Pea protein-fueled brand Ripple Foods has raised $60m in an oversubscribed Series E round* that takes its cumulative funding to almost $250m, and will help the plant-based firm enter new categories, channels, and overseas markets, and extend its proprietary...
Iron Ox – one of a flurry of high-tech indoor farming startups attracting significant interest from agtech investors in recent years – has closed a $53m series C round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures (taking its cumulative funding to $98m) to help...
Supply chain challenges exacerbated by the pandemic have bolstered consumer interest in buying local to better support farmers, ensure product quality and reduce environmental impact, but many do not want to sacrifice the savings or year-around variety...
Plant based meat brand Tofurky has teamed up with San Diego-based Triton Algae Innovations to commercialize new ‘algae-based meat innovations’ featuring Triton’s protein-rich Non-GMO ‘essential red' algae for retail launch in Q1, 2022.
While many parents say that their family has eaten more healthily since the start of the pandemic, one in five parents reports relying more heavily on fast food as a quick fix family meal option, according to the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott...
Startup Aqua Cultured Foods is carving out novel territory in the nascent alternative seafood space with a Non-GMO fermentation-based production platform capable of delivering high-protein, nutrient-rich ‘whole cuts’ of fungi-based seafood, with the first...
A keen empathy for consumers, a deep commitment to innovation and an open-door approach to collaboration helped the founder of Nissin Foods not only capture the hearts of billions of people when he invented instant noodles, but also helped build and sustain...
PepsiCo has unveiled a new data platform dubbed ‘pepviz’ enabling it to collaborate with retail partners to develop a more granular, targeted, and ‘hyperlocal’ approach to product assortment, digital marketing and inventory management that has already...
Sophie’s Kitchen has secured a $5.6m investment led by venture capital firm Billy Goat Brands to help it expand its plant-based seafood empire, which now extends into multiple categories including ‘toona,’ crab cakes, fish filets, smoked salmon, and shrimp....
Interested in meat, dairy, and seafood alternatives? Is all the hype - and the wads of cash - truly justified? Are some formulations (think plant-based cheese and yogurt) really ready for prime time? Are the purchase drivers for plant-based seafood the...
A new platform for whole-cut texturization to produce plant-based meat alternatives and cell-based hybrids has been developed by Israeli firm Alfred’s FoodTech, Ltd.
While it has the same number of calories per gram as regular sugar, the tooth-friendly ‘slow-carb’ isomaltulose is metabolized very differently to sucrose, and like allulose, should not have to count towards grams of total or added sugar on food labels,...
Full Sail IP Partners, a Warburg Pincus-backed investment firm set up to acquire brands, has bought the Odwalla juice and smoothie brand from Coca-Cola - which discontinued it last year - for an undisclosed sum.
While inflation in August was still more than double the Federal Reserve’s 2% long-term target, its growth rate slowed for the first time in eight months – sparking optimism in some policy makers that the economy is healing.
Outer Aisle Gourmet – which makes sandwich thins, pizza crusts, and wraps using fresh cauliflower as the #1 ingredient – is gearing up to open its third manufacturing facility to meet growing demand for its grain-free, low-carb products.
When it comes to packaging, is it always clear which is the most environmentally-friendly choice? Mixed material packaging combining high levels of paperboard, for example, is often touted as a greener choice than plastic, but if most of it ends up in...
Despite “more inflation than we’ve seen in really in a decade,” General Mills has successfully offset increases with little detriment to sales or retailer and consumer relationships, but managing labor constraints and supply chain challenges hasn’t been...
While investors and journalists are pretty excited about a new wave of startups growing food in fermentation tanks, it’s easy to forget that we’ve been eating a filamentous fungus grown in big metal vats (a.k.a. ‘mycoprotein’) since the 1980s, says the...
Seven months after releasing a report alleging “dangerous” levels of heavy metals in top baby food brands, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi tells FoodNavigator-USA that the report – criticized by some commentators as alarmist - provided a necessary jolt...
The Gardein plant-based meat brand notched up retail sales of $170m in measured channels* in the year to July 25, up 33.5% versus two years ago, says brand owner Conagra Brands, which says it's particularly encouraged by the 'growth that is...
Local Bounti is playing to win in the CEA (controlled environment agriculture) sector with a hybrid approach to growing its leafy greens that combines the best of vertical and horizontal greenhouse farming, which founder and CEO Craig Hurlbert says offers...
Plantible Foods - a startup producing protein from lemna, a fast-growing aquatic plant that can be harvested all year round, has raised $21.5m in a series A round* led by Astanor Ventures, as it gears up for a commercial launch in 2022.
Ari Raz - who helped introduce Americans to fresh baby food via the Once Upon a Farm brand – has taken the helm at The Coconut Cult, another California-based startup attempting to carve out a new category in grocery.
