Adrianne DeLuca

Less than two years after its opening, organic frozen food company Amy’s Kitchen has shut down its production plant in San Jose, California according to multiple reports this week. Paperwork filed with the state indicates that manufacturing operations stopped on July 18, but the factory will not officially cease operations until September 16, eliminating 331 jobs.

In this week’s Checkout: Catalina publishes report on post-pandemic consumer trends, SPINS partners with Naturally Network, Talenti supports Black Food Folks fellowship for third year running and FDA issues a review of human foods programs.

Plant-based meat maker Meati has added another $150 million to its war chest to expand production capacity and increase accessibility to its mushroom-root alternative meat product. The company had previously raised a total of $127 million and today’s announcement nearly doubles that, bringing its total funding to approximately $277 million to-date.

One month after initiating a recall, Daily Harvest announced it has identified tara flour as the ingredient that caused reported cases of gastrointestinal illness and liver dysfunction in nearly 200 consumers who ate its French Lentil + Leek alt-meat crumble product.

Plant-based meat maker Meati is making its retail debut at three Colorado-area Sprouts Farmers Market stores this week as it sets its sights on a national, omni-channel rollout by next year. The brand launched direct-to-consumers in March and also announced it has expanded its foodservice presence to all nine locations of fast casual chain Birdcall today.

In this week’s Checkout: Conagra reports Q4 earnings, Flower Foods invests in Base Culture, Amazon automates an MA Whole Foods Store with Dash Cart, The Fresh Market scraps its IPO plans and Motif Foodworks restructures with layoffs.

Soon-to-expire snacks, surplus single-serve beverages and excess energy bars are the types of products that are now being donated to food insecure families through nonprofit organization Wellfare’s Better Box. The program currently distributes boxes of better-for-you grocery items nearly 800 recipient families at no cost.

ISH is taking a “whole system” approach to drive improvements in its three core pillars – human health, ecological health, and community health – and believes innovative, sustainable and healthy plant-based products are the way to accomplish that feat.

In this week’s Checkout: The Bel Group and Superbrewed team up on biomass fermented proteins; a new report from Boston Consulting Group emphasizes the positives of alt-protein investments; Siete Foods opens round two of its Juntos Fund; and Smithfield settles another price-fixing lawsuit.

Ben & Jerry’s filed an injunction in U.S. District Court in Manhattan yesterday, aiming to block Unilever’s sale of its Israeli business to its licensee American Quality Products Ltd, claiming the sale violates “the Essential Integrity of the Brand.”