1. You’re not a food company. You’re a media company.

Gary Vaynerchuk said it on the Expo West keynote stage:

“You’re not a food company. You’re a media company.”

It landed hard. Distribution alone won’t save brands anymore.

Attention will. And attention comes from behaving like a media company, telling your story consistently, creatively and in a way people actually want to follow.

If content and storytelling have been sitting in the “nice to have” bucket, it might be time to move them. Tell stories, show the journey, and create content people want to follow.

Now's the time to tell the world why to buy your product.

2. Protein is still the top claim, but fibre is having a moment. But most brands are getting it wrong.

Fibre is everywhere right now. But most brands are marketing it badly. Not all fibre is the same. Different fibres feed different gut microbes, behave differently in formulations, and deliver very different health benefits.

Yet most products on the Expo West floor said the same thing: “X grams of fibre.” No source. No benefit. No reason to choose. The brands standing out weren’t the ones with the biggest number on pack. They were the ones explaining what their fibre actually does.

When functional ingredients become crowded, the brands that win are the ones who communicate the benefit clearly.

We tested what consumers from Australia, New Zealand, the UK and UK actually think about fibre.

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3. The rise of 'the third shelf'

Agentic commerce was a hot topic at the Expo West seminars - there was a line out the door to get a spot.

Whilst the robots might not be taking over immediately, AI agents and engines are starting to do the recommending (and eventually even the shopping). Searching, comparing, filtering, deciding. Which means your product isn’t just competing on shelf or scroll anymore… it’s competing in an interface.

The “third shelf”.

AI agents don’t care about your brand guidelines, they care about clarity.

What’s in it?
What’s not?
Who’s it for?
Why should anyone trust it?

If your product can’t answer those questions cleanly (and in a machine-readable way), you risk being invisible.

For marketers, this flips the brief. It’s not just about emotional pull, it’s about structured PDPs and content. Think about what consumers are asking, and if your product will show up.

In a world of agentic shopping, discovery isn’t designed. It’s decided.

And increasingly, not by humans.

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