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

In this week’s earning calls, Terravia Inc., B&G Foods, Sprouts Farmers Market, The Kellogg Company and Mondelez International talked Q1 sales and how they are employing new strategic initiatives to better work toward their 2017 goals.

Today dairy processor and distributor Dean Foods announced a minority investment in Boulder, Colorado based Good Karma, a producer of flaxseed-based, dairy alternative food and beverage products. Originally a private label manufacturer of dairy-alternative milks, Good Karma developed its own branded CPG line in 2014 and expanded beyond beverages to yogurt in late 2016.

The nutrient-dense meal replacement drinks and powder company has pulled in some Silicon Valley-grade investors, closing out a Series B financing round today with $50 million in funding, led by GV (formerly Google Ventures), bringing the company’s total funding to $74.5 million.

Tyson, Pinnacle, Conagra, Kettle Cuisine, General Mills and Impossible Foods have all seen executive level leadership changes in the past month. Here’s a list of who is in, the experience they bring, and how they are expected to help these companies stay the course of their newly outlined missions.

From the start, KIND Snacks has been an innovator. To learn about how the company iterates that innovation, Project NOSH spoke with Jon Lesser, Senior Director of Marketing, during Natural Products Expo West. Here’s what he had to say.

A California bill addressing the potential dangers of synthetic food dyes on children has passed, but with a major amendment.

Food fights are breaking out in court. HaloTop, Mars Inc, KerryGold and Chobani all found themselves in legal battles spanning trademark infringements to reports of assault over the past month. Here’s what we know so far about the cases, why they were filed, and what they could mean for the companies involved.

This week Venice Brands, a new consumer-focused VC fund, announced an investment in The Osso Good Company, a producer of frozen bone broths. In addition to putting dry powder behind the bone broth company, the deal marks the first investment for Venice, which was launched in January of this year and is an offshoot of Monogram Capital.

Five years after its launch, multi-million-dollar cookie dough brand Sweet Loren’s is taking on confectionary giants like Nestle and General Mills with a natural take on the take-and-bake cookie and expanding its line with, what the brand says, is the first gluten-free, vegan and nut-free take and bake cookie dough.

It’s crunch time for retailers. To attract new customers, retain current customers and plan for long-term, consistent sales growth, several retailers revealed new stores, marketing strategies and location plays over the last week.

The food industry has been making headlines for more than its profits this month as brands and retailers work to focus their missions and better exemplify their values. This week’s Press Clips highlights companies who are doing just that by standing up for their brand, their consumers and, yes, even a goose.

When Jason Cohen entered the business world as a life insurance salesman, he knew one thing: you’re only as good as the relationships you have with your clients. Now as a successful entrepreneur and investor, he’s capitalized on that knowledge, and added to it another rule: that to support that success you need a solid team and a product that appeals to the consumer. At NOSH Live on Monday, June 12 in Manhattan, Cohen will give attendees an inside look at his success in the industry.

This week, Unilever, PepsiCo Inc., The Hershey Company and Pinnacle Foods released their quarterly earning reports. But beyond sales numbers, the companies shared insights into their wins, losses and goals for the rest of 2017 that will help set trends across categories in the months to come. Here are the main strategic takeaways from these CPG giants’ quarterly earning reports.

Plant-based products are one of the hottest trends in food and beverage, and investors have taken note. Last week, several funds and venture capital firms came together to back Nutriati, a food technology company whose first products are a chickpea flour and chickpea protein concentrate.