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

Consumer attitudes towards snacking are slowly shifting, and brands are taking note. Producers including HalfPops, Way Better Snacks and Cabo Chips have all released new snack options that attempt to offer consumers healthier ways to snack.

It’s been a busy week for Whole Foods, as the natural products retailer juggled fourth quarter earnings announcements, several interviews with its CEO and news about its new millennial-focused “365 by Whole Foods Market” stores.

Yesterday private equity firm KarpReilly’s acquired food and beverage company Zola. A brand pivot in 2012 enabled growth, noted CEO Chris Cuvelier.

Bobo’s Oat Bars have always stood out for its quaint, homespun look and clean ingredients. And while the 10-year old brand may not have gotten the press of its brethren, it turns out it’s been quietly building sales of $8 million in 2015 alone. With new investment and employees, the company believes it’s ready to be the breakout bar of 2016.

Food and beverage accelerator and investor AccelFoods today announced a new $20 million fund as well as a new class of portfolio companies.

Designed to give new and growing food and beverage companies a fast and comprehensive look at the challenges facing startups, BevNET Boot Camp leverages experts’ insights, successful entrepreneurs’ experiences, and a healthy dose of networking into an inspirational day of education and connection.

In this NOSH Voices piece, guest author Adam Spriggs, founder of Nucleus Maximus, looks at food products’ packaging and analyzes how brands talk to consumers.

As consumers become more open to international flavor profiles, manufacturers are moving past nacho, ranch and lime. Instead far flung flavors such as lemongrass, fish sauce, kaffir lime and thai bird’s eye chili peppers are sneaking into the grocery aisles as accents for products ranging from chips to sauces to jerky. At the 2016 Winter Fancy Food Show, Project NOSH spoke with five early-stage food companies, each of which markets internationally inspired concepts for packaged food.

In 2014, when co-founders Zoe Sakoutis and Erica Huss moved on from Blueprint, the healthy juice company they had sold to Hain Celestial, they, like many other young professional women, found conversations kept turning to one topic: pregnancy, and the way nutrition affects both the mother and unborn child. Hence, in November, 2015, the pair gave birth to a new company, Ezro Foods.

When Winston Stona founded Caribbean gourmet food company Busha Browne’s over 25 years ago, Caribbean cuisine was still unfamiliar to many cooks, consumers and shoppers. But as consumers’ preference for new, innovative, and flavorful products has increased, so too has demand for the company’s sauces, chutneys and jellies. Stona shares his journey in a video interview with Project NOSH.

The 2016 Winter Fancy Food Show featured a surge in exhibitors whose products are positioned as both indulgent in flavor and nutrient dense. Kaleidoscope Living Foods was one of those exhibitors, having showcased its bone broth-infused kale chips. Its founder talks to Project NOSH about the evolution of this movement and her company.

Sustainable packaged food and gardening company Back to the Roots announced that it has grown one step closer to its goal becoming the “Pixar of Foods” after raising a $5 million seed round. The Berkeley, Calif. based company plans to use the money to fertilize its growth plan within K-12 schools as well as traditional grocery retailers.

It’s hard to say what the fanciest food was at the Fancy Foods Show that recently wound up in San Francisco, especially with many new brands showing less dressed-up products that intentionally range from raw or minimally processed to “I dare you to eat that” kind of ingredients like bugs and kelp. Editor-in-Chief Jeff Klineman and Founder/CEO John Craven cover what they saw at this year’s show.

Austin, Boulder, San Francisco, Brooklyn — these are the places that have yielded some of the most prolific and innovative food companies and entrepreneurs in the country. With the announcement of his departure from KRAVE jerky, Jonathan Sebastiani wants to add another to the list: Sonoma. The wine and meat snack entrepreneur started 2016 with the news that he would be departing from Hershey (which purchased KRAVE in 2015) to start Sonoma Brands.