Led by a PepsiCo alum turned beverage entrepreneur, OCA is carving out a spot for itself in the growing 'clean' energy drink category with a simple ingredient deck which includes 120mg of caffeine from green coffee extract.
While regenerative agriculture resonates with rising consumer interest in sustainability, it can be difficult to explain in snappy marketing sound bites and callouts – prompting natural and organic meat company Applegate to try a different approach through...
In its largest expansion to date, Gotham Greens is doubling the size of its greenhouse capacity from 600,000 to over 1.2 million square feet this year unlocking new regions, national distribution at key retailers, and getting one large step closer to...
Koidra, an intelligent automation (IA) startup based out of Seattle, has raised $4.5m in a seed funding round to bring its data intelligence technology to precision and controlled environmental agriculture sectors.
From reishi to lion’s mane, ‘medicinal’ mushrooms are gaining traction in foods and beverages, buoyed by growing interest in adaptogens and immunity, says Four Sigmatic CEO Tero Isokauppila, who caught up with FoodNavigator-USA at the Natural Products...
Above Food has been quietly building a plant-based foods portfolio which spans plant-based seafood to plant-based cheese, and its market presence is about to explode with the unveiling of a disruptive, more sustainable, oat processing technology that...
While plant-based beef patties and grounds, pork sausages and chicken nuggets abound, seafood alternatives are still relatively scare – representing a significant, and fast-growing, opportunity that innovators and investors alike are moving quickly to...
The family feud over who should lead Illinois-based Lifeway Foods and how it should be run has not been resolved, with former COO Edward Smolyansky preparing for a potential proxy contest at the upcoming AGM according to an SEC filing from March 17.
With fresh leadership and a portfolio intended to address a consumer's every need state, Laird Superfood is on a strong path towards significant long-term growth and profitability, said the company's new president and CEO Jason Vieth at the...
Billed as friendlier on the gut, The a2 Milk Co's milk comes from cows that only produce A2 beta casein protein. But how much science is behind it, and what share could it ultimately take of the US fluid milk market? We caught up with Blake Waltrip,...
Many indoor farming companies - while noble in their pursuit of providing consumers with access to locally-grown produce with a longer shelf life and free from pesticides and other contaminants from conventional field farming - have struggled to create...
As the line between functional and fun blurs, foods and beverages no longer need to fit neatly into the “healthy” or “treat” categories – they can simultaneously offer the lifestyle and health benefits consumers want and serve as the rewards they crave,...
While General Mills is aggressively – and to an extent successfully – tackling supply chain challenges causing shortages of some of its beloved convenience brands, including Pillsbury dough and Totino’s pizza rolls, it likely won’t be able to fully meet...
Boston-based Motif FoodWorks says it is “very confident” it will prevail in its legal spat with Impossible Foods over a new generation of ‘meaty’ flavors produced by precision fermentation.
The EVERY Company has teamed up with upmarket west-coast patisserie brand Chantal Guillon to road test EVERY EggWhite - billed as “the world’s first animal-free egg white” - in a product heavily reliant on the unique functional properties of egg whites:...
Tattooed Chef, a rapidly-growing plant-based frozen foods brand, is entering new categories beyond the frozen foods aisle and into refrigerated snack bars and snacking chips.
After two years of lockdowns and uncertainty during the pandemic, consumers simultaneously are desperate to let loose and enjoy life and to reinstate a sense of self-control – creating a complicated marketing landscape that intelligence experts at Mintel...
While growth in US retail sales of refrigerated plant-based meat has slowed, investors are still pouring large amounts of cash into startups creating alternatives to meat, eggs, and dairy products with plant-based and fermentation-based approaches, and...
Chobani has re-hired Kevin Burns – who served as its president and COO between 2014 and 2016 – as president and COO following the departure of Peter McGuinness.
Sophie's Kitchen is gearing up to significantly expand distribution of its plant-based seafood portfolio of chilled, frozen, and shelf-stable pea-based seafood analogues including its most recent product launch -- fish burgers -- which CEO Miles...
Former Chobani president Peter McGuinness – who has spent the last several years running a dairy company, albeit one that has recently launched several plant-based products - is set to take the helm at Impossible Foods, a firm on a mission to “replace...
The total US online grocery market hit $8.7bn in sales in February 2022, an 8.5% jump from the same period last year as consumers pursued pickup/delivery (Instacart, Amazon Fresh, and the like) options in greater frequency over ship-to-home services (grocery...
EPG – a plant-based oil restructured in such a way that virtually none of it is absorbed by the body – has demonstrated intriguing properties in plant-based meat applications, where formulators have struggled to find vegan options that behave like animal...
If the alt-meat space is getting pretty crowded, there is still only a handful of players in the plant-based egg vertical, which is growing strongly, says Just Egg maker Eat Just, which has seen a significant increase in distribution, with its mung-bean-fueled...
Nature’s Fynd - a startup growing protein-packed food from microbes with a fraction of the environmental footprint of meat or dairy – is launching refrigerated breakfast patties featuring its ‘Fy’ nutritional fungi protein in selected Whole Foods stores...
Plantish has raised $12.5m in seed funding to scale up the production technology for its plant-based whole-cut salmon fillets, which will first enter fine dining restaurants by late 2023.
Tate and Lyle - which has been marketing its PROMITOR soluble corn fiber for several years as a prebiotic that can support bone health by boosting calcium absorption and retention - says it is also exploring its potential to support cognitive health,...
