Startup Company

Investing in the Future of Food: ForceBrands shares how to recruit & retain talent on a startup’s budget

19-Jun-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

In today’s strong labor market, many cash-strapped startups are unable to compete with big food for top talent based on salary, but according to the specialized recruitment firm ForceBrands that doesn’t mean they have to settle for second best.

AB InBev’s investment arm ZX Ventures seeks ideas the world ‘hasn’t yet even imagined’

18-Jun-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

Anheuser-Busch InBev may be on a mission to be the “best beer company bringing people together for a better world,” but its innovation, incubation and investment arm, ZX Ventures, wants more: It wants to “make products, services and technologies that...

Investing in the Future of Food: Patient capital can give entrepreneurs a leg-up when seeking VC funds

29-May-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

Routine headlines about multi-million – or billion – dollar venture capital investments into food and beverage startups may give the impression that VC funding is the best way to scale a business, but according to one insider the model is far from perfect...

IFT NEXT’s Start-Up Alley will showcase new solutions to stubborn problems plaguing the food industry

28-May-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

At IFT next week in New Orleans, entrepreneurs in the NEXT Start-Up Alley will show how they are combining “science, creativity and new thinking” to offer disruptive new solutions to some of the most persistent problems in the food industry, including...

Startup Steeped takes offers a single-brew coffee option with a third of the packaging of pods

14-May-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

Mounting consumer complaints about the generally lower coffee quality or waste created by many single-serve brewing options, pushed startup Steeped to create an elegant solution that is more sustainable than the ubiquitous pods on the market and that...

Soup-To-Nuts Podcast: Boulder Food Group shares how it hopes to invest its second fund of $100M in food & beverage startups

03-May-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

Attracted to recent high-dollar acquisitions, consumer demand for healthy and sustainable options, and the opportunities created by a diversifying retail landscape, the number of investors flocking to the food and beverage industry continues to grow exponentially...

Founder of Proper Cookie Dough leverages social media, Kickstarter to market on shoestring budget

17-Apr-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

Advertising on Facebook is about more than spreading the word about a new brand or product, it is also a tool for entrepreneurs to identify their core consumer base, which might not be who they initially thought, according to one entrepreneur who recently...

Investing in the Future of Food: Balance empathy & tension to break free from the ‘giant sea of sameness’

10-Apr-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

While the food and beverage industry is virtually oozing with innovation as entrepreneurs launch category-breaking and -making ideas at a rapid-fire clip, the full potential of many new products and companies is held back by lackluster branding that a...

Finding stevia 'polarizing', beverage brand Petal switches up its sweetener ahead of national retail launch this summer

27-Mar-2019 By Mary Ellen Shoup

Sparkling botanical beverage brand Petal has had a busy first year as the company doubled its product line with three new flavors, underwent a reformulation (swapping out stevia and erythritol for organic agave), and is now primed for national distribution...

Chobani Incubator’s diverse new cohort illustrates new focus to lift up underrepresented entrepreneurs

18-Mar-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

“Disheartened” but “not surprised” that so little venture capital currently is invested in startups led by women and minority entrepreneurs, Chobani Incubator’s new program director Zoe Feldman says she wants to more intentionally support founders from...

Investing in the Future of Food: Mars’ new Seeds of Change Accelerator seeks entrepreneurs who share its vision for ‘better food today, better world tomorrow’

13-Mar-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

Following the lead of many other established food & beverage players, Mars, Incorporated is launching a new accelerator to help early stage food-focused companies fast-track growth in exchange for access to the energy and ground-level market insights...

Investing in the Future of Food: Look beyond the obvious when fundraising, advises Kuli Kuli CEO

06-Mar-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

The frequency with which food and beverage startups in the US secure multi-million dollar investments in early fundraising rounds might lead some entrepreneurs to believe earning capital is easy – but the founder of the moringa company Kuli Kuli says...

Soup-To-Nuts Podcast: How is the flood of investment funds reshaping the food & beverage space?

01-Mar-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

Whether through multi-million dollar investments in startups or high dollar mergers and acquisitions of larger, established companies, the food and beverage industry currently is being flooded with funding, and with it many opportunities as well as challenges.

Investing in the Future of Food: Unique technology can offer startups protection from competitors

27-Feb-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

As recently as a few years ago, the words food and tech were incongruous together, but today they signal a booming industry that is ripe for innovation, and according to the VP of business development at the Israel-based incubator The Kitchen, the combination...

Equity crowdfunding offers a way to raise funds without compromising values

31-Jan-2019 By Elizabeth Crawford

Conventional investors focused on the bottom-line or high returns may not be a good fit for small companies that are unwilling to compromise their values to increase their margins – but that doesn’t mean mission-based businesses are limited to bootstrapping,...