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Read time today: 3:31 min
Hi friend,
It’s Friday morning. You are reading VITAMIN C 🍋.
Welcome to the new readers who signed up in the last two weeks. You are in good company.
As always I hunted down 5 food insights that deserve your attention.
Here they are:
1. [Insight] 🟣 Bye bye ube, hello purble tomato
A lab in Norwich (UK) gave a tomato two genes from the snapdragon plant. The tomato now produces anthocyanins, the same pigments found in blueberries, which is what turns it purple. The study came out in Nature Biotechnology back in 2008, and the EU funded the research at the time.
The US gave the green light in 2022 and 2023, with approvals from USDA and FDA. Then came Australia, where the tomato is now on shelves as “Purple Bliss”. The producer says it sold out within a week.
As a nutrition scientist, I can tell you that anthocyanin levels are easy to measure. Whether the tomato is as healthy as berries is a different question, because it also depends on how it interacts with the rest of the plant. That part is still open.
It isn’t approved in the EU. As a genetically modified plant, it would need its own authorization process.
What I find interesting here: the color purple is having a moment, first ube, now the tomato. On top of that, a nutrition story in the fresh produce aisle meets the GMO debate.
Trends move fast, but the research behind this one didn’t. It took 18 years to get from the study to the first shelf in Australia, which is a lot of patience for a tomato that sells out in a week.
More details here.
2. [Insight] ☕ “Just a Regular Coffee, Please”
Yesterday at an event, someone behind me at the coffee bar said, “Just a regular coffee, please.” It got me thinking, while I was happily sipping my cappuccino.
Flat white, cappuccino, cold brew. At some point, plain filter coffee became a special order.
I get the feeling something similar is happening in the supermarket right now: premiumization, or you could call it gentrification.
Yogurt, muesli and bread now come in high-protein versions. The simple version slides to the bottom shelf. The add-on used to be an option. Today, the basic one is the exception.
Even the classics are joining in. Kölln sells high-protein oat flakes with twice the protein, and Dr. Oetker has a high-protein pudding powder.
The reason: sales volumes are flat, so prices have to grow, and a claim is the cheapest way to justify them. Startup pioneers get rewarded for it. Poppi went to PepsiCo for just under $2 billion. Barilla just bought the better-for-you mac and cheese brand Goodles for $750 million.
I’m convinced there’s still room between private label and premium for a well-made basic. Sometimes innovation also means making the normal easy to find again.
3. [Insight] 🪩 Eggs with a disco balls
In Southampton (USA), there’s a waitlist for eggs. Other people wait for daycare spots or apartments, here they wait for eggs. The price is $43 for a dozen, which works out to $3.58 per egg.
Casa Milli from Connecticut delivers blue, green, cream and brown eggs. The hens eat organic feed with herbs, live in a coop with a chandelier and a disco ball, and are named Cher, Oprah and Grace Kelly.
It sounds absurd, but there’s a consumer trend behind it: many people want to know how an animal lived, and they’re willing to pay for it. Here in Germany, the number on the egg tells you how the hen was kept: 0 for organic, 1 for free-range, 2 for barn.
The story from the Hamptons, a very wealthy area near New York, is a one-off. It still works as a signal though, because it shows once again how much smart storytelling can turn products into luxury goods.
More details here.
On my last business trip back from London, I tucked the Biscoff cookie I got on the plane into my bag. I knew someone at home would be happy about it. And it struck me that I only really know these cookies from planes.
So I did a bit of research.
In 1986, Delta Airlines brought the Belgian family business Lotus on board. Lotus had been baking speculoos since 1932 and called it Biscoff, short for “biscuit” and “coffee”.
Today Delta serves 70 million packs a year, and many other airlines have followed. Lotus’s revenue in 2025 was €1.36 billion, up 10% on the year before.
What I find interesting here: it was probably an accidental but strategically smart move. A go-to-market built around the coffee moment on a plane, where people often have no wifi anyway and plenty of time to pay attention to their snack.
5. [Fun] 🍏
What do you do when Apple uses your mascot as a product name?
You bring fruit.
Two weeks ago, Duolingo showed up outside the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York. It was the launch day of the iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable iPhone, starting at $1,999.
The green owl, which is also called Duo, wore a shirt styled like an Apple Store uniform and pushed a cart of Granny Smiths.
The apples were free, with a “Do your lesson” sticker and a QR code to the app.
There were also posters in minimalist Apple style that read “This is Duo”.
A phone for $1,999 on one side, an apple for $0 on the other.
For me, this shows how well food can work even in tech guerrilla stunts. You don’t need an elaborate product for fruit to become part of a joke.
Stay awesome,
Lia
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