Amanda Parker, food manager for Tiktok Shop, told Modern Retail at the Groceryshop conference in Las Vegas that if the platform had initially succeeded with small entrepreneurs, The main CPG players like Mars and Coca-Cola joined Tiktok Shop as an additional channel. There, brands of food and drinks can introduce new flavors or new products, make R&D or offer limited time flavors – things that they may have done historically through a grocery store.

This indicates how, as the platform matures, Tiktok Shop works to integrate a greater variety of brands and help them develop via the platform. For example, he added more established brands to the platform like Crocs and Pacsun. Now he tries to recruit more CPG brands by convincing them that Tiktok Shop is a place where they can test new flavors or reach their super-fans. And, it has become an increasingly important platform for traditional grocers in order to give meaning to what is trendy.

Parker, who about ten years ago worked with Kroger as a framework of Murray’s Cheese, said that the company reflects traditional merchandising tactics used by grocers. Admittedly, Tiktok is not a grocery company – it cannot sell products like fresh meat or products, for example. But,, The company claims that it can help CPG companies determine the products for sale on Tiktok or what new product launches can have meaning. Tiktok says he can also guide food and drinks brands on how to work with creators or if they should buy high -end ads.

“If you are thinking of a grocer selling a final ceiling in a seasonal situation, it’s not so different to drop an LTO and put it in front of many eyeballs” on Tiktok, said Parker. “It’s just that it’s the digital sphere against the person in person [sphere]. “”

Parker refused to share specific growth statistics, but said that Tiktok Shop as a whole increased 120% in annual sliding, and that the category of food and drinks has more than doubled since the beginning of 2024. It is one of the faster categories of the platform, she said. The number of larger brands – those with at least $ 30 million in annual income – joining Tiktok Shop increased 95% in annual sliding in the first half of 2025, said in Modern Retail.

“Basically, as a discovery trade platform, we try to encourage all these brands, sellers, content creators to take advantage of the combination of content and commerce and capture the attention of these 170 million Americans who are already on Tiktok,” said Parker.

However, there remains a large elephant in the room which can concern potential partners: it is not clear who will be exactly the owner of Tiktok in the future and how they can choose to exploit the platform. President Trump signed an executive decree on September 25, paving the way to an agreement that would transfer the majority property of the application to American investors, according to NBC News, but we still do not know who understands exactly. A company spokesperson refused to comment on his property.

A great opportunity for CPG

Tiktok is designed to be self-service; For any brand that joins, there are advice and tutorials to make content or start selling on the platform. The company also hosts programs for sellers in growth mode with seminars or matchmaking. And for the best brands, account managers will help them with things like media plans or assortment strategy, according to Parker.

Parker said that promotions on Tiktok have led to increased awareness that can be seen anecdotally and measured as a halo effect on other electronic, DTC and retail and mortar retail sites.

“If you are a brand that is successful on Tiktok Shop, and you rely on all the things that make you succeed – which include content and often advertising expenses, and often an interaction with your community – you will necessarily have a substantial amount of increased awareness,” said Parker. “Tiktok’s impact is really quite holistic in an omnichannel brand.”

For example, Parker said that the platform has helped Ez Bombs, a family brand of Mexican seasoning products inspired by bath bombs – they are supposed to be deposited in a pot to flavor a meal – a retail distribution at more than 1,000 doors on a national scale, as in the locations of Walmart and Albertsons.

It is a “really interesting example of the cycle where people who started and first supported the platform can then become wider and be more traditional,” said Parker. Earlier this year, in the year following the start of Tiktok Shop, EZ BOMBS managed to sales of $ 19 million on Tiktok Shop, according to Tiktok.

Parker also sees opportunities for much larger brands to take advantage of trends that start organically on the platform. Last year, the Mars candy giant launched Skittles Pop’D, which comes from a trend from Tiktok where people would freeze quays to explode and become crunchy. The product was launched on the Tiktok store last October before a launch of retail this year.

“It is an ideal place for [brands] To obtain very early comments on the articles they want to make R&D, “said Parker.” It is an ideal place for, let’s say, launch a new flavor like Skittles Pop’D, because there may already be a trend they capture. “”

In addition, Parker said that the popularity of the Swedish candy brand bubbles on Tiktok has led him to launch regular distribution in the United States in recent months. This followed the popularity of trends such as “candy salad” around 2023 or 2024, where people threw different candies together in a bowl.

According to Parker, a trend that is not specific to the brand that has become particularly popular this year. Although it is no longer at its peak, “it is a residual flavor profile which is still very popular now,” she said.

The company claims that it can also help brands navigate the emergence of live trade in trade flows. He even offers what he calls “Mega Livestreams”, larger productions where in the food category, people could prepare something, do something, cook something or sample something, “said Parker. For example, Ez Bombs welcomed a livestream for Day of the Dead last year with flash sales and gifts.

“You do all these sets, streaming and production of sales and content,” said Parker, adding that the company can support brands with resources to do this. “It’s still relatively new as a lever, but I think it’s a more way that makes us really unique.”

Tiktok is in an interesting corner where it can be both in competition with grocers for advertising dollars or on the sale of products while joining forces with them on social media campaigns. Bobby Watts, please of Retail Media, Digital Merchandising and Marketing for Ahold Delhaize USA, told Modern Retail that he considered the platform as not different from Facebook or Instagram from Meta.

“They order large dollars on the market. Google also does,” said Watts. “These are large companies that order a lot of advertising dollars, but we see them as a necessary channel. … They have a great way to get involved with consumers.”

The brand’s leaders who sat on a separate panel on the retail media at the conference on Monday explained how they noticed that Tiktok disrupts its marketing, electronic and advertising strategies.

“”[TikTok] Tore and question everything we have built, from the point of view of the process and the point of view of thought, “said Ajay Sharma, vice-president of electronic commerce and omnichannel for the health of Bayer consumers, adding that the platform has challenged how the company approaches the generation of content, syndication and communication.” For us, it is a key emerging channel. “

Katie Neil, connected trade manager for Coca-Cola, said Tiktok had disrupted traditional retail media networks like Amazon and Walmart.

“If you look at Asia – Southeast Asia, like Thailand and Indonesia – Tiktok is actually a legitimate path to the market. It is so influential,” Neil said. “Discoveries become entertainment, and it is very transparent and fluid. But as a announcer, they bring data and a massive unlocking of an audience that the retail media networks simply cannot correspond.”

Before trends

In terms of data on consumer trends, Tiktok has a unique perspective in that the platform can examine which content or hashtags tends to determine what can become a purchase trend before it even takes off in the Tiktok store.

“We jumped from watermelon and mango like a hashtag in summer, all of a sudden, the pumpkin was there,” said Parker. “When I last checked, things like Gingerbread are already starting to tend, from the content of content, which tends to be this main indicator for what we will see popular on the side of the shop a few weeks later.”

Parker said that this discrepancy between content and marketing is when brands have an opportunity, if they can move quickly – whether they are small businesses or large CPG players capable of doing a quick R&D.

“This is what we saw with Dubai Chocolate,” said Parker. “We saw the trend of content started much earlier in Dubai, and it transferred to the platform scale.” She added that the first seller of Dubai Chocolate Products was in the fourth quarter of last year, with a makeup kit which was easy to bring quickly to the market.

He also made excellent content, said Parker.

“You must remember that, no matter what you do … on Tiktok and Tiktok Shop, it must be visually attractive,” said Parker. “So, any transformation or everything that plays in the visuals, whether it is to make a keel or to open a Dubai chocolate bar with green; this kind of ASMR or visual attraction is really, very popular.”