With consumers placing more weight on the type and amount of fat in packaged food when selecting purchases, a group of five better-for-you brands are teaming up to ensure shoppers understand key nutritional differences between oils and how they are processed....
Despite the wide availability of CBD in its various forms—oil, topical ointments, tinctures, vaping and edibles— a recent poll shows parents are misinformed on CBD.
From a flurry of keto snacks and functional-but-fun beverages, to firms making more proactive claims about their impact (or lack thereof) on the environment, check out our first trendspotting gallery from the Natural Products Expo West show in Anaheim,...
Third-party meal delivery service DoorDash is debuting its DoorDash Accelerator for Local Goods, a program designed to support local packaged food brands owned by women, BIPOC, immigrant, and transgender entrepreneurs.
The drop in US sales growth of natural and organic products following the 10% pantry-stocking surge early in the pandemic will linger well into 2023 – dropping to less than 4% before starting to climb again slowly to about 5% in 2024, according to analysis...
DSM is gearing up to launch commercial quantities of upcycled canola protein isolate extracted from Non GMO rapeseed at a new facility in Dieppe, France, later this year, and says it is seeing interest from firms spanning plant-based meat and dairy, to...
Kraft Heinz has just teamed up with foodtech startup NotCo to create a joint venture that will develop co-branded plant-based foods across multiple categories, with the first products to launch this year. FoodNavigator-USA caught up with NotCo co-founder...
By now, we are all familiar with the recent topline 'problem' in retail plant-based meat. The slow-down is visible in Beyond Meat's latest earnings call itself. Foodservice and international sales are driving all of the brand's growth....
For the father and son behind start-up Planet Based Foods, declining sales of meat alternatives that closely mimic animal products is not a harbinger of dwindling consumer interest in plant-based options, but rather a natural evolution of the trend that...
Coca-Cola is the latest major global food and beverage giant to suspend operations in Russia as an act of protest against the Russian invasion and continued attack on Ukraine and follows similar announcements made by PepsiCo, Starbucks, and McDonald's....
If churning out milk from lactating bovine mammary epithelial cells in a bioreactor seems a bit, well, unnatural, ask yourself what’s ‘natural’ about the life of a dairy cow in an industrial-scale dairy farming operation, says Opalia co-founder Jennifer...
Big Bold Health, a company bent popularizing the immune health benefits of a particular legacy crop, has announced $4 million in funding from a venture capital firm.
Emeryville, CA-based Finless Foods has closed a $34m series B round* to fund pilot-scale production of cell-cultured bluefin tuna, and support the national foodservice launch of its first product: plant-based tuna.
Fat is mission-critical to the appearance, smell, taste, mouthfeel, and texture of meat. And if you want to formulate meat alternatives that look, cook, smell, and taste like the real thing, plant-based fats will only get you so far, claims San Francisco-based...
Kroger has teamed up with Impossible Foods and Denver-based Custom Made Meals, which manufactures entrees and appetizers for Kroger’s Home Chef brand, to develop plant-based protein products, although it has not provided details about the scope of the...
While scientists are still unlocking the secrets of the gut microbiome, consumers increasingly understand that what we feed the armies of microbes that line our digestive tracts may be intimately connected to our physical – and mental - wellbeing. So...
Plant-based proteins continue to dominate the so-called ‘alternative protein’ category, but will this still be the case in 10 years’ time? And which emerging plant proteins – from canola, barley and hemp to Pongamia, lupin, and chickpeas – will become...
Plant-based meat alternatives are getting 'meatier' by the day as brands reverse engineer animal products and put them back together with plants. But getting plant-based fat to behave like animal fat has been a major stumbling block for the...
Launched less than a year ago by a mix of entrepreneurs, investors, fitness industry veterans, and celebrity Dwayne Johnson, ZOA Energy claims it has quickly become the fastest-growing energy drink and #2 brand in the healthy energy drinks category (per...
PepsiCo is already hitting notable milestones and reaping financial benefits from its ambitious pep+ plan announced last fall that places sustainability at the center of how the CPG giant says it will create value and drive growth, according to CEO Ramon...
There’s no shortage of startups on a mission to fix the broken food system and FOMO-fueled legacy brands jumping on the plant-based bandwagon, says Dave Zilko, the CPG veteran behind the new Skinny Butcher brand. But buyers, he says, are still open to...
Santiago-based NotCo - which entered the US market in 2020 with plant-based NotMilk - is gearing up to enter the ultra-competitive US meat alternatives category with NotBurger, a brand that has rapidly gained traction in Latin America with high-profile...
Belgian Boys, a fast-growing brand selling European-inspired treats and fresh breakfast items, has received $7m in funding led by Equilibra Ventures, a startup and investment platform from KIND Snacks founder Daniel Lubetzky, to expand the brand's...
![Yulin Lu: 'Fat is such a clear pain point [for meat and dairy alternatives...]' Image credit: Yali Bio](/var/wrbm_gb_food_pharma/storage/images/_aliases/news_teaser_medium/publications/food-beverage-nutrition/foodnavigator-usa.com/article/2022/03/08/it-s-such-a-clear-pain-point-for-formulators-yali-bio-joins-race-to-create-more-animal-like-fats-in-meat-dairy-alternatives/13301626-2-eng-GB/It-s-such-a-clear-pain-point-for-formulators-Yali-Bio-joins-race-to-create-more-animal-like-fats-in-meat-dairy-alternatives.jpg)
