Will Anti-Woke Free Press Join CBS? Philip Morris Falls on ZYN Slowdown & Coke’s Cane Sugar Shift

Ed unpacks why Philip Morris’ stock stumbled after its second-quarter report, what Coca-Cola’s results reveal about the state of the junk food industry, and why Bari Weiss’ media startup, The Free Press, is considering a deal with Paramount. Check out our latest Prof G Markets newsletter Order "The Algebra of Wealth" out now Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Follow Prof G Markets on Instagram Follow Ed on Instagram and X Follow Scott on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

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  Hogging seats on a crowded train, not saying, excuse me, watching videos on your phone with no headphones in. Sometimes it feels like we don't know how to act anymore. What we have been seeing increasingly is people breaking rules. Why should I play by the rules if nobody else is going to do that for me? This week on Explain It To Me, How To Mind Your Manners. New episodes Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  We all know the Beach Boys, but to really understand them, you have to get to know the genius behind their songs, Brian Wilson. I'm Will Anderson, and this week on the Monday Music Club podcast, we dive into the history behind two of his masterpieces, The Beach Boys' album Pet Sounds and their song Good Vibrations. I was joined by Brian's biographer, David Leaf, and we went through what drove Brian, what it was like in the studio during those sessions, and why the pressure of following them up made Brian have to take a step back from music. You can listen to the episode everywhere you get your podcasts by searching for Monday Music Club.

• 1:27Ed Elson?

  Today's number, 24%. That's how much owning a dog reduces your risk of dying, according to the American Heart Association. And in other news, Brian Johnson is breaking the internet with his new biohacking routine. It's called 100 Beagles.

• 1:48Speaker 04

  If money is evil, then that building is hell.

• 1:56Ed Elson?

  Welcome to Prof G Markets. I'm Ed Elson. It is July 23rd. Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals. The major indices ended the day mixed as investors digested the latest earnings reports. The S and P 500 hit its 11th record close of 2025, but the Nasdaq had its first negative day in seven sessions as declines in tech stocks weighed on the index. Meanwhile, Kohl's emerged as the next meme stock as its shares surged 37% in a day of volatile trading. The rally came after a high short interest on the stock sparked buzz on Wall Street Bets. You'll probably remember that is the Reddit page where the meme stock movement of 2021 was born. And finally, shares in General Motors fell more than 8% after

• 2:39Ed Elson?

  the company said it suffered a $1.1 billion profit hit due to the tariffs. Okay. What else is happening? The market's surprise outperformer this year, not an AI darling or a defense company, but a nicotine company. Philip Morris has beaten Microsoft and Nvidia in year-to-date returns, thanks to strong demand for its vapes and ZYN pouches. The company reported second quarter earnings yesterday that exceeded expectations. Overall revenue grew 7% year-over-year to more than $10 billion. They also raised their 2025 earnings outlook, and Marlboro also continued to gain ground, notching its highest quarterly market

• 3:18Ed Elson?

  share since 2008. However, despite all of that, the stock fell more than 8%. Investors saw a major problem, which was a reported decline in ZYN shipments for the first time ever. Now, if you're not familiar, ZYN is Philip Morris's line of tobacco-free nicotine pouches. These pouches have absolutely exploded in popularity since they were first introduced to the US market a little over a decade ago. Between 2019 and 2022, unit sales of nicotine pouches in America increased by over 600%. So Philip Morris spotted that trend back in 2022. They acquired ZYN's parent company, Swedish Match, for $16 billion. And since

• 4:02Ed Elson?

  then, Philip Morris's smoke-free business has roughly doubled. In revenue, ZYN shipments have risen 440% and the stock is up about 75%. So a big deal for Philip Morris and its investors. But the question remains, on the back of all that momentum, why did ZYN sales suddenly drop? And what does that mean for investors? Our producer Claire spoke with Jay Edward Moreno, a business reporter at Sherwood News to get the answer.

• 4:30Speaker 05

  The company described it as kind of a normalization of demand. Last year, there was a problem with a shortage of this product. So it seems like maybe wholesalers and retailers overstocked and are taking longer than the company expected to sell that inventory.

• 4:47Speaker 06

  Do you think that basically this is just a story of the stock getting a bit ahead of itself and relying on ZYN a little bit too much for growth from Philip Morris?

