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

Baby food brand Once Upon a Farm is growing up, with a spate of new retailers, a new product line and an investment round to fuel that growth.

Growth, strategy, marketing and millennials dominated the conversation at this week’s Project NOSH L.A. event, held at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

At Project NOSH LA this week, Steve Hughes, Sunrise Strategic Partners CEO & co-founder, charts how volume declines and loss of earnings experienced by “Big CPG” firms have left them at a crossroads, as projections predict that upwards of $50 billion could shift away from those firms to smaller companies by 2020.

Yes, the World Series is still going, but Project NOSH’s first ever Pitch Slam, presented by ADM, is where the heavy hitters will be lining up today.

Schroeter, the president and co-founder of just-launched Sherpa Foods, will join the Project NOSH lineup to discuss what worked and what didn’t when he and co-founder Edmond Sanctis were growing Sahale Snacks, which was acquired by Smucker’s in late 2014.

Just a few short months after launching in Gelson’s and regions of Whole Foods Market, once online-only baking mix and kit brand Foodstirs has announced two milestone developments to facilitate its growth. Not only has the company closed its first major round of funding, but it has also added CPG veteran Greg Fleishman as COO and co-founder.

On Nov. 2, hundreds of brands, investors and suppliers and service providers will gather at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles to discuss the natural and better-for-you food industry. But the day before on Nov. 1, a limited number of brands will take part in a special Boot Camp event for early stage brands.

After a September quarterly earnings call in which it reported a decline in overall soup sales of 3.8 percent, The Campbell Soup Company — and in particular its fresh focused C-Fresh direction — has a new, premium arrow in its quiver: refrigerated, ready to serve soups. This month Campbell’s announced that its brand Garden Fresh Gourmet, which operates under C-Fresh, would launch four new refrigerated soups.

In the fall of 2015, Hain Celestial-owned Celestial Seasonings tea altered its familiar packaging. Now, just over a year later, the brand has announced that due in part to consumer feedback, it’s going back to “new” packaging that’s virtually the same as its older packaging.

Project NOSH L.A. is just around the corner and it’s almost time to get down to business. But you know what they say about all work and no play. So following a full day of programming, learning, networking and sampling, Project NOSH L.A. attendees will get to unwind with an exclusive afterparty powered by the team at FoodForce.

In this NOSH Voices piece, Rodeo Ventures co-founder Zach DeAngelo ponders why he’s seeing “the dreaded fundraising fatigue” more often than he thought he would. DeAngelo also examines why, in a world where more capital is flowing into the CPG space than ever before, does it still seem so hard to raise money?

A growing number of entrepreneurs with condiment and plant-based food brands are turning to crowdfunding for their startup capital. Project NOSH recently sat down with CircleUp, a crowdfunding platform for consumer brands looking to raise money from accredited investors, to discuss what trends they are seeing on the platform.

Today the curtain is pulled back on the panel of industry luminaries that competitors in the Project NOSH Pitch Slam will have to impress to find themselves at the top of the pack. The window to enter the Pitch Slam is limited, with the application process closing this evening.

In response to shifting attitudes towards nutrition and diet, and a high-profile spat with a nutrition bar company,, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) announced in late September that it was seeking public input for a new definition of the the “healthy” nutrient content claim for food and beverage labeling.