The beauty and wellness industries, traditionally reliant on offline retail, are witnessing a significant shift towards digital-first brands. This change is driven by consumer demand for personalized and technologically advanced solutions.

Oddity Tech is at the forefront of this transformation. The company is blurring the lines as a consumer-tech organization, specializing in building and scaling digital-first brands in the beauty and wellness sectors. Known for notable brands like Il Makiage and SpoiledChild, its success has been driven by its advanced technology platform, which utilizes data science, machine learning, and computer vision to enhance the online shopping experience.

Catering to tech-savvy consumers seeking personalized beauty and wellness products, the company’s approach is unique in the industry. It uses cutting-edge data science and artificial intelligence to understand consumer needs and preferences, creating tailored product recommendations. Instead of creating products that customers would need to try in a store, Oddity uses its data to make to spawn a shift from traditional in-store experiences to a more personalized, online interaction.

The company’s innovations include everything from AI-driven data matching of consumers, a creator-powered media platform, along with advanced computer vision technology that captures images in more detail than traditional techniques. By leveraging its technology suite not just for its existing direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands, which are surging, but also by helping third parties exploit the advanced data available, Oddity aims to disrupt the market, traditionally dominated by legacy retailers.

Launched in 2018 by brother and sister duo Oran Holtzman and Shiran Holtzman-Erel, the heart of Oddity’s business model is its proprietary technology and the billions of data points it has collected from its tens of millions of users. The Holtzman siblings foresaw the potential of a tech-driven approach in an industry largely governed by conventional retail methods. By prioritizing data-driven insights and digital marketing strategies, they have adeptly positioned Oddity as a leader in a new era of beauty and wellness.

The company’s journey began by focusing on developing a platform for a portfolio of beauty and wellness product brands, leveraging advanced data mining techniques in its DTC marketing efforts. Oddity builds out new products and brands by using its tech to figure out what customers are looking for. Then, it goes to its suppliers to create the tailored products.

Il Makiage and SpoiledChild have experienced rapid growth and have a substantial online following. However, the company’s IPO in 2023 marked a significant milestone, aligning with its strategy to expand its portfolio by introducing new brands and collaborations.

The Holtzman co-founders have played and continue to drive pivotal roles in the company’s evolution and success as chief executive and product officer. In addition to their strategic vision to transform Oddity into a technology-centric company, the business has seen substantial growth under their leadership.

Oran, with his background in business management and accounting, brings a strategic and financial acumen that has been crucial for the company’s robust financial performance and market expansion. Shiran, with keen product insight and understanding of consumer preferences, has been pivotal in developing Oddity’s unique product lines.

Together, they have successfully balanced the demands of technological advancement and rapid growth, with synergy that continues to drive the company’s success.

Oddity is reshaping how consumers interact with and purchase beauty products through its DTC business model. The company has made significant strides in integrating technology, specifically in machine learning, computer vision, and biotech, to develop its unique brands.

Oddity’s first brand, Il Makiage, works to select the perfect foundation match for any skin type with its “powermatch quiz”, an AI-driven product recommendation algorithm. The quiz takes customers through a series of questions about their skin type and tone and then scans a picture of their face. The algorithm then determines the correct shade with a 90% accuracy rate, which keeps customers coming back repeatedly. Furthermore, with detailed data from over 40 million users, Oddity’s models are getting smarter all the time.

Targeting a new generation of consumers with a personalized approach to beauty care, the company launched SpoiledChild in 2022 as a wellness brand that matches consumers to their perfect hair and skin products based on their unique profile. The proprietary machine learning engine provides tailored recommendations for each consumer, matching them with the exact product or sequence of products that fit their needs and preferences. With an initial range of 17 products, including hair and skin serums, SpoiledChild caters to a broad customer base aged 25 to 55, formulating products and providing recommendations based on data points gathered from focus groups and the company’s original Il Makiage brand.

The company’s products are designed to cater to a diverse range of beauty and wellness needs, appealing to a broad spectrum of consumers. This inclusivity and focus on personalization have made Oddity offerings particularly attractive to a digitally savvy clientele, which includes a new generation of consumers that are moving away from the industry’s incumbent views on getting older. Oddity is neither anti- nor pro-aging, deviating from traditional incumbent marketing strategies, but instead allows consumers to find what is right for them by offering an individualized approach to age-control.

The innovative products are backed up with sustainable refillable packaging and an auto-refill system that is made to last and reduce waste in line with modern customer expectations. Reusable dispensers and recyclable capsules enable consumers to replenish their routine and ensure the formula’s efficacy from start to finish.

