Food Industry News, Insights, and Education for the CPG Community

In this month’s Category Closeup Meat Snacks: Expert Analysis, we’ll have two interviews with industry leaders who both had large roles in the category’s development. Over the course of the discussion, we’ll explore the tactics and trends our experts believe successful meat snack brands must embrace and hear about what they believe are the opportunities for growth and innovation.

In this week’s distribution roundup, single-serve pour over coffee brand Kuju, French-inspired snack and brioche maker Bakerly and plant-based food brand PLANTSTRONG hit shelves at Whole Foods Market, while plant-based condiment maker Only Plant Based makes its U.S. debut.

The Specialty Food Association (SFA) announced today that its Winter Fancy Food Show will be relocating from San Francisco to Las Vegas in 2022. The annual event, previously set to be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, will now be held at the Las Vegas Convention Center on February 6-8.

The growth of better-for-you products has been one of the top stories of the food and beverage industry for years now, but according to the latest Healthy Living Consumer Products review by Whipstitch Capital and SPINS, that growth is now “beyond long-term,” rating as one of the top industry trends for 2021.

Better-for-you chocolate maker Bon AppéSweet announced today it will unveil a new look and an expansion to its line of plant-based, date sweetened chocolate bars at this years’ Natural Products Expo East in Philadelphia. The Virginia-based brand said it will officially begin to roll out its bars in brighter and more colorful packaging to retailers this October.

Investor Patrick Schwarzenegger is keeping it in the family with the launch of his new CPG venture MOSH, a line of functional foods (and eventually beverages) with his mother, Maria Shriver.

Plant-based food and beverage brand Ripple Foods today announced it has secured $60 million in a Series E funding round which the company plans to use to accelerate its product innovation pipeline and expand into new categories and channels.

To help our audience of retailers, investors and brands find our BevNET and NOSH Insiders that are exhibiting, we’ve produced a special pre-show Expo East 2021 Booth Planner featuring the company names and booth numbers of our Insiders.

There have been several updates from major trade shows as the food and beverage industry continues to have to adjust its plans for trade shows due to effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and recent weather events.

With the goal of being “part of the solution” to environmentally damaging supply chains in the food industry and beyond, macadamia-based food and beverage brand Milkadamia is set to debut a slate of new offerings at Natural Products Expo East in Philadelphia this week that expand its portfolio across several different categories, including plant-based ice cream, nut milks and skincare.

In this week’s Checkout: Immi raises $3.8 million and announces a reformulation; PepsiCo debuts its pep+ sustainability initiative; Misfits Market secures $225 million; and CULT Food Science invests in MeliBio.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued warnings this week about the potential risks of Delta-8 — a form of the psychoactive cannabinoid tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

With PepsiCo’s innovation hub The Hive, the global snack and beverage brand has sowed the seeds of innovation. Now, it’s time to start harvesting. Last week, The Hive launched its second product, a line of savory dried vegetable snacks called Good Notes, on Amazon and Walmart.com

With the creation of a new growth platform called Advanced Micronutrient Food as Medicine, investment fund KEEN Growth Capital is aiming to bridge the gap between “average feel-good supplements” and pharmaceutical grade medications, the company announced this week.