TastyCo

5 food stories from this week that are worth 2 minutes of your time:

1. Only 14% of food brands grew this year 🤯

Morning Consult checked 2,800 brands and found just 14% gained buying interest in 2026, a five-year low. Last year it was 94%. The winners were mostly old names people already trust, and the fastest-growing brand of all was Mr. Pibb, a soda Coca-Cola brought back from the dead.

2. PepsiCo turned a TikTok trend into a product 🥤

Dirty soda (soda mixed with cream and fruit syrup) blew up on TikTok and at a Utah chain called Swig. PepsiCo bottled it: Dirty Mountain Dew and Mug Vanilla Howler are now in stores, and the company says the trend hasn't even peaked.

3. Mondelēz wants cookies to beat chips 🍪

The Oreo and Chips Ahoy! maker is going after the $19 billion US cookie market with zero-sugar Oreos, mystery flavors and TikTok Shop, because younger shoppers get bored fast and cookies are slipping out of their snack rotation.

4. California is about to label "non-ultraprocessed" food 🥬

Lawmakers approved the first statewide seal for foods that are not ultraprocessed, modeled on the USDA Organic label. It's voluntary, but big grocery stores will have to put cleaner options where you can see them. Still needs the governor's signature.

5. General Mills and Mars are suing the sugar industry ⚖️

Together with Little Debbie's maker, they claim top sugar producers shared secret pricing data and pushed sugar to record highs. The producers control about 65% of the market. The food giants want triple damages.

Put it together, and one thing stands out: attention is the scarcest thing in food right now. Consumers decide which food brands win, and the ones people keep coming back to are the ones worth backing early.

Back next Friday with a fresh batch. Don't spoil your appetite.

Not every food brand is set to become the next Starbucks. Here's how to spot the ones showing early signs:

1. Metrics

Start with the numbers the brand can't fake: royalty rate, orders per day, distributions already paid to stakers, how many markets are live, etc. On TastyCo, this data comes straight from the delivery apps.

2. Scalability

A great restaurant is not always a great brand. Ask: can this menu work in 10 cities without the founder standing in the kitchen? Delivery-native concepts with simple menus travel best, which turns a $20K launch into a multi-market brand.

3. Brand appeal

Warren Buffett drinks five cans of Coca-Cola a day. He also owns a large stake in the company. He backs what he uses. Apply the same rule here.

Run a simple test: Would you order this brand twice? Would your friends?

Also, strong brands have a clear idea, a name people remember, and a face behind them, whether that's a chef, a creator, or a family recipe with a story.

4. Community

Backers are the early signal. How many people already stake the token, how active they are, whether they talk about the brand without being asked. A brand with 1,000 fans who order every week beats one with 10,000 followers who never do.

Metrics show what the brand is today. The other three show what it can become.

Do the research, then back the ones that pass at least three out of four.

TastyCo is three products working as one ecosystem, and $TASTY is what holds them together.

Here's how the whole thing works:

1. Fundraising platform

This is where food brands get born on-chain. A brand sets its starting market cap, mints its token, and opens a curated token sale on TastyCo. We check every brand before it goes live, so what you see on the Discover page has already passed our filter. Early backers get in at the starting price, before the token hits the open market.

2. Trading terminal

Once the sale closes, the token trades 24/7 with a live order book and real-time price discovery. Every order the brand gets routes a royalty to the token contract, automatically buying back and burning the brand's tokens. The asset behind the ticker is a food brand people actually order from.

3. Questing

The entry point for everyone else. Complete quests, earn points, climb tiers from Newcomer to Ambassador. Points turn into $TASTY at TGE. It's how you build your position in the ecosystem before you've spent a single dollar.

Now the part that connects all three: $TASTY.

• Hold $TASTY to get first access and whitelist spots when new brands raise
• Brands pay launch fees in $TASTY, and founders can use it to unlock their next milestone faster
• Fee discounts and a staking boost for holders
• A portion of every fee across the platform goes to $TASTY buyback and burn

So the more brands launch, the more they trade, and the more people quest, the stronger the token at the center gets.

If you weren't watching food news for the last 7 days, here's the catch-up:

1. PepsiCo is pivoting to fresh food 🥑

The maker of Doritos and Pepsi is pushing into fresh groceries like guacamole, hummus, and gazpacho, chasing a $271 billion part of the store. All because shoppers are moving away from processed snacks toward fresher food, and even the biggest processed-food company can't ignore it.

2. Nestlé is selling off $1 billion worth of vitamin brands 💊

The food giant agreed to sell seven supplement brands, including Nature's Bounty and Ester-C, to a private equity firm. It's part of a bigger push to shed brands and focus only on its strongest ones.

3. Young shoppers are ditching big brands for store brands 🛒

Gen Z and millennials drove 81% of the growth in private-label (store brand) sales this year. Younger buyers care less about famous names and more about value, health, and new flavors.

The old food giants are under pressure, cutting and reshuffling, while younger people move toward fresher, newer, better-value brands.

The power is shifting from the big names to the next generation of brands.

More fresh out of the oven next week.

We’re getting started in 30 minutes!

