The name - Dr Praeger’s Sensible Foods - may not sound very sexy, but the sales figures certainly are, says Larry Praeger, CEO of a frozen food firm enjoying double-digit sales increases year-on-year in a category where many players are struggling to...
If chef-inspired brand LUVO grabbed a lot of the limelight at the recent Expo West show, another exhibitor on a mission to revitalize the frozen case is premium world cuisine brand Saffron Road, which has been generating enviable growth in both the conventional...
Sometimes it’s hard to think inventively about the ingredient that comprises half the ubiquitous peanut butter and jelly sandwich or is passed to us in small pouches on most airplane rides. But from flours and spreads to use as a legume, the potential...
Sales of Blue Diamond Grower’s retail products - from Almond Breeze to Almond Nut Thins - have surged dramatically over the past five years and now account for nearly $500m in annual revenues, says its CEO.
The current high-protein craze in the US food and beverage market is driving continued demand for soy-ingredients, with particular growth opportunities in sports nutrition, food for kids, and weight management, says one leading supplier.
UPDATED* - A high-profile study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine last week has re-opened the debate about whether saturated fat has been unfairly cast in the role of nutritional bogeyman. But how should policymakers respond?
Americans are often described as lagging behind their European counterparts when it comes to awareness of probiotics, but the growth potential in the US market is “huge”, says leading supplier DuPont.
Consumers like the delivery of omega-3 fatty acids in a liquid, and many innovative products are already on shelves, but what technology is being used, what are the challenges, and where are the next opportunities coming from?
If you asked most people where nuts belonged on a food pyramid 20 years ago, they would probably say in the candy (eat occasionally) section. Today nuts are widely regarded as nutritional dynamite, which could explain why 60% of nut-related snack launches...
The fees claimed by the plaintiff in a high-profile - but ultimately unsuccessful - class action lawsuit against JM Smucker over trans fats are “grossly excessive”, according to the judge handling the case.
Leading stevia supplier PureCircle posted a (much reduced) net loss of $1.9m in the six months to Dec 31, 2013, while sales surged 32% to $34.9m over the same period. (In the same period in 2012, net losses were $6.9m.)
Mondelēz International said it may include a pledge to reduce sugar in its new health & wellness program, but only if the World Health Organization (WHO) makes its latest sugar advice formal.
A new theory of why dietary restrictions can work to reduce disease risk and increase longevity suggests that it is a sever restriction in nutrient intake, rather than calorie intake, that may result in the well known effect.
If it’s in the natural channel today, it could be in food, drug and mass merchandise stores tomorrow, so food and beverage trend-spotters were out in force at the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim on March 6-9.
Sabra Dipping Co has submitted a citizen’s petition to the FDA asking it to establish a standard of identity (SOI) for hummus based on the traditional ingredients of chickpeas and tahini (sesame paste).
Mondelēz is to cut saturated fat and sodium by 10% by 2020, but suggests reducing consumer sugar intake is manageable with portion controlled products and education.
Sambazon - the firm that made açai a household name in the US - has donated $50,000 to Whole Planet Foundation to help fund microcredit for poverty alleviation worldwide.
New data from Nielsen reveals that Chobani’s Simply 100 Greek yogurt already has a 1.3% dollar share of all refrigerated yogurt, just six weeks after its national launch, with distribution still cranking up.
Markets, whether for dietary supplements, functional foods or other consumer products, are divided between “market makers” and “market followers.” You don’t want to be in the latter group if you can help it, said market research expert Peter Leighton.
Butter might be winning the PR war in the spreads category owing to its all-natural credentials and short ingredients list; but from a nutritional standpoint, the healthier choice is margarine, says the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers...
The natural products market continues to grow and achieve scale, reaching $150 billion last year and projected to hit $226 billion by 2018—with 68% of that coming from food and beverage products, according to the Nutrition Business Journal.
Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) plans to move into full-commercial scale production of CLARISOY - the ‘invisible’ soy protein developed by plant protein pioneer Burcon.
Despite recent improvements in the American diet, public health concerns about obesity and hunger still abound. At the center of the both issues is a call for better access to and consumption of fruits and vegetables.
Chobani will make its first foray into the organic market later this year with the introduction of 32oz grass-fed multi-serve packs of its Greek yogurt.
