By James Richardson, PhD, founder, Premium Growth Solutions
As Chef’d found out the hard way, the future of the fresh meal kit category will be via retail and localized e-commerce services (e.g. Fresh Direct, Prime Now, Shipt, etc.). Drop-shipping subscription-based meal kits causes more problems than it solves...
While some meal kit brands are doing better than others, the subscription based home delivery model underpinning them is fundamentally flawed, claims the new owner of Chef’d, which abruptly ceased operations in mid-July.
The rise in sales and consumer interest of in-store fresh product offerings have challenged center-of-the-store items, but that doesn’t necessarily mean consumers have turned away from the middle aisles all together, Nielsen highlighted in its Total Consumer...
Egg protein drinks may conjure up images of an unappetizing mixture of blended raw eggs consumed by diehard athletes during early morning workouts. But egg ingredients supplier and formulation expert Rembrandt Foods is turning this stereotype on its head...
Earlier this week meal kit company Chef’d announced that it had ceased all operations and issued layoff notices to its employees, citing "unexpected circumstances with the funding for the business." While there is still speculation over what...
In a space like meat snacks, it’s hard to standout especially for a small brand like Chomps Snack Sticks. The Chicago startup’s lean and mean approach has gained it access into major retailers including 7-Eleven, Safeway, and Albertsons where it outsells...
Highlights from day one at the Digital Food and Beverage conference
Selling food & beverage brands online has some obvious advantages: you can get to market more quickly, get rapid feedback, and find out who your customers are. But it’s not all plain-sailing. Here are some takeaways from day one of the Digital Food...
The rumored Campbell Soup sale to Kraft Heinz has sparked debate among industry analysts on whether or not it would be a smart move for both CPG players. Taking a closer look at the potential deal some benefits for both companies start to emerge.
A new association created by four of the nation's largest food companies wants to redirect industry’s approach to nutrition, transparency and the environmental impact of food production, in a move the CSPI says "further marginalizes" the...
Spindrift, a sparkling water brand flavored with fruit juice, has achieved some significant milestones including multiple rounds of equity funding ($10m and $20) led by VMG Partners, triple digit sales, and national distribution. But according to the...
Sometimes less is more, as in the case of caffeine, which the founders of Chicago-based beverage startup Tempo argue more effectively boosts productivity, awareness and cognitive performance when metered out in “micro-doses,” rather than the mega-amounts...
The first time Innova Market Insights’ director of innovation, Lu Ann Williams, heard the term 'clean label' was in 2008, long before the term 'clean' started to infiltrate business to consumer marketing.
It wasn’t too long ago when locally-grown produce evoked images of backyard gardens or roadside produce stands many miles outside of city limits. Now, the local produce movement has morphed into an urban-centered industry thanks to the rise of hydroponic...
In a letter to Nestlé, the world’s largest food company by revenue, Third Point, a New York-based asset manager with $18bn in capital ($3bn in Nestlé), called out the food and beverage giant for falling short on its long-term, sustainable growth mission.
There's a lot of hype around 'big data' and 'data analytics', but how can you cut through the noise to distill these buzzwords down into something that is useful to your startup or established company?
Specialty food used to be reserved for special occasions and accessible only to those who could afford its premium price, but increasingly specialty food is becoming everyday food sold at everyday prices that are accessible to more people.
Big food manufacturers have increasingly recognized that their scale and robust supply chains aren’t enough to stay competitive and turn around years of little to no growth, and are refocusing their efforts on restoring consumer trust, says Rabobank.
The term ‘clean’ is popping up more and more in food branding and in consumer vernacular, but its definition is as foggy as ‘natural’ and ‘healthy,' according to Mintel.
Home Chef meal kits - which roll out in selected Kroger stores later this summer in standalone coolers – will target the significant subset of consumers that buy into the meal kit concept but don’t want to commit to a subscription, says Home Chef chief...
When Cedarlane Natural Foods launched its ‘plant-powered’ foods back in the early ‘80s, many retailers weren’t ready for hummus and tofu meals. Today, they are carving out reams of space for these kinds of items and the industry’s biggest CPG giants are...
While consumers still respond to the convenience of popping open a bag of chips, their mindset around snacking has expanded to products that promise a sense of culinary adventure, conscious-sourcing, unexpected ingredients, and satiating benefits.
HelloFresh, which recently edged ahead* of Blue Apron to take the #1 spot in the US meal kit market, has recently launched meal kits in 581 Giant Food and Stop & Shop stores and started experimenting with prepared food vending machines in Europe....
While entering a high growth category might be tempting, companies might actually have better luck – and longer-term success – if they launch “explosive innovation” into a “hibernating” category, according to a top executive at Kodiak Cakes.
Even though frozen pizza is notorious for being loaded with sodium, saturated fat and preservatives, plant-based brand Sweet Earth Enlighted Foods sees it as the perfect vehicle to improve the health of Americans as well as the planet.