Join us for the first Tasty Friday X space!

We will be speaking about RWAs and innovation in the sector with @eightlends team.

Event Details:
• Where: X space
• Date: Friday, 11 September
• Time: 2 PM UTC

We’ve also got $100 worth of $TASTY to giveaway to those who ask great questions and join the conversation.

Set your reminder here 👈

People underestimate how much money a good food brand actually makes. So here's the math.

Take a Korean fried chicken brand in Riyadh. One location does around 260 orders a day at an $18 average check. That's about $4,700 a day, $140,000 a month, roughly $1.7 million a year, from a single kitchen.

Now put 12 of those across the Gulf. That's over 90,000 orders a month and around $20 million a year, still growing close to 30%.

And it's all real cash from real orders. People get hungry, they order, the money comes in.

The whole point of TastyCo is that we take that real revenue and put it on-chain, where every order and every royalty is visible, and where the people who back a brand earn a share as it grows.

TastyCo x 8lends partnership begins today!

We’ve partnered to drive innovation in the RWA space and show the world the true potential of tokenization.

Expect shared AMAs, events, and other exciting initiatives.

Starting with a giveaway: $300 in $TASTY and $300 in vouchers on 8lends!

Requirements:
• Follow TastyCo and 8lends
• Like & RT this post
• Tell us what excites you most about RWAs

Winners will be announced next Monday.

The world's biggest food brands all have a ticker, a live market where anyone can buy a piece.

But the best taco spot in your city, the ramen place with a line out the door, the coffee brand everyone's obsessed with? You can't own any of them.

Out of 22 million restaurants in the world, fewer than 50 are something regular people can invest in. That's basically zero.

We think that's backwards. Every food brand with real growth potential should have a ticker, a market cap, and a price that moves as the business grows.

If people love a brand and help it grow, they should be able to own a piece of it.

That's what we're building. Every food brand with growth potential deserves a ticker. We're here to give them one.

Here's what happened in the food world in the first week of autumn:

1. Restaurants are hiring less and leaning on AI 🤖

New report says only 49% of operators plan to add staff this year, down from last year, while 85% say they'll use AI more. Digital orders keep climbing, and they ring up about 28% bigger than dine-in.

2. Corporate catering is booming again 🥡

Offices are the fullest they've been since 2020, and companies are ordering lunch in bulk. The average catering order runs about $350, versus around $35 for a normal lunch, and restaurants that cater are growing faster than those that don't.

3. A major food-safety outbreak hit the US this summer 🤯

A parasite called Cyclospora, spread through contaminated lettuce, sickened an estimated 31,000 people, with many cases traced to a single supplier and to Taco Bell. It showed how one problem in a highly consolidated supply chain can quickly go national, and how hard it is to trace.

4. Chipotle handed its ads over to 100 creators 🌯

Instead of a scripted commercial, it sent 100 creators into its kitchens to film how the food is actually made, with no script and no brand footage. The message: "we're gatekeeping nothing." A big bet on transparency and creator-led marketing.

The food industry is being reshaped fast, by tech, by cost, and by trust. And trust comes down to transparency. The brands that open up earn it.

That's the week. See you next Friday.

Every giant food chain started as a trend before it was a household name. Here are three we're watching right now that could produce the next one.

1. Chicken is beating burgers.

Chicken has become the fastest-growing category in fast food. In recent data, chicken concepts grew their customer base by 27% in a year, while burger traffic actually fell. The next global chain could be built entirely around chicken.

2. Coffee and cold drinks are exploding.

Beverage is the single fastest-growing category right now, up nearly 57% in sales and driven almost entirely by new customers. Drive-thru coffee brands are opening at a wild pace. Somewhere in there is the next Starbucks.

3. Bold global flavors are going mainstream.

Sweet-and-spicy, Korean, and Middle Eastern flavors are taking over menus and going viral online. The next breakout brand could be built on a flavor the world is only just discovering.

Spotting these trends early is one thing. Being able to back the brand behind them is another.

That's what TastyCo is built for. The next global chain is forming right now, and it could be something you own a piece of before the world catches on.

Most crypto launches lack transparency, which often stops retail investors from doing proper research. That's how people get burned.

TastyCo is built the opposite way. Before you invest, you can actually know what you're backing.

Here's how we protect investors:

1. We verify every investor (KYC).

Everyone who takes part is identity-checked. It keeps the platform clean and compliant.

2. We verify every brand (KYB).

A brand can't just show up and raise money. We check the business behind it, its owners, and its operations before it's allowed to launch.

3. We publish a full report on every brand.

Each one comes with a report covering its revenue, track record, operations, and key numbers.

On top of that, the funds sit in ring-fenced, audited accounts, every royalty is visible on-chain, and the contracts are audited by Hacken, a top-3 security firm.

We can't promise a brand will succeed. No one can. But we can promise you'll always know exactly what you're backing.

DYOR.

Here's what happened in the food world this week:

1. Starbucks just had its biggest sales weekend ever 🦄🥤

It brought back the Unicorn Frappuccino for only two days and sold more than 2 million of them. That single weekend pulled in 28.5% more traffic than a normal Saturday.

