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Welcome to Sauce in the City – a new column on NOSH exploring the day-to-day business of starting and scaling a new food business.

The American palate has evolved in the last 40 years, and so has the Amin family business — Deep Foods. The company is now catering to a new generation of shoppers by repositioning its Tandoor Chef brand in an effort to tell a larger, authentic story.

Although many credit Steve’s Ice Cream for kicking off the super-premium ice cream movement back in the 1970s, the brand has struggled to capitalize on its first-mover status in the years since. But now the brand has Dean Foods, who acquired the brand in 2017, behind it as the dairy giant attempts to enter the artisanal ice cream space.

The battle to see who will be the category leader in plant-based “meat” continues. Less than two weeks after Beyond Meat launched a successful initial public offering (IPO), beef-substitute Impossible Foods announced today the close of a $300M round of funding.

Utz Quality Foods announced a $1.25 million settlement of a class action labeling lawsuit; Whole Foods is moving its Northeast headquarters; Nestle will move its ice cream and frozen pizza businesses from a DSD network to a warehouse model.

Maine is already known for its lobsters, but Ocean Approved wants the state to be known for another ocean crop: kelp. Led by new CEO Briana Warner, the company is launching a line of products under the Atlantic Sea Farms brand to bring awareness to this briny delicacy and has new investors and supply chain strategy to support this growth.

For the first time small companies with revenues under $1 billion make up more than half of IRI’s New Product Pacesetters report, which was released yesterday. The research firm’s 23rd annual Pacesetters report lists 2018’s most successful new food and beverage product launches in both major retail and convenience stores, as well as non-food by multi-outlet dollar sales.

Hummus maker Sabra named Jason Levine, former North America CMO for Mondelez International, as CMO last month.

During its recent 2019 annual shareowners’ meeting and its 2019 first quarter earnings call, Kellogg, the largest cereal company in the U.S., shared details of its financial performance following a challenging year for the category.

Governmental agencies made several new announcements this week that could impact how brands and suppliers approach food safety.