The price of locust bean gum – a clean-label thickener and stabilizer from carob seeds used in everything from Philadelphia cream cheese to Planet Oat oatmilk – has more than doubled over the past year, as demand continues to exceed supply, prompting...
Convincing children to eat their vegetables doesn’t have to be a struggle, according to the founders of Tiny Organics, who, with an infusion of $11 million in Series A funding, are helping kids break the sugar addiction with which they are born by replacing...
What is on the inside is what matters to most consumers when it comes to food and beverages, according to research from the International Food Information Council released yesterday that found Americans are paying more attention to ingredient lists than...
Viewed as the antidote to a tough day, chocolate was the indulgence of choice for one-third of US grocery shoppers during the pandemic, according to a survey from Cargill's North American Cocoa & Chocolate team, which uncovered the primary purchase...
After disrupting the sleepy dried fruit category with its skin-on, nutrient-dense, zero food-waste approach, emerging superfruit snack brand RIND is expanding into the salty snack aisle with the launch of thin-cut, crispy fruit chips with help from Valor...
Lightlife Foods’ recent campaign pitting its ‘real food’ credentials vs the 'hyper-processed' wares of Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat was dismissed by some as a PR stunt. However, it started a conversation, says president Dan Curtin, who predicts...
With an infusion of $7m in series A funds, baby food challenger Serenity Kids hopes to prove its high-fat, meat- and vegetable-based purees, grain-free puffs and bone broths “are not just for the elite, crunchy consumer,” by expanding distribution and...
While the pandemic shined a light on the role of diet and nutrition in health and wellness, it also revealed that most consumers don’t have a firm – or even loose – idea of what constitutes healthy – underscoring a need for more research and better education...
First came chickpea pasta, now with a new foodservice partnership with Oath Pizza in the New England area and expanding retail distribution in the frozen pizza aisle, Banza is unlocking demand for chickpea-crust pizza.
Craft sparkling water brand Aura Bora has raised $2m in a seed round to support the company's latest chapter of growth, which includes expansion into 7-Eleven, Sprouts, Whole Foods Pacific Northwest, and Fresh Thyme, as well as its new online subscription...
After nearly two decades of research an international team claims to have found a naturally derived cyan blue colour extracted from red cabbage that could replace synthetic blue dye often used in the food industry.
After 16 years of blood, sweat and tears building a consumer brand, Hint Inc founder Kara Goldin has been through some ups and downs, and 2020 offered up both in equal measure. But while many beverage brands struggled to adapt in a rollercoaster year,...
Despite significant unmet demand for convenient keto products across categories, consumers who follow the diet are becoming more selective and less willing to settle for options that use low-quality or unhealthy ingredients to meet the diet’s strict macro...
As consumers adopt a more flexible and holistic approach to ‘dieting,’ brands have more room to innovate at the ingredient-level through “mindful omissions and swaps” to create products that appeal to shoppers’ lifestyles, according to new research from...
As just one part of consumers' larger definition of health and wellness, weight management has become less about the number on the scale and part of a broader holistic definition of what it means to be healthy, says Shelley Balanko, Ph.D., senior...
Bowery Farming has secured $300m in a Series C equity round, bringing its total funding to $472m, the largest private fundraise for an indoor farming company to date.
Cognitive decline over time may be inevitable, but according to the husband and wife team behind the recently launched whole food functional beverage blend Memore, feeding the mind the right nutrition early and often not only could delay onset and slow...
Amid the steady stream of plant-based meat and dairy launches, new innovations hitting shelves this quarter include zero sugar dairy milk from Maple Hill Creamery, yerba mate from Honest Tea, and rice cooked in bone broth, ready-to-eat in 60-seconds,...
Recognizing that the most common reason Americans want to reduce their animal protein consumption is to improve their health, Sweet Earth is diversifying its selection of plant-based meat alternatives – and the ingredients that go into them – to better...
Eat Beyond Global Holdings, which has acquired a slew of alternative protein food brands in the past year, has made an investment in Daydream Drinks, a hemp and adaptogen-infused sparkling water brand based in Canada.
The unprecedented shift to ecommerce during the pandemic and predictions that many consumers will continue to buy groceries online even after it is safe to return to retail stores has elevated the importance of an omnichannel strategy – but according...
Target has expanded its private label offering with the launch of Good & Gather Plant Based, responding to soaring demand for plant-based products from customers, said the retailer.
Benson Hill, a crop improvement company which has developed an ultra-high protein soybean variety, will become a publicly traded company through a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) transaction with Star Peak Corp II.
While the pandemic has helped fuel a business boom for much of packaged food and beverage industry, not everyone in the sector has benefited – with women and female-run small businesses in particular taking a hard hit that could have devastating long-term...