By offering a seamless online shopping experience and growing the brands from zero to over $250 million in online revenues in only three years, the company has categorically disrupted the vast beauty and wellness market, which is valued at over half a trillion dollars.

Oddity is delivering a highly differentiated proposition with its innovative approach to product development and market strategy in the beauty and wellness industry. As a digitally native and purely DTC retailer, it is setting itself apart by leveraging its technology and analytics to not only meet consumer demands, but also offer a unique opportunity to scale brands both internally and externally.

A significant portion of Oddity’s workforce comprises technologists, bringing fresh perspectives to an industry traditional focused on efficiencies rather than data. This approach allows Oddity to use technology to discern what customers want, leading to highly specific product briefs for suppliers. This specificity ensures that new products are based on extensive data analysis and tailored to meet consumers’ evolving preferences.

Active engagement with customers on social media drives brand awareness and gathers valuable consumer insights to fuel further innovation. This customer-centric approach, combined with high margins and strong profitability, bode well for a sustainable growth trajectory.

In addition to continuously improving its intelligence capabilities with ever-increasing data, the company is also seeking complementary advanced technology to bolster its offerings. The acquisition of Voyage81, a deep-tech AI-based computational imaging start-up, is allowing the integration of functions like mapping and analyzing skin and hair features, detecting facial blood flows, and creating melanin and hemoglobin maps using a regular smartphone camera. This technology is being integrated into Oddity’s Il Makiage powermatch quiz, aiming to enhance accuracy, which could potentially replace traditional dermatological assessments by human doctors.

In April, the company also made a $100 million strategic investment by acquiring Revela, a biotech start-up, and establishing Oddity Labs in the United States to address problems like hair loss and wrinkles. The lab’s focus on creating new molecules, a technique borrowed from the pharmaceutical industry, represents a novel approach in the beauty and wellness sector. By 2024, Oddity Labs is expected to introduce ten new products, projected to contribute significantly to the company’s revenue over the next five years.

Since its U.S. launch in 2018, Oddity’s gross sales have not only delivered impressive year-over-year growth to reach $324 million in total revenue in 2022, but the company has also achieved profitability.

Its momentum is showing no signs of slowing either. Oddity’s latest quarter was its best third quarter ever, exceeding guidance and spurring management to increase its sales and profit outlook for the full year. Sales for the first nine months of 2023 have already exceeded $411 million, following 60% growth, driven by both Il Makiage and SpoiledChild brands across markets and products.

Adjusted EBITDA came in at $91 million as investments in technology and data capabilities over the past five years are enabling the company to continue to grow quickly without damaging its high margins and strong profitability.

Oddity is also in a strong financial position with $164 million of cash and short-term deposits and no debt on the balance sheet.

Looking ahead, management is forecasting to close out FY23 with total revenue between $493 million and $497 million, representing year-over-year growth of close to 53%, matching consensus expectations. Management also boosted earnings per share expectations to $1.23, also in line with analysts’ estimates and more than double the prior year at $0.54.

Oddity is standing out in the industry as both a DTC retailer and a tech-centric company. Its unique business model, which currently relies entirely on online sales, places it in direct competition with established giants such as Unilever, Estée Lauder, Shiseido, Revlon, Procter & Gamble, L’Oréal, and Avon. These competitors dominate the market with their extensive product lines and strong customer loyalty, posing a significant challenge for a rising brand like Oddity. Particularly, when considering a lack of physical stores could hinder its ability to gain brand recognition and appeal to in-person shoppers.

Conversely, the company’s focus on being a tech and data-driven company that operates cosmetics lines has proven to be a valuable key differentiator. This approach has enabled Oddity to resonate deeply with a tech-savvy customer base and leverage advanced data analytics for personalized offerings. With its unique positioning and potential to scale its technology, the company is carving out a distinctive niche in the market, bridging the gap between traditional cosmetics and the digital age.

Oddity Tech is pioneering a paradigm shift in the beauty and wellness industry with its digital-first, data-driven approach. With innovative use of technology, strategic investments consistently enhancing its product offerings, and a customer base that is responding strongly, the company looks well-positioned for continued success and growth.

With a population of over 300 million people, and faring highly in rankings of consumption per capita, the U.S. requires a lot of food. One player that has been helping to service this enormous need for decades is Performance Food Group Company. PFGC controls a massive network consisting of scores of distribution centers delivering more than a quarter of a million food and food-related products to over 300,000 customer locations across the United States and Canada. These customers include everything from restaurants to schools, businesses, hospitals, vending distributors, and much more. In addition to food products, the company also offers value-added services that seek to leverage its industry expertise and influence.