• 4:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, it definitely seems like investors expected the growth, which I mean, there has been quite a bit of growth in sales of that product. And it seems like investors kind of expected that ball to keep rolling longer than it actually did. One thing that's kind of important to note about Philip Morris, so like it's actually outperformed the S and P and NASDAQ this year as have other tobacco companies. But it's also for the most part, for most of this year, has also outperformed other tobacco companies because of ZYN, because it has this kind of like really popular brand that other companies have found difficult to replicate or to find something that is as popular as that.

• 5:38Ed Elson?

  So to reiterate, this stock drop was caused by a very small quarterly decrease in ZYN shipments, a decrease that is essentially just a normalization of demand after previous supply chain issues, which doesn't really seem like that big of a deal. But it does start to make more sense when you realize what ZYN is to Philip Morris. And that is ZYN is to Philip Morris what AI is to big tech. It is practically the only thing that Wall Street cares about at this point. You think about Microsoft earnings, Microsoft could report record revenues for Microsoft Office or LinkedIn or Windows or any of their products. But if The AI business isn't growing in the high double digits. We've seen this before.

• 6:22Ed Elson?

  Then Wall Street will suddenly take the stock down. Well, the same is now true for Philip Morris of ZYN. Without ZYN, Philip Morris is a legacy business that is likely on its way out. That is the reality that investors have had to grapple with. Cigarette sales have been on an almost constant decline for the past 40 years. But with ZYN, suddenly there's this world where Philip Morris might be a growth company, a company that has grown revenues 30% in the past five years. So that starts to explain the market's reaction. When ZYN so much as stumbles, the growth narrative starts to fall apart.

• 7:05Ed Elson?

  America's leading beverage company offered a mixed picture of the sector in its second quarter earnings report. Coca-Cola revenue was up 1% year over year to $12.5 billion. That increase was mainly due to price hikes as Coke is doing what many consumer brands are doing right now. And that is charging more to cover inflation. The company also raised its full year earnings forecast slightly. Margins were strong too. Operating margins hit 34%, up from 21% last year, so far so good. And the stock kind of reacted, not really. It closed down 0.6% yesterday. However, there was a problem, and that is that global unit case volume fell 1%. And that includes all sorts of soda.

• 7:49Ed Elson?

  Sparkling flavors was down like Sprite and Fanta. Soft drink volume was down and also trademark Coca-Cola was also down 1%. The one bright spot within soft drinks was Coke Zero. Coke Zero saw 14% volume growth this quarter, and that is not a one off. Coke Zero has had a four quarter streak of double digit growth, which brings us back to something we talked about two weeks ago on the podcast. And that is the Make America Healthy Again movement, the Maha movement, or as we should probably now call it, the Maha trade, whether it's due to Ozempic or. Ingredient bans or just general health awareness. Consumers are now walking away from the junk food that they used to love

• 8:34Ed Elson?

  and opting for healthier options. We're seeing that dynamic reflected in the earnings, not just for Coca-Cola, but for nearly every junk food company in America, from PepsiCo to Mondelez to JM Snucker to McDonald's. As a general rule, if you're in the business of unhealthy food, you're struggling right now. Now, the other side to these earnings that you might have heard about is the announcement of a new Coca-Cola product, and that is real cane sugar Coca-Cola. As you probably know, American Coke doesn't use sugar to sweeten the drink. It uses high fructose corn syrup. Now they'll start using sugar. And this announcement comes just days after President Trump said that the company had, quote, "agreed"

• 9:18Ed Elson?

  to start using real cane sugar in Coke, implying perhaps that he is the one responsible for this decision. Well, we wanted to hear more about this move, why they did it, and if it really was because of Trump. So Claire spoke with Peter Galbo, Senior U.S. Consumer Staples Analyst at Bank of America.

• 9:35Speaker 07

  As you think about cane sugar and Coke and what the addressable set is, right? Of all of the cans of Coke and Coke's products that they sell around the world, the U.S., the red, red can, you know, kind of full sugar Coke is about 4% of what Coke sells globally. Not all of that's going to get converted. Actually, not really any of it is going to be converted. What Coke said today is, hey, we're going to launch an additional product, Coke, that's going to be made with cane sugar, but it's going to be a complement, not a substitute to our existing portfolio. So you're still going to have in the U.S., you know, we use a lot of high fructose corn syrup, and this will be a complimentary product that will get launched.