BrightFarms has opened its latest indoor farm in Hendersonville, North Carolina, capable of producing 2 million pounds of lettuce per year in the Southeast US region which currently has limited options for indoor-grown leafy greens on store shelves, says...
PepsiCo has launched Soulboost, a new functional sparkling water brand infused with ingredients L-theanine and panax ginseng, targeting wellness-focused consumers and the $11.3bn global enhanced water category.
Industry-supported efforts to update organic food standards could finally move forward after being held at a standstill for years by the US Department of Agriculture if bipartisan legislation introduced in the House late last week becomes law.
TerViva – a California-based firm seeking to commercialize ingredients from low-input, high-yielding Pongamia trees – aims to have commercial quantities of 'golden buttery' oil available by mid-2022, with ‘highly soluble’ protein isolates to...
Indoor vertical farming company Kalera has completed the first harvest of locally-grown leafy greens at its largest growing facility in the Atlanta area, where it will supply schools, restaurants, grocery stores (available at Publix), hospitals, and other...
Mondelēz International is continuing to see healthy demand for its core snacking brands, proving that industry-wide sales spikes for packaged, shelf-stable products were more than just a COVID-inspired blip, said chairman and CEO Dirk Van De Put.
As last year’s sober-curious, zero-proof alcohol movement took off, with some consumers seeking to cut down their alcohol consumption, global ingredient supplier Kerry experienced a surge in demand for its Botanical Collection ZERO portfolio of distillate,...
Taste and smell are fundamental to how consumers experience food and beverages, but most tools for understanding and measuring these senses – including a highly trained human nose – are subjective, imprecise, and expensive making it difficult to cost-effectively...
With so many emerging bar brands vying for space in a crowded market dominated by large CPG -- Clif Bar, KIND (Mars), RXBAR (Kellogg's) -- and retail sales still down in 2021, what's the future of the bar set, and how can brands punch above...
For many consumers a freshly toasted bagel is a source of joy, comfort – and guilt, but thanks to food-tech startup Better Brand Inc.’s proprietary Grain-changing Technology, Americans can soon enjoy a clean label option that tastes and functions like...
DouxMatok, the Israeli firm behind patented technology that makes regular sugar taste sweeter, has launched limited-edition chocolate spreads in the US with half the sugar of leading brands to give consumers the chance to taste products made with its...
Territory Foods, a fresh-prepared direct-to-consumer (DTC) meal delivery service that partners with local chefs to create flavorful nutritionist-designed dishes, has closed a $22m funding round led by US Venture Partners.
Kemin Industries has acquired privately-owned ingredient technology firm, Proteus Industries, Inc., expanding its portfolio of sustainable clean label solutions for meat manufacturing.
As concerns about cultural appropriation and misrepresentation bubble up alongside the push for social equity, food and beverage industry stakeholders are delicately navigating consumers’ sometimes-conflicting demands for authenticity and innovation.
It’s well-known that the smaller the salt crystals, the saltier they taste, which means less is more, an enticing proposition for snack makers looking to reduce sodium. However, simply finely grinding table salt and sprinkling it on potato chips won’t...
A new early-stage venture capital fund sees significant upside for financing food and beverage startups that may be too small for many other VC investors, but which in a few years could help meet “pent up demand” for innovation from large CPG players...
When the founders of startup Holy Cow discovered thousands of cow hides are thrown away daily due to rising demand for beef during the pandemic and a simultaneous sharp decline in leather production, they saw an opportunity to create a new revenue source...
On track to becoming one of the largest plant-based food companies in the world, LIVEKINDLY Collective has closed additional funding to scale its company into targeted key regions including the US and China.
Functional Beverages Webinar Available On Demand Now
Shifting shopping habits and channel preferences due to the pandemic hit the non-alcoholic beverage industry hard last year, leading to an overall decline in volume and value, but rising consumer interest in functional options could be a key driver in...
North Carolina-based Barvecue is significantly scaling up production of its plant-based pulled pork line, tapping into an underserved opportunity in the plant-based meat alternative space, says brand founder and CEO Lee Cooper.
Sales of functional beverages are rebounding and have a bright future despite the pandemic shutting down for most of 2020 in-person impulse purchases and food service sales which previously drove the category’s fast growth, according to market research...
Clinical data suggests that arabinoxylan – a fiber found in the cell walls of several plants – has a range of benefits from prebiotic effects to blood glucose control and immune health support. But no one has found a cost-effective way to isolate and...
Nestlé USA has acquired premium alkaline water brand, Essentia Water, for an undisclosed sum to expand its presence in the premium, high-growth functional water category.
Many consumers are aware of the nutritional value so-called superfoods have, but few can commit to a daily diet packed with turmeric, ashwagandha, and elderberry (and even fewer enjoy the taste). This hangup was the impetus for Grummies, a brand of gummies...
