The Checkout: The Real Coconut Rebrands to Sana Foods; Serenity Kids Raises $7M

The Real Coconut Rebrands to Sana Foods

The Real Coconut unveiled a new identity this week, with a name change to Sana Foods and new packaging across its portfolio of coconut flour-based tortillas and chips. The rebrand comes after the addition of former General Mills executive Camille Gibson as CEO last year, and will allow the brand flexibility to expand beyond coconut-based products.

Sana is derived from Sanará, meaning “to heal” in Spanish, which is the name of the Tulum, Mexico-based wellness-focused hotel which also houses The Real Coconut restaurant run by the company’s founder Daniella Hunter, which inspired the CPG line. The new name “embodies the brand’s ethos of putting health and wellness first,” the brand said in a press release.

The brand’s new simplified packaging was created by Minneapolis-based agency Zeus Jones, which worked on several General Mills brands with Gibson, and has already begun rolling out to retailers. It features a new tagline — “Better For You, Better For Our World” — and features a badge stating the products were “Cultivated at the Real Coconut Kitchen.” According to the brand, the new packaging is intended to “create more shelf appeal and get consumers thinking about plant-based foods in a more mainstream way,” particularly as more consumers adopt grain-free diets.

“[Sana] has quickly advanced from an entry level one category food company to a rapidly growing organization,” Gibson said. “The rebrand was an obvious next step to embrace our forward momentum and make a larger impact on people’s health and the planet.”

While the brand has yet to share details of future offerings, new products are slated to launch this year, the brand said. Gibson told NOSH in March that the brand was considering entering a number of new categories, largely inspired by successful products at The Real Coconut Kitchen, including frozen meals, savory crackers and confections made with ingredients such as plantain and cassava.

Serenity Kids Raises $7 Million

Low-sugar baby and toddler food brand Serenity Kids announced this week it has closed a $7 million funding round led by CircleUp Growth Partners, with participation from Wild Ventures, mindbodygreen co-founders Jason and Colleen Wachob, Spartan Race founder Joe De Sena and Max Lugavere, author of “Genius Foods.” Existing investors Nick Green and Gunnar Lovelace, co-founders of Thrive Market and Whole30 founder and CEO Melissa Urban also took part.

Launched in 2018, Serenity Kids offers a variety of vegetable and meat-based baby foods and is sold in over 4,400 retailers including Sprouts, Whole Foods, Kroger, Wegmans and Natural Grocers. Carr told NOSH in December the brand is in the process of “aging up” the brand, and launched a new line of Grain Free Puffs for toddler snacking in February.

According to the brand, the new capital will be used for new product innovation, increasing customer acquisition, growing distribution and expanding its quality and testing standards. It plans to enter new categories later this year.

The latest funding round comes after the brand raised $3 million in convertible notes in December, and brings its total financing to date to $13 million. According to Serenity Kids president and co-founder Joe Carr, the brand hadn’t originally planned to begin its series A funding round until the second half of the year, but chose to “expedite” the round when the opportunity with CircleUp came along.

“CircleUp brings statistics from their data insights platform Helio that reinforces and supports our mission, growth, and trajectory and has tremendous experience and success as investors with many other CPG brands,” he said. “We’re looking forward to working with the CircleUp team, along with all of our amazing continued and new investors to further Serenity Kids’ mission of helping babies grow up healthy, happy, and strong.”

Karen Howland, general partner at CircleUp, noted in a blog post about the investment that the brand’s nutrient density, including animal protein and healthy fats, made it an attractive investment. Its success in the premium baby food set, including the highest basket size among its competitors, as well as its omni-channel growth were also notable.

“CircleUp Growth Partners looks to invest in companies that are primed for disruption,” Howland said. “We’ve had our eye on Serenity Kids for a while, when our proprietary Helio data discovered strong results for the brand, we were confident that Serenity Kids was the company to back in the infant and toddler food category.”

Hooray Foods Closes $2 Million Seed Round

Plant-based meat maker Hooray Foods announced this week it has secured $2 million in a seed funding round. The round was led by Evolution VC Partners, with participation from Gaingels and Sand Hill Angels, with Evolution VC Partners founder Gregg Smith joining the brand’s board of directors as part of the deal.

According to a press release, Hooray will use the new funding to scale production capacity as it grows its retail footprint and develops “improved” iterations of its plant-based bacon, which is made with coconut oil, rice flour, tapioca starch, maple syrup and umami seasoning. The brand will also use the capital to develop new products using its proprietary fat encapsulation techniques.

The new funding brings the brand’s total financing to date to nearly $4 million since it was founded in 2019 by Sri Artham, former VP of consumer packaged foods at Fair Trade USA. The company previously completed two seed funding rounds led by Stray Dog Capital ahead of the retail debut of its 10-packs of plant-based bacon strips in 300 Whole Foods locations across seven regions in November 2020.