Specialty food used to be reserved for special occasions and accessible only to those who could afford its premium price, but increasingly specialty food is becoming everyday food sold at everyday prices that are accessible to more people.
The term ‘clean’ is popping up more and more in food branding and in consumer vernacular, but its definition is as foggy as ‘natural’ and ‘healthy,' according to Mintel.
Sustainably produced and packed with protein and vitamins, microalgae holds significant promise to help feed the growing population without exhausting the Earth’s limited resources, but its strong flavor has stopped many manufacturers from using it –...
While sales of plain dairy milk have been declining for years, and US yogurt production has dropped off after peaking in 2014, new data shows the continued growth of cheese, butter, and ready-to-drink coffee, yogurt drinks and protein beverages featuring...
When Cedarlane Natural Foods launched its ‘plant-powered’ foods back in the early ‘80s, many retailers weren’t ready for hummus and tofu meals. Today, they are carving out reams of space for these kinds of items and the industry’s biggest CPG giants are...
Plant-based meat brand Beyond Meat has opened a second production facility in Columbia, Missouri, that will more than triple its manufacturing footprint from 30,000 to 100,000sq ft and create 250 new jobs in 2018.
While consumers still respond to the convenience of popping open a bag of chips, their mindset around snacking has expanded to products that promise a sense of culinary adventure, conscious-sourcing, unexpected ingredients, and satiating benefits.
Even though frozen pizza is notorious for being loaded with sodium, saturated fat and preservatives, plant-based brand Sweet Earth Enlighted Foods sees it as the perfect vehicle to improve the health of Americans as well as the planet.
Urban Remedy partners with Kate Upton to develop meal plans
Urban Remedy – a brand specializing in ‘ultra-fresh’ organic ready-to-eat meals, snacks, and cold pressed juices – grew sales by nearly 100% vs the previous quarter in the first quarter of 2018, driven by the rapid expansion of its ‘store within a store’...
The plant-based milk segment was already pretty crowded by the time Jeff Richards quit the day job to launch Mooala in 2016. But the fact that buyers at the likes of Whole Foods, Safeway, H.E.B., Costco, and Wegmans, were willing to give him a shot this...
Finless Foods – one of a new wave of start-ups in the rapidly heating-up cultured fish* arena - has raised $3.5m in a seed round that cofounder and CEO Mike Selden says will “bring us to the end of our initial R&D phase, meaning we’ll have the tools...
Urban greenhouse developer and local produce grower Gotham Greens closed $29m in Series C equity funding last month from existing investors including the Silverman Group along with a new investment from global, family-run private equity firm Creadev.
Beyond Meat has struck a deal with A&W - Canada’s fastest growing national burger chain – to add its plant-based Beyond Burgers to the menu at 925 outlets, boosting its overall distribution in the foodservice sector to 10,000+ restaurants, hotels,...
It’s easy to look at the Annie’s brand now – which achieved double-digit household penetration during former president and CEO John Foraker’s tenure – and think the company never took a wrong turn on its path to center-store ubiquity.
General Mills has led a funding round that poured $12 million into Boulder,CO-based functional food firm NextFoods and its GoodBelly brand via its venture investing arm 301 Inc.
Plant-based food options continue to win over Americans’ share of stomach and wallets accounting for nearly 20% of food and beverage dollars spent last year, according to a new report by Nielsen.
For many consumers the idea of instant tea evokes nose-wrinkling rejection due to its extensive processing, long ingredient lists and a flavor unlike a freshly brewed cup, but startup Cusa Tea wants to change this with a version made in an all-new way...
Another start-up in the burgeoning cultured meat arena has emerged from stealth mode this month in the form of San Diego-based BlueNalu, which aims to make a splash in the cellular aquaculture field with cell-cultured seafood products after raising an...
With a clutch of start-ups getting closer to commercialization of cell-cultured meat (aka ‘clean meat’) the FDA has announced a public meeting to give stakeholders the chance to comment on the technology and the terminology used to describe it, and suggested...
While the US beverage industry is “fundamentally strong” with double-digit sales growth in the last five years, it also is experiencing “big swings” that are reordering the leaderboard as consumers revamp their daily routines to focus more on their health...
Big institutions (schools, hospitals, colleges) buy processed meat products such as chicken nuggets because they’re familiar, convenient and affordable, says Seattle Food Tech So if you can offer a plant-based alternative that tastes the same, looks the...
International Agriculture Group (IAG) is seeking to patent a dairy-free yogurt made from high starch fruits such as green bananas or unripe breadfruit, promising “improved taste, texture and sensory characteristics compared to commercial non-dairy yogurts...
Sales of refrigerated almondmilk grew 9.8% in the year to April 22, while sales of shelf-stable almond milk rose 4%, offsetting sharp declines in sales of refrigerated and shelf-stable soymilk over the same period (down 10.5% and 9.6% respectively), according...
Since making its US debut nearly a year ago, Huel has reached $10m in sales and found that its company mission of providing complete, convenient, and sustainable nutrition resonates with a global audience.
Finding nutrient-dense snacks becomes more of a challenge for moms once they exit the baby aisle and right around the time 'picky-eater syndrome' sets in. To fill this gap, Messy Monkeys is positioning itself as an affordable and healthy snack...
'We’ve spoken to large and small food companies that are interested in partnering with us'
It’s not hard to see why cell-cultured (aka ‘clean’) meat is beginning to attract some serious attention – and investment. The addressable market is huge, and the product – if it delivers on its promise – could ensure meat does not become a luxury only...
