NOSH Voices

Fred Hart is the creative director at Interact, a Boulder-based branding and design firm. In this iteration of NOSH Voices, Hart discusses how, amid growing competition, emerging companies can create a meaningful brand without the type of flavor differentiation Big Food artificially engineered and benefitted from.

With a record amount of money flowing into the packaged food and beverage industry, and with a lot more to come in 2018, cooperation, rather than competition, is the rising tide. Here are some reasons why we anticipate that 2018 will be a landmark year of “Coopetition.”

Stu Strumwasser, the Founder and Managing Director of Green Circle Capital, writes about how one arrives at a fair valuation for shares of a private stock that has not recently been transacted (by NON friends and family members).

In the first of a three part series called “What’s My Valuation?,” guest author Stu Strumwasser, founder and managing director of Green Circle Capital.

In this issue of NOSH Voices, Zachary DeAngelo, an entrepreneur, investor and advisor to CPG brands, looks at the potential impacts of Whole Foods’ transition to centralized buying.

The hurt is accelerating for big CPG. Every single one of the largest eight food and beverage companies had U.S. sales declines in Q1 2016 vs. 2015. In this NOSH Voices guest post, Michael Burgmaier looks at why this decline is occurring and what big CPG brands are doing to try to reverse the trend.

After a decade of going it alone, Whole Foods Market is returning to cooperator status, a move that will empower its manufacturer supplier partners to provide more sophisticated insight back to the retailer, and help Whole Foods make more informed decisions accounting for broader market dynamics.

It’s a new era in Vermont, and it started on July 1, when Vermont Act 120 went into effect. The Act requires labeling of food produced with genetic engineering (“GE” or “GMO”). But before you start to pack your picnics with disclaimers, a few considerations are worth keeping in mind.

If you are connected to the industry, you have certainly noticed the influx of high-quality talent in food and beverage, particularly on the packaged side. A new generation of entrepreneurs is following the lead of their tech brethren. These sophisticated, inventive, and passionate founders are out-of-the box thinkers, and as investors and partners it’s our job to help them succeed.

In this NOSH Voices piece, guest author Adam Spriggs, founder of Nucleus Maximus, looks at food products’ packaging and analyzes how brands talk to consumers.