I like making predictions. I find it a good way to focus on trends I have a bet in. Here’s what I expect to happen in 2026.
- More companies are going to shift to Aspirational Immortality thanks to Bryan Johnson’s Don’t Die Movement, as people get more invested in looksmaxxing and living forever
- Big Food is going to scramble and makebig swings internally and externally. The declines that are happening are
making people anxious. Players outside of food will take advantage of this.
- If we see food trends as stock, we’re going to see Protein stocks going down and Fiber stocks going up. I think it will be a leveled rise with one ingredient that might see record breaking numbers.
- With more advancement and more adoption in AI, we will see Gems in A Sea of Slop
- Bonus: Expect a chaotic but growing year in AI
And now I’ll explain:
Aspirational Immortality
Join the cult
10 years ago, we cared about future generations and now we don’t even want kids anymore. This seems to be a global situation that seemed to take a sharp turn after the pandemic. I’ll dub this as a selfish shift.
Meanwhile, a tech billionaire who sold Stripe or Square or whatever, has raised $60 million from celebrities and all that to create a line of products in which the tagline is “Don’t Die”.
I respect Bryan Johnson for really spearheading this movement and investing millions in decent data to show how to live longer. For every weird post about him sucking his son’s blood, recording his shroom experience, and crypto BS, there’s some good information such as the rise in microplastics and the value of strength training.
I recall being invited to the Don’t Die conference in San Francisco thanks to my friend who can somehow hustle her way into anything Luiza Viella and saw this cult-like figure be surrounded by tech bros in the middle of his own conference.
The aspirational immortality movement represents an aspirational goal that sounds wild but has some kernels of attainability. I see this being much more important as we dive into next year.
Most important for brands who want to go into this space is that the goal is so aspirational that as long as you convey your product can allow you to live forever (or make you FEEL like you’ll live forever), you can build attachment to the product even if it doesn’t do anything.
Big Food Panic
Most of the big food companies like Pepsico, Nestle, and Kraft Heinz have suffered double-digit declines as the tech companies received double-digit growth.
Comparison of NVIDIA vs PEPSICO. Hope you didn’t invest in Pepsi!
With the introduction of a lawsuit that targeted ultraprocessed food companies, it’s basically kicking them when they’re down.
If Big Food were doing well, they would shrug this off. Big Tech gets sued so much, but it’s literally a parking ticket compared to the mountain of money they generate or fundraise every year.
With the regulatory landscape shifting into being aware that ultraprocessed food is considered bad for you, Big Food has to pivot.
Two things will happen: Big Food will acquire talent to improve things internally, or acquire companies externally. Both are risks, but Big Food has to be risky to please their shareholders.
We see trends that CPG is eating up market share quite aggressively but because there are just so many CPG brands, the money essentially not only gets micronized, but gets skimmed off the top. The aggregators AKA the retailers, the distributors and the third-party dudes (like me) eat a lot of the profits that would go to brands. The people who post that CPG is eating up the big guys doesn’t have the impact it should because a lot of CPG companies are still making zero profit because there’s too many players taking too much of the share.
But it gives people hope and keeps me employed.
With activist investors plowing through Big Food, you will see a sort of intense scrambling as assets get invested and divested throughout the whole Big Food scene. It’s going to be a rough time for them, but that could be a great opportunity for food businesses.
An example of this is when activist investor Elliot Management targets Pepsico. For those who don’t know, Elliot Management is known to buy shares in companies and aggressively install change in any organization they’re in. In this case, Elliot has agreed to cut product lines and cut consumer price increases to hopefully boost the stock market shares (As of today, Pepsico has lost about 5 years of growth)
Food businesses that were able to propel themselves with cheap capital from the 2010s seem to have the best chance at either taking market share or getting acquired. Poppi and Siete are kind of these early indicators on this: 10-year-old brands that got acquired recently.
But that doesn’t mean that if you are planning to start a food company, to delay it. In my opinion, starting smaller and cheaper, and testing what works as a side project will be vital for most brands.
Overall, we might be seeing a desperate situation pan out for Big Food as they find ways to invest, divest, or get creative.
Protein Stocks Down, Fiber Stocks Up
Why eat real food when I can eat isolated fibers and powders?
As protein gets more expensive, and more scarce. People are looking for a cool new macromolecule to jump on.
