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

Cole Pearsall, the co-founder of experimental food and beverage platform Acid League, spoke about how the diverse experience of the brand’s founding team spurred its development, why trust was the key factor in winning over Whole Foods, the use of product as a form of marketing and how the company aligns its retail and ecommerce strategies.

After two years of testing its reusable packaging platform through an ecommerce pilot program, Loop is using its findings to take the company to its next stage, rolling out in retailers worldwide as part of its mission to “eliminate the idea of waste.”

Better-for-you pudding producer Noops announced last week it closed an additional $2 million in funding earlier this month led by Lerer Hippeau. Along with the investment, the company also announced that former CEO of The Fresh Market Larry Appeal and CEO of Hungryroot Benjamin McKean will join Noops’ advisory board.

In this week’s Checkout, Ripple CEO Laura Flanagan discusses the company’s latest funding round and previews its new soft serve line; Tofurky and Triton Algae Innovations partner to make algae-based meat products; Banza unveils new partnerships; the strike at Mondelez’s Nabisco manufacturing and distribution facilities comes to an end; and General Mills reports its fiscal 2022 Q1 results.

We’re highlighting innovative meat snack brands — both animal and plant-based — during the Product Showcase portion of this month’s Category Close-Up, examining the trends, news and evolving product strategies that are currently shaping this evolving category. This video features CHOMPS, Stryve Foods, Pan’s Mushroom Jerky, New Primal, Chudabeef and Pearson Ranch Jerky.

In a flip on the classic saying, ingredients maker SIMPLi is thinking locally and acting globally. The Baltimore-based company, backed by new funding, is aiming to sustainably and ethically streamline supply chains for grains, beans, oils and spices to ultimately benefit farmers, consumers and the environment.

To continue on its quest to re-envision classic food and beverages as better-for-you offerings, holding company and investor HumanCo announced yesterday it had raised $35 million in funding. Alongside the raise, the group also announced it had acquired frozen pizza and bread producer, Against the Grain.

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.