While many retailers and CPG manufacturers are implementing price increases to their product assortments, online fresh food retailer FreshDirect said it will be rolling out price savings to consumers on a wide variety of its products.
Climate change, labor shortages, inflation and strained supply chains threaten manufacturers’ and suppliers’ ability to ethically source, safely produce and efficiently deliver the foods consumers want at prices they can afford -- but what if there was...
Messaging around dairy alternatives often focuses on health, sustainability, animal welfare, or food allergy/intolerance, which motivates shoppers that want to feel good about what they put in their baskets and their bodies. But ‘plant curious’ consumers...
Poppi, an emerging prebiotic soda brand, has closed a $13.5m funding round led by CAVU Ventures and further backed by a star-studded investor pool including Ellie Goulding, Halsey, Kevin Love, and Olivia Munn, which will go towards supporting the company's...
While Quest Nutrition may not have achieved its founders’ somewhat lofty goal of ‘ending metabolic disease’ just yet, the high-protein, low-carb, low-sugar positioning of the company – one of the runaway CPG success stories of the past decade – is continuing...
In a first for a national dairy brand in the US, Chobani has unveiled a yogurt cup made with 80% paperboard that will hit the market later this year in its single-serve oat blend products, with a view to rolling out across a wider set of products over...
Asian plant-based meat sensation OmniFoods is making its US retail debut via a launch in Sprouts stores nationwide and select Whole Foods stores with three products: OmniPork Ground, OmniPork Strips and OmniPork Luncheon.
When COVID-19 hit, Amy’s Kitchen – best known for its frozen pizzas, burritos, entrees and shelf-stable soups – ticked all the right boxes for ‘pandemic cuisine,’ says chief customer and consumer officer Karen Jobb. It makes convenient, healthy, restaurant-quality...
Koia, which launched with plant-based protein shakes in 2016 sold at Whole Foods stores, has unlocked exponential growth in the mass channel with its low-sugar smoothie line that founder and CEO Chris Hunter says is the company's "best performing...
The latest consumer price index reveals food prices have climbed 3.4% over the past year, reflecting a slow but steady month over month increase that likely won’t stop any time soon as ingredient, material and labor shortages continue.
As the pandemic drags on and consumers feel more confident in the kitchen they are relying less on well-known, iconic brands for comfort as they did in the months immediately following the coronavirus outbreak and are more willing to try new brands and...
The pandemic’s impact on frontline workers, including farmers and food manufacturers, paired with recent high profile social justice movements and spectacular displays of climate change over the past 18 months is spurring more consumers to look for and...
New research from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health funded by the California Walnut Commission has found a possible link between higher walnut consumption and increase in life expectancy among older US adults.
Best known for renovating the cottage cheese category with a clean-label alternative free from additives and made with milk from pasture-raised dairy cows, Good Culture has its sights set far beyond the $1.2bn cottage cheese category to become a fermented...
Dairy proteins used to come exclusively from cows. Today, people can program microbes or plants to produce them without our farmyard friends, or even deploy bovine mammary cells that ‘lactate’ outside of an animal. But which approach is the most scalable,...
Apeel Sciences – the Santa Barbara-based firm behind an invisible plant-based edible skin that can dramatically extend the shelf-life of fresh produce – has raised $250m in a series E funding round led by Temasek that takes its cumulative funding to $635m,...
Recruiting and maintaining top talent in the food industry was difficult long before the coronavirus outbreak, but for many retailers and manufacturers labor challenges have intensified during the pandemic as the type of work, where it takes place and...
BrightFarms has been acquired by Cox Enterprises, accelerating the hydroponic indoor farming company's mission of bringing leafy greens to more households throughout the US.
Join Noblegen, Plantible Foods, Superbrewed Food, Mattson and Lever VC to discuss the future of protein
Plant-based proteins such as soy and pea continue to dominate the so-called ‘alternative protein’ category, but they’re not the only game in town. New options are now emerging from ‘animal-free’ collagen and whey to a novel set of proteins produced naturally...
Worried that biotechnologies, such as those used to create non-browning mushrooms, are inadequately regulated or could be unfairly shunned by the public, a coalition of non-governmental organizations this week published a six-point framework for the “responsible...
Impossible Sausage made from plants – a soy-based ground sausage product in savory and spicy variants – will make its retail debut this month and should be in 13,000 stores by the year end, says Impossible Foods, which says retailers have been encouraged...
Strong Roots is experiencing and witnessing a fundamental consumer shift towards frozen food that has reshaped the way many households eat, claims founder and CEO Sam Dennigan.
AB 535, a California bill that would have prohibited any reference to California on olive oil bottles that did not contain 100% California-sourced olive oil, has been amended such that supporters and opponents say they can both live with it.
Danone is hoping to make a splash in the small but rapidly growing plant-based yogurt segment with a Greek-style product under its Silk brand boasting 10g of protein from peas and a thick, creamy texture from coconut cream it claims will be a game changer...
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