5-Hour Energy has hit back at a sports science researcher who says there is ‘chasm’ between the claims made by America’s top-selling energy shot and the scientific evidence for its effectiveness.
Launching big is not the definitive way to sustainable growth
How many consumer packaged goods that launch in the US today will still be around in two years’ time? The answer is a miserable 15%, according to Nielsen data.
Odwalla founder: Large companies have to buy innovation
Launching a beverage brand is the easy part. The challenge is growing and sustaining it without running out of cash, steam or patience, delegates were told at the FoodNavigator-USA Beverage Entrepreneurs Forum.
While beverage’s biggest guns have pumped some serious cash into developing ‘mid-calorie’ versions of their iconic brands (Dr Pepper TEN, Pepsi Next, Coca-Cola Life), not everyone is convinced they will deliver the incremental growth to the ailing soda...
Find out what's hot and what's next in the beverages aisle
Will tea replace 100% juice in your child's lunchbox? And what's the next $1bn beverage brand? Find out what our panel of beverage entrepreneurs thinks at our free-to-attend online forum kicking off at 11.30am EDT tomorrow.
FDA proposals to change the way serving sizes are calculated to better reflect real-life eating behavior could encourage some people to eat even more unless the wording is changed or the move is accompanied by strong consumer education, behavioral science...
Proposals don't consider a product's overall nutritional value, says professor
FDA proposals to overhaul the Nutrition Facts panel on food labels are “strong” and “likely to make an important contribution”, says former FDA commissioner David Kessler, M.D. “But I believe they don't go far enough.”
The market price of Chinese sucralose has dropped 30-50% in 12 months
Not so long ago, Tate & Lyle had the sucralose market to itself. In recent years, however, the Chinese have emerged as serious rivals. But while demand for the zero-calorie sweetener is rising, new capacity in China has been added even more rapidly,...
The vast majority of sodium reduction activity in the US food industry is now being conducted by ‘stealth’ in order to avoid alienating shoppers, according to Tate & Lyle.
Volumes in US gum market have slumped 20% in past five years
It’s well known that the American love affair with soda has hit a pretty significant rough patch, but a new report from Rabobank suggests the nation has also been steadily falling out of love with gum, with US volumes dropping a staggering 20% in the...
When consumers think about GMOs, they tend to contrast them with “some hypothetical alternative food that is pristine”, when in most cases, going ‘non-GMO’ just means returning to a food production system that is less efficient - and worse for the environment...
Fourteen years after Unilever spent $2.3bn (€1.7bn) to buy Slim-Fast, it has sold up for an undisclosed sum to a private equity player. Analyst and author Julian Mellentin tracks the decline of a mega-brand and considers what he sees as a category in...
Legislation to ban bisphenol A (BPA) from food and beverage containers could ‘push America backward in public health’, according to the North American Metal Packaging Alliance (NAMPA).
The growth of the Non-GMO Project verification scheme has been nothing short of explosive over the past 18 months. But does the firm serving as its technical administrator have the resources to cope, and are competing certification schemes adopting the...
Americans don’t eat a third of the food they produce. But while this shocking statistic might alarm consumers, many still don’t see themselves as part of the problem, and mistakenly believe that food waste is less damaging to the environment than other...
On the face of it, the FDA’s proposal to revoke the GRAS status of partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) - the source of most of the ‘artificial’ trans fats in the US food supply - seems like a no-brainer. But there are other ways to crack down on trans...
If the cover of TIME magazine earlier this month (headline: Eat Butter) is anything to go by, it would seem that the conversation about fat, and saturated fat in particular, is changing, at least in the media. But are policymakers sitting up and taking...
If artificial sweeteners have an image problem, then General Mills’ move to replace one artificial sweetener (aspartame) with another (sucralose) in its Yoplait Light yogurts might seem like an odd move.
You'd think that pro-science,'molecular gastronomists' such as Chef Homaru Cantu would be all in favor of genetically engineered foods, especially if they can add nutrition, or reduce the environmental impact of food production, right?...
The number of Americans aged 65+ will double in the next 25 years. But manufacturers of products that could have strong appeal to this demographic (Greek yogurt, protein bars) are not doing enough to target them, says IRI.
A novel ‘enzymatic enhancement’ process that can convert low grade stevia extracts into high purity Reb A could transform the economics of stevia production and help California-based Stevia First stand out in the market, claims its boss.
Will Keurig Cold really turn the soft drinks market on its head? Can natural sweeteners pull diet soda out of its funk? And what’s the next coconut water?
The flow of caffeinated foods hitting the US market “slowed to a trickle” after Wrigley pulled its Alert Energy gum in the wake of the FDA probe into caffeine, says Datamonitor. But it’s too early to write off this trend just yet, as consumers still crave...
The Honest brand could extend well beyond the ready-to-drink tea category into a wider array of beverages and even foods, says the co-founder of Honest Tea, which posted a 27% surge in sales to $112m in 2013, and is growing even faster this year.
Celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz has admitted that the biggest disservice he has done for his audience is not identifying where to buy the quality products he talks about on his show.
POM Wonderful scored a big win on Thursday after the Supreme Court gave it the green light to sue juice rival Coca-Cola for false advertising. But don't expect the floodgates to open with scores of similar lawsuits, says one attorney.
While POM Wonderful’s Supreme Court victory over Coca-Cola doesn’t have any direct impact on the wave of consumer class action lawsuits over false advertising engulfing the trade, it still makes uncomfortable reading for regulatory affairs bosses at food...
You can have an FDA-compliant label, but still face a false advertising lawsuit brought by a competitor, concluded Supreme Court justices today in an 8:0 opinion described by legal experts as a “resounding victory” for POM Wonderful in its spat with Coca-Cola...
US dairy consumption patterns “have shifted away from plain fluid milk to highly processed forms of dairy that are little more than vessels for salt, sugar, and fat”, while cash from the dairy checkoff scheme is being used to promote ‘junk foods’ such...
Many people developing new products at CPG companies feel frustrated and demotivated according to a new survey, which probably comes as no surprise given the high failure rate in the trade. But looking at what firms that produce more winners have in common...
The neuropsychologist behind cognitive health beverage Nawgan reckons his latest innovation 'ON powered refreshment’' - which combines caffeine and the fatigue-busting amino acid ornithine - has more mainstream appeal, bringing a fresh twist...
Becoming a target of opportunistic lawsuits is the price you pay for being successful, says Chobani’s marketing boss, who says he is “baffled” by a complaint filed by Dov Seidman accusing the yogurt firm of infringing his trademarks with its ‘How Matters’...
Jerry Bello - the founder of Veggie straws maker Sensible Portions (sold to Hain Celestial in a multimillion dollar deal in 2010) - remembers the exact moment when he stumbled across something he reckons could be an even bigger snack food hit.
A lawsuit filed by bestselling author and corporate ethics consultant Dov Seidman accusing Chobani of infringing his trademarks with its 'How Matters' campaign is "baseless and without merit", says the Greek yogurt maker.
It’s not as well-known as yerba maté or guarana, yet, but another natural source of caffeine - the Amazonian leaf guayusa - is about to give them both a serious run for their money, predict the entrepreneurs behind Runa, who are on a mission to do for...
Two leading food industry associations have urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) not to set category-by-category limits for sodium amid rumors that the agency is planning to outline a new sodium reduction strategy this year.
The National Dairy Council (NDC) has rubbished the science behind a resurfaced People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign linking dairy consumption to autism.
Guest article: Steven Hoffman, managing director, Compass Natural
Pointing out problems and flaws in organic farming and certification is constructive in that they need to be addressed. But using the imperfections of the organic production system to defend why GMOs are a preferred way to produce food - as Mischa Popoff...
Guest article: Mischa Popoff, author, Is it Organic?
I worked for five years as a USDA-contract organic inspector after growing up on an organic grain farm in Saskatchewan. I had the pleasure of inspecting over 500 organic farms and processors, but I began questioning this career path when I realized the...
Four US Senators have written to Food & Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Margaret Hamburg to express their concern about the agency’s use of draft guidance documents to make “substantive policy changes”.
US retail sales of organic products grew 11.5% to $35.1bn in 2013, the strongest growth the industry has seen in five years, according to new data from the Organic Trade Association (OTA), which is predicting even higher growth of 12% this year.
If biotech’s big guns want to seize the initiative in the GMO debate, they should ditch their defensive strategy (telling consumers why they don’t need GMO labels) and go on the offensive, launching a positive campaign about the merits of GM crops, according...
There are significant opportunities to grow the Rudi’s Organic Bakery brand, both through increasing distribution and taking it into new categories, says its new owner, Hain Celestial.
Rising levels of carbon dioxide will mean that some grains and legumes will become significantly less nutritious than they are today, according to new international research.
As anti-GMO activists celebrated their first major victory in Vermont this week with the passage of GMO labeling bill H112, the GMA said it would mount a legal challenge within weeks. But while big food companies may well win the courtroom battle ahead,...
While some analysts still need convincing that the much-anticipated Keurig Cold at-home carbonation system will revolutionize the soft drinks market, Keurig Green Mountain CEO Brian Kelley says he has no doubt it will prove to be “disruptive” technology.
The FDA’s “flawed” 2009 draft guidance on ‘evaporated cane juice’ has put food manufacturers and retailers between a rock and a hard place when deciding what to put on their labels, says a group of leading manufacturers.
84% of US consumers buy organic food sometimes, and 45% of them buy it at least once a month, according to a new national survey of 1,016 adults. However, there is a disparity between what they think the organic seal means and what they think it should...
A judge has certified a class of consumers accusing Twinings North America of misbranding its teas as a ‘natural source of antioxidants’, but said they cannot seek monetary damages because they have not come up with a viable legal theory for how to calculate...