Hillshire Brands has entered the dried meat snacks category after striking a deal to buy California-based premium pork and beef jerky maker Golden Island Jerky for an undisclosed sum.
PepsiCo has been experimenting with ingredients from unpeeled heat-treated green bananas and plantains to serve as everything from a gluten substitute to a sugar replacer in products from oatmeal to smoothies, crackers, bars and cookies, a recent patent...
In the 2nd major development this week in the debate over whether foods made with GMOs can be labeled ‘natural’, a NY judge handling a multi-district lawsuit vs Frito-Lay says she will not refer the matter to the FDA, as her counterparts have done in...
Connecticut-based NutriScience Innovations, LLC is offering caffeine from tea leaves as a natural alternative for manufacturers with an energy source to accommodate the ever increasing demand for naturally derived products.
Consumer demand for hotter, spicier, foods has continued to increase on both sides of the Atlantic, says natural extracts specialist Kalsec, which has tied up with Mintel to develop ‘heat indexes’ measuring usage of peppers in retail and foodservice.
The FDA is planning a consumer study to find out whether fortifying snack foods with vitamins or other healthy ingredients and shouting about it on pack could lead shoppers to believe that a diet of nutrient-enriched junk food is nutritionally viable.
What will we be eating more of in 2014? Elaine Watson caught up with Greg Kaminski, executive research chef at Synergy Flavors to find out what’s hot and what’s not in the world of flavor for 2014.
What have you heard lately about Michigan? That its biggest city (Detroit - once the wealthiest city in the world) recently filed for bankruptcy? Or that from December 2009 to March 2013, it was the #1 state in the nation for creating manufacturing jobs,...
While there’s been a lot of buzz around the FDA’s recent approval of spirulina extract as a natural blue food color for candy and gum, WILD Flavors says its fruit-juice-derived blue color - which has been on the US market since 2009 - has broader applications...
You can’t paint a horse like a cow and expect people not to notice – but grind their meat into patties and it may be a different story. So what makes an ingredient vulnerable to food fraud?
Premium nuts and snacks maker Diamond Foods has agreed to settle a private securities class action against the firm and two of its former executives over accounting errors that forced it to restate its 2010 and 2011 earnings and scuppered its plan to...
It’s been a good week for JM Smucker: The company just announced the ‘small but important’ acquisition of Enray Inc., reported its ‘strongest first quarter earnings ever’, and continued to see stellar growth for the Uncrustables brand.
Quaker's involvement in oat research does not need to be compromised by its interest in the sector and should be supported given the lack of funding from elsewhere, says an analyst.
Two young entrepreneurs have developed a high protein bar using crickets that they say have superior nutritional qualities and can go a long way in making insect consumption mainstream in America.
The Whole Grains Council is inviting people to nominate their favorite charities that address food insecurity as part of its ‘Good Grains for a Good Cause’initiative.
Flowers Foods remains confident in the strength of its Tastykake business a month after Hostess re-entered the market with the infamous Twinkie et al., its CEO says.
Some of the biggest contributors of calories, sat fats and added sugar in the American diet are also the largest contributors of vital nutrients, says a new study highlighting some potentially unintended consequences of diets that just focus on calorie...
With state fair season in full swing and deep-fried Oreos on the menu, online food ordering service GrubHub embarked on a study of ‘extreme foods’ to determine who is ordering jumbo corn dogs and Big Gulps (spoiler alert - it’s men…)
Is your brand getting some decent bang for the bucks you spend on paid-for (‘promoted’) tweets? The answer, according to a new trial with 35 big names in consumer packaged goods (CPG) including Mondelez, is YES.
Booming consumer desire for GMO-free products has been the driving force behind Barbara’s efforts towards non-GMO certification, says its vice president of marketing.
Many US supermarkets are stuck in a timewarp, and their market share will continue to decline unless they makes radical strategic changes, according to a provocative new report from Hartman Strategy.
Gum sales are still down for the category's second largest player, but the segment might be showing its first signs of recovery, according to Mondelez’s CEO.
A Minnesota-based firm making waves with anthocyanin-packed purple-corn ingredients says it has had significant interest from the snack food market, but is also talking to microbrewers, confectioners, and firms manufacturing everything from sourdough...
Boulder Brands, the firm behind two of the biggest names in gluten-free, Udi’s and Glutino, is talking to one of America’s largest coffee chains, and one of its largest donut chains, about launching gluten-free bakery items.
What precedent might it set if firms are forced to label foods made using new technologies, even if the end product does not differ in any meaningful way from foods developed by ‘traditional’ methods?
Ready-to-eat cereals giant Post Holdings has moved into the active nutrition and supplements market with a $180m deal to acquire Premier Nutrition Corporation (PNC) - maker of Titan and Premier Protein bars and shakes, and Joint Juice (liquid supplements...
The Kellogg Company plans to pump big bucks into NPD that stretches the boundaries of traditional cereal in a bid to boost a tired and soft US market, its CEO says.
Given the obesity epidemic and high rates of chronic disease in the US, consumers should replace convenience foods and snacks with cheaper options like fruit and vegetables, says the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
The times they are a-changing – dads are beginning to rival moms for food purchasing decisions, says new research from Edelman Berland and Edelman’s food sector.
From California to Washington, and from Connecticut to Vermont, initiatives to label the presence of ingredients derived from genetically modified foods are dominating headlines. Despite this, the CEO of BI Nutraceuticals doesn’t think we’ll see government...
Hostess Brands may develop new cake lines with added fiber, wholegrain or even gluten-free variants and it's not afraid of competition, its president says.
Sports nutrition marketers have traditionally focused on young men, sports teams and hardcore athletes. In future, however, they will need to spend more time targeting women, weekend warriors and consumers pursuing individual sports and fitness activities...
Plant-based proteins were a hot topic at the IFT show this year, whether from algae, pea, rice, soy or other plant-based sources. One firm making waves in this market is RiceBran Technologies, which caught up with FoodNavigator-USA at our booth to talk...
Open innovation used to be just for the likes of P&G and Unilever, but today, it's being embraced by a lot of mid-sized companies in the $100m-$1bn revenue range as well, according to Andy Zynga, CEO of open innovation expert and corporate matchmaking...
Opportunities abound in the snacking sector, but tasty and health must become synonymous as consumers increasingly seek out healthy alternatives, says BASF’s Samy Jandali.
As the pressure to source sustainable palm oil has intensified, several big names in the US from Kroger and Walmart to McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts have said that by 2015, they will only use RSPO (Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil) certified products.
The gluten-free foods market has continued to grow as new ingredients and technologies have significantly improved the taste of products, according to experts at the Institute of Food Technologists’ annual meeting.
A week after California judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers put a class action lawsuit (Cox vs Gruma Corp) on ice for six months to let the FDA determine whether GMOs belong in foods marketed as ‘natural’, a judge in Colorado has followed her lead in a similar...
A lawsuit filed in Hawaii alleges that Cargill is misleading shoppers by marketing its Truvia retail products as ‘natural’ as the Reb-A steviol glycosides they contain are "highly chemical processed" and the bulking agent used (erythritol) is...
Those who feel uneasy about the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics’ (AND’s) ties with corporate sponsors such as Pepsi and McDonald’s argue that getting into bed with such purveyors of ‘junk food’ - however transparently or responsibly you go about...