Snackshot's Andrea Hernández on the non-alc bust, protein overcorrection, and wearables reshaping what we eat

Summary

Andrea Hernández, founder of food and CPG newsletter Snackshot — profiled by the New York Times in the days preceding this appearance — offers a sharp-edged read on where consumer packaged goods is overcorrecting, where it is heading, and what wearable technology is beginning to do to eating behavior.

Non-Alc Has Peaked, Alcohol Is Coming Back

Hernández launched Snackshot five years ago with a piece on the rise of non-alcoholic beverages. Her current view is a reversal. Non-alc beer is the only subcategory she credits as legitimate, because the product genuinely replicates the experience. The broader non-alc wave — functional spirits, adaptogenic mocktails — she dismisses as sugar water with a wellness label. Gen Z is already pivoting back toward alcohol, with Buzz Balls and Hypnotic resurging as cultural references.

Protein Has Jumped the Shark

Hernández reads the protein-fortified-everything moment as a category in terminal overshoot. Protein croutons, protein greens, and Starbucks' protein cold-foam matcha latte — launching September 2025 — are her cited examples of a trend that has gone beyond parody. She flags a health risk dimension: she has been tracking studies suggesting that the volumes of protein Americans are now consuming could produce widespread kidney damage within a decade. The creatine snack wave is already following the same trajectory, with creatine muffins, creatine croissants, and Man's Cereal — a creatine-fortified cereal — entering the market. The science rationale offered by brands, that carbohydrates improve creatine absorption, is real, but Hernández frames the product proliferation as consumer optimism being monetized at scale.

CPG Formation Rate Remains High Despite Institutional Pullback

Even as venture capital has pulled back from early-stage CPG investment, the formation rate of new brands has not slowed, because barriers to entry remain low. Fly By Jing, the chili crisp brand, is cited as a Kickstarter-origin success story. Hernández's critique of venture involvement in CPG centers on timeline distortion — VCs attempting to compress decade-long brand-building cycles into five-year exit windows. She cites Poppy and Siete as the rare cases where sub-decade exits materialized, and frames them as exceptions rather than a replicable model.

Grocery itself has become a status-signaling medium in ways that have no historical precedent. Hernández points to "hype beast grocers" — Erewhon and Happier Grocery — and the phenomenon of consumers spending $30 on an 80-gram-sugar smoothie for social currency. A recent post by Emily Sundberg about a Kith-affiliated members club in New York, where a $6,000 annual membership unlocks access to that same smoothie, is her cited endpoint for clout-driven consumption.

Wearables Are Restructuring What People Eat and Drink

Hernández wrote a deep-dive on wearables and food behavior three years ago and considers it the most structurally important trend she covers. The Whoop and Oura Ring are already changing alcohol consumption patterns — users stop drinking because biometric data makes the physiological cost visible in real time. The next frontier she is tracking is cortisol monitoring. She spoke recently with a company producing cortisol strips that deliver readings directly to a smartphone. She sees non-invasive continuous glucose monitors as the logical endpoint, giving consumers personalized, real-time dietary feedback without clinical intervention.

One specific product she flags is Good Idea, a beverage brand launched by a co-founder of Oatly, built around a proprietary ingredient claimed to blunt post-meal glucose spikes. She frames it partly as the founder attempting to address the blood sugar consequences of the oat milk category he helped build — Oatly has faced repeated criticism for spiking glucose comparably to a Coca-Cola.