Organic sales continue to reach unprecedented highs as consumers gravitate to options they perceive as healthier for them and the planet, but the segment faces significant headwinds that are slowing growth and will demand ongoing flexibility, innovation...
While consumers today are exploring more money-saving strategies such as choosing lower-cost items and cooking from scratch, their personal values around health and well-being and the planet have not wavered, according to research from Innova Market Insights.
Nature’s Fynd - a startup growing protein-packed food from microbes with a fraction of the environmental footprint of meat or dairy – is rolling out dairy-free cream cheeses to Sprouts nationwide.
Indoor farming company Revol Greens is doubling its romaine lettuce production footprint by 2023, supported by its recent expansion at its Texas growing facility, making it the largest greenhouse lettuce grower in North America.
The EU’s recent approval of its controversial deforestation regulation is expected to drive up the cost of palm oil and other affected commodities, and thus food and beverage prices, amid ongoing inflationary pressures that have already affected a majority...
Researchers at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) have found eight new sweetness-enhancing compounds in 11 citrus cultivars that could offer improved palatability and lower sugar content in food and beverage...
Natural Products Expo East may not be as big as its West Coast counterpart, but the 18,500 registered attendees and more than 1,200 exhibitors who convened in Philadelphia earlier this month for the annual conference were just as enthusiastic and the...
San Diego-based BlueNalu has outlined plans for a large-scale cell-cultured seafood plant it anticipates will be operational in 2027. This will deploys technology it claims can “unlock the path to significant profitability” and enable a projected 75%...
PATH, a sustainable aluminum bottled water company, has closed $30m in Series A funding to continue its mission of eliminating single-use plastic bottles from going into landfills and oceans with its 100% refillable aluminum water bottles.
The western diet – and the food system that underpins it – is becoming increasingly unsustainable, for the health of humans and the planet. So how do we futureproof the food system to deliver healthier, more sustainable products that nourish our bodies...
Plant-powered culinary brand Wicked Kitchen has raised $20m in bridge funding from backers including actor and vegan activist Woody Harrelson, Ahimsa VC, and NRPT (Thailand's leading food producer and innovator).
Kerry has introduced Puremul, an acacia-based emulsifying ingredient that serves as an alternative to sunflower lecithin and mono- and diglycerides, responding to ongoing global sunflower supply challenges and manufacturers' need for a viable replacement.
What's behind the recent slow down of the plant-based meat category? According to new research from Deloitte, there are several factors at play including a more limited addressable market, the pressure from inflation, and questions around the products'...
Vanilla Vida – an Israeli startup addressing the huge mismatch between supply and demand in the natural vanilla market – is exploring locations in the US as it ramps up its indoor growing platform for vanilla planifolia plants with significantly higher...
Some commentators fear ‘regenerative’ could become the new ‘natural’ in food marketing – a buzzword without a clear definition enabling the industry’s biggest polluters to sustain an unsustainable status quo while presenting a more eco-friendly face via...
InnovaFeed, a French company with global ambitions in the edible insect arena, has raised $250m in a series D round* backed by agri-food giants including ADM and Cargill, and says it will break ground on a large-scale production facility to farm black...
Novozymes is increasing its investment into alternative proteins, specifically its portfolio of enzyme solutions that can be used for the production of alternative protein food and beverage products, which it is expecting to become a significant driver...
Plant-based meat alternatives continue their downward slide with sales, units and volume all dropping in July from a year ago – a trajectory that IRI data crunched by 210 Analytics shows was set in motion months ago, but which doesn't shake at least...
ADM and PepsiCo have entered a 7.5-year strategic commercial agreement to expand regenerative agriculture across its North American supply chains, reaching up to 2 million acres by 2030.
Where’s the smart money in food tech? Tackling food waste? Precision nutrition? Cell-cultured meat? And where can investors have the biggest impact on human and planetary health… and make a return? FoodNavigator-USA caught up with Nadav Berger and Yoni...
