Five years ago, all-natural credentials, premium packaging and culinary-inspired flavors were novel territory for jerky. Today, they are simply de-rigueur, and enterprising brands must find new ways to stay ahead of the game, says Field Trip Jerky, which...
Investment experts and industry-leading entrepreneurs will provide insights and tips on how to improve the odds of successfully obtaining financing during the upcoming “Financing Your Consumer Products Company” seminar.
FoodNavigator-USA's latest pick of entrepreneurs to watch in the US food and beverage market features a clutch of firms developing innovative concepts from plant-based ‘seafood,’ cold-pressed babyfood and spicy savory yogurt to pre-prepared frozen...
Check out who’s moving onwards and upwards at Hershey, Pinnacle Foods, Chobani, Mars, Hormel Foods, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Suja, TerraVia and Kellogg in FoodNavigator-USA’s latest round-up of new hires in food and beverage.
Sweet Earth Natural Foods – a fast-growing plant-based food brand run by former Burger King and PepsiCo execs Brian and Kelly Swette - is on course to generate revenues of $20m in 2016, just five years after the couple acquired the trademark and set about...
At around $20m, the US adult squeezy fruit/veg snack market is pretty small, but the growth opportunity is significant for brands offering a fresher, more functional take on the category, predicts the founder of New York-based EnergyFruits.
Millennials may have an estimated $200 billion in annual buying power, but as a group that experienced the Great Recession at an impressionable early age, most take a “practical and cost-conscious approach to buying,” new research reveals.
Millennials - people born between 1980 and 2000 - are as diverse and hard to pin down as any group of consumers. But they do have certain things in common when it comes to food shopping, according to market researchers...
A new trade organization devoted to expanding the use of insects in food and feed will meet for the first time this week as bug enthusiasts gather for a three-day conference on edible bugs in Detroit.
Unlike many start-ups vying for attention in the increasingly crowded meal delivery space, Barley + Oats has a clearly defined target audience of highly motivated consumers at a point in their lives where diet takes on a completely new dimension, says...
Want to start the day with a nutritious smoothie but got nothing in the fridge except some soggy greens and a couple of bananas? Or perhaps you’d really like one, but not quite enough to get up 30 minutes earlier than usual to grab one on the way to work...
While going from zero to a forecasted $100m in revenues in fiscal 2017 largely under your own steam (it sold a minority stake to VMG Partners in 2013) is no mean feat, tying the knot with Hormel will propel Justin’s nut butter into CPG’s major league,...
The bone broth market is still in its infancy, with manufacturers and retailers alike still trying to work out how to merchandise it, but having a packaging format that makes it easy to understand and prepare could help brands really punch above their...
Is Paleo a trend or a fad? And are 'plant-based foods' just a sexier term for meat & dairy alternatives, or the start of a new food movement? FoodNavigator-USA caught up with Blake Mitchell, president of food packaging and branding design...
Refrigerated babyfood presents merchandising challenges for retailers, but has the potential to create a new super-premium subsegment in a category in need of fresh thinking, says Ashley Rossi, founder of organic baby food brand OrgaNums, which debuted...
Boston-based maple water brand DRINKmaple has secured listings at 1,030 Kroger stores in a deal that will extend its distribution to around 3,500 stores, just two years after launch.
Target is trialing endcap coolers in the baby food aisle in 65 stores in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Dallas in partnership with new brand Once Upon a Farm to test consumer demand for refrigerated, HPP (high pressure processed) babyfood.
From the impact of Amazon and Blue Apron on traditional grocery retailing, to understanding the difference between a trend, a fad and a movement, day one of the Healthy & Natural Show in Chicago was jam-packed with insights from an array of top-flight...
A day after Leonardo DiCaprio invested in ‘clean energy’ brand Runa, Beyonce has added some stardust to cold pressed watermelon juice brand WTRMLN WTR, investing an undisclosed sum to take a "meaningful stake" in the three-year-old New York-based...
The star-studded group of investors backing RUNA – a beverage brand utilizing the Amazonian leaf guayusa, a natural source of caffeine – has expanded this week as Oscar winner and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio has invested an undisclosed sum...
The inaugural Healthy & Natural Show kicks off on Thursday, May 5 with a top quality education program. In this special gallery we trawl through the program and give you our top picks for the event at Chicago’s Navy Pier.
Ripple is a new plant-based ‘milk’ made with yellow pea protein that promises to blow dairy milk and current milk alternatives out of the water in the taste, nutrition and sustainability stakes. But did it impress members of Carpe Diem, a Santa Barbara-based...
If you visited Expo West, you probably noticed that a large number of the exhibitors were touting snacks or beverages. Frozen meals? Not so much. But while the world probably doesn’t need another nutrition bar or cold pressed juice brand, busy parents...
Why are the top 100 CPG brands underperforming in most of the categories in which they operate? Lots of reasons, many beyond their control, says Dr Kurt Jetta, founder of TABS Analytics. But some the wounds are self-inflicted, he argues: “We are holding...