PFGC operates across three segments – Food Service, Vistar, and Convenience. Foodservice offers a broad line of products, including custom-cut meat and seafood, as well as products that are specific to customers’ menu requirements. Vistar is a leading national distributor of candy, snacks, and beverages to vending and office coffee service distributors, retailers, theaters, and hospitality providers. While the Convenience segment is one of the largest foodservice and wholesaler-distributors in the convenience retail industry, offering a wide range of merchandise including cigarettes and tobacco, food, groceries, and health and beauty care products.

In recent years, the company has achieved an impressive record of growth despite challenging macroeconomic circumstances, as it employs a broad-based strategy for growth that seeks to increase sales, grow segments and markets, improve operating efficiencies and actively pursue some critical strategic acquisitions. For the most recent of which, post-integration activities continue to unlock incremental value as the company emerges strongly from the covid pandemic.

PFCG roots go back to 1885 when James Capers began peddling groceries for a wholesaler in Richmond, Virginia. Fast forward almost a century, as the U.S. food distribution industry saw larger members acquiring smaller distributors to secure a greater share of the market, Capers business grew into Pocahontas Foods, which distributed branded products to restaurants and foodservice outlets across the U.S.

The business continued to grow and evolve through the mid-1980s as its leaders had a vision for a new company that would bring together a network of distributors with the corporate support to become an industry giant.

Performance Food Group was born in 1987 and subsequently debuted on the NASDAQ in 1993. Although it was acquired by Wellspring Capital Management and Blackstone Group for $1.3 billion in 2008, the company ultimately went public again on the NYSE in 2015. Along the way, it grew with acquisitions and mergers including snack food distributor, Vistar, and Italian foodservice company, Roma Foods, among others, which has taken the organization to 112th position in the Fortune 500 rankings.

PFGC’s leadership team includes several foodservice industry experts that are innovators in procurement, warehousing, supply chain management, customer service, and delivery.

Company veteran and chairman of the board of directors, George Holm, has been with the group since its merger with Vistar Corporation in 2008, when he became president and chief executive officer of PFGC. Prior to that, he served as president and CEO of Vistar, which he founded in 2002. Holm grew Vistar, a multi-channel food, snack and beverage distributor, into a $3.5-billion company that was purchased by the Blackstone Group in 2007. During his 40-year career in the foodservice distribution industry, he has also held leadership positions with Alliant Foodservice, US Foods, and Sysco Corporation.

Holm is joined by fellow company veterans Craig Hoskins and Pat Hagerty, who currently serve as PFG president and chief operating officer, and executive VP and chief commercial officer, respectively. The pair also have origins with Vistar going back to 2008 and 1994, having held various senior positions through the company, along with extensive careers in the food service industry.

Across its Food Service, Vistar, and Convenience segments, PFGC has an enormously broad range of customers covering independent and chain restaurants, schools, business and industry locations, hospitals, vending distributors, retailers, convenience stores, and theaters, among others. Utilizing its huge network of more than 150 distribution centers, the company provides more than 250,000 products. These products are sourced from various suppliers for which PFGC serve as a key partner by providing them access to its vast customer base. In addition to the products it offers, the company provides value-added services which allow customers to benefit from its industry knowledge, scale, and expertise in the areas of product selection and procurement, menu development, and operational strategy.

The Foodservice segment markets and distributes food and food-related products to restaurants and other institutional “food-away-from-home” locations. It offers customers an assortment that ranges from “center-of-the-plate” items such as beef, pork, poultry and seafood, along with dry, fridge, and frozen products, as well as cleaning and kitchen supplies. Independent customers, predominantly include family dining, bar and grill, pizza and Italian, and fast-casual restaurants. Whilst chain customers are multi-unit restaurants with five or more locations and include fine and casual dining quick-serve restaurants, as well as hotels and healthcare facilities.

In the Vistar business, vending operators comprise the segment’s largest channel, where a broad selection of vending machine products is distributed nationally. Additionally, Vistar is a leading distributor of products to theater chains and the office coffee service channel. The platform now also includes hospitality venues, concessionaires, airport gift shops, college bookstores, corrections facilities, and impulse locations in various brick-and-mortar big-box retailers. The company also provides Merchant’s Mart locations which are cash-and-carry operators where customers generally pick up orders rather than having them delivered.

Finally, PFGC’s Convenience segment offers a comprehensive range of products, marketing programs, and technology solutions to approximately 50,000 customer locations in the U.S. and Canada. Customers include traditional convenience, drug, grocery, liquor, and other specialty and small format stores that carry convenience products.