It’s 70 degrees, and there are a lot of free snacks, so the FoodNavigator-USA team did the decent thing and headed to Anaheim to bring you the highlights from the nation’s biggest natural products show: Natural Products Expo West…
In 2012, Late July’s revenues were a modest $18.6m. In 2014, founder and CEO Nicole Dawes says the brand is "currently at a $60M run rate", primarily due to explosive growth in sales of organic snack chips. Not bad going considering she’s vying...
The word ‘game-changer’ is used so liberally these days that Cargill has not given in to the temptation to employ it here. But ViaTech - its new range of stevia-based sweeteners - opens up completely new territory for food and beverage formulators, enabling...
The food industry doesn’t need years to phase out partially hydrogenated oils (which create harmful artificial trans fats), according to the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC), which argue that 12-18 months gives...
Interview with Bobo's Oat Bars founder Beryl Stafford
Ten years after Bobo’s Oat Bars first hit natural food store and coffee shop shelves in Boulder, CO, the now profitable cereal bar manufacturer is capitalizing on the parallel growth in popularity of the gluten-free and grab-and-go segments to target...
Governments, NGOs and consumers are driving change in the bakery sector, but how can industry keep up? What’s the next direction for healthy bakery? And will this future need to be regulated?
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has again urged the FDA to come up with its own mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labeling system and “ignore” the industry-backed, voluntary ‘Facts up Front’ scheme.
As Americans continue to trade traditional meals for smaller eating occasions throughout the day, the $7 billion market for US crackers (as of 2013) is benefiting from this shift in eating habits, especially those touting healthy ingredients in their...
Growth in fish oil sales have been described by the CEO of Vitamin Shoppe as ‘softening’, while data from GOED indicates that 12 million users have left the category in the US, so is the omega-3 sector in decline?
A high-profile class action lawsuit accusing Chobani of deceiving consumers with the term ‘evaporated cane juice’ on labels has finally been dismissed with prejudice (ie. the plaintiff can’t re-file and the case is officially closed).
On Thursday the Obama administration unveiled the changes that the Food and Drug Administration drafted to the nutrition facts panel (see what the FDA is proposing here). In anticipation of the announcement, the Center for Science in the Public Interest...
Snack maker PopChips looks set to become the latest firm to stop using the term ‘all-natural’ to describe its products after agreeing to settle a lawsuit alleging it misled consumers by using the controversial term.
Ganeden Biotech - the Ohio-based company behind ultra-resilient probiotic BC30 (Bacillus coagulans GBI-30, 6086) - has scored another industry first after teaming up with coffee firm Copper Moon to launch the first K-Cups with probiotics.
Gearing up for this week’s launch of coconut water concentrate acidified with acerola, ingredient supplier iTi Tropicals’ president Gert van Manen caught up with FoodNavigator-USA to talk about the market potential for coconut water, the ongoing attack...
When PepsiCo replaced the word ‘Simply Natural’ with ‘Simply’ on some Frito-Lay lines recently, some commentators wondered if this signaled the beginning of the end of the industry’s love affair with all-natural claims. However, new data suggests otherwise.
While the number of lawsuits filed against food and beverage manufacturers over ‘all-natural’ claims appeared to peak in 2012 and drop off again in 2013, it’s too early for the industry to start cracking open the champagne just yet, say legal experts.
Vancouver-based stevia supplier GLG Life Tech is moving into the monk fruit (luo han guo) sweeteners market and expects to have commercial quantities of high-purity extracts available later this year.
The new non-GMO formulations of Original Cheerios and Grape Nuts might be made without ingredients from genetically engineered crops, but they also come with fewer vitamins - although brand owners General Mills and Post Foods won’t say why.
Ingredients giant Roquette has struck a deal with Iowa-based non-GMO corn and soybean specialist World Food Processing (WFP) under which WFP will manufacture Roquette’s pea protein in the US.
While most start-ups struggle to raise the funds to turn their dreams into reality, Hampton Creek Foods CEO Josh Tetrick has convinced some of the world’s wealthiest people that his plant-based egg replacers are worth a serious punt.
As CPG’s big guns congregate in Florida for the Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) conference, many of them are at a strategic crossroads, says Rabobank.