Jeff Klineman

Several notable natural food brands accepted investment to help secure its place in the future of the food. This month, Wild Friends, Chia Viva! and Incredible Foods announced investment from industry legends to help scale each of its own products and growth.

Two generations of food company executives have come together in a new fund whose purpose is to help build the next set of natural food brands.

Will Holsworth has a vision, and it goes far beyond the Skeeter. Holsworth, a veteran executive at both big companies (PepsiCo) and smaller enterprises (Muscle Milk and Sambazon), had been approached to run Skeeter Snacks, but he saw a broader play — to codify allergen-free snacks under a single brand that would be safe for consumption while also providing a good-looking, modern brand that wouldn’t embarrass a parent or stigmatize the at-risk consumer.

It’s been two months since celebrity-backed baking mix brand Foodstirs announced that CPG veteran Greg Fleishman would be joining the team as COO and stepping back from a full time role at Purely Righteous Brands, the management consultancy and marketing firm he co-founded with longtime friend Andrew Aussie in 2013. But even with Fleishman working as the COO at Foodstirs, he will still be involved in client projects, he and Aussie told NOSH during a recent interview.

Goldberg, a former Wall Street executive, told our team all about his journey from antidepressants to clean-living organic foodie and media figure, with conversational stops along the way on the offerings at Expo East, the difference between Ripple Foods and almond milk, and, most importantly, what he’d do if faced with the choice of eating Arby’s or a bag of organic palm sugar.

Natural food investment keeps growing and the opportunity to meet a potential growth business is one of the biggest opportunities drawing private equity and strategics to events like Natural Products Expo East, which concluded last week. At the Baltimore show, Editor-in-Chief Jeff Klineman and Wellvest Capital’s David Thibodeau sat down at the show to discuss the progress of the natural and organic food business through the lens of decades, rather than years.

After seeing their initial natural foods venture fund, Boulder Brands Investment Group (BIG) marginalized by its parent conglomerate’s spiral into a takeover, the fund’s three former leaders, Duane Primozich, Carole Buyers, and Bill Weiland, set to work raising a new fund, christened Boulder Investment Group Reprise, or BIGR Ventures.

Just two years after deciding to start a bone broth company, Bru Broth founders Soo-Ah Landa and Mary Butler have entered into an agreement with Coke-backed beverage incubator L.A. Libations to help them expand. As part of the deal, L.A. Libations will purchase equity in the fledgling bone broth company.

The BevNET Podcast team quizzed Seth Goldman on a number of other topics, including the ongoing battle over GMO labeling and its impact on the organic movement, as well as the long-term future for Honest within the Coke system.

The combined forces of BevNET and Project NOSH descended on the Fancy Food Show in Manhattan a couple of weeks ago, and while the beverage team has already given its take, let’s face it — there’s a heck of a lot more solids on display in the aisle than liquids.