Taika’s Mateverse Goes to Mint
Functional coffee brand Taika’s collaboration with web3 creative community Friends with Benefits (FWB) is coming to fruition this week as the California-based brand announced it will release 400 NFTs for mint on Thursday in support of its limited edition yerba mate launch.
According to Taika co-founders Kal Freese and Michael Sharon, the partnership with FWB – an online community in which members must hold a $FWB token to ensure “shared skin in the game” – began about six months ago and was approved by a member vote in December. The collective effort led the brand to develop a caffeinated mate beverage inspired by European nightlife and club culture, with the packaging and flavor profile chosen through a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) structure.
Freese said the decision to do a club-style yerba mate beverage came from FWB leadership, who wanted to create a web3-inspired version of the cult drink typically associated with the rave and hacking subcultures. Taika held live tasting sessions over video calls with more than 100 FWB members to find the best formulation for the drink.
Nicknamed the “Mateverse,” the co-created beverage is made with L-theanine and organic lion’s mane extract, zero sugar and contains 60 mg of caffeine and 10 calories per 12 oz. can.
“We’ve had a similar approach before of coming up with some ideas internally, come up with a couple of formulations and then testing them with friends, families or customers,” Freese said. “We’re now building a beta testing club within our own customer base, and I think what we did here was to just do it at a larger scale and do it more systematically, which turns out to work really, really well.”
Now, Taika is preparing to finalize the product through an NFT drop. On Thursday, 400 NFTs will be released on the open market for 0.08 ethereum (about $246 as of publication) with a limit of one token per crypto wallet allowed. Holders will receive two versions of the mate to sample and will have until May 9 to use a QR code on the can to vote for which one they prefer. The winning formulation will be mass produced and sold to the public via Taika’s website and NFT holders will have a lifetime 15% discount.
While the FWB collaboration is independent of Taika’s core business, which is built around a traditional retail strategy, Sharon said the project has helped reframe its mission around community and creativity. Although there’s no immediate plans for another web3 project, the company intends to continue playing in the space and working on new ways to create crossover between CPG and digital innovation.
“This entire collaboration has affected how we’ve changed the business moving forward, and how we’re thinking about reframing not just marketing and communication, but also a whole relationship with the promise that we’re giving to consumers and to people,” Sharon said.
gmgn supply co. Launches with Crypto-Inspired Cereal
As major CPG conglomerates dip their toes into the web3 sector through NFT drops and other crypto-inspired marketing campaigns, a new DAO, gmgn supply co., launched this month with the lofty goal to “take on General Mills, Nestle and Unilever” through a decentralized business model. – and it has partnered with cereal maker Off Limits to produce its first brand, gm Cereal.
Billed as a next-generation CPG company with a mission to build a portfolio of 100 brands, gmgn was founded by Phillipe LeBlanc and Mark Homza, co-founders of creative agency Funday. The pair said the inspiration for their first project – a collaboration with cereal maker Off Limits called gm Cereal – came from a November 2021 tweet by Richard Chan – better known as @richerd, the founder of web3 creative platform manifold.xyz – which suggested that “someone should create a new brand of cereal and call it gm,” referring to web3 slang for “Good Morning” (naturally, “gn” stands for “Good Night”).
Homza noted that Funday had already been invested in several web3 projects, but the tweet served as the jumping off point to create a new CPG company run collectively through a DAO. The idea quickly drew the attention of Off Limits founder and CEO Emily Elise Miller, who offered their company’s services to create the cereal. The core team has since expanded to include angel investor Robert Lendvai, former Johnson & Johnson VP Debra Lutz, crypto investor Jon Kane, consultant Aaron Paul and Hilary Dupont, formerly brand marketing director at Milk Bar.
“[We thought] ‘What if a major conglomerate like General Mills or Procter & Gamble or PepsiCo, if one of those were to be born today, what would it look like?’ It wouldn’t look like what it was in the past with the traditional organization,” LeBlanc said. “And then we started saying, ‘Well, it’d be a DAO, it would have hundreds of brands that it would want to launch, it would be built by the community, owned by the community, consumed by the community, right?’ It would be a celebration of all things web3.”
DAOs are run without centralized leadership and decisions are made through community voting, but LeBlanc said that gmgn will have a day-to-day team handling operations while major choices – namely around product and business deals – will be opened up to the community. Currently gmgn is operated as a corporation, but is currently preparing for an expected drop of 2,222 NFTs this summer which will grant holders membership and voting rights in the DAO. Following the NFT launch, gmgn will dissolve the corporate entity and exist only as a DAO, he added.
According to LeBlanc, gmgn will primarily handle marketing for its products, while actual production and distribution will be handled through third party brand partners, Off Limits ideally being the first of many. However, depending on how fast gmgn is able to scale its operations, it may eventually seek to also bring additional logistics under management of DAO members.
Gm Cereal, which is set to launch this summer, will be sold online through Shopify and on Off Limits’ website. The product features – what else – a Bored Ape on its packaging and boxes will come with scannable prizes including free NFTs, token airdrops and physical merchandise.
“We’ve seen learn-to-earn, there’s been move-to-earn, we’re really trying to build this idea of ‘consume-to-earn,’ which is as you consume different products from the gmgn supply co. you get opportunities to earn in NFTs and earn into the DAO and earn token drops from other third parties,” LeBlanc said. “So it’s bringing this idea of how in the past you used to buy cereal and get a toy in the box. So we’re bringing that fun element into the web3 culture, which there won’t be a physical toy, it’s more about having NFTs and kind of digital equivalents.”
Homza added that the DAO model will also help lower the cost of acquisition for attracting new consumers by tapping into a pre-existing online community. LeBlanc noted the “gamified elements” of the free products and the personal stake of DAO members will help word of mouth spread faster, hopefully minimizing marketing spend early on.
While Off Limits is currently the only confirmed brand partner of gmgn, LeBlanc said he hopes gmgn will be able to partner with like-minded CPG startups to produce additional products, noting that gmgn will help brands reach new consumers within the web3 space.
“That will allow us to launch fairly fast because of the fact that once we have done the first [product] and learn from the first one, then it’s a matter of picking the right partners and duplicating that model,” he said.
More Web3 and CPG News from the Industry:
- Baby food brand Once Upon a Farm is exploring web3 opportunities. In a LinkedIn post this week co-founder and CEO John Foraker commented on “how social has [leveled] the playing field allowing #emergingbrands to break through most of the historical power advantages that favored big #CPG in earlier decades,” noting that “#NFT and #metaverse are next frontiers coming fast” as online innovation for brands continues to accelerate. Reached for comment, Foraker said the company is interested in working within web3 and is currently researching opportunities, but has no definite plans at this time.
- CBD brand House of Wise opened bidding this week on an auction for a single “420 1/1 Justice For All” NFT, with bidding set to end at 4:20 p.m. EDT today. Proceeds from the sale will go to the Last Prisoner Project Family Support Fund, which helps families who have been impacted by unjust cannabis convictions. The NFT was created by LA-based artist and cannabis industry activist Emily Eizen. The winner of the auction will also receive a limited-edition Justice For All CBD Gummy sampler box, House of Wise Sleep Drops and House of Wise Stress Drops.
- Functional beverage startup Perfy has released the first in a series of animated shorts promoting the brand featuring founder Vasa Martinez’s NFT “Doodle #3966.” On LinkedIn, Martinez said the series is to promote an upcoming limited edition flavor launch and also ties the brand closer to web3 and metaverse themed content.
