Investment

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.

Phenomenal Foods, the maker of Nomva, a new food brand that merges current trends in cold-pressed juice and on-the-go snacks, today announced the closing of a $3 million round of funding. Nomva markets a line of high pressure processed (HPP), organic fruit and vegetable blends that are infused with probiotics and packaged in 6 oz. pouches.

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

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

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.

The stock market hasn’t loved its parent company, but hot popcorn brand SkinnyPop is nevertheless still growing like crazy, Amplify Snack Brands’ CEO said this week. Speaking at strategic communications and advisory firm IRC’s annual conference in Florida this week, Amplify CEO Tom Ennis discussed the continued growth of the popcorn brand and gave glimpses of a future platform that he hopes will allow the company to take more territory in the broader snack category.

Icelandic Provisions, a new dairy startup, believes they have the recipe for success in the yogurt category by using skyr to target consumer needs for higher protein and lower sugar cultured dairy. The company leadership recently closed an investment of $11 million dollars led by healthcare and technology VC Polaris Ventures.

Kale chip maker Rhythm Superfoods has become the first direct investment from General Mills’ new 301 INC venture capital arm. The $3 million raise was led by 301 INC via a fund it has set up on CircleUp, a crowdsourced investment platform.

2016 marks the official launch of Edible Ventures, the nation’s first angel group investing solely in high growth, ready-to-eat, ready-to-drink CPG companies. Project NOSH sat down with Edible Ventures’ Managing Director, Jeremy Halpern, to find out why there’s a need for this group, why the time is right for its launch and what the group is looking for in entrepreneurs and companies.

Today consumer foods giant General Mills announced that it has acquired upstart meat snack company EPIC Provisions. The brand will operate under General Mills-owned Annie’s Organics. Both Taylor Collins, Epic’s co-founder, and John Haugen, General Mills’ VP & General Manager of 301 Inc, spoke with NOSH about the acquisition.