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

Scott LaPorta, the new president and general manager at Campbell’s-owned Bolthouse Farms, offers insights into the $900 million juice and produce innovator’s new position within the larger company’s recently unveiled Campbells-Fresh (C-Fresh) division.

Readers of my last two columns get the point quickly: food and beverage companies in the natural products industry should strive for racial and ethnic diversity. To that end, now we’re going to think about solutions: practices that the industry and its component companies can inaugurate to spur both employee and entrepreneurial diversity.

No matter the innovation or quality of its products, brands can’t reach full sales potential until they have a mutually beneficial and strategic relationship with their retailers.

Giving attendees all they need to know to understand the dynamic world of food and beverage entrepreneurialism, this full-day business education and networking conference will take place on September 30 in Boston, MA.

David Sprinkle, a research director for Packaged Facts, cites “evidence that the percentage of men who are now the primary shoppers in their households has more than doubled in the past two decades.”

Before getting into the design and legal aspects of labels, it’s important to understand their physical production. To do so, we recently sat down with Ryan Dunlevy of Reid Label & Digital Graphics to discuss what entrepreneurs should know about how labels are made, the variety of materials used to create labels and what labels work best for certain products versus others.

In a recent report, The Hartman Group, a consulting and research firm focused on consumer behavior and attitudes, wrote that “the authenticity halo around organic and natural has begun to fade, and local foods and beverages are poised to surpass them as a symbol of trust and transparency.”

For new food entrepreneurs, the home kitchen is where most products are born. However, a transition to production at contract manufacturing facilities allows for commercial-scale production of packaged goods and the safety requirements and quality assurance protocols required for food products. But what if you want to manage production? Can you manufacture legally in your home kitchen?

A recent report produced by the The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) found that CPG companies are increasingly being squeezed by transportation costs and need to carefully consider a strategic approach to supply chain management and logistics.

Out of an estimated 100,000 product offerings, the 2015 Summer Fancy Foods Show gave us a lot of ground to cover. Of course, it would highly ambitious to think that we could cover the entirety of the show, which was held June 28-30 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City, but we certainly tried.

We sat down with Jack Brennan, managing partner of consumer products advisory firm GBS Growth Partners, who offered some specifics on what entrepreneurs need to be wary of when crafting a business plan.