Erin Cabrey

Plant-based food company Laird Superfood announced today it has acquired Bend, Oregon-based snack brand Picky Bars in a $12 million cash and stock deal. The transaction, which closed May 3, is the company’s first acquisition after its IPO last fall. The deal expands the company’s reach into new snacking categories while offering opportunities for growth into new retail channels.

In this week’s Checkout, Mondelēz talks M&A strategy and Hu acquisition during Q1 earnings call; President Biden signs FASTER Act into law, making sesame the 9th major food allergen; and Kraft Heinz and Hershey discuss post-pandemic shopping behaviors.

U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Jim Risch (R-ID) last week reintroduced bipartisan legislation that would ban plant-based dairy alternative products from using dairy-related terms on their labels. Representatives Peter Welch (D-VT) and Mike Simpson (R-ID) also introduced companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Call it co-incubation. A Post Holdings product incubator is betting on crackers made with environmentally friendly oats as a core ingredient — and it’s brought in another big strategic, Anheuser-Busch, to chip in. Airly crackers debuted this month as the first brand out of the Bright Future Foods operation launched last year, and it’s already looking ahead to new climate-friendly innovations through a new R&D partnership with A-B’s EverGrain.

Plant-based meat company SIMULATE announced it had expanded distribution of its plant-based chicken nugget brand NUGGS to select Walmart, Sam’s Club and Target locations, marking the brand’s first move into larger, national retailers.

In this week’s Checkout, Misfits Market raises $200 million to support growth into new categories and expansion to the West Coast; Nestlé reports strong growth on its first quarter earnings call; and the food and beverage industry celebrates Earth Day.

Anheuser-Busch InBev’s global investment and innovation group ZX Ventures yesterday announced an R&D partnership with animal-free protein maker Clara Foods. The hope is that by utilizing A-B’s fermentation expertise the two can work together to establish new technologies producing Clara’s proteins at large scale, a strategy A-B hopes to also implement at other fermentation-focused companies.

LiveKindly Collective is on a mission to make plant-based eating “the new norm” globally. Aiming to help consumers seamlessly swap out traditional animal products, the company has amassed a portfolio of four plant-based meat brands sold in over 40 countries. It’s an aggressive plan, but the company is quickly gaining momentum, raising $535 million in its first year and finding a sweet spot between multi-category consumer goods giants and smaller start-ups by creating a global company hyper-focused on the plant-based meat segment.

In this deal roundup, Hungry Planet closes a $25M funding round; mycelium-based meat alternative maker Atlast raises $40M; Meati secures $18M in debt financing for new production facility; and animal-free shellfish maker Cultured Decadence secures $1.6M.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, New York City-based office lunch delivery platform Stadium, like many in the food service industry, was forced to abandon its business model practically overnight amid nationwide shutdowns. Faced with a steep revenue drop, co-founder and CEO Shaunak Amin found a silver lining, adapting Stadium’s backend system to launch build-your-own snack box platform SnackMagic, which hit profitability in December and now ships 50,000 boxes monthly.