Milk could be followed by yogurt, creamers, cheeses, protein powders and shakes
Ripple – a plant-based ‘milk’ claimed to blow both dairy milk and existing milk alternatives out of the water in the taste, nutrition and sustainability stakes – is rolling out nationwide at Whole Foods in April, and Target stores in July, with other...
FoodNavigator-USA's latest pick of entrepreneurs to watch in the US food and beverage market features a clutch of firms developing truly innovative concepts from HPP babyfood and nut milks, to savory dishes from steel-cut oats, and a potentially...
If you spot a hot guy handing out samples in a Whole Foods store that looks kind of familiar (if you’re a fan of Jane the Virgin, Cougar Town or Veronica Mars, that is), it could be a case of wishful thinking. Conversely you might just have stumbled across...
When you launch a new food brand, says Frontier Snacks Inc founder Matt Oscamou, “people will tell you a 100 things you should know about working in this industry, and you’ll say ‘I won’t make that mistake,’ but the reality is, you almost certainly will.”
Though not everyone is convinced that the dietary rot set in once we stopped hunting and gathering and started to grow crops and raise animals for food, there’s no doubt that the ‘Paleo’ diet is gaining traction, and Caveman Foods – the brainchild of...
Lupini beans have a nutritional profile to die for. The problem is, most Americans have never heard of them. But that could change rapidly if the New York based entrepreneur behind BRAMI snacking beans gets his way.
'We want to be clear what we stand for and ‘all-natural’ is not clear'
Good Food Made Simple – one of a new wave of companies on a mission to revitalize the frozen food aisle - is transitioning its burritos and wraps to a 'made with organic ingredients' platform and ditching the much maligned term ‘all-natural’...
Drinkable organic soup brand Tio Gazpacho has closed a $1.25m Series A funding round on CircleUp led by 301 Inc, General Mills’ new business development and venturing unit*, and unveiled plans to launch a new, lower-priced line targeting conventional...
The sweet but tart taste of switchel can be polarizing, says Cide Road founder Kevin Duffy. But it meets a growing demand for bolder, more sophisticated, flavors that has helped to drive sales of products such as kombucha, adds Duffy, who has now secured...
Farmwise frozen veggie fries contain 30% vegetables and beans, and 70% potatoes, and have been flying off the shelves in conventional as well as natural channels, says co-founder and CEO Dave Peters, who caught up with FoodNavigator-USA at the 2016 Expo...
KRAVE – the upmarket jerky brand that helped to spearhead a renaissance at the premium end of the meat snacking category – could be a $500m brand “very quickly”, claims new chief executive Shane Chambers, who took the helm following the departure of founder...
Failure to seek legal advice when you launch your business can prove ruinous later on - especially when you are trying to raise money, or engineer an exit - says law firm BraunHagey & Borden LLP, which is setting up a new practice group to provide...
With more fiber than cold-pressed juice (4-5g per serving), plus a dose of probiotics (Ganeden’s ultra-resilient BC30 strain), Nomva is targeting consumers seeking simple, minimally processed snacks in a convenient format, says brand owner Phenomenal...
Remember when food and drink in the office amounted to a vending machine in the basement spewing candy and soda? While this is still the norm in many workplaces, the landscape is changing rapidly as a generation of young people now expect employers to...
Unlike some of the more esoteric products at Expo West, Banza chickpea pasta is aimed squarely at mainstream consumers who are looking for more protein and fiber in their pasta, but are not prepared to compromise on taste or texture (no mush).
As 301 Inc’s recent investment in start-up Good Culture demonstrates, large CPG companies are placing bets in promising food companies earlier than ever as the natural & organic food market heats up, says general manager John Haugen, who is looking...
As the debate over the meaning of the most controversial term in food marketing (‘natural’) heats up now the FDA has finally weighed in, more food companies will seek organic certification, predicts Annie’s president John Foraker, who reckons organic...
Boston-based start-up Farmwise – the maker of veggie fries - has triumphed at New Hope's pitch slam event at Expo West, which pitted entrepreneurial food and beverage brands against each other in a range of categories from bone broth to HPP babyfood.
True Foods Inc. wants to make everyday foods “healthier, more delicious and better for our world” by packing them with more vegetables and less added sugar – an ambitious mission to which consumers are responding enthusiastically judging by the startup’s...
Rising food, beverage and agriculture start-ups joined leading retailers, investors and celebrity chefs at Rabobank North America Wholesale's FoodBytes! Brooklyn pitch-slam March 3 to discuss advancing food culture, sustainability and farming.
It remains to be seen whether edible insects can move from the niche to the mainstream of US food culture, but a $4m cash injection into cricket protein bar brand Exo - one of the pioneers in this nascent category – suggests bugs may have broader appeal...
Deal will help Dang expand its presence in club, drug & convenience channels
Dang Foods – a Berkeley-based firm specializing in whole food snacks (coconut chips, onion chips)- is the first company to receive funding from Sonoma Brands, a food incubator run by KRAVE Jerky founder Jon Sebastiani.
