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

Baby food brands like Pure Spoon, Once Upon A Farm and So Good are looking to push the category into a fresher, “chillier” direction. But the greatest uncertainty for refrigerated baby food is what exactly it will take for HPP purees to become “baby food 3.0” — and if retailers will be willing to invest the time and money to find out.

In the post-Expo West hustle, several industry leaders from brands and retailers alike have taken new positions with up-and-coming natural brands. Several of the additions come after recent rounds of funding, which have enable the companies to scale their hiring.

The BevNET Podcast crew recently visited Boston’s Fenway neighborhood to recorded a wide-ranging interview about the launch and development of Chew, a new food incubator focused on recreating legacy snack brands.

In one song from Martellus Bennett’s recently dropped EP, the tight end turns on-trend foodie phrases like “self checkout in my own lane / stacking bread that’s whole grain.”

The hens have come home to roost for pasture-raised egg maker Vital Farms, which has announced a new minority investment from Sunrise Strategic Partners. The investment will help the Austin-based egg company scale its operation and grow its distribution.

Just under a year ago, Alliance Consumer Growth (ACG), a private-equity fund, announced its investment in HannahMax Cookie Chips. Yet by the second half of 2016, it was apparent the brand needed a seasoned vet to help the company move into the next phase of it’s growth. Long-time natural products CEO Jane Miller was recruited for the role and recently told NOSH she is ready to take the company to the next level with a new look and sales strategy.

Corporate transparency, restorative agriculture and the rise of nut butters as a snack were among several emerging trends from Natural Products Expo West 2017 that were highlighted in a webinar from market research firm SPINS on Thursday.

How Goodie Girl Cookies’ Starbucks partnership — which got the brand’s best-selling line into more than 12,000 cafes nationwide — showed Founder Shira Berk that she was potentially missing out on a major sector within grab-and-go.

High Pressure Processing (HPP) has long been the hero of deli meats and, as of late, has become the innovation engine for a variety of beverage types. But a newly established trade group wants to push the technology beyond your turkey sandwich and green juice.

The Project NOSH team walked miles of the show’s booth-lined aisles, which were filled with 3,100 exhibiting companies and over 80,000 attendees. The goal: to find new products that embody the natural food industry’s hottest trends — and five in particular stood out among the sea of booths.

The gluten-free baked goods line geared toward in-store bakeries introduced its products into Ahold USA earlier this month, bringing the company’s store count to over 2,000 eastern U.S. supermarkets since its 2015 launch. So far with 2017’s growth and Goodman’s new partnership with Ahold, the company has already done $500,000 in business from January through March.

In this video from Natural Products Expo West, Nardone explains the delicate process of creating a brand around a known quantity like PopCorners and the steps other companies should consider when re-thinking the limitations of their own branded products. He also discusses the progress of Our Little Rebellion overall.

Project NOSH is delighted to start rolling out the lineup for NOSH Live | Summer 2017 with our first speaker announcement: James F. Richardson, Ph.D. of The Hartman Group. He will be taking the stage to talk about the growth curves of early stage brands and how the power of focus is revealed by an elite group of entrepreneurial brands in the natural/organic space.

This Saturday, some of food’s biggest names got in on the jokes, fooling consumers about everything from new services and dramatic name changes to “innovative” product launches and category jumps.