food, beverage and supplements - and worshiped many a brand and product sample.

Wellness Repackaged: A New Era in Supplements

The State Of Health & Wellness: A Perspective From a Trade Show in Philadelphia

Interact as a Digital Partner

Are you ready to take your business to the next level in today's digital era? Look no further than Interact for your website development needs! We know you might have questions about the process, costs, and what to expect, so we've gathered some of our most frequently asked questions (FAQs) to help you out.

Harnessing the Power of Brands: Highlights from the Sustainable Brands Brand-led Culture Change Conference

Our Head of Sustainability, Valerie Hawks, headed to Downtown Minneapolis for Sustainable Brands' Brand-Led Culture Change 2023. She shared a few key insights from the events about how brands should think and approach sustainability.

The new AI programs we learned about at BrXnd.AI

Our team attended the BrXnd.AI conference in NYC earlier this month. The room was filled with everyone from AI enthusiasts and those who are slightly terrified at what's to come. After a day of listening to humble experts, the quote that kicked off the day never seemed more true. “If you are just writing SEO headlines with ChatGPT you are already lost.” Read more about the new AI platforms and use-cases we discovered throughout the day.

It’s What’s On The Inside That Counts

America is often referred to as the “land of excess.” Unfortunately, this rings true as we face a very real food waste problem. According to an organization fighting food insecurity, Feeding America, “Each year, 119 billion pounds of food is wasted in the United States. That equates to 130 billion meals and more than $408 billion in food thrown away each year. Shockingly, nearly 40% of all food in America is wasted.” This is a staggering amount, and it is clear that something needs to be done to minimize food waste.

The Altered State Index

We have been consuming mind-altering substances daily without thinking twice about it. From our morning coffee (or four) to the cbd or melatonin gummy we take before bed. Consumers are reaching for natural products that change their state of mind. With the rise in popularity of mushrooms, we’ve been watching the space for ingredients we believe will be trending for their mind-blowing results.

Trends & Insights from ExpoWest 2023

Last week, our team attended Natural Products Expo West. With miles of booths, we were sure to get our 10K steps in— and of course see the current and the future trajectory of culture through food & beverage products. The innovations not only excited our taste buds, but were an opportunity for us to better understand what consumers are looking for when it comes to the better-for-you category. Here are our key takeaways.

Natural Products Expo West 2023 Predicitions

We've powered up on nootropics, looked into our crystal ball and have seen the future. Gaze upon our predictions for this years show.

Brand By Robot

ChatGPT has been in the headlines for quite some time. Like most of you, we have been wondering how we can leverage this powerful tool and learn how to integrate into our skillset. Who better to learn from than the robot themself... uh..itself? We had ChatGPT write us a post on how to leverage the platform and its benefits when building a brand.

A Mound Of Confusion: Can plastic credits have the same impact as carbon credits?

A collaboration between Valerie Hawks (Head of Sustainability, Interact Brands) & Nicole Sullivan (Director of Climate Services, CarbonBetter) where they explore plastic credits, where they come from, what they do, and how to know if they are right for your business.

Welcome To The World Of Elder Flower

Mothers & Mother Nature are joining forces with Elder Flower. A new-to-world family of products that are devoted to the practices and preservation of natural beauty and vitality.

2022 Overview

As we hit the ground running for 2023, it’s hard not to look back at everything we accomplished last year.

The Fight For Food: A Look At The Future Of Food Deserts

Our food deserts blog series has been eye opening…to say the least. We bring you our third installment of the series where we spoke with Cole Riley the Founder & CEO of Wellfare‍ and Dan Glickberg of Dan Glickberg Food about the work they are doing to combat food deserts.

We Popped Into Pop Up Grocer

This year for Halloween we went trick-or-treating at Pop Up Grocer's Denver location. Emily Schildt's reinvention of the shopping experience is one part play, one part discovery, one part eye candy, and one part retail.

Retail Tomorrow with Nicole from Raye

Nicole Compen is the founder of Raye, a traveling showcase of emerging food, drink, and wellness brands championing natural ingredients and quality design. We sat down with Nicole to get her take on how she identifies and supports emerging and innovative brands in the better-for-you and wellness space.

The Great American Beer Festival

The halls were buzzing (literally and figuratively) at last week's Great American Beer Festival. The Interact Brands crew sipped away in the name of market research and bring you our top 4 trends!

Natural Products Expo East & Our After-hours Insights

Last week we attended the Natural Products Expo East 2022 in Philadelphia. There were plenty of products to see and people to meet, and while many folks focus their recaps of what happens on the show floor, we thought we’d share some of our favorite discoveries off of it.

Mondelēz International’s SnackFutures Opens Applications for CoLab 2023

CoLab 2023 is inviting disruptively delicious snack brands to apply for its collaborative start-up program.

Interview With Union Kitchen's Elena Rosenblum

Elena Rosenblum is the Vice President of Union Kitchen, a food business Accelerator building brands in the CPG space through a fully vertical supply chain. In this installment of Retail Tomorrow, we sit down and chat with Elena about her role, what inspires her and what trends she’s loving in CPG.

When the General Comes to Town: How Dollar Stores Create Food Deserts

Dollar stores fill the gap when grocery stores leave small communities. As a result, they make food inequity even worse.