Why food partnerships are only getting bigger

A new rush of food partnerships has flooded beauty, fashion and wellness as brands tap into nostalgia, novelty and new consumer groups.

This includes a laundry list of the expected and unexpected, such as Tower28 and Jell-O, Mane and Cinnebon, On Running and Erewhon grocery stores, Goodwipes butt wipes and Liquid Death water, Too Faced and Yogurtland, Swarovski and Nespresso, Malin+Goetz and Carbone, Logitech and coffee chain La La Land, Dedcool and Emi Jay hair accessories, and a mountain of announcements in Glossy’s inboxes rolling out over the next few weeks. Spoiler: No one saw the forthcoming fashion and food partnerships coming.

“These days, everyone is in everyone else’s business, so to speak,” Ana Andjelic, a longtime fashion executive and co-founder of Tasteful, a hotly anticipated industry symposium taking place in New York on October 15. “Why is a company like Saint Laurent making movies? Why is Carbone or Apollo Bagels creating apparel? Why is On [Running] partnering with a grocery store? [Brands] are all playing multiple roles in culture. … This is all about, ‘How does your IP exist beyond your core business?’”

Andjelic’s CV includes executive roles at Banana Republic, Esprit, Mansur Gavriel, Rebecca Minkoff and more. She told Glossy that Tasteful will center around the developing role food has in fashion and will welcome some of the most innovative executives to its summit later this month, including those from Chanel, Estée Lauder Companies, Goldbelly, Hilton, J.Crew, Kohler, Lyst, Nike and Open Table, among others. In short, interest in this category is only growing.

“A successful partnership is the one that creates cultural capital,” she told Glossy. “If you have fandom, community, a unique aesthetic and point of view, a special callout and context, and something that’s recognizable, [such as a] silhouette in beauty or wellness, and a specific promise that’s differentiated from every other one. … If you create something new in that sense, it’s not just cultural distillation, it’s harvesting culture.”

For Tower28, the clean skin-care brand that sells into Sephora, partnering with Jell-O was an opportunity to expand its consumer base, create media buzz, and drive early holiday sales.

“We’re all trying to stop the scroll, right?” Amy Liu, CEO and founder of Tower28, told Glossy. “This is the attention economy, and it’s so hard to stay relevant. It’s so hard to compete. There are so many brands. I don’t think I’ve ever seen what we’re seeing now.”

The collaboration launched this week in Sephora with two offerings in custom packaging. A Jell-O-scented lip gloss duo for $24 in a throwback Jell-O gelatin box and a pack of mini pudding-inspired balms sold for $20 in a peel-off pudding pack.

Liu told Glossy that Jell-O approached Tower28 for the collab, marking the first of its kind for the Kraft Heinz-owned 129-year-old snack brand. The products smell eerily similar to the real thing since they were scented with actual food-grade ingredients, not fragrance.

The flavors for the collab were selected based on Jell-O’s top sellers — strawberry and lemon lime for the gloss, and banana cream, strawberry cheesecake, chocolate vanilla swirl and pistachio for the balms. The collab will replace Tower28’s regular holiday value kits and will be available until they sell out.

“The unit economics still have to make sense, … but my goal is not to make a ton of money,” Liu told Glossy. “My goal is really to surprise and delight the customer. And in this particular instance, we’re doing it for a value kit, [which] typically is hard to make money on anyway, especially during the holidays.”

Liu and her team are hosting a pop-up in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles from Oct 2-4, offering free Jell-O-inspired treats and products, and will activate at Sephora in the coming weeks. The team also seeded the Jell-O cosmetics to a new rolodex of influencers. “We went out to not just beauty people, but also to food TikTokers and people who are on that side of the world,” Liu said. “We were trying to do something a little bit different with this one.”

As previously reported by Glossy, the intersection of nostalgia and personal care can be incredibly successful. Beekman 1802 used olfactory nostalgia to sell $1 million worth of products from its Nestle cookie collaboration in one hour back in 2023, while a flurry of soda-flavored partnerships has swept the zeitgeist. This includes Pepsi and sunscreen brand Vacation, as well as Poppi soda and Tower28, and Cocokind and Olipop. Then there is the influx of frozen yogurt partnerships with the likes of Kiehl’s, Korres, Crown Affair and Saltair.

Beyond buzzy partnerships, a flood of brands is also launching into the food category without a consumer-facing partner. This includes candy company Brach’s launching Candy Corn perfume, Touchland releasing a range of caramel-scented hand sanitizers and Snuggle releasing sweet vanilla fabric softener, all in the past few weeks.

Of course, it would be impossible to discuss this phenomenon without mentioning the impact of weight-loss drugs like GLP-1s, which have sent the packaged food industry into a tailspin as it tries to reassess consumer desire and demand.

“[GLPs are] impacting culture in a sense that food is now liberated from being consumed and is free to move completely in a static domain, like decoration,” Andjelic said. “A lot of fashion brands are now using food as a backdrop for their shows, events and VIP experiences; they’re creating beautiful food structures that are incredibly Instagrammable. So now, food has really moved into the domain of aesthetics.”

Week in Review

Grande Cosmetics, the 18-year-old beauty brand known for its eyebrow and eyelash serums, has hired actress Lucy Hale as its first celebrity ambassador. Grande Cosmetics sells through Sephora, Ulta Beauty and others. According to the company, Grande is the No. 1 selling lash and brow serum brand in the U.S. Hale, who is best known for “Pretty Little Liars” and movies like “The Hating Game” will appear in the company’s first national TV buy and a 360-degree campaign across digital, social, OOH and in-store events at Sephora, the company told Glossy. “One of the longest-running relationships in my life is with GrandeLASH and GrandeBROW,” Hale said on social media. “Over 15 years later, we finally made it official!” Grande Cosmetics is owned by Performance Beauty Group, parent company to beauty brands like Bondi Boost hair care, and faux lash makers Velour Beauty, Lily Lashes and Flutterhabit.
The Outset, actress Scarlett Johansson’s 4-year-old skin-care brand, is closing. The actress launched The Outset back in 2022 alongside veteran fashion and editorial executive Kate Foster Lengyel. The brand sells clean skin care made for sensitive skin DTC and through Sephora, Nordstrom, Shopbop and others. Lengyel, whose CV includes Meredith Corporation, NYDJ denim, Juicy Couture and Ann Taylor, stepped down as CEO in 2025. The brand posted the following message on its website: “After an incredible journey, The Outset has made the decision to wind down operations. We’re so grateful to everyone who welcomed us into their routines and supported us along the way. Online shopping at theoutset.com has now ended, but all existing orders will continue to be processed as usual.”

Dyson, the vacuum company-turned-beauty tool manufacturer, launched its first toothbrush on September 1 for $499. Then, last week, it quietly removed the toothbrush from its site after an influx of consumers reported the brush breaking or leaking water. Called the Dyson CameraJet, the toothbrush features an electric motor and AI-powered camera to find gaps between teeth to flush with water while brushing, which the company says will help reduce plaque build-up.

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Why food partnerships are only getting bigger: ‘Everyone is in each other’s business,’ plus news