Equinom has partnered with AGT Food and Ingredients Inc. to bring commercial quantities of its non-GMO ultra-high protein yellow pea protein ingredients to market and co-create a portfolio of functional plant-based ingredients.
New York-based indoor farming firm Gotham Greens has raised $310m in a series E round* bringing its cumulative funding to $440m since 2009. While the sums are pretty jaw-dropping, the hydroponics firm has demonstrated it can make money and deploy its...
The long-term imperative driving meat alternatives is clear: We only have one planet, with a growing population and finite resources, and raising animals to feed them all just takes up too many of them, says Tom Mastrobuoni, chief investment officer at...
Nestlé is dipping a toe into the increasingly crowded but still highly fragmented and nascent animal-free dairy category by teaming with startup Perfect Day to use synthetic biology to create a milk-like beverage from genetically engineered microflora...
Panda Express is rolling out Beyond: The Original Orange Chicken – a “plant-powered” entrée co-developed with Beyond Meat – to 2,300+ US locations until November 30, while supplies last, following a successful small-scale trial in 2021.
Since the launch of its strategic ‘end-to-end’ transformation agenda, dubbed Pep+, the company has hit a number of milestones on topics ranging from regenerative agriculture to reformulation. FoodNavigator catches up with Katharina Stenholm, Chief Sustainability...
While many CPG companies understandably spent the last three years putting out fires, General Mills simultaneously prioritized introspection – taking on projects that CEO Jeff Harmening acknowledged are “hard to put in a spreadsheet and algorithm,” but...
Organic pasture-raised dairy co Neutral Foods – which is billing itself as a ‘carbon neutral’ brand through a combination of carbon reduction initiatives and offsets - has raised $12m in a series A round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
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.
Kalsec - a global producer of spice and herb extracts – has just teamed up with Infinome Biosciences to develop multiple ingredients via precision fermentation. FoodNavigator-USA caught up with Kalsec EVP of global R&D and chief innovation officer...
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and the University of California Berkeley are investigating scalable methods of converting captured CO2 into sugar. The idea – which is already being developed separately with NASA for long-haul space missions – has the...
Every day Americans drink an estimated 517 million cups of coffee, according to the most recent consumer research from the National Coffee Association, which found that while nearly one in five savor a classic black cup with no adornments, the percentage...
Fresh research shows that high emissions scenarios place the vast majority of ocean life at ‘high’ or ‘critical’ risk, with implications for the economic wellbeing of costal economies and future food security.
A new multi-million initiative by the US Department of Agriculture aims to reverse a downward trend in the number of farms transitioning to organic – a process that can put producers on their back foot financially as yields often drop during the three-year...
“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...
While sales of refrigerated plant-based meat may be slowing, shares of some plant-based milk brands are slipping and consumer response to a handful of new products are tepid at best, industry leaders argue the party is far from over for the overall plant-based...
By focusing on organic farming practices and grazing, the family dairies that contribute to Organic Valley have significantly lower carbon footprints than those that follow conventional practices – bringing the brand closer to its goal of being carbon...
Farmers markets are more than a popular summer destination for Americans who want to learn where their food comes from – they also play a key role in Federal nutrition programs and the government’s plan to transform the food system to better support small...
Extreme weather events from heat waves and droughts to ‘hundred-year storms’ happening every two years, the impact of climate change is obvious. And few industries are witnessing the impact as much as botanical supply chain.
It’s easy to see the grim P&L figures at Beyond Meat and Oatly and the recent lackluster performance of some refrigerated meat alternatives in US retail as proof that the entire ‘alt protein’ space is a busted flush, but the real picture is more nuanced,...
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.
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...
What’s more sustainable? Using acres of land, water and energy to grow plants that produce minuscule quantities of natural sweeteners; or making them via a fermentation process using a microbe that’s been engineered to produce exactly the same molecules?
