First Taste NYC: A Behind the Scenes Look at our Offers Launch
On Saturday, June 27th, the day before Summer Fancy Food Show kicked off, we threw open the doors of a Union Square space and invited New York's CPG community in for a first look at something we'd been quietly building for over a year: Hummingbirds Offers.
It was a room full of real shoppable Nests, real product, and real people discovering their next favorite brand the same way they always have, through someone they trust telling them "you have to try this."
We called it First Taste, and if the energy in that room was any indication, the creator-to-cart gap just got a whole lot smaller. Offers had gone live just a week earlier, so the whole afternoon was built to show CPG brands and creators exactly how it works, from browsing a Nest to sharing an offer to earning cash back on a verified purchase.
Offers Is Live: Straight From Emily
Hummingbirds CEO and Co-founder Emily Steele opened the afternoon with the story behind the moment, and honestly, it's worth hearing in her own words.
From that first city (Emily's own backyard of Des Moines, Iowa) to landing in New York as the 78th official launch market, Hummingbirds built a network of 60,000+ creators solving one very real problem for CPG brands: awareness at retail. But there was always a question waiting at the end of every brand conversation.
The answer turned out to be sitting in everyone's grocery bag the whole time.
That aha moment became a year of building a receipt engine, teaching creators how to use it, and bringing brands along for the ride. As of the Monday before First Taste, Offers officially went live.
It's the always-on affiliate layer that e-commerce has had for 30 years and retail has never gotten to touch. Now it's live, and CPG brands are already lining up to see what it can do for their own hero products.
Enter the Nest: Curation You Can Actually Shop
Alongside Offers, First Taste introduced the room to the Nest, Hummingbirds' answer to a question every discovery-driven shopper has already been asking themselves: how do I actually find products from people whose taste I trust?
We put that idea directly in front of attendees, including one shopper and former personal chef who didn't hesitate when asked what her Nest would look like.
That same shopper gave us a peek into what her real pantry finds actually are, and it's basically a Nest waiting to happen:
That's the whole magic of a Nest in one quote: a curated list of real favorites, shared the way you'd share it with a friend, except now it's shoppable and every purchase gets tracked back to the person who made the recommendation.
For First Taste, we brought three Nests to life in the room, each with its own point of view.
Emily's Essentials
Emily Steele's own Nest was a love letter to the products actually living in her kitchen and gym bag, from Slate's chocolate protein milk to Graza's olive oil to Molly's Suds laundry powder. It's the pantry, fridge, and cabinet of someone who's spent four years discovering CPG brands for a living, and it shows.
Attendees couldn't stop grabbing from the snack table stocked with Nest favorites. One popcorn fan summed up the appeal of BjornQorn's caramel kick and Brami's lupini beans perfectly:
That same attendee had strong feelings about the chip situation too:
And a BON Pop taste test, part of Emily's Nest, won over a first-timer on the spot:
Even the Ringa cans, tucked into the Nest for a refreshing break between conversations, got a shoutout:
The Indie CPG Drop, Curated by Amrit Richmond
Amrit brought her signature eye for up-and-coming indie brands to the room, pulling together a Nest anchored by two live Offers, Banza's wheat penne protein pasta and Dropps' dishwasher pods, alongside favorites like Joolies dates, Cocojune coconut yogurt, and Aloha's chocolate cherry bars.
Joolies stole the spotlight more than once. Express Checkout's Nate Rosen couldn't stop talking about the date sours:
Hummingbirds' own Kelly had her eye on a specific flavor for the season ahead:
It's exactly the kind of discovery-to-delight moment the Nest was built for: a curator's pick, a first taste, and a new favorite in the making.
The Express Checkout Edit, Curated by Nate & Jenna
Nate and Jenna, the duo behind Express Checkout's Weekly Pickups and Real Receipts, built a Nest packed with the brands their readers can't stop asking about, from Vermont Creamery's maple chipotle goat cheese to Belgian Boys waffles to a wall of One Trick Pony peanut butter and popcorn.
One Trick Pony was the runaway hit of the afternoon. One attendee, a candy shop owner from Fort Greene, Brooklyn, called out the caramel crunch peanut butter popcorn as her top pick of the day:
Another attendee gave it a full taste test on the spot, complete with a score:
And Goodles, a fixture across the room and in more than one attendee's cart, got its due too:
The Brands Feel It Too
Attendees weren't the only ones paying attention. We've been testing Offers with a small group of early beta brands, and the same theme kept surfacing in their feedback that we heard across the room all afternoon: people trust a recommendation from someone real, and brands have been waiting for a way to prove it.
"Hummingbirds has been one of the most authentic ways we've found to build awareness at the local level. With Offers, we're going to be able to see that connection in real numbers — tying creator activity to verified in-store purchases is something the industry hasn't had before."
"What excites us about Offers is the opportunity to better connect creator engagement with shopper behavior. Having visibility into verified in-store purchases helps us understand what's resonating and make smarter decisions as we grow."
That's the creator-to-cart gap, made real, one conversation and one receipt at a time.
See How Campaigns and Offers Work TogetherWhat's Next
First Taste was our biggest celebration yet, but it's really just the starting line. Offers is live, and the always-on retail affiliate layer CPG brands have been waiting for is finally here.
Thank you to everyone who came out to Union Square and made First Taste feel like exactly that: a first taste of what's next for creator marketing at retail.
