On Whatnot, the next big thing in livestream shopping isn’t sneakers or Pokémon cards — it’s sour gummies and seafood.
Last summer, the platform began selling shelf-stable food like candy and snacks, serving up everything from Scottish shortbread to Japanese Kit Kats. Then, a few weeks ago, it ventured into what it’s calling the “fresh food” category, including fish filets and rib-eye steaks. Whatnot’s food category grew 30% month-over-month from July 2025 to January 2026, per data the company shared with Modern Retail. Total transactions for that category increased 2.5x in that time, as well.
Whatnot is now working to boost its food offerings, both on the supply side and the demand side, as 2026 gets underway. The platform is reaching out to people who sell candy and snacks online and then teaching them how to move larger batches of products on a livestream. The category is different from others on Whatnot because it’s less niche and has a lower barrier to entry than, say, a luxury handbag, said Armand Wilson, vp of categories and expansion at Whatnot.
“This is the first category we’ve launched where pretty much anyone can be a buyer,” Wilson told Modern Retail. “I think food and bev is going to be massive on Whatnot. [Initially] I wasn’t fully sure. But now that I’ve seen some people go live, I’m so, so bullish on it.”
Food for thought
The food business is still nascent for Whatnot, so certain divisions are seeing eye-popping sales increases. Sales of Hershey’s, for example, were up 13,190% from July to January, while sales of Reese’s were up 3,485%. For a special-edition Jolly Rancher sold on February 11, three batches of about 900 units sold in under five seconds. By comparison, a sports card seller recently sold nearly 200 Prizm Basketball packs in five seconds.
There are different ways food sellers can participate on Whatnot. Months ago, it was common for candy sellers to fill up “grab bags” or “grab boxes” with different brands and flavors that people could bid on. Now, special-edition drops are becoming popular. The Jolly Rancher livestream, for instance, focused on its new “Heat Wave” gummies. Whatnot sold a collectors’ box version, in partnership with VaynerMedia CEO Gary Vaynerchuk, who sells on Whatnot as veefriends.
The box came with candy, postcards and stickers. Only 1,055 units were available. Vaynerchuk hosted the stream, which peaked at 2,300 concurrent viewers. “We all grew up with Jolly Ranchers,” Vaynerchuk said in a promotional video on Instagram. “My sister and I are freaking out about this.”
Wilson said food drops are ripe for a format like live-selling, where people can explain the “why” and the “how” behind wacky flavors or unusual textures. “You can obviously buy these on a static product page, but you wouldn’t be able to really understand the story behind it,” Wilson said. “For candy, where there are hype moments, we can become a home for that.” He added that Whatnot sees spikes in buying and selling around certain candy-centric holidays, like Halloween and Valentine’s Day.
International snacks, too, are enjoying momentum on Whatnot. Sales are up 388% from July to January. These include offerings like Cadbury Creme Eggs from the U.K., Turtle Chips from Korea and Sakura Kit Kats from Japan — all items that may be harder to find in the U.S. While some of the sellers in this category reside in other countries, most of the time, they’re U.S.-based sellers who are going on vacation and sourcing candies and snacks abroad.
From upstream to livestream
It’s not just shelf-stable foods that are taking off. A few weeks ago, Whatnot began offering fresh foods like fish and meat, a dream of CEO Grant LaFontaine, who grew up in Maine.
“We’re essentially getting fishermen to go live and say, ‘I caught this lobster yesterday or this morning, and I’m selling it to you today, and I’m going to overnight it to you,’” Wilson said. “I also watched someone yesterday selling Tomahawk steaks. It’s one of the most interesting use cases of live shopping I’ve seen.”
Whatnot hasn’t publicly marketed the fresh food category, but the streams already have “hundreds of people” tuning in, Wilson said. “We’ve barely scratched the surface of what this could look like,” he said. “We’re not on the boat today, but we’re on the dock.”
Seafood and meat, unlike the dry goods, ship on dry ice. Whatnot is in talks with FedEx and specialty fresh-food shippers to speed up logistics. Whatnot is hand-onboarding sellers like butchers and fishmongers, all of whom “have to have a license to sell the food they’re selling,” Wilson said.
Wilson said he only expects the fresh-foods category to grow. “More so than ever, people want to know where their food is coming from,” he shared.
What’s next for Whatnot
Whatnot’s push into food also comes at a time of growth for the platform. Whatnot, which launched in 2019, initially sold collectibles like sports cards, comic books and Funko Pops. In the years since, it has ventured into plants, beauty, fashion, home and garden, and wholesale.
In 2025, Whatnot live sales brought in $8 billion in gross merchandise volume, per the company’s latest annual report. Also last year, it welcomed 20 million new accounts. Some 5 million listings are created daily on Whatnot, and U.S. users today spend an average of 105 minutes a day on the app. Whatnot is live globally, in countries including the U.S., France, Germany and the U.K.
Live shopping has taken off in Asia on platforms like Taobao and Douyin, but it has had more of an uphill battle in the U.S. Live-shopping sales are expected to account for just 5% of total e-commerce in the U.S. by 2026, per Coresight Research. Still, appetite is growing. A 2024 survey from digital commerce platform VTEX found that 45% of U.S. consumers had browsed or purchased from live-shopping events in the prior 12 months.
TikTok Shop has been crucial to this growth, and in the fall, it became as big as eBay. The field is also changing behind the scenes; Palmstreet, a live-shopping platform that recently received $25 million in funding, is finding that, with live shopping, there’s now more “direct integration with the supply chain,” CEO Chen Li told Modern Retail.
Avery Akkineni, CMO at VaynerX, a global media agency, told Modern Retail that more brands are asking about getting into live shopping. “Live shopping can be a campaign, but it can also be such a commerce driver,” she said. “There’s a groundswell of clients who have dabbled and are ready to do more, and clients who are really keen to invest in this.”
Whatnot, for its part, is ready to welcome more individual sellers, especially those offering unique, in-demand products like Hotel Chocolat cocoa powder and White Peach Fanta. “We’ve seen a lot of good traction,” Wilson said. “Food is a really interesting category for Whatnot, and it’s different from anything else we have on the platform. We’ve more than doubled the category in a really quick period of time.”
Dining and Cooking