We are already seeing some supply chain crunch with a dissolvable instant whey which is now backlogged. This ingredient innovation was scooped up everywhere and if you’ve walked through Target, you might have seen several brands taking advantage of this.
On the fiber side, there are companies big and small, ramping up their research on fiber. It’s not only that they are selling fiber, but they are trademarking and registering fiber as branded ingredients to be used in certain products. They are essentially premiumizing a macromolecule.
If we treat protein and fiber like stocks, you’ll see a gradual decline in protein marketing and a gradual increase in fiber talk. I don’t think we are going to see an explosion of fiber products this year but a lot of my current client base is focusing on protein and fiber regardless.
The protein trend isn’t dying anytime soon, but I do believe protein will flatline or decline in attention and fiber will be more prominent in the conversation. Otherwise, another boring and conservative year for trends.
You will most likely see fiber ingredients backed by decent research popping up as more companies try to glamorize their ingredient.
Gems in a Sea of Slop
Using AI and LLMs is easy. You are outsourcing brainpower. When you critically think, you feel this band of pressure in your brain and I don’t get this when using LLMs. It doesn’t feel like my brain is exercising. In fact, it feels like my brain is eating chips and salsa rather than a hearty meal.
As people keep on using AI to make dumb three-sectioned LinkedIn posts (punchy header, bullet point facts, state solution, do it three times)
I use AI to do a lot of things in my workflow, such as improving audio quality for my podcasts, getting a quick download, and feeling of a certain product
categories, and telling me that I’m good enough consistently (I actually do
have a finance tab where I constantly ask ChatGPT if I’m well-off in life and
it tells me nice things I want to hear) but I don’t bother using it for any
type of user-generated content. It just doesn’t feel like me.
In an attention economy, a combination of great authentic content with the fast-paced technology of LLMs will flood the zone. It’s easy to see what gets attention and what doesn’t. It’s hard to see if social media is embracing AI content or deprioritizing it, or if they are trying a different metric altogether.
A lot of companies are finding LLMs useless because they don’t have the time to understand it. I think there is going to be a lot of content, consultants and grifters who find this as a golden opportunity, so expect more tools and stats on how to use AI efficiently. I myself, am looking into this and I’m betting on paying for an advanced degree to gain access and learn more about how we can actually use this tech better in my field.
So what to do? It’s hard to see if big tech will focus on AI generate content or not. There is a ton of incentive for them to do so.
Overall, high quality and authenticity will matter the most so there will be creators who will take advantage of AI tools, but still find
balance in user-generated quality and authenticity.
What I do think will shift sentiment is that people will be hungry for authenticity.
When we think of the advancements in these LLM models, just a year ago, LLM models failed to make Will Smith eat spaghetti, and now, he eats spaghetti pretty good.
So what to expect? A lot of slop but the gems will be authentic and cool.
All tech, all gains, all cyberpunk
For that don’t know, I’ve spent a lot of time studying tech companies in the wake of this new tehcnology called AI.
Big companies like OpenAI and Nvidia know that Data Centers and chip commitments are a long-term bet and I don’t think that bet will be shorted this year.
In fact, I believe we are in for another double-digit return on investment if you invest in tech stocks.
I do think it will be more turbulent this year as we get super anxious that the stock is overvalued and that people are still very worried about what’s going to happen next year.
In a lot of the tech news podcasts I listen to, there’s been increasing talk of a bubble forming, and the potential to burst. We see a huge investment in CAPEX, and circular deals that I don’t think will stop.
But in general, the anxiety I have looking at stocks every day is annoying, so I’m having enough cash reserves to make me comfortable, especially as I live like a student again in North Carolina.
For me, I’m putting a lot of money into myself and my business. I am using most of the cash I generate and have saved to do 3 things:
- Maxing out my Roth IRA on January 1st to just get it over with
- Investing a decent amount in improving my consultancy and education
- Goofing off cause I have enough money
I expect the bubble to burst eventually and I expect a double digit drop in stocks, but I’m forecasting an opportunity when the bubble does burst as a talent opportunity more than anything.
I think what I’m going to be studying will be important when this happens so that’s where I’m putting most of my chips. I’m putting bets on my own education, in hope I cna be a brighter, smarter thinker in this new age of technology.