Despite various macroeconomic factors including labor shortages and the covid pandemic having an enormous impact on the food service industry, PFGC has managed to not only perform resiliently, with the company returning to pre-pandemic sales by April 2021, it has also emerged with impressive growth since then, thanks to unwavering expansion efforts. The company continues to benefit from expanding sales and synergy improvements resulting from its most recent integrations of Eby-Brown, Reinhart, and Core-Mark over the last three years.

Initially announced in 2019, PFGC acquired Eby-Brown Company, a leading U.S. distributor of pre-packaged candy, snacks, specialty beverages, and tobacco products in the convenience industry. The addition to PFGC’s Vistar segment brought with it over $5 billion in sales and expanded its reach to 75,000 locations, making it the largest service in the country, along with the second largest in overall non-tobacco convenience volume.

At the same time, the acquisition of Reinhart Foodservice, positioned PFGC as one of the largest distributors in the U.S., adding approximately $30 billion in annual net revenue, while putting it on track to generate approximately $50 million of annual run-rate cost synergies across procurement, operations, and logistics, ultimately leading to low double-digit EPS accretion.

Finally, the addition of Core-Mark Holding Company brought one of the largest wholesale distributors to the convenience retail industry in North America also into PFGC’s Vistar segment, with close to $17 billion in net sales, a further $40 million of annual run-rate net cost synergies, and additional positive EPS accretion.

Whilst throughout and post the pandemic, PFGC’s strong focus on pizzerias provided revenue stability, the company has a diverse mix of products and services under both private and national branding. Giving it a compelling competitive advantage and differentiation, and creating a long runway for ongoing growth and the potential to further increase its profit margins.

Accordingly, the company’s key growth strategies continue to focus on increasing its mix of sales to street customers, such as independent restaurants, which typically use more value-added services, particularly in the areas of product selection and procurement, market trends, menu development, and operational strategy. Sales to these customers typically generate higher operating margins than sales to chain customers, therefore the company is continuing to invest in its street sales force across both hiring and utilization of technology.

This investment is also being applied to boosting the range and sales of PFGC’s already extensive list of proprietary-branded products including Bay Winds, Brilliance, Empire’s Treasure, First Mark, Guest House, and Heritage Ovens, along with many others, which are the company’s highest margin products.

Building on a stellar 2022 financial year which saw PFGC’s revenues increase over 60% year-on-year to $47.2 billion, the company has started 2023 strongly with net sales for the first quarter growing almost 42% to $14.7 billion compared to the prior year period. The increase was primarily attributable to the acquisition of Core-Mark which added over $3 billion, along with an increase in selling prices as a result of inflation.

Gross profit also grew almost 38% to $1.6 billion compared to the prior year period, thanks to procurement-related gains and growth in the higher-margin independent channel. As a result, despite a 26% increase in operating expenses to $1.4 billion, net income for the quarter increased $91 million year-over-year to $95.7 million.

Looking ahead, PFGC is encouraged by the latest results which put them on track to exceed their original forecast for 2023 and to hit the three-year outlook it provided at its Investor Day in June. The company now expects net sales to be in the range of $57 billion to $59 billion, aligning with consensus estimates and representing year-over-year growth of 14%. It also has a three-year target of $62 million to $64 billion in revenue, also in line with consensus estimates, and $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion of adjusted EBITDA in fiscal 2025. Furthermore, full-year earnings per share for 2023 are forecasted to improve by 42% to $3.70 per share, up from $2.60 in 2022.

The foodservice distribution industry is highly competitive and without exclusive service agreements, customers quickly switch to other distributors if they are sensitive to lower prices, differentiated products, or customer service that is perceived to be superior. In addition to two of the largest broad-line distributors, Sysco Corporation and US Foods, which have international and national footprints respectively, PFGC also competes with numerous regional, local, and specialty distributors. Yet, with the belief that most purchasing decisions in the foodservice business are based on the quality and price of the product and a distributor’s ability to fill orders accurately and with timely delivery, PFGC’s economies of scale in purchasing and logistics allow it to offer a broad variety of products at competitive prices, whilst offering extensive geographic coverage that allows customers to grow.

The industry continues to be influenced by several general macroeconomic factors, including inflation and interest rates, fuel prices, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and related supply chain disruptions and labor shortages. Whilst operating conditions for PFGC improved significantly due to the declining adverse effects of the pandemic, it may continue to face challenges as the recovery continues.

Emerging strongly from the challenges of the last few years, PFGC has achieved impressive top-line growth which only looks set to continue along with margin improvements as it builds on share gains with independent customers, coupled with further synergies and cross-selling opportunities following the acquisition of Core-Mark.