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

If Expo West is our Super Bowl, then April Fools’ is our Oscars. Today marks the one day of the year where the food and beverage industry collectively comes together to compete on a scale that heavily favors weirdness as long as it comes with a healthy dose of creativity.

Simek’s is riding the clean protein, premium, convenient meal solutions wave. After more than 50 years in business, the frozen food brand rolled out nationally at Whole Foods in May and has since grown its footprint to over 6,500 stores across the U.S.

Utah has followed California, Virginia and West Virginia in banning certain food additives in public schools.

In this week’s notable new products roundup, Hippeas teams up with Grillo’s Pickles to craft its newest puff flavor, Daily Harvest seeks to meet consumer demand for high-protein, and Chick-fil-A expands its collection of at-home products.

In this reviews roundup, we take a bite of a Kindling Snacks’ protein-packed pretzels, honey-sweetened ice cream, a blood sugar-friendly take on a TikTok trend, and Olyra’s latest addition.

Legislators typically often look to federally-funded, clinical studies to inform regulatory guidance. But when it comes to ultraprocessed, many of those gold-standard studies are just getting started.

The CPG Week podcast team discusses Bain & Company’s Insurgent Brands class of 2025, the similarities among new insurgent brands and how operators can derive successful growth strategies from the yearly list.

Instacart has an eye on improving the grocery industry from all angles. Today, the grocery tech platform launched a new merchandising service for brands known as Store View.

Gutzy Organic spent last year raising capital from strategic partners as it retooled its formulation and packaging to chase GLP-1 users and consumers seeking high-protein, gut-health snacks.

Fresh cut fruit and vegetable distributor Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. has acquired a majority stake in Avolio, Uganda’s leading supplier of bulk crude and edible avocado oil, per an announcement today.

The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement’s fight against food additives just notched its first big win. On Monday, West Virginia became the first state to ban the use of synthetic food additives.

In an interview with Nosh, CEO Steve Van Tassel discussed how the brand approaches innovation, the impact he hopes the recent ban of Red Dye 3 will have on the industry and the top products currently driving growth in the non-chocolate candy space.

Several dozen food brands are outpacing category growth and trampling incumbents. As the industry remains challenged by a range of external forces, these companies continue to thrive. Who are they, and how are they doing it?

The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement has propelled the term ultraprocessed food (UPF) into the lexicon of everyday Americans and positioned increased food supply oversight as a key issue of an otherwise deregulatory administration.