Headlines

Sustainable packaged food and gardening company Back to the Roots announced that it has grown one step closer to its goal becoming the “Pixar of Foods” after raising a $5 million seed round. The Berkeley, Calif. based company plans to use the money to fertilize its growth plan within K-12 schools as well as traditional grocery retailers.

It’s hard to say what the fanciest food was at the Fancy Foods Show that recently wound up in San Francisco, especially with many new brands showing less dressed-up products that intentionally range from raw or minimally processed to “I dare you to eat that” kind of ingredients like bugs and kelp. Editor-in-Chief Jeff Klineman and Founder/CEO John Craven cover what they saw at this year’s show.

Austin, Boulder, San Francisco, Brooklyn — these are the places that have yielded some of the most prolific and innovative food companies and entrepreneurs in the country. With the announcement of his departure from KRAVE jerky, Jonathan Sebastiani wants to add another to the list: Sonoma. The wine and meat snack entrepreneur started 2016 with the news that he would be departing from Hershey (which purchased KRAVE in 2015) to start Sonoma Brands.

Wu, who has shown the skills of a master networker and trendspotter, serves on the boards of food brands Babyganics, Justin’s and Perfect Bar. He joined VMG in 2008 as an associate in what was the firm’s first “non-founder” hire, arriving after serving as the CFO of Thomason Autogroup.

The Project NOSH team was at the Winter Fancy Food Show to document some of the most interesting new products and trends — but also to take the chance to chow down.

The stock market hasn’t loved its parent company, but hot popcorn brand SkinnyPop is nevertheless still growing like crazy, Amplify Snack Brands’ CEO said this week. Speaking at strategic communications and advisory firm IRC’s annual conference in Florida this week, Amplify CEO Tom Ennis discussed the continued growth of the popcorn brand and gave glimpses of a future platform that he hopes will allow the company to take more territory in the broader snack category.

Icelandic Provisions, a new dairy startup, believes they have the recipe for success in the yogurt category by using skyr to target consumer needs for higher protein and lower sugar cultured dairy. The company leadership recently closed an investment of $11 million dollars led by healthcare and technology VC Polaris Ventures.

Kale chip maker Rhythm Superfoods has become the first direct investment from General Mills’ new 301 INC venture capital arm. The $3 million raise was led by 301 INC via a fund it has set up on CircleUp, a crowdsourced investment platform.

2016 marks the official launch of Edible Ventures, the nation’s first angel group investing solely in high growth, ready-to-eat, ready-to-drink CPG companies. Project NOSH sat down with Edible Ventures’ Managing Director, Jeremy Halpern, to find out why there’s a need for this group, why the time is right for its launch and what the group is looking for in entrepreneurs and companies.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services released their final draft of the nation’s federal dietary guidelines yesterday. Since then numerous industry groups and companies have issues statements lauding or disagreeing with the new guide.