For most of the last decade, "next big consumer brand" basically meant "next big beauty brand." That era is closing.
The shift Anastasia Shtompel mapped in her widely-shared carousel is the same one our discovery rail keeps surfacing: the next wave of consumer brands is moving into categories people already engage with every day, and quietly upgrading them.
Consumers are not just buying products anymore. They are buying routines, rituals, identity, convenience and healthier alternatives that fit their lifestyle.
1. Functional drinks. Energy, protein, prebiotic, electrolyte, focus, mood. Poppi and Olipop rebuilt soda around gut health. Gorgie and Update made energy drinks for people who read ingredient labels. Alani Nu turned functional caffeine into a Gen-Z lifestyle category. The category is growing because it combines a daily ritual with a real problem to solve.
2. Wellness in easier formats. The pill-and-powder era is fading. Grüns turned a multivitamin into a gummy. Lemme made hormone and intimacy support chewable. David Protein engineered a bar from the macro spreadsheet up. Arrae packaged herbal protocols into capsules people will actually take. The throughline is friction reduction — wellness that fits into a life, not the other way around.
3. Alcohol alternatives and modern social drinking. Ghia, Kin Euphorics and 818 Tequila are reframing what an evening looks like — non-alc aperitifs, adaptogenic euphorics, and premium spirits poured in smaller pours. The category is winning because the social ritual stays; the hangover doesn't.
4. Healthier snacks. Snacking is being rebuilt. Khloud reframed popcorn as a protein vehicle. The bar is no longer "is this delicious?" — it's "more protein, cleaner ingredients, better macros, healthier positioning." People will keep snacking; the only question is whose snack.
The new playbook: upgrade a behaviour people already have, instead of asking them to change completely.
5. Other hot lanes to watch. Pet wellness — supplements, gut health, "human-grade" care. Gen Alpha products — the next generation is already influencing household spend and will be the buyer in five years. Modern twists on traditional categories — Hot Girl Pickles reimagined the pickle aisle; Fishwife turned tinned fish into a design-led lifestyle brand.
What ties all of these together is the same insight Merit Beauty quietly bet on first: the product is a vehicle for a routine, a ritual, an identity, a social signal. Beauty isn't the hottest niche because beauty was never really the point — daily life upgraded was.
If you're building in this space, three rules: pick a behaviour people already do, make the upgrade feel obvious in the first 30 seconds, and design the brand so the ritual is shareable. The next decade of consumer wins are hiding inside the verbs people already use.
