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

Today upstart jica-based snack brand, JicaChips, announced the closing of an over $1 million round of funding from several investors, including accelerator firm and investor AccelFoods and natural foods strategy and brokerage firm Presence Marketing. While the raise itself is notable, it capstones a week of announcements from AccelFoods about major investments in brands that have graduated from its accelerator program.

Yesterday, insect-based protein snack bar company Exo Foods announced the closing of a $4 million Series A investment round led by CPG incubator and private equity fund AccelFoods. Also investing in the round were a pair of venture capital funds, Start Garden and the Collaborative Fund, as well as celebrities like the author Tim Ferriss, the rap artist NAS and the endurance athlete Amelia Boone.

This morning, Good Culture announced that it had closed a $2.1 million Series A fundraising round, with Christopher’s new private equity fund, CAVU Venture Partners, and General Mills’ new venture fund 301 INC leading the investment.

Jonathan Sebastiani’s new consumer products incubator and venture fund Sonoma Brands announced its first investment, in healthy snack food company Dang Foods. Dang founder Vincent Kitirattragarn says the investment “is a dream partnership” that will help the brand scale even faster.

Joining the lineup will be highly respected industry consultants Bob Burke, John Maggiore, and Jeff Grogg, who will guide attendees through a lesson on ways pricing and margin interact, supply-chain hotspots that can bring up the cost of ingredients and manufacturing, and how best to plan for in-store promotional costs and to deploy those promotions most effectively.

United Natural Foods (UNFI), the country’s largest distributor of natural products, announced this week the acquisition of Haddon House Foods, a specialty and natural foods wholesaler based on the East Coast. The acquisition is expected to help bolster UNFI’s sales in these sub-categories, which have been secondary to its natural foods business. However, looking beyond the distributor itself, the question still remains what the move will mean for smaller brands that were carried by Haddon House.

Comprised of a well-known entrepreneur, a legendary brand-builder, and a self-described “hunter” of cutting edge brands, CAVU’s triangle offense is getting ready to hit the floor.

February saw the departure of two key grocery executives for natural products retailer Whole Foods Market.

Drawing from a deep field of entrepreneurs, investors, retailers, and more, these speakers are excited to illuminate, educate, and inspire the universe of emerging healthy food companies that Project NOSH serves.

World Peas, which makes snacks out of beans and other legumes, has been acquired by Snack it Forward, LLC, the buyer announced today. In four years, the company has grown to have national distribution and is found in stores including Whole Foods Market, Target, The Fresh Market, Costco and online retailer Thrive Market.

Private equity firm Alliance Consumer Growth (ACG) has raised $210 million for its third fund, its founders announced Wednesday, more than doubling the amount it raised in its last fund, just two years ago.

While Fashion Week New York just ended, several food brands are debuting new packaging “collections” of their own at this year’s Expo West. We’ve gotten some advance looks at these design revamps and have noticed a shift towards cleaner, graphic-oriented packaging that embodies the busy, modern millennial lifestyle.

RangeMe, an online platform that connects CPG producers with retail buyers, has expanded to the U.S. The site has seen recent success signing up major retailers (such as Target and Jet.com) and suppliers have followed.

At this week’s Consumer Analysts Group New York (CAGNY) conference several of the top publicly traded consumer brands announced their plans for growth in 2016. The presentations gave insight into two key areas that established, publicly traded players in the food and beverage industry will be focusing on: establishing natural bona fides and increasing snacking or on-the-go options.