Urban Remedy partners with Kate Upton to develop meal plans
Urban Remedy – a brand specializing in ‘ultra-fresh’ organic ready-to-eat meals, snacks, and cold pressed juices – grew sales by nearly 100% vs the previous quarter in the first quarter of 2018, driven by the rapid expansion of its ‘store within a store’...
PepsiCo Venture Group is on the lookout for emerging brands offering premium, functional products that also offer consumers benefits that they can easily understand and “feel” – two key indicators of long-term success, according to a company executive.
Colorado startup FoodMaven has an ambitious goal to reclaim some of the estimated $200 billion of revenue lost annually in America due to food waste by redirecting oversupplied food from manufacturers and producers to restaurants and institutions through...
At the intersection of the crowded cold-brew coffee category and the highly competitive energy drink segment, the founders of startup Bold Brew Coffee saw an opportunity to bring something new to each space.
It’s easy to look at the Annie’s brand now – which achieved double-digit household penetration during former president and CEO John Foraker’s tenure – and think the company never took a wrong turn on its path to center-store ubiquity.
Large food corporations growing through bolt-on acquisitions isn’t anything new and will continue, but what is changing are the structures and programs big companies are putting in place to tap into the mindset of emerging startup brands.
One in every five dollars spent at online natural and organic membership club Thrive Market is likely to be on private label products by the end of the year, predicts merchandising chief Jeremiah McElwee. “But we’re definitely not trying to be an online...
FORTO Coffee Shots, a two-ounce, single-serve coffee drink brand, is migrating from check-out counters populated by other energy shot brands and into the coffee aisles of 3,700 Walmart stores beginning this month.
When it comes to marketing on social media it is easy for companies to spread themselves too thin by trying to be everywhere and reach everyone, which is why the public relations experts at Konnect Agency recommend that firms pick one or two platforms...
No matter how fast entrepreneurs hustle or how good their products are, all companies inevitably hit plateaus that threaten to stall or even kill their businesses, and how quickly they can push through depends in large part on the strength of their branding.
While the US beverage industry is “fundamentally strong” with double-digit sales growth in the last five years, it also is experiencing “big swings” that are reordering the leaderboard as consumers revamp their daily routines to focus more on their health...
Wanting everything to be perfect when launching a new brand is understandable – but it is also a huge detriment that can delay the initial takeoff or hold back a product or company from reaching its full potential long-term, according to the CEO of ice...
Chobani’s mission to deliver better food to more people is about more than creating finished goods that are more nutritious and more accessible – it also is about making those products in a better way, which is one reason why it is adding a Food Tech...
“Much needed” federal funding for organic research, education and outreach could double in the next two years if measures in the Senate Agriculture Committee’s draft farm bill released June 8 make it into the final farm bill.
As new research suggests US consumers are warming to German discount retailer Lidl, with basket sizes and satisfaction levels increasing,* property developers in North Carolina paint a very different picture in a lawsuit alleging Lidl has left them “holding...
Food and beverage manufacturers and suppliers must actively reassure their partners abroad that they are reliable even as the US pulls out of key international trade arrangements and negotiations around the North American Free Trade Agreement hit the...
It’s been one year since German grocery chain Lidl made its US debut, and according to global consulting firm Oliver Wyman, American shoppers seem to have a growing appetite for the hard discounter’s prices and assortment.
The US Hispanic community spends more than $94.7bn on CPG products annually, making it the fastest-growing ethnic demographic which has key nuances and attitudes when it comes to food purchases, according to a new IRI report.
Hungry Harvest, a Baltimore-based “farm-to-kitchen” weekly delivery service of fresh produce, has expanded its reach to Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan, as part of its multi-pronged mission to fight food waste and hunger while delivering convenience and...
Since making its US debut nearly a year ago, Huel has reached $10m in sales and found that its company mission of providing complete, convenient, and sustainable nutrition resonates with a global audience.
Porter Road, an online whole-animal butcher shop, is working to make buying meat online a habitual purchase for consumers by providing direct-to-consumer access to high-quality, pasture-raised, hormone-free meat sourced from sustainable farms.
The CPG industry registered a sluggish start for Q1 2018 despite the expectation that the Tax Cut and Jobs Act passed at the end of 2017 would result in extra income from lower withholdings and encourage spending, said Susan Viamari, VP of Thought Leadership...
Americans’ obsession with dieting is nothing new, but which diets are in and which ones are out is constantly shifting – creating a marketing nightmare for food and beverage brands that want to link their products to consumers’ desired outcomes.
Organic stakeholders are considering how they can promote their industry and raise funds for organic agriculture research and extension efforts after the US Department of Agriculture “blindsided” them by terminating the check-off program that many worked...
An infusion of $12 million in Series B funding will help better-for-you snack delivery service SnackNation connect emerging CPG brands with more of their key consumers “at their most engaged moments” by expanding its distribution and fine-tuning its insights...
Starting next month, a small but diverse group of organic stakeholders from across the supply chain will test-drive a rigorous set of fraud prevention, detection and mitigation strategies that once fine-tuned will become subject to the annual inspection...
