Beth Kaiserman

In the latest distribution news, Mason Dixie Foods expands into Whole Foods nationally and enters Wegmans, RollinGreens debuts at Kroger and Walmart, and Tone It Up launches new protein bars and powders in Kroger stores.

In this week’s Checkout, New Age Meats raises $2 million to develop cell-based meat, biotech company Geltor raises $91.3 million for alternative protein ingredients, and the Hartman Group studies how consumer values are evolving.

In earnings updates this week, Kraft Heinz, Kellogg and Nestle all detailed the recent surges they’ve seen as consumer habits have drastically changed toward eating more meals (and snacks) at home.

Meat snack brand Tanka is looking to take a bigger bite of the category. Native American Natural Foods (NANF), its parent company, last week announced it had closed a $2.5 million round of funding, led by socially conscious investor Candide Group on behalf of donor-advised fund Libra Social Investment Fund (which contributed $500,000). The raise came to help the brand in an ongoing struggle to retain shelf space in competition with other, often better-financed, brands in the category.

In this week’s Checkout, The Hershey Company reports U.S. sales growth in Q2, Bogopa acquires two Fairway Market stores and retailers help launch new initiative to fight plastic waste.

Though the paleo diet has gained traction in categories such as sauces and snacks, there’s still space for convenient, clean meal options. Kevin’s Natural Foods wants to help fill that need to via a line of ready-to-eat, refrigerated paleo meals.

In a test of 200 CBD products the FDA found many contained CBD levels inconsistent with their labels — though not explicitly unsafe. The overall variability points (again) to what brands, researchers and advocacy organizations say is the bigger problem: lack of regulation in the budding industry.

In this week’s Checkout, retailers, including grocery chains Kroger and Publix, mandate masks for customers, technology platform Crisp raises $12 million in Series A funding and EWG studies glyphosate levels in chickpea products.

The FDA has “a new mindset” for managing the food system and on Monday released its New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint. In an update last month, the FDA outlined the initiative, noting it had been tweaked based on the food supply chain’s challenges during the pandemic.

To prove it can feed the demand for sustainability and transparency, agricultural technology company Indigo Agriculture recently completed a year-long pilot run of its Indigo Marketplace, which funneled 2.2 million bushels of sustainably-grown rice to beer company Anheuser-Busch.