The story

Prime's new Pop-Tarts deal shows how the influencer-built phenomenon is trying to become something harder to create: a lasting consumer brand.

Logan Paul has spent much of his career demonstrating that attention can be turned into almost anything. Now he has to prove it can be turned into longevity.

Prime, the beverage company Paul launched with his former boxing rival KSI in 2022, is teaming with Pop-Tarts on a line of protein shakes built around three of the Kellogg snack brand's most recognizable flavors: Frosted Strawberry, Frosted Blueberry and Frosted Chocolate Fudge. Each 11-ounce shake packs 32 grams of protein, 150 calories and three grams of sugar.

Prime's website is promoting the collaboration as a Target exclusive, which makes it something more consequential than another social-media stunt: it puts one of the defining influencer brands of the past several years alongside a mass-market American food brand on the shelves of one of the country's biggest retailers.

It also arrives at a complicated moment for Paul and the company he helped make famous.

Prime was one of the extraordinary consumer-product stories of the influencer era. Paul has said the company generated $250 million in retail sales in its first year. Bloomberg reported in 2023 that the brand was on track to pass $1.2 billion in annual sales as bottles became collectibles, retailers struggled to keep flavors in stock, and Prime signed partnerships spanning UFC, WWE and major athletes.

That growth has proved difficult to sustain.

The clearest evidence sits in Britain, where filing is mandatory. Accounts lodged at Companies House show Prime Hydration UK Ltd's turnover fell from £112.2 million in 2023 to £32.8 million in 2024, a drop of nearly 71%. Net profit fell 91.6%, to £312,393. The directors announced a strategic review, describing a shift away from what they called an initial hyper-growth phase.

In the United States, Circana data reported by Darren Rovell in July 2025 put Prime's trailing twelve-month sales down 42%. By that October the brand was tracking to roughly $300 million for the year.

Then the Australian arm collapsed outright. Congo Brands Australia, the Melbourne company that distributes Prime alongside Alani Nu and the MrBeast-backed Lunchly, entered voluntary administration on 7 July. Filings lodged with the Australian corporate regulator show revenue fell from about A$31 million to A$14.5 million, a net loss of A$1.42 million, and liabilities of A$7.92 million against A$84,855 in cash. Inventory had been written down by A$4.57 million. The packaging supplier Orora had already gone to the Federal Court seeking to wind the company up.

There are legal distractions, too. A federal judge last month ordered Paul and KSI designated custodians for electronic discovery in an ongoing class-action marketing case, requiring searches of communications on their personal devices. Court records identify both men as 20% owners and describe them as deeply intertwined with Prime's marketing and business.

That makes the Pop-Tarts partnership interesting for reasons beyond what Frosted Chocolate Fudge tastes like with 32 grams of protein.

Prime began as a masterclass in converting audience into commerce. Paul and KSI did not need to rent someone else's distribution to reach consumers; they arrived with hundreds of millions of social connections and manufactured the kind of launch-day attention traditional beverage companies spend fortunes trying to buy.

But attention and consumer loyalty are not the same thing.

The company is broadening beyond the hydration and energy drinks that created the original craze. It entered ready-to-drink protein this year, and Pop-Tarts gives that young line something Prime once supplied for itself: instant recognition.

For Paul, 31, that makes this a different kind of fight. He has already made the unlikely progression from YouTube provocateur to boxer, WWE performer and consumer-products entrepreneur. Prime's challenge is similarly transformative — moving from an influencer phenomenon into the considerably less glamorous business of becoming a repeat purchase.

Pop-Tarts has been around since 1964.

For Prime, getting next to it on the shelf may be the easy part. Staying there is the test.