New Fronts in the Battle for the Consumer

The consumer brand landscape isn’t a “DTC vs. legacy” fight anymore. It’s messier than that.

This past week gave us two perfect case studies:

1. Kroger launching Simple Truth Protein—80 new SKUs across meals, snacks, drinks, even brownies.

2. Goodles recalling two of its mac & cheese products because they contained undeclared allergens (including milk in a vegan flavor).

Together, these stories show how incumbents are co-opting the DTC playbook at scale—and how even buzzy modern brands can see years of equity vanish overnight if execution slips.

Case Study 1: Kroger’s Counter-Offensive

Kroger isn’t just competing with DTC brands anymore; they’re actively out-DTC’ing them.

• Speed & scale: No startup could launch 80 SKUs at once.

• Distribution: From day one, these products hit shelves nationwide.

• Trust: Simple Truth already has strong brand equity with wellness shoppers.

• Price: As a private label, Kroger can undercut smaller “better-for-you” brands while matching quality.

And Kroger isn’t guessing, they explicitly tied this launch to consumers chasing protein and even those on GLP-1 drugs. That’s a level of trend fluency most startups would brag about.

This is the new reality: incumbents with scale, data, and capital are no longer asleep at the wheel. They’re adopting the startup playbook, but running it faster and bigger.

Case Study 2: Goodles and the Fragility of Trust

Goodles positioned itself as the “modern, better-for-you mac & cheese.” That makes its nationwide recall devastating.

• What happened: undeclared allergens. Milk in a vegan product, cashews in another.

• The fallout: at least eight consumer reactions reported.

• Distribution scale: these SKUs were in Target, Walmart, Kroger, and Whole Foods.

This isn’t a packaging typo. It’s a betrayal of the brand promise. And when your entire positioning is “healthier, cleaner, more trustworthy,” one supply chain failure can erase millions in marketing spend and years of trust.

The Takeaway

The old story of “nimble DTCs disrupting sleepy incumbents” is over.

• Incumbents like Kroger are now building DTC-style brands with speed and precision.

• Challenger brands like Goodles are proving that operational execution is everything. In food, wellness, and personal care, supply chain is brand.

The future belongs to companies that can balance both sides of the equation:

• Innovate with speed and trend fluency.

• Execute flawlessly on product integrity and trust.

Because in this market, no amount of clever branding can save you from bad execution—and no startup can outscale a giant once the giant decides to play offense.