Monica Watrous
For more than a decade, Monica Watrous has covered the latest trends, innovations and developments in the food and beverage industry and has organized and hosted multiple events featuring emerging brands and cutting-edge concepts. She is a lifelong foodie and a champion of startups and disruptors in the consumer packaged goods landscape.
Posts by Monica Watrous
Smash Foods Raises $5M
The six-year-old brand markets an assortment of superfood spreads and snacks featuring chia seeds and dates. Its products are available nationwide at Whole Foods Market, Sprouts Farmers Market, Target, Walmart, Costco and more.
Patti LaBelle’s Soul Food Brand Snags Strategic Investment
Factory Holdings announced this week a strategic investment in Patti’s Good Life, a soul food brand founded by singer and actress Patti LaBelle.
Campo Grande Raises $4M to Build the ‘Wagyu of Pork’ in U.S. Grocery
Campo Grande is betting American consumers are ready to rethink pork – not as the “other white meat” as it’s been pitched in the past, but as a premium, chef-driven protein more akin to Wagyu beef.
WILDE Opens New Facility to Fuel Broader Snack Ambitions
WILDE Brands, known for its chips made with chicken breast, egg whites and bone broth, is hatching a plan to create a much broader protein snacking platform.
Opopop Pops Into Walmart With Ambitions Beyond Microwave Popcorn
Five years after debuting online, and with a store footprint that so far only includes about 500 Target doors, Opopop is in the midst of attempting to make its biggest retail push to date, opening last month in 3,000 Walmart locations across the country.
Steakholder Foods Brings 3D-Printed Plant-Based Meat to U.S. Retail
The Israeli startup today announced the launch of Perfecta Premium Plant-Based Meat, a line of products using a proprietary process designed to mimic the complex textures of traditional animal protein.
Kettle & Fire Taps RXBAR Veteran Sam McBride as CEO to Fuel Next Growth Chapter
Kettle & Fire today announced a leadership transition as part of a broader push to scale the bone broth brand into a significantly larger wellness platform – one increasingly backed by operational infrastructure, investor alignment and adjacent-category ambitions.
Better Butchers Eyes Public Markets Through Reverse Takeover Deal
The Better Butchers, a Canadian maker of plant-based meat alternatives, has signed a letter of intent to be acquired by Health Logic Interactive, a dormant public company, in a proposed reverse takeover transaction.
Laird Leadership Says Superfood Roll-Up Strategy Is ‘Just the Beginning’
Laird Superfood’s first quarter marked a “transformative milestone” amid efforts to build out a scaled positive nutrition platform, according to executives of the Boulder, Colo.-based business.
Children’s Snack Brand Goodies Debuts in U.S.
Goodies, launched by Swiss multinational Hero Group and available in nine countries, was designed for children ages 4 and older to bridge “the gap between conventional snacks and better-for-you alternatives.”