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Customers might love natural and specialty retailers, but lately it looks like their creditors don’t. In the past month, three long-time natural/specialty retailers, Lucky’s Market, Fairway and Earth Fare, declared bankruptcies. Meanwhile, big box retailers increasingly feature emerging brands, and e-commerce and direct-to-consumer are gaining prominence in brands’ strategies. NOSH spoke to analysts from Mintel, IHL Group, and The Hartman Group to weigh in on the state of specialty — and what it means for brands.

With alternative rice brand RightRice, Keith Belling, the company’s founder and CEO (and snack brand Popchips’ co-founder and chairman) saw a fresh opportunity to shake up a center store staple. At NOSH Live Winter 2019, Belling shared tasty takeaways on moving from crunchy snacks to a better-for-you take on an ordinary pantry item — and seeing rapid first-year growth.

Direct-to-consumer website Brandless shuts down, online grocery delivery service Peapod cuts its Midwest division, organic fruit and vegetable platform Daily Harvest promotes ingredient transparency, and more in this week’s Checkout.

According to Emily Schildt, “We’re living in an age of too much stuff.” With the goal of cutting through this clutter, Schildt, a CPG marketing consultant, founded Pop Up Grocer, a traveling food and beverage brand activation spotlighting a curated selection of emerging natural brands, offering them exposure to consumers, influencers and industry professionals in a candy-colored Instagram-friendly setting.

Betting on the ubiquitous affinity for chocolate, companies are now trying to create high-quality, tasty sweets that incorporate functional benefits — steering both into the supplement and snack aisles for merchandising — and looking at a variety of functions and ingredients: everything from vitamins that taste like conventional candy to prebiotic European chocolate bars.

Halal frozen meal, sauce and snack brand Saffron Road is mapping another category entry, launching shelf-stable meals this month. The new microwavable pouches come in two Indian-inspired flavors: Chickpea Masala and Delhi Potatoes.

To-date, the plant-based meat world has been largely dominated by sausage, burger and ground beef alternatives — Alpha Foods, however, sees a future in faux fowl. Investors are supporting this outlook, with the brand announcing today the close of a $28 million round of investment.

Michigan-based food and beverage consulting group JPG Resources is growing its capabilities — and eyeing New York City’s entrepreneurial scene to help do that. After opening a new office last month, the company has an array of new offerings slated to launch this spring — fueled by seasoned food industry experts joining the team.

Kellogg and Tyson prep for plant-based launches; Yofix raises $2.5 million and more in this week’s Checkout.

At the Winter Fancy Food Show, Aylon Steinhart, co-founder of plant-based dairy brand Eclipse, discussed the company’s path to market, having launched its soft serve ice cream bases and packed ice cream drums into San Francisco and New York restaurants and scoop shops in 2019.