Knowing entrepreneurs often dramatically underestimate the time it takes to validate their business models, are more likely to lose money or break even than make a profit and face abysmal failure rates, one successful founder is offering a helping hand...
North Carolina based Elo Life Systems aims to commercialize a new natural high-intensity sweetener “inspired by monk fruit” in 2025 that boasts a “cleaner” taste profile, more affordable price tag, and a higher sweetness intensity than monk fruit extracts...
What is a snack? A treat, a mini-meal, a mid-afternoon pick me up? What do consumers look for – and avoid - on labels, and how has the pandemic influenced eating habits and snacking behaviors?
Wicked Kitchen – a plant-powered brand with a distinct culinary bent developed by chefs Derek and Chad Sarno – has acquired plant-based seafood brand Good Catch (also founded by the Sarno brothers), which CEO Pete Speranza says is “100% accretive” and...
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is an agreement to build a facility for the cultivation and production of microalgae-based protein and related products for the food and beverage industry.
Forsea Foods has developed cell-cultured fish leveraging its patented organoid technology. FoodNavigator hears how this novel approach is simplifying the process of growing animal cells in bioreactors and assembling them into whole cuts and fillets.
From Reishi to Lion’s Mane, medicinal mushrooms are gaining traction in foods, beverages and supplements, buoyed by interest in ingredients that may support immunity, mood and cognition. FoodNavigator-USA caught up with California-based organic mushroom...
Shiru – a California-based startup producing proteins via microbial fermentation – has teamed up with bakery ingredients specialist Puratos to develop the next-generation of egg replacers.
Sacred Serve, a Chicago startup making non-dairy gelato using upcycled coconut meat as its star ingredient, is expanding to Whole Foods stores nationwide where it aims to set a new standard for the category.
Offering great value for money and some sustainability bona fides (low food waste/easy recycling), the canned food aisle has obvious attractions, especially if you're on a tight budget. But it’s not exactly the place you go to discover exciting new...
After dominating the UK CBD space with help from a highly engaged online fanbase, CBD beverage, oil and gummy brand Trip is hoping to cement a similar position in the US – but this time with the additional aid of $12m in funding from prominent entrepreneurs...
TurtleTree says it can produce the protein up to a 100 times faster and at a larger scale to make the hard-to-get ingredient more accessible to food manufacturers.
Israeli start-up Pigmentum is producing biomolecules for the food industry in transgenic plants. Co-founder Tal Lutzky explains how the technology works, which hurdles stand in the way of commercialisation, and whether consumers are willing to drink ‘lettuce...
“It has been clear for a while that plant-based analogs will not displace meat,” says the CEO of Israeli cell-cultured (a.k.a. ‘cultivated’) meat co Aleph Farms. “The addressable market is larger for cultivated meat than for plant-based because the products...
Still a niche segment within the plant-based food category, plant-based yogurt is poised to become a much larger piece of the chilled dairy set as consumers find products that can closely mimic the taste and mouthfeel of its conventional dairy counterparts,...
Health and wellness company Laird Superfood has confirmed its receipt of an unsolicited offer from EF Hutton SPV I LLC to acquire the company's outstanding common stock for $3.00 per share in cash.
Chamberlain Coffee, a DTC-focused brand created by YouTube star Emma Chamberlain, has sealed a $7m Series A funding round led by Blazar Capital and a stacked roster of DTC, retail, and beverage industry investors.
As the average retail price of chicken eggs has surged 51% in the past year, JUST Egg has reduced pricing for its 12-ounce plant-based liquid egg product by 41%, reaching cost parity with premium chicken egg competitors, according to recent data from...
Microbes can produce a host of ingredients traditionally made by plants or animals more sustainably and efficiently. But if you want to make complex plant-based ingredients such as coffee or cocoa, single-celled microorganisms such as yeast and bacteria...
Plant-based yogurt brand, Lavva, has been acquired by Brooklyn-based venture firm Next in Natural and has appointed a new CEO, Jeff Lichtenstein, to help the brand keep up with consumer demand and produce additional innovation.
Fresh off closing a $3.9m seed funding round* led by Unovis Asset Management, Paragon Pure is debuting its OléPBM alternative fat technology made from rice bran oil, which it claims outperforms palm and coconut oils in plant-based meat products.
Sustainability “is probably on slide two or three of every customer presentation now,” notes Ingredion, but how can consumers cut through the PR noise to make meaningful comparisons between brands? Checkout our final gallery of trends at IFT FIRST exploring...
Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown faced another grilling from analysts on the firm’s Q2 earnings call Thursday after posting a $97.1m net loss on net sales of $147m, lowering guidance for the full year from $560-$620m to $470m-$520m, and cutting 4% of its global...
Boston-based food tech firm Motif FoodWorks has promoted its CTO Dr Michael Leonard to the role of CEO, effective immediately, as current CEO Jonathan McIntyre moves to an advisory role in the company.