2. Burger King rebuilt its chicken nuggets after customers called them "rubbery" 🍗👑

The chain took the feedback seriously, reworked the breading, marinade, and sauce, and even had kids test the new recipe. The upgraded nuggets launch September 1.

3. Pizza Hut temporarily changed its name to "Hut" 🏈🍕

For football season, the chain dropped "pizza" from its name, a nod to the "hut" quarterbacks call out before a play. It's part of a campaign with NFL star Josh Allen, and fans who post a video yelling "hut" can win free pizza for life. The name goes back to normal after August 31.

4. Papa Johns is selling off its own restaurants 🍕

The chain sold 28 of its corporate-owned locations in Orlando to franchise operators, part of a plan to run "asset-light" and let experienced franchisees own more stores. It follows a rough stretch, with falling sales in eight of its last nine quarters.

The takeaway: the food giants never stop fighting for your attention. Starbucks did it with hype, Burger King by listening, Pizza Hut with a name change, and Papa Johns by reshaping its business.

Behind all of it is one truth: a brand is only as strong as the people who choose it.

TastyCo takes that one step further and lets those people actually own a piece of the brands they love.

Join us for the TastyCo AMA and Poker event this Friday!

We will host a poker tournament and answer all community questions while playing.

Top 5 players will share $350 in $TASTY.

Event Details:
• Where: TastyCo Discord
• Date: Friday, 28 August
• Time: 2 PM UTC

Join Discord for details.

Restaurants are the last giant industry still locked off-chain. Changing that is our whole end goal.

Right now, a $4T food industry is almost impossible to invest in. Fewer than 50 restaurant brands are open to regular people. Everything else sits behind private deals and franchise minimums.

Here's the world we're building instead.

Every food brand, from a grandma's recipe to a global chain, gets a ticker, a market cap, and a market anyone can join for as little as $1.

You find a brand you love. You back it early. You earn a share of its revenue as it grows. All on-chain, from anywhere.

And it builds on itself. More brands bring more people, more trading, and more rewards flowing back to holders. The bigger it gets, the stronger it gets.

The final form of TastyCo is the global exchange for food. The place the whole world goes to launch, back, and trade the brands it already loves.

That's the end goal: the last great industry still off-chain, finally open to everyone.

All the ways to earn $TASTY airdrop explained.

Here’s how you can support TastyCo and qualify for rewards at TGE.

1. Join the $100,000 airdrop campaign.

Complete quests across Zealy, Galxe, TaskOn, and the TastyCo app. We’ve also added two new social quests for content creators and active supporters, with more coming as platform goes live.

Important: registering and completing quests on the TastyCo app is mandatory to qualify for the airdrop.

You can find all the links in our Linktree or Discord.

2. Earn Discord roles.

These community roles come with additional $TASTY rewards:

• Creator - granted to consistent creators producing high-quality content.
• OG - granted to the most active and valuable contributors.
• Ambassador - granted to ecosystem leaders making long-term, partner-level contributions.

3. Join events and contests.

Participating in AMAs, contests, and community events can earn you $TASTY allocations, bonus points, and Discord roles.

Keep an eye on our X and Discord announcements so you don’t miss the next opportunity.

Food is moving faster than most people realize. So each week we'll catch you up on the most exciting news from the industry in 30 seconds.

First edition, here we go:

1. A new survey shows how obsessed people are with fries 🍟

In a US poll, 82% said they've chosen a fast-food spot just because they were craving its fries. 60% have ordered an extra portion so they wouldn't have to share, and 72% think serving soggy fries should count as a food crime.

2. McDonald's and Shell launched a joint rewards deal 🍔x⛽️

McDonald's loyalty members, nearly 210 million of them, can now turn their points into money off at Shell gas stations. It shows how valuable a big, loyal customer base has become. Brands are starting to treat it as a currency of its own.

3. A restaurant in China opened with no human cooks 🍴🇨🇳

In Hangzhou, more than 10 robots do everything: stir-frying, boiling noodles, brewing coffee, making ice cream, and cleaning up. At the entrance, an AI even scans your face and tongue to recommend a dish.

The common thread: food today is about much more than the meal. It touches cravings, loyalty, and technology.

See you next week!

TastyCo x HAI AMA is getting started in 30 minutes.

Don’t forget to tune in!

Join us for the TastyCo × HAI AMA this Friday!

We’ll break down the upcoming @hackenai round, how $HAI holders can participate, the benefits for stHAI holders, and what happens to the contributed $HAI.

Event details:
• Where: X Space
• Date: Friday, 21 August
• Time: 2 PM UTC

Come learn how the round works and what it means for both communities.

Set your reminder here.

TastyCo Meme Contest is here!

Create an original meme featuring FoodFi or TastyCo in any way. The more creative, the better.

$300 in $TASTY for 6 winners:

1st - $100
2nd - $75
3rd - $50
4th-6th - $25 each

How to enter:
• Create your meme
• Post it on X and tag @tastyco_io
• Send the post link in Discord channel “memes”

Entries close at the end of this week. Winners will be announced next Monday.

Let’s see how fun TastyCo community can be. 👀