Carol Ortenberg

Mars is partnering with food tech company Perfect Day to launch a new chocolate bar made with animal-free whey protein. The bar, which will be released under a new brand called CO2COA, is the latest chocolate product launch featuring Perfect Day milk protein as the ingredient company tries to push further into the confection set.

Fermented foods company Cleveland Kitchen announced today it has raised an additional $19 million, as well as completed the acquisition of Sonoma Brinery. The deals will allow the company to more aggressively pursue expansion into new products and manufacturing capabilities.

Meat snack brand Stryve has added CPG executive Christopher Boever as CEO, replacing co-founder Joe Oblas, who will transition to Chief Growth Officer. The news, which was announced last week, comes as the now publicly traded company tries to deepen its hold in the meat snack category, further build out a sub brand and fight back against rising ingredient and operations costs.

Holding company and incubator Redbud Brands announced yesterday it has raised $46 million to create, fund and scale its portfolio of consumer businesses.

On this month’s Market Share, we’ll hear from Amplify chief commercial officer Kyle Banahan about how having a unified voice and a singular goal is helping the snack-centered group move forward more efficiently and propelling it’s parent company Hershey deeper into snacking.

Food tech-focused company Tomorrow Farms is bringing its first product line to market with the launch of Bored Cow, an animal-free dairy milk produced in partnership with Perfect Day. Formally announced on Thursday, Bored Cow is made with Perfect Day’s animal-free whey protein, which is produced via a precision fermentation process that creates replicas of… Read more »

Project Potluck, an organization focused on helping “People of Color thrive in the CPG industry,” has taken the next step in its development: becoming certified as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and bringing on Kathleen Cassanova as its executive director.

The Very Good Food Company still reported a significant drop in revenue in its 2022 Q1 earnings statement yesterday, despite net loss decreasing 37% to $13 million over the last quarter. The announcement comes as the company has continued to struggle with financial performance, seen turnover in key executive roles and needs to bring in new capital in order to survive beyond the next 30 days.

Delivery service Instacart announced late yesterday that it has confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to go public. The announcement comes after the company slashed its valuation and other companies are postponing their own IPOs.

Less than four years after acquiring the brand, Lancaster Colony Corporation plans to divest from the frozen food maker Bantam Bagels later this summer.