Fungi-fueled startup firm MyForest Foods (formerly Atlast Food Co) has started commissioning ‘Swersey Silos,’ a new production facility in Green Island, New York, which will start churning out meaningful quantities of mycelium-based meat by the end of...
Dollar sales of refrigerated liquid plant-based creams and creamers were up +25.8% year-on-year to $527.4m in measured US retail channels* in the year to July 10, 2022, while unit sales were up +16.1%, led by strong growth in blends and ‘other’ (which...
Fine chemicals co DIC and San Diego-based startup Debut Biotech are developing a vibrant natural red color that is heat-stable, light-stable, and stable across a wide pH range, using a novel hybrid approach combining microbial fermentation and ‘cell-free’...
Bay area startup Zero Acre Farms - which is deploying microbial fermentation to produce oils and fats it claims can outperform rivals in the nutrition and sustainability stakes – has launched direct to consumer with a ‘cultured’ cooking oil boasting a...
Israeli start-up Gavan Technologies has developed a novel continuous extraction method that utilises the entire plant. FoodNavigator caught up with CEO Itai Cohen to learn more.
Illinois-based kefir company Lifeway Foods, which has been the subject of inner family feuding related to its leadership*, reported +16.7% net sales growth for the full year ending December 31, 2021 compared to 2020.
Lemon Perfect, the fastest-growing brand in the enhanced water category*, has hired industry veteran and former Coca-Cola executive Jim Brennan as its new president and chief revenue officer.
So-called ‘alternative proteins’ – from upcycled barley and canola protein to animal-free whey made in fermentation tanks using genetically engineered microbes – were a hot topic at IFT First in Chicago. But with US retail sales of some meat alternatives...
Boulder-based Meati Foods – which is seeking to differentiate itself in the increasingly crowded meat-alternative space with a fungi-based platform capable of producing ‘steaks’ and other whole cuts – has raised $150m in a Series C round led by Revolution...
“The NASA food system used on the International Space Station is more than adequate,” delegates at IFT First were told in a packed education session last Tuesday. “But a mission to Mars won't allow the resupplying of food and the crew won't...
Baby and toddler food brand Yumi is making its retail debut at Target stores nationwide with a new line of products addressing a market void for nutritious toddler-focused snacks.
From more efficient production of rare sugars tagatose and allulose (and intriguing new possibilities with D-allose), to ‘enhanced’ sugars, and a mystery disaccharide that behaves like sugar, but is metabolized very differently, check out part one of...
In the battle against food waste, most industry players are only addressing part of the problem, claims Aidan Mouat, CEO and co-founder of Chicago-based Hazel Technologies, who says through the company's proprietary shelf-life extension technology,...
Once associated with refreshment and relaxation, the crack of a can or hiss of gas following the twist of bottle top is becoming a source of anxiety for some consumers who associate it with single-use plastic, broken recycling systems and unwanted litter.
Viral video-sharing app TikTok may be best known for the seemingly infinite clips of teenagers dancing to catchy songs in inconvenient places like the middle of the street or a department store aisle, but the social media platform is much more – and when...
As Belgian startup Paleo ups the ante in the meat alternatives space with a suite of meaty-tasting heme proteins from multiple animal species it aims to commercialize in 2023, FoodNavigator-USA caught up with CEO Hermes Sanctorum to talk mammoth myoglobin,...
Edible coffee brand Nudge has rolled out at 2,000 Kroger banner stores across the US and secured listings at three divisions of Ahold Delhaize for its low sugar, keto-friendly arabica coffee bars and bombs, which are attracting interest from coffee and...
Wize Tea is not an iced tea in the traditional sense but a ready-to-drink answer to coffee jitters and crashes that extends the growing season for coffee farmers in Nicaragua.
Moonshot Snacks is expanding its “climate-friendly food movement” with the launch of its crackers for conscientious snackers into Target stores nationwide.
Bonumose – a Virginia-based startup with patented technology it claims could enable the mass market adoption of rare sugars which have exciting benefits but currently come with a hefty price tag – is gearing up to start commercial production of tagatose...
San Leandro based SCi-Fi Foods – which believes it has “a pretty clear shot at being the first company to bring cultivated beef to the market in the US” – claims to have scored an industry first by developing bovine cell lines that can grow in single-cell...
Bel Group – the multinational firm behind cheese brands Babybel, The Laughing Cow, and Boursin – has teamed up with Superbrewed Food, one of a clutch of startups in the biomass fermentation space, to develop cheeses for the US market incorporating its...
Emerging brand Fila Manila is blazing a trail for better representation of Filipino flavors and cuisine in mainstream grocery with its line of savory simmer sauces and brand new launch, coconut and ube jams.
Invigorating sleepy segments, tackling persistent category challenges and balancing consumer desire for taste, convenience and experience, companies at the 66th Summer Fancy Food Show in New York City late last month showcased innovative solutions to...
Backed by a $100m investment from Anheuser-Busch InBev, upcycling startup EverGrain is entering into large scale production of its barley protein with a new 130,000-square-foot facility in St Louis capable of churning out 7,000 tons of protein isolate...