• 10:19Speaker 06

  I would love to just get your thoughts on This trend we're seeing, there is the Make America Healthy Again investment thesis that's following the GLP-1 trend and the more health-conscious consumers and just declining junk food sales overall. What do you think is in store for companies like Coca-Cola that are playing in that space?

• 10:44Speaker 07

  I think when you look at companies like Coca-Cola and the other beverage companies, they've been significantly less impacted to date. Part of that is that beverage companies have a broader suite or array of products, right? And so what you're seeing is that Coke, or even Pepsi, or even a company like a Bell Ring brands that we cover are beefing up their offerings on things like ready-to-drink protein shakes. So maybe if there's one part of the portfolio that is being impacted by either of these trends, they have other options within the portfolio that are offsetting or more than offsetting from that perspective.

• 11:27Speaker 07

  And so, you know, like the beverage companies are probably at this point less impacted than, say, some of the snacking companies, like the salty snack companies that we cover, where you're seeing, you know, a more concrete shift in terms of the products that consumers are looking for.

• 11:45Speaker 06

  That makes sense. So it seems like your thesis then is that Coca-Cola is pretty well positioned to ride out this wave.

• 11:53Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean Coke has, and what they call it is their all-weather strategy, but what they, you know, they really have a full portfolio. There's no real holes in the portfolio of different need states for consumers that they're not addressing, whether that be caffeine that comes in the form of a Coke, in some formats of coffee, energy drinks, right? And then also a suite of hydration, protein. So you really can start to address a lot of different need states.

• 12:22Ed Elson?

  So to Peter's point, there is a business case for moving towards cane sugar. As he mentioned, Coca-Cola has an all worth the strategy. And right now, the wind is blowing towards healthier food, or at least those that are perceived as healthier. But that perception is where I think it is safe to say the Maha movement is having an effect. In fact, Coke CEO James Quincy acknowledged the president's enthusiasm for a cane sugar version of the drink on the earnings call.

• 12:50Speaker 08

  We're always exploring ways to meet evolving consumer preferences for great tasting refreshment, including with our iconic Coca-Cola brand. As you may have seen last week, we appreciate the president's enthusiasm for our Coca-Cola brand. And as part of our ongoing innovation agenda, this fall in the United States, we plan to expand our trademark Coca-Cola product range with US cane sugar to reflect consumer interest in differentiated experiences.

• 13:15Ed Elson?

  So is this really about Trump? Maybe. But more importantly, this is about keeping up with a movement, a movement not necessarily to be healthy, but certainly to appear healthy. Because whether or not corn syrup is actually worse for you than sugar, the reality is the public is turning against it. RFK Junior called it, quote, "a formula to make you obese and diabetic." So from syrup to seed oils, America is developing an allergic reaction to processed foods. But natural ingredients, clean branding, minimal processing, this is what the Maha movement is all about.

• 13:58Ed Elson?

  And Coke is simply following that trend. After the break, Barry Weiss finds a buyer for her media startup. Stay with us.

• 14:42Speaker 09

  So like any good millennial, I have a love-hate relationship with Gen Z. It's the phenomenon rattling millennials. They just look at you.

• 14:50Speaker 10

  They want something bigger themselves. Lifestyle is a priority. Motivation is being inspired.

• 14:56Speaker 09

  But regardless of how you feel about Gen Z, it's undeniable that they're changing national politics.

• 15:02Speaker 11

  Generation Z is increasingly showing less loyalty to traditional political parties. Many now more likely to identify as independent.

• 15:10Speaker 09

  So what is going on with the kids?

• 15:13Speaker 12

  I think the biggest misconception about Gen Z's politics right now is that all of a sudden they're all socialists. That is just not the case.

• 15:18Speaker 09

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:18Speaker 12

  They are embracing candidates who are offering new, bold ideas in the absence of those ideas from establishment Democrats.

• 15:26Speaker 09

  This week on America Actually, Gen Z researcher Rachel Jamfaza joins us to separate Gen Z fact versus fiction.

• 15:34Speaker 12

  It's not rocket science. And this is, you know, I keep saying like young voters aren't that complicated. After all, it's pretty simple.

