Plant Based

While it’s been a tumultuous path for Thrive Oil, it seems the road goes no further — Its current owner, ingredient company Corbion, announced the algae-based product line has been discontinued.

In this video NadaMoo CEO Daniel Nicholson traces back the evolution of the brand and discusses how the interest (and investment) in both the frozen dessert set and plant-based products has impacted the company. He also shares how the company has managed to find success over the past 15 years.

Gregory Struck has spent over ten years trying to reinvent classic American favorites with a better-for-you bent. Now the Long Island Iced Tea and Hungryroot cofounder is at it again with Noops, a new line of indulgent oat milk puddings, this time with the backing of several prominent investors.

A leader from dairy and meat snacks companies is joining the plant-based revolution. Non-dairy cheese company Good PLANet announced today Bart Adlam, formerly of Chef’s Cut and Siggi’s, will join the company as co-CEO, a role he will share with founder and current CEO David Israel.

Moving from supplying brands to also helping create them, vegan “dairy” ingredient supplier Perfect Day announced an agreement in which it is investing in new brand The Urgent Company.

The plant-based meat category was already growing before the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, many plant-based brands have seen huge sales upticks since pantry loading began in March. Now, they need to figure out what comes next.

Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make a plant-based omelette. When JUST — then known as Hampton Creek — started up roughly a decade ago, founder Josh Tetrick wanted to shake up the food industry. While his goal has remained the same, the path has changed. The company has expanded its strategy beyond its own branded products to form strategic partnerships with a focus on ingredients as the way forward. To start, the company announced this week a new food service partnership with Michael Foods, a subsidiary of Post Holdings and one of the largest processors of egg products in the world.

Rebellyous Foods has more than a nugget’s worth of plans. With a new plant-based chicken nugget launching into limited retail this week, the company hopes its proprietary technology will eventually be adapted by other manufacturers.

As consumers cook at home more, the shift is powering B&G Foods — and fueling its pipeline of plant-based innovations. In its first quarter earnings call this week, B&G reported strong net sales growth and further plans for frozen food brand Farmwise, which it acquired in February.

While production issues currently plague the meat industry, plant-based meat companies are growing. In their respective quarterly earnings calls this week, executives from meat company Tyson and plant-based brand Beyond Meat discussed powering through a pandemic — and trying to develop future strategies despite looming uncertainty.