Beth Kaiserman

Safe and Fair set out to make quality snacking easy, tasty and affordable for consumers with allergies. Now the food company is expanding its purview to make mealtime and parties better too.

Meat snack producer Stryve doesn’t just want to be the country’s leading biltong brand; it wants to be the manufacturer of choice for the growing category. The company last week announced the close of a $16.5 million round of funding to not only grow its own brand but to grow its manufacturing facilities as well.

Despite its long association with diet food, two legacy dairy brands think cottage cheese is ready for a comeback. To modernize the snack, they’re looking to non-traditional, savory flavors.

Conagra, America’s fourth-largest food company, revealed upcoming product innovations, homing in on healthy and sustainable solutions for snacking and mealtime.

Kettle Cuisine, a New England-based producer of refrigerated and frozen, natural soups, sauces and entrees, announced this week its acquisition of Harry’s Fresh Foods, an Oregon-based custom food manufacturing company.

Latin-inspired food manufacturer Teasdale Latin Foods, which says it had about $20 million in retail sales last year, is trying to rethink its offerings for the next generation of shoppers and bring more differentiation to a typically commodity-priced category.

This week Evolv Ventures, Kraft Heinz’s $100 million venture fund, announced its first investment: GrubMarket, a platform that sources local food directly from producers and delivers it to businesses and consumers. Additionally, Ben & Jerry’s announced its launch into a new product category and Whole Foods Market tested a new store format.

Your packaging needs to tell a story ‘beyond the box’ — and you’d better tell the consumer how to recycle that box as well. Those are key findings from research firm Mintel, which just released its 2019 Global Packaging Trends report.