Commerce Riff with Sri & PVSB - July 28, 2026

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July 28, 2026, and this is the Commerce Rift brought to you by the CPG guys. 10 minutes of the news stories that matter most in commerce this week. I'm your co-host PDSP. I'm joined as always by Papa Raj, the father of Pop Stars, co-founder of Think Blue Consulting Shree. We're recording this in Cooperstown, New York after a fantastic 2026 Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Baseball Hall of Fame. How are you doing? Big bucket list item for you.

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It wasn't your first rodeo, but it was for me. It was a bucket list moment to actually be there at the induction ceremony. And then being a kid in the candy store, when I went to the merchandise store for the Hall of Fame induction ceremony today. But I got a bigger thing tomorrow. You know, I have a bigger agenda as we head to Corner. What is the bigger agenda, I want to guess?

SPEAKER_01 0:46

To go for Hall of Fame itself.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Exactly. And look for, I'm looking for a Babe Ruth Hall of Fame Cooperstone special jersey.

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I think you're going to find some pretty unique merchandise in Cooperstone tomorrow. I can't wait. I can't wait. All right. Four stories this week that show just how much capital and creative energy is moving through packet foods right now. A private equity buyout that tells you exactly what a distressed snack stock is worth up to a strategic buyer. A licensing deal that turns pantry brands into theme park experiences. A European giant carving up its own portfolio to fund a turnaround. A private equity firm making a bet on the software that actually gets products onto digital shelves. Let's get into it. We'll start with the biggest MA headline of the week in stacking because US brands, one of Shree's favorites, because they are the official snack food of the New York Yankees, just found its next chapter, and it's going to be a private one. US brands has agreed to be taken private by Germany's InnerSnack Group at an enterprise value of about $2.9 billion. InnerSnack is paying $14.25 a share in cash. That's a 91% premium to Monday's close price. Shares popped roughly 89% on the news. The founding Rice and Lizette families will retain half ownership once the deal closes, which is expected by the end of the year. UTS's own board and independent advisors concluded this was the best path to deliver certain immediate value to shareholders. The signal that the public market growth story on its own wasn't compelling enough. Street and I saw them at the Cagney conference back in February. Even though UTS posted rising first quarter sales behind branded salty snacks and was still guiding to 2-3% growth for the year. What's our view? Well, this is exactly the kind of take private move that heavily indebted high payout public food companies don't always have the room to pull off on their own. I found a buyer who did it for them. Intersnack gets a real foothold in U.S. salty snacks at a moment when private label is gaining share and public investors have soured on package foods multiples. For anyone doing category planning, this one more historically independent brand snack manufacturer that's about to answer to European private ownership instead of the quarterly earnings calendar. Watch for a sharper, longer, horror horizon playbook on innovation and trade spending once the deal closes.

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Alright, we'll stick with Big Food for a second. Bigfoot search for a second act, and here it is. Because Kraft Heinz just found its own version of the next chapter, and it's wearing a location that Peter loves to visit with his daughter, quote unquote Mouse Years. Kraft Heinz and Disney have struck a multi-year partnership that makes Kraft Heinz the exclusive provider of some condiments, mac and cheese, cream cheese at Disney's North American parks, resorts, and on the Disney cruise line. Deals also lets Kraft Heinz put Disney characters and stories on packaging across 10 of its brands. And here's what that could look like. Think Heinz, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, and Kraft Mac and Cheese, and extends into Disney's studio and streaming platforms where Kraft Heinz will help fund co-created content indeed. New North America chief Nicholas Amaya framed it simply as marketing today is about creating memorable experiences, not just shelf placement. It follows an NFL condiment partnership signed earlier this year and sits inside the roughly $600 million. CEO Steve Callahan has committed to marketing sales and RD to reignite the US businesses after Callahan reversed course on an earlier plan to break up the company entirely, and Kraft Heinz ended up at Cagney as a result to make that statement. The CPG lens, how we see it. This is a big food brand trying to buy its way back into cultural relevance through experiential and licensing plays rather than through the senestrois where the real pressure is. It's a smart complement to the survival economics we talked about just last week on the ref, but it's not a substitute for it. A Cinderella branded box of mac and cheese doesn't move the GLP1 or private label pressure that's actually compressing these companies' margins. Worth watching whether this experiential strategy shows up in incremental velocity at retail or whether it stays a brand marketing story that never quite reaches the PR. The CPG guys will be watching to come up with an answer for sure in the next few months.

