Fast Casual Executive Summit

Fast-casual brand collabs: Making partnership pay off

Kelly Gray (Hot Head Burritos) Stacey Kane (chief marketing officer) Lori Primavera (Smoothie King) and Traci Graziani (Kraft Heinz) will present their insights during the session, "From Concept to Counter: What it Really Takes to Launch a Successful Brand Collab” at the upcoming FastCasual Executive Summit, Oct. 4-6 in Arlington, Texas.

September 1, 2026 by Amy Sorter — Writer and Editor, Connect Media

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Traci Graziane, courtesy of Kraft Heinz

Fast-casual brands and consumer packaged goods companies are increasingly turning to alliances to generate buzz, reach new audiences and place well-known products in unexpected places. A well-executed partnership can build social media buzz, introduce a brand to new customers and give consumers a reason to try something familiar in a new way.

But successful collaborations require more than putting two recognizable names on the same menu. Partners need a genuine reason to work together, clear goals and execution plans that don't lead to operational headaches.

Experts will explore the dos and don'ts of successful partnerships during the session "From Concept to Counter: What it Really Takes to Launch a Successful Brand Collab" at the upcoming FastCasual Executive Summit, Oct. 4-6, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. Register here.

Right partner, right fit

Successful collaborations should start with a simple question: Does the partnership make sense to consumers?

The audiences for the two brands don't have to be identical. But they have to share something meaningful, like a behavior, need, occasion or cultural connection. The strongest collaborations typically take something consumers already understand and add an unexpected twist. That can mean leveraging product credibility, cultural relevance, or audience reach.

Stacey Kane, who is the chief marketing officer for several brands, told FastCasual that the collaboration between Ziggi's Coffee and Kraft Heinz's Philadelphia Cream Cheese, which produced an "Everything Bagel" latte, worked because consumers didn't need an explanation.

"Everything bagel and cream cheese is a flavor people already have an opinion about," she said.

"They know what it tastes like before they read the menu board."

Kelly Gray, president & CEO of Hot Head Burritos, said the chain's collaboration with Frito-Lay on the Flamin' Hot Cheetos Burrito followed a similar formula.

"This gave our existing guests an exciting new menu item from a brand they already loved," she told FastCasual.

That means fast-casual operators should look for adjacent audiences, shared customer demographics, compatible brand values and cultural relevance.

Smoothie King vice president of research and development and product marketing, Lori Primavera, said the brand pays attention to cultural and nutrition trends when considering potential partners.

That helped make collaborations with Grillo's and Heinz a natural fit.

Kelly Gray, courtesy of Hot Head Burritos

Pickles had been generating cultural buzz and were also tied into hydration trends, leading to the Pickle Smoothie made with Grillo's pickles. Meanwhile, the Heinz Tomato Ketchup Smoothie tapped into the "is ketchup a smoothie?" debate, allowing Smoothie King to engage consumers in the conversation.

"In both cases, the ideas were bold, but they still had to have a real nutritional benefit," Primavera told FastCasual.

More than selling stuff

Before developing a product, partners should determine exactly what they want the collaboration to accomplish. Goals can range from driving traffic and sales to increasing visit frequency, reaching a new audience or giving one brand access to the other's equity and customer base.

Additionally, a good collaboration should accomplish something that neither brand could achieve as effectively on its own.

The Philadelphia Everything Bagel Latte allowed Kraft Heinz to showcase its product in a new format. The collaboration represented Philadelphia's first beverage innovation and Ziggi's first savory latte.

"We're always looking for new ways to showcase the versatility of our cream cheese," Traci Graziani, head of brand marketing, Kraft Heinz Away from Home, told FastCasual.

"Neither brand would have gotten there quite as naturally without the other," Graziani said.

Sometimes the objective is less about the individual product and more about creating a different consumer experience. That was the foundation for the Luckin Coffee/Duolingo partnership.

"Learning a language and grabbing a coffee are both daily rituals, so bringing those experiences together made perfect sense," Luckin Coffee head of marketing Mai Shi told FastCasual.

Digging into the operations

An effective collaboration should provide something new and compelling without upending the restaurant's day-to-day operations.

Gray said operational execution can be challenging because every new ingredient or limited-time offer can affect purchasing, inventory, training, food preparation and service. To minimize problems, the process should be simplified, employees should receive detailed training, and products should be tested in restaurants before a systemwide rollout.

"The guest should experience something new without our team feeling like they're learning an entirely new business," Gray said.

Stacey Kane, courtesy of Stacey Kane

Advanced planning is also essential. For example, the Philadelphia/Ziggi's project took nine months from the initial conversation to launch, with much of that time devoted to formulation, sourcing and systemwide distribution. Communication was also critical throughout the process.

"We brief the franchise advisory group before the announcement goes out," Kane said.

"Operators finding out from a press release is a wound you give yourself."

Beyond the metrics

"Increase in sales" is an obvious metric for determining the effectiveness of a collaboration. But sales alone don't tell the whole story.

Shi said Luckin Coffee tracks first-time customer visits, app downloads and new registrations, as well as campaign-specific offers and limited-time menu sales.

"We also analyze consumer behavior during the campaign to understand whether we're reaching people who are new to the brand or encouraging existing customers to visit more frequently," she said.

Graziani said user-generated content and social listening are also important measures of a collaboration's effectiveness.

"This is what we focused on to determine whether consumers specifically sought out Ziggi's because they heard about the Philadelphia Everything Bagel Latte," she said.

Other measures can include repeat visits, loyalty-program activity and increased cultural relevance. If the consumer brand also discovers a new use case or audience for its product, that can represent another win.

"What I want to see is that the drink pulls cars in, rather than just moving our regulars from one drink to another," Kane said.

The long term: Keeping the customers

The real test of a successful collab is whether customers stick around after the collaboration ends. Operators can use loyalty data, repeat visits and purchases outside the collaboration menu to determine whether a limited-time product has created lasting customer interest.

"A limited-time collaboration may be what introduces someone to Smoothie King, but we want them to leave with an appreciation for the broader menu and care that goes into every recipe," Primavera said.

Lori Primarvery, courtesy of Smoothie King

Ultimately, fast-casual collaborations should go beyond putting two logos together and hoping for media attention. The goal is to create something that makes sense to consumers, can be executed efficiently and gives both partners meaningful value. Ideally, it also gives customers a reason to return after the novelty wears off.

"A collaboration that generates headlines but creates operational headaches or low-margin sales isn't a long-term success," Gray said.

"We want to see profitable sales that continue after the promotion ends."

Kelly Gray, Stacey Kane, Lori Primavera and Traci Graziani will be panelists in "From Concept to Counter: What it Really Takes to Launch a Successful Brand Collab" at the upcoming FastCasual Executive Summit, Oct. 4-6 in Arlington, Texas. Register here,

Mai Shi, courtesy of Luckin Coffee

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About Amy Sorter

Amy W. Sorter is an award-winning journalist, copywriter and content producer. Sorter has generated quality articles, blogs and thought leadership pieces for multiple industries during her many decades as a writer. Her byline has appeared in local and national publications including the American Business Journal, Connect CRE, Bankrate, CURE Magazine and the Dallas Morning News.

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