Pitaya Foods

As more Americans continue to work from home and look to cut extraneous expenses — say, a stop at the juice bar on the way to the gym — lockdown-era habits have entrenched themselves into consumer routines. In turn, many frozen fruit producers have embraced smoothie kits, with some innovative brands managing to outpace the category and maintain strong growth despite the headwinds facing the CPG industry today.

After a successful first year of operation, refugee-employment initiative UNSTUCK has announced a slew of new partnerships and co-branded SKUs to support its growing supplier network which is composed of companies committed to hiring refugees, helping them economically integrate into their new host community.

Chuck Casano, founder of Pitaya Foods and HiTouch Distribution, spoke about navigating the food industry on two fronts, how a social mission guided his foray into entrepreneurship, the failure that propelled his decision to launch HiTouch, the elements of successful brand relationships and being on the front lines of food distribution during the pandemic.

In the latest distribution news, four new products from Pitaya and cereal from Catalina Crunch hit shelves at Whole Foods Market, ParmCrisps goes club-sized at Costco and BFree’s wraps launch at Walmart.