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Over to you. All right, Shree. Now let's go to Switzerland because Nestle has just handed over half of one of its most recognizable businesses to private equity. Nestle is selling a 50% stake in its water and beverages unit, the business behind Perrier and San Pellegrino, to Tom Gorse Platinum Equity for 3 billion euros. That's about 3.4 billion dollars in cash. The new joint venture called Piranel is valued at 4.9 billion euros, including cash and debt, with the deal expected to close in the first half of next year. It lands alongside a rough earnings print, second quarter net profit of 3.47 billion Swiss francs, missed estimates of 5.07 billion francs, and shares slumped more than 6% on the news, even as organic sales grew 3.7%, split between 1.9 points of pricing and 1.8 points of volume. CEO Philip Navertal, who took over in September, is now cutting about 16,000 jobs, shedding the ice cream business into the Froneri joint venture earlier this year, and is working to offload mainstream vitamin brands like Nature's Bounty while keeping premium names like Solgar and Garden of Life. What's our perspective? Nestle is doing in real time what the industry increasingly needs to do to survive, shrinking the portfolio down into categories with real growth, coffee, pet care, nutrition, and food, using private equity firms to fund it rather than debt or dividend cuts alone. Mulilever spinning off ice cream, ABF separating Primark from food, and now Nestle carving up water all point to the same conclusion. Scale alone doesn't protect CBG portfolio anymore. Focus does. Expect more of these joint venture structures across the industry as companies try to monetize non-core assets without giving up all the upside. Shri, close this out with you.

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All right. If you listened to our episode right after Shop Talk, you heard us talk about the Salsify acquisition and that a lot of value there was actually created by the Digital Shelf Institute. So let's close this week with a smaller deal in dollar terms, but a big one for anyone in the commerce tech stack because private equity just made a bet on a product content. Synven has agreed to acquire Salsify, the Boston-based provider of product experience management or PXM software. Financial terms won't disclose, but founded in 2012, Salsify's platform helps brands manage and syndicate product content. Everything from images to specs to compliance data across retailer and marketplace sites, and the company operates across North America, Europe, and Australia. Here's our CPG guys' POV on this. PXM is unglamorous infrastructure, but it's the all-important layer that determines whether a brand's product actually looks right, converts, and compliance once it has a retailer's digital shelf. Which matters more every quarter's retail media and e-commerce keep taking share from the physical aisle in the store. And European private equity firm putting fresh capital behind Salsify is a vote that commerce enablement software is a durable category, not a nice to have or a temporary wave of any sort. And it's worth watching whether ownership under Cinven pushes Salsify towards faster product investment or towards the kind of margin discipline P buyers typically expect and bring to the table. Either way, brand teams relying on Salsify for retailer syndication should expect some near-term change management as the deal closes shortly. More to come on this, we'll be watching it here on the CPG guys. Peter, wrap it up for us, please.

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Yeah, that's it for this week's Commerce Riff. Quick reminder, catch up on our recent episodes. We had two great conversations recorded live in Cannes, France during the Cannes Lions Festival. You don't want to miss them. Instacart's Ali Miller and Tim Costelli, and of course, our dear friend Mark Williamson from Costco. Both are essential listening for anyone thinking about how commerce, media, and technology are converging. Links in the show notes. If anything we cover today's spark of thought, drop it in the comments. We read all of them. And if you're not following us on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube, now's the time. Forget about my space. You miss the chance. We'll see you next week.