Expo West signals, Levi’s selling Dockers, and tools helping operators understand customers better.
Some trends creep up slowly. Others hit you all at once.
Expo West was a good reminder of that. Protein is suddenly everywhere. Snacks, desserts, ice cream. The category has moved from niche to default almost overnight.
At the same time, brands and retailers are simplifying in other ways. Levi’s is shedding Dockers to focus on the core business. Meanwhile, marketers are starting to question whether hyper-personalization has gone too far.
Different stories. Same underlying theme.
The brands winning right now are getting sharper about what actually matters. Clear products. Clear audiences. Clear signals from the data.
In this issue we look at the protein boom, the tradeoffs of personalization, and the tools helping operators understand customers and scale content faster.
Let’s dive in.
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David and the “protein everything” moment
If Expo West made one thing clear this year, it’s that protein is no longer a niche. It’s the default.
Protein claims showed up everywhere across the show floor. Chips, brownies, desserts, pretzels, and snacks are all being rebuilt around protein as the primary benefit.
One of the brands leaning hardest into that shift right now is David, the high-protein snack company known for its extremely macro-focused positioning.
The brand is now teasing protein ice cream, reportedly packing around 30g of protein per pint with minimal sugar. Instead of reinventing the category, they’re doing something simpler: taking a familiar indulgence and upgrading it nutritionally.
That strategy mirrors what we saw across Expo West.
Courtesy of Stack3d
Consumers don’t necessarily want entirely new foods. They want the same foods they already love, just with better macros.
Ice cream becomes protein ice cream.
Chips become protein chips.
Candy bars become protein bars.
💡 Operator takeaway: The biggest food trends rarely invent new habits. They upgrade the ones consumers already have.
Right now, protein is the nutrient driving that shift.
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The DTC world moves fast. These are the stories worth your attention. The ones showing where strategy, spend, and consumer trends are headed next.
Levi Strauss officially sold Dockers to Authentic Brands Group, signaling a sharper focus on the Levi’s brand itself while letting licensing specialists scale secondary labels through partnerships and distribution.
For legacy brands, this kind of portfolio cleanup is becoming more common. Companies are realizing that managing multiple brands internally can dilute focus and operational energy.
💡Operator Takeaway: Focus is increasingly the growth strategy. Many brands scale faster when leadership concentrates on the core product and lets partners handle adjacent assets.
Retailers have spent years building personalization into ecommerce, but a growing number of consumers say the practice can feel invasive when it goes too far. Roughly one-third of shoppers report discomfort with brands tracking behavior like browsing patterns or predictive recommendations.
Experts now say the real challenge is not whether to personalize, but how to do it without breaking trust. The closer personalization gets to prediction or inference, the more likely customers are to feel the brand is acting in its own interest instead of theirs.
Courtesy of Retail Dive
💡 Operator takeaway:
Personalization should feel helpful, not creepy. The safest rule is simple: if you cannot clearly explain to a customer why their experience is personalized, you probably should not be doing it.
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March 12, 2026 | Virtual Webinar | 2 pm EST
Shoptalk brings together brands, retailers, and commerce tech leaders to talk about what’s actually working across e-commerce and omnichannel right now. For operators, it’s one of the best places to pressure-test ideas, meet partners, and get ahead of where retail and DTC are heading next.
March 24-26, 2026 | In-Person | Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas
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