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

This week private equity investment group VMG Partners announced the close of their fourth fund at $550 million, with another $150 million available in a flex-up vehicle. The capital, said VMG Managing Director Wayne Wu, will continue to be invested in emerging consumable branded goods in the lower middle market.

In a talk at NOSH Live in New York last month, Maura Mottolese, the CEO of Tate’s Bake Shop who joined the Long Island-based company in 2014, discussed how companies can best transform consumer awareness and momentum into rapid growth.

What if I told you there was a beautiful grocery store where, should you shop there day after day, you would likely reduce your and your family’s risk of obesity and diabetes. What if I told you it was a beautiful store, with high quality prepared meals, fresh produce, sweet potatoes, and poultry, and high quality shelf stable food. Would you shop there?

Newshounds are sniffing around the food industry for stories about everything from regulations, to mergers and acquisitions, to snortable chocolate. Here’s what is making headlines in food news.

Retail merchandising company Basemakers has merged with experiential marketing agency Phoodie, creating an integrated organization offering companies in-store visibility and sampling services together under one roof.

Just over a year after closing an initial round of funding with Monogram Capital, meat snack brand Country Archer announced today that it closed a second round with the private equity group.

Andrew Whitman, managing partner at 2X Consumer Products Growth Partners, talked about the process of what he called – and trademarked as – “Brand Platformation,” and the benefits and challenges that come with creating that kind of broad product suite.

Today, San Diego-based Chosen Foods, the maker of paleo-friendly sauces and oils, revealed it had been acquired by Mexico-based Sesajal S.A de C.V. The deal officially closed in January 2017, but the two companies have held off on publicly disclosing the news until becoming fully integrated.

Packaging company TemperPack, which focuses on products that need to stay cold while shipping, wants to better match a package’s lifecycle to the product that it’s shipping– and it’s a sustainable mission investors are starting to get behind.

In our conversation, Norton discusses the company’s “inside-out” approach to marketing, how a strong company culture can bring tangible business results, and how a shared sense of responsibility to consumers has strengthened the company’s new relationship with Unilever.

From hiring executives to adding board members, here are some of the biggest moves the food industry has seen over the past month.

Plant-based, health startup Revere launched last week with plans of bringing personalization to athletes’ pre- and post-workout mixtures. The direct-to-consumer drink mix company also announced that it raised $2 million in a seed round led by Lerer Hippeau Ventures prior to the launch.

The story of how Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Dr. Brent Ridge came to become a gourmet food producer duo is something out of a specialty food fairy tale. Their journey began just under 10 years when they purchased a farm and small herd of goats. But with savvy marketing skills, the two have seen consistent growth across their Beekman 1802 line.

The food industry is like photography: entrepreneurs need to look at their world through a focused lens in order to get the best result. Or at least that’s how James Richardson, senior VP of knowledge and innovation at the Hartman Group, sees it. Richardson shared that sentiment and other insights on the power of focus for growing brands during last month’s Summer 2017 NOSH Live event in N.Y.C. Watch his entire presentation here.