While restaurants have been selling their products in supermarkets and convenience stores for decades — from frozen White Castle sliders to TGI Fridays mozzarella sticks — recently, foodservice CPG has entered a new social media-conscious era.
Recently, Starbucks collaborated with Stanley (the makers of the uber-popular insulated tumbler) to sell a $49.95 “Winter Pink” 40-ounce Starbucks cobranded cup, available exclusively at Target on Jan. 3 to celebrate the new Starbucks winter menu. Collaborating with multiple trendy brands to market a limited-edition item to the core Gen. Z demographic was a recipe for virality: Long lines of customers waited outside of Target before dawn to grab their tumblers (limited to a few dozen per Target location), and the coveted cups are already reselling for $350 on eBay.
This is not the first time Starbucks has partnered with Stanley to release a tumbler; there have been two other cobranded limited-edition cups in the past. However, these were not exclusively sold at Target, so they were not quite as rare as these bright pink editions. Target received a similar overwhelming reaction to two non-Starbucks-branded red and pink Galentine’s Day Stanley cups that dropped on Dec. 31, which have also been quickly selling out.