Innovation

Within the specialty coffee space, Vietnamese coffee is typically dismissed as cheaper and low quality, according to Sahra Nguyen, founder and CEO of Nguyen Coffee Supply. Which is why since launching her dry coffee brand in 2018, she has focused on exposing the coffee industry to the potential of Vietnam-sourced robusta beans.

Functional food and beverage brand Mindright is moving further into the snack set with the launch of a new line of adaptogen-enhanced puffed chips.

Upcycled ingredient supplier and food brand Renewal Mill has partnered with specialty kitchenware retailer Williams Sonoma to produce co-branded products under the retailer’s new Seed & Harvest brand. The partnership comes as the company has also gone nationwide with Whole Foods Market.

Mars is partnering with food tech company Perfect Day to launch a new chocolate bar made with animal-free whey protein. The bar, which will be released under a new brand called CO2COA, is the latest chocolate product launch featuring Perfect Day milk protein as the ingredient company tries to push further into the confection set.

Holding company and incubator Redbud Brands announced yesterday it has raised $46 million to create, fund and scale its portfolio of consumer businesses.

On this month’s Market Share, we’ll hear from Amplify chief commercial officer Kyle Banahan about how having a unified voice and a singular goal is helping the snack-centered group move forward more efficiently and propelling it’s parent company Hershey deeper into snacking.

Food tech platform Voyage Foods closed a $36 million funding round last week that will help bring its full slate of innovations – including peanut-free peanut butter, cacao-free chocolate and coffee-free coffee – to consumers by the end of the year.

Food and beverage company Tomorrow Farms announced today the closing of $8.5 million in funding aimed at supporting its first product launch this summer and attracting ingredient companies with which it can partner to bring its technologies to market.

Aiming to make single use cans and bottles a thing of the past, former “trend spotter” Max Luthy and event producer-turned-beverage entrepreneur Luke Montgomery-Smith have launched Plink!, a vintage-inspired brand of beverage tablets.

Direct-to-consumer frozen food brand Daily Harvest last week announced the launch of Crumbles, a line of meat alternatives that takes the brand further out of its initial product portfolio of cook-and-eat meals and smoothies.