• 15:39Speaker 09

  Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 15:45Speaker 13

  I'm Phoebe Judge, and for more than a decade, I've hosted the podcast Criminal, telling stories about people who've done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught, somewhere in the middle. But while I was starting one of the very first true crime podcasts out there, I was also taking phone calls from my sister from prison. This fall, I'm going on tour, and I'm telling a story I've never told before, my own. Get tickets at thisiscriminal.com/live.

• 16:23Ed Elson?

  We're back with Prof G Markets. An anti-woke journalism startup could soon join forces with a mainstream news giant. Barry Weiss has met with incoming CBS News owner David Ellison to discuss a potential sale of her media startup, The Free Press. She is reportedly seeking at least a $200 million valuation. If the deal goes through, Ellison is said to be interested in positioning the media startup alongside CBS News. So. The Free Press, the independent media company, is in talks to be sold to Paramount and eventually rolled into CBS News. A quick refresher, The Free Press was started by Barry Weiss. The idea was to create an alternative to establishment media.

• 17:07Ed Elson?

  You might remember Barry was a writer at The New York Times. She resigned because of issues of wokeness and cancel culture, which she felt was pervasive at The New York Times. And so she started this company, The Free Press, which is very much billed as an anti-woke or anti-establishment media company. They have newsletters, podcasts, they do events, et cetera. And it's all supposed to be kind of the opposite of The New York Times. They're not necessarily conservative, but they are certainly independent or anti-establishment. So it's ironic that this anti-establishment media company is now in talks to be acquired by basically CBS, which is one of the most establishment media companies in America.

• 17:51Ed Elson?

  I don't think anyone had that on their bingo card, but it's worth discussing because it reveals something possibly quite important about the media industry and also where the media industry might be headed. So first off, how did we get here? Well, The Free Press was started because of a frustration with legacy media, not just with The New York Times, but with everything, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, MSNBC, indeed, probably CBS News. And Barry Weiss wasn't alone. The general public was also tuning out of these shows. We saw that in the ratings numbers and we also saw it in the surveys. Fifty years ago, 72% of Americans said they trusted mass media.

• 18:34Ed Elson?

  That number started to slide and last year it hit an all-time low of 31%. For a variety of reasons, which I won't comment on, the legacy media lost its touch. And so eventually we saw the rise of independent media companies, not just The Free Press, but many others too. The Daily Wire, Barstool, Semaphore, Puck, even Prof G Media. Some were more right-leaning, others less so, but they were all united by this common goal of filling in some gap that legacy media couldn't. And it worked. Barry took many readers from The New York Times to her platform. She assembled a fleet of journalists and now the Free Press has more than 1 million

• 19:18Ed Elson?

  subscribers and they generate more than $15 million per year in subscription revenue, a huge success. And so, in the same way that streaming disaggregated or unbundled television, independent media, in a way unbundled, legacy media, and we've watched that play out over the past several years. But this might mark the beginning of a new chapter for the media industry, a chapter that we might call the rebundling. And that is, now that the independent outlets have built their audiences, they've proven their worth, now might be the time for consolidation. This might be the moment where the presidents of Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery

• 20:01Ed Elson?

  and all of the other legacy media companies say, you know what, we're tired of competing with these guys, let's just make them an offer they can't refuse. And that appears to be what is happening here with the Free Press. This independent media company that was originally formed as an alternative to the establishment is now joining the establishment. And it also appears that Paramount is willing to pay whatever to get it. They're paying this very hefty premium, nearly $250 million, for this anti-establishment branding. We could maybe call it the anti-woke premium. So the question then becomes, is this a one-off? Or is this the beginning of a trend? Might we see more rebundling?

• 20:45Ed Elson?

  Could Fox acquire, I don't know, the Joe Rogan podcast, or even the Tucker Carlson network? Could Comcast maybe acquire Substack? Could Prof G Media get acquired? Time will tell. But I will leave you with a famous quote from Jim Barksdale, who is the former CEO of Netscape. He said, quote, "There's only two ways I know of to make money: bundling and unbundling." This has been true of many industries, from software to air travel to insurance, and we see no reason why it won't be true of media as well.

• 21:26Ed Elson?

  Okay, that's it for today. Thanks for listening to Prof G Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Ed Elson. I'll see you tomorrow.

• 21:55Ed Elson?

  You