1800Hotline 012 // $1B quarter for On, Cal-Maine goes breakfast, and a family brownie recipe hits retail
On's best quarter ever, a quietly building breakfast empire, and the Byte'm founders built something real before the recipe was even finalized.
Hey DTC Fam,
It’s already Thursday?! The week is flying by with some big news.
On just posted its best quarter ever and the DTC numbers are worth a close read. Cal-Maine is quietly building a breakfast empire one acquisition at a time. And two best friends turned a family brownie recipe into a real retail brand before they even had the recipe finalized.
Let’s get into it.
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This edition is presented by Applied Labs
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Brand We’re Watching: RMBR
RMBR is a green tea kombucha brand that has been on our radar for a while, and this week they made a big move.
The brand just landed a national launch in all 174 The Fresh Market locations across 22 states, rolling out via UNFI starting today. The launch also comes with a full packaging redesign hitting shelves at the same time. That kind of coordinated rollout, new retail partner plus new look, is not easy to pull off and signals a brand that has its operations dialed in.
What makes RMBR worth paying attention to is the path to get here. Fully bootstrapped. Nearly 1,000 retail doors across 26 states since launching into retail in 2023. Strong early velocity at Erewhon and Gelson’s. The Fresh Market is their second-largest single retail rollout to date.
Built for a generation drinking less alcohol and wanting something functional that actually tastes good. No vinegar taste, organic green tea, bold botanicals. One to watch as they scale nationally.
Unwrapped w/ Jacob Tubis and Jack Davis from Byte’m
Most brownie brands feel mass-produced. Byte’m is changing that.
Jack and Jacob, best friends turned co-founders, built Byte’m around a family brownie recipe and ended up with one of the more interesting early-stage CPG origin stories we have come across. Before the recipe was even finalized, they got accepted into Popup Grocer. That gave them three months to go from concept to a fully retail-ready product. They ended up as the number four snack in the entire Popup Grocer rotation.
Retail came first almost by accident. Now they are leaning hard into DTC and TikTok Shop, building out subscriptions, and working on smaller formats designed for convenience and new retail channels.
What stands out is how they think about growth. No massive raise. No over-engineered go-to-market. Just proof that something works, and building from there.
The full story is in the post below. Give them a follow at @bytembrownie.
Main Stories
On Just Had Its Best Quarter Ever. Here Is What DTC Operators Should Actually Take From It.
On just reported its first quarter results and the numbers are worth sitting with.
Net sales reached CHF 831.9 million, the first time the brand has crossed CHF 800 million in a single quarter, with constant currency growth of 26.4% year over year. DTC led the way, growing 28.7% on a constant currency basis. Apparel jumped 45.1%. Asia-Pacific grew 44.4% and now represents more than 20% of total global sales. Gross margin hit a new high of 64.2%.
For context: this is a brand that launched in 2010, spent years being dismissed as a niche Swiss running brand with a weird bubble sole, and is now a global premium sportswear company approaching a billion dollars in quarterly sales.
The DTC number is the one most relevant to this community. On has been deliberate about building its DTC channel not as an alternative to wholesale but as a strategic priority that deepens consumer relationships and protects margin. The result is a business where DTC and wholesale are growing simultaneously, not cannibalizing each other. Apparel as an entry point into the brand is also a signal worth watching. On started as a footwear brand. Apparel is now growing nearly four times faster than shoes. That is not an accident. It is a brand strategy that turned a single-category customer into a full wardrobe relationship.
The macro takeaway for operators: premium positioning, product discipline, and a patient approach to channel strategy compound over time in ways that discount-driven or wholesale-dependent businesses simply cannot replicate. On has been running the same playbook for over a decade. This quarter is what that looks like at scale.
Cal-Maine Foods just acquired Van's breakfast brands from Sara Lee Frozen Bakery.
Maine is a $4.3B egg producer, and they are methodically building a breakfast portfolio that has nothing to do with eggs and everything to do with where Americans eat their first meal of the day. Van's adds waffles and frozen breakfast items to a portfolio that already includes Echo Lake Foods, acquired last April for $258M, and Creighton Brothers, picked up this March for $128.5M. The Van's acquisition is expected to add roughly 10% to Cal-Maine's prepared foods annual sales. Three acquisitions in about 13 months, each one filling a different slot in the breakfast aisle. This is a company with a clear consolidation thesis and the balance sheet to execute it quietly. Worth tracking as they continue to build out the category.
Quick Hits
Sazerac is acquiring an equity stake in SIPMARGS and will distribute the canned margarita brand nationwide. SIPMARGS makes canned margaritas with premium blanco tequila, real fruit juice, cane sugar, and sparkling water. The brand already had serious backer energy behind it including Alix Earle, Michael Rubin, and Steve Aoki among others. Now it has one of the most powerful distribution networks in the spirits business behind it too. A well-positioned celebrity-backed RTD getting Sazerac's distribution muscle is a meaningful unlock for where it can go at retail. One to watch for velocity data over the next two quarters.
Graza just relaunched its potato chip line with four new flavors: Classic Sea Salt, Zesty Caesar, Sea Salt and Vinegar, and Hot N' Sweet. The chips are cooked in 100% extra virgin olive oil and launch today at Target checkout lanes, with broader retail to follow. Graza first moved into chips in early 2024 and the original line sold out multiple times. Doubling down with a refreshed lineup and more flavors is the right call. The brand knows how to make a product drop feel like an event, and their audience shows up for it every time.
Mushus, a new sparkling skincare beverage, officially launched in the UK with two flavors: Raspberry Fizz and Pineapple Fizz. Each can packs 3g of plant-based collagen peptides, hyaluronic acid, organic tremella mushroom, and a clinically backed probiotic strain, with no added sugars or artificial sweeteners. Founded by Bethany Eaton after her own experience with skin health challenges following chemotherapy, the brand has a genuinely compelling origin story and is entering a category that is still finding its mainstream footing. Beauty-from-within has been talked about for years. Brands like Mushus are the ones actually trying to operationalize it. Early stage, UK-only for now, but a founder story and product angle worth keeping an eye on.
Event Radar
SheInnovates — May 28 | New York City
Five years in and SheInnovates keeps getting better.
The summit is back in NYC on May 28, bringing together 200+ founders, operators, creatives, and marketers for a full day built around the conversations that actually matter.
Brand-building in a noisy world.
The future of content and commerce.
Fundraising and scaling in today’s market.
Creative risk-taking and what it really takes to grow something you believe in.
This is not a networking event with panels bolted on. It is designed from the ground up for real connection and real takeaways.
If you are a woman building something right now, this is the room to be in. The 1800DTC community gets an exclusive discount at checkout.
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That’s Field Notes for week 012.
On Running, Byte’m, RMBR, Cal-Maine quietly building a breakfast empire. What is the story from this week that has your attention? Hit reply.
We read every reply.
— Zach and the 1800Hotline Team
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