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

The stock market hasn’t loved its parent company, but hot popcorn brand SkinnyPop is nevertheless still growing like crazy, Amplify Snack Brands’ CEO said this week. Speaking at strategic communications and advisory firm IRC’s annual conference in Florida this week, Amplify CEO Tom Ennis discussed the continued growth of the popcorn brand and gave glimpses of a future platform that he hopes will allow the company to take more territory in the broader snack category.

Icelandic Provisions, a new dairy startup, believes they have the recipe for success in the yogurt category by using skyr to target consumer needs for higher protein and lower sugar cultured dairy. The company leadership recently closed an investment of $11 million dollars led by healthcare and technology VC Polaris Ventures.

Kale chip maker Rhythm Superfoods has become the first direct investment from General Mills’ new 301 INC venture capital arm. The $3 million raise was led by 301 INC via a fund it has set up on CircleUp, a crowdsourced investment platform.

2016 marks the official launch of Edible Ventures, the nation’s first angel group investing solely in high growth, ready-to-eat, ready-to-drink CPG companies. Project NOSH sat down with Edible Ventures’ Managing Director, Jeremy Halpern, to find out why there’s a need for this group, why the time is right for its launch and what the group is looking for in entrepreneurs and companies.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services released their final draft of the nation’s federal dietary guidelines yesterday. Since then numerous industry groups and companies have issues statements lauding or disagreeing with the new guide.

Today consumer foods giant General Mills announced that it has acquired upstart meat snack company EPIC Provisions. The brand will operate under General Mills-owned Annie’s Organics. Both Taylor Collins, Epic’s co-founder, and John Haugen, General Mills’ VP & General Manager of 301 Inc, spoke with NOSH about the acquisition.

Quickly putting a recent $5 million investment round to use, the team at Tessemae’s All Natural is re-launching their line of salad dressings and condiments.

The Food and Drug Association has extended the comment period for use of the term “Natural.” by 90 days. Originally comments were due February 10th, but now have been moved to May 10th.

It’s that time of the year when marketing companies, flavor houses and research firms dust off their crystal balls, peer deeply into the future, analyze some data, and issue their predictions for what the next year will hold. We combed through the lists to bring readers what we think are some of the most unique, well thought out, and creative trends for 2016.

According to the website Pinterest, among the top food trends of the year, and what they’ll be watching in 2016, was “avocado oil.” Here are some of the avocado influenced products from 2015 that we’ll be watching.

Responsibility for the firm will now lie with Debbie Wildrick and Craig Fortin, currently MetaBrand’s chief strategy officer and President and chief operating officer, respectively.

As the year winds to a close, the wallets remain open, with a spate of high-profile distributor and supplier acquisitions announced in the past two weeks. Many of the companies acquired have a focus on “better-for-you,” fresh, and specialty, underscoring the ongoing importance of consumer interest in natural and unique products.

Last week, PepsiCo Inc. and the German dairy company Theo Müller Group announced the termination of their U.S. joint venture. Yet, as consumers have begun to favor smaller product lines, large strategic CPG companies have put more innovative brands on the market. So what should be instructive about the joint venture for other large strategics, like Hershey’s, Mars, and Heinz and French’s and where do smaller brands have the upper hand?

At this year’s BevNET Live, Scott LaPorta, the president of Campbell-owned Bolthouse Farms described the C-Fresh mission and growth strategy.