With the latest SPINS data revealing that US retail sales of dairy milk continued to lose ground to plant-based rivals in 2017 (sales of refrigerated dairy milk fell 1.5%), consumers now have a bewildering choice of opaque white liquids to pour on their...
Similar to Maine lobster or New York bagels, the credibility of these foods lie within their name and origin, which is part of the reason behind Cleveland Kraut’s success, a Midwest sauerkraut brand that has grown its presence from farmers markets to...
Record organic sales of $49.5 billion last year are overshadowed by a slowdown of organic dairy and egg sales, which the Organic Trade Association attributes partly to USDA’s abrupt withdrawal of a widely popular rule that would have strengthened animal...
Ocean Hugger Foods is gearing up for a significant expansion this year after striking deals that will help it gain access to thousands of outlets across the US, Europe and Southeast Asia and propel plant-based seafood into the culinary mainstream, claims...
With newly minted branding centered on nourishment and a range of new products launching, Pacific Foods is angling to claim as its own the burgeoning bone broth category as well as secure a larger share of the booming plant-based milk segment, according...
The already fast-growing coconut milk-based beverage manufacturer REBBL is primed for exponential growth this year thanks in part to a $20 million investment led by CAVU Venture Partners that will allow it to expand distribution, launch new products and...
Attempts by the US Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) to restrict use of the terms ‘beef’ and ‘meat’ to products from animals ‘born, raised, and harvested in the traditional manner,’ are “ill considered,” claims the North American Meat Institute (NAMI).
Israeli cultured meat (aka 'clean' meat) start-up Future Meat Technologies reckons it can bring prices down from around $800/kilo today to as little as $8/kilo for its cell-cultured meat in six to eight months.
Kemin has developed a “consumer-friendly” plant-based shelf life extension solution, NaturFORT RSGT, for ambient products such as salad dressings and sauces, using a blend of rosemary, spearmint, and green tea extracts.
'It makes no sense to mandate that an agency create new food regulations in a spending bill'
The Good Food Institute (GFI) - a non-profit representing players in the burgeoning plant-based and cell-cultured (aka ‘clean’) meat arena – says it’s baffled by language in a draft spending bill that tasks the USDA with issuing new regulations covering...
The plant-based seafood space has heated up considerably since New Wave Foods co-founder Dominique Barnes first started wondering why plant-based burgers were a thing, but plant-based shrimp wasn’t, back in 2015, but we’ve still barely scratched the surface...
My/Mo mochi – portable 110-calorie ice cream bites encased in chewy sweet rice dough – are now in almost 10,000 stores from Walmart and Safeway to Wegmans and Kroger after fewer than 18 months on the market.
Almost half of plant-based meat and dairy firm Impossible Foods’ growth plans are targeted at Asia, which has been described as a “really critical market” by chief strategy officer Nick Halla.
Tyson Ventures - the venture arm of meat packer Tyson Foods - has co-led a $2.2m funding round in Israeli cultured meat (aka 'clean' meat) start-up Future Meat Technologies, four months after investing in US-based cultured meat firm Memphis...
'We can accommodate clean meat within the existing regulatory framework...'
Attempts by the US Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) to restrict use of the terms ‘beef’ and ‘meat’ to products from animals ‘born, raised, and harvested in the traditional manner,’ would have a “chilling” effect on innovation “at a time when the global...
'We can produce up to 10,000 cows’ worth of meat with a single biopsy'
Excitement is building as cultured meat approaches commercialization, but “science does not occur in a cultural vacuum” and bringing consumers and regulators with you on the journey is more important than being first to market, says clean meat start-up...
PBFA: Changing course now could put the FDA in a legal bind
FDA commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb says the agency is “actively” exploring whether consumers are being misled by the use of terms such as ‘milk’ or ‘yogurt’ to describe plant based products, but says the FDA's radio silence on this issue in recent...
Keeping track of emerging food trends can be daunting, especially in an immediate, digital-centric environment, but there are a few constant principles to lean on in the increasingly cluttered, fragmented food and beverage market, according to Lynn Dornblaser,...
Since closing a $1.1m seed series fundraising round led by Rocana Venture Partners, Après seems to be well on its way to addressing what its founders felt was a clear gap in the market of protein nutrition: the boutique fitness-frequenting woman.
Proposed research questions for the 2020 Dietary Guidelines that continue to focus on consumption in relation to nutrient adequacy are “disappointing,” and a better use of resources would be to look at the impact of food groups on disease endpoints, argues...
The high bar set by the companies honored late last week at Whole Foods Market’s annual supplier awards ceremony represents not only what it takes to earn a coveted spot on the retailer’s shelves, but also in the baskets of consumers who increasingly...
'We started by looking at where we could really own a category'
Vegan jerky is picking up steam, but hasn’t set the world on fire, yet. And while bacon-flavored potato and corn chips are a staple in the salty snacks aisle, they don’t pretend to replicate the taste and texture of a strip of bacon. But what if you could...
Plant-based meat alternatives mimicking beef and chicken may be getting all the attention right now, but Good Catch Foods, a company aiming to bring a suite of plant-based seafood products to stores within six months, could change the tide of conversation.
What plant-based foods are trending in foodservice?
Plant-based is a hot trend in food marketing right now, but how is it playing out in foodservice, which ingredients are trending on menus, and what marketing resonates the best with diners?
