Ebola is a huge humanitarian concern for the cocoa and chocolate industry, but contrary to some reports it is not yet having a major business impact for big chocolate players like Mars and Mondelēz.
Stevia chocolate is beginning to gain momentum in the US but could take at least a decade to achieve widespread acceptance among mainstream retail, according to stevia chocolate firm Coco Polo
The average convenience-store shopper spends just three minutes in the store, says Wells Fargo in a new report arguing that there are big growth opportunities for brands that can offer more products designed for immediate consumption, and better meet...
'Many kombucha makers are thumbing their nose at the regulators'
In 2010, KeVita sparkling organic probiotic beverages were available in a handful of Whole Foods stores in Southern California. Today they have 90%+ ACV in the natural channel, and a growing presence in the conventional channel, and CEO Bill Moses sits...
Food industry ‘tinkering’ with sugar content while foods and drinks remain relatively high in sugar may detract from more basic sugar reduction strategies, warns a public health expert.
As Halloween approaches, pumpkin spice mania has gripped the nation, but there’s plenty of other interesting stuff hitting shelves this fall, from Pepsi’s Caleb's Kola to chia vitality bars from Mamma Chia, and new coconut water & juice blends...
St Louis-based Post Holdings - the company behind Grape-Nuts, Honey Bunches of Oats and PowerBar protein bars - has promoted chief financial officer Robert Vitale to the role of chief executive, replacing Bill Stiritz, who will take up the newly-created...
If you’ve got enough money - and clout - it’s not hard to make a big splash with a new product launch in year one. The real test comes in years two, three and four. And PepsiCo is proving that its innovations are still delivering after the initial hype...
Not so long ago, the only yogurt that US consumers - and retail buyers - appeared to be interested in was the thick, protein-packed Greek variety. Today, as brands such as Noosa have proved, there is more room in the market for other options, says the...
Zenith International includes cocktail flavors and cognitive enhancement within a list of 13 top trends it says have driven innovation in energy drinks on the basis of post-2012 product launches.
GOLDEN STATE ROW ESCALATES AS NOVEMBER 4 BALLOTS APPROACH
PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi has attacked November ballots in San Francisco and Berkeley that will ask city residents to approve increased taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages and sweeteners used to sweeten such drinks.
It’s well-known that many CPG firms feel that they are not getting enough bang for their trade spending bucks. But a recent analysis by Nielsen reveals that most of them are not getting any bang for these bucks, with almost three quarters of promotions...
Is it harder to start a beverage business today than it was 25 years ago when he started distributing ‘ginger brew’ from his Volkswagen Bug in a tie-dyed tee-shirt? Probably, says Reed’s Inc founder & CEO Chris Reed. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t...
As the news broke yesterday that Pepsi had launched a new craft cola, or 'kola' as the hipster spelling has it, we run the rule over a launch that excites us greatly - albeit not as much as the moon landings or the end of apartheid.
The IFT's FutureFood 2050 initiative has started a fascinating conversation about what we might be eating in the future. But what will food shopping be like? Will supermarkets as we know them today still exist or will we get all of our groceries...
Most business administration graduates dream of starting their own business. And most end up working for someone else’s, at least in the short term. Not many of them start a bottled water company. But that doesn’t make Ryan Emmons crazy.
Bakers cannot sit back and be bombarded by negative messaging around bread anymore because there’s actually a huge consumer group who wants it, says the VP of Panera Bread bakery development.
As American phenomenon Sparkling Ice strives to become a $1bn beverage brand by 2018, one analyst says she thinks the eye-watering target is realistic.
Chobani is working with Green America (formerly Co-op America) to “discuss realistic and viable” ways to secure more milk from cows fed non-GMO animal feed.
'The feedback we received appears to be merely satisfactory or mixed'
Initial feedback suggests the US debut of Coca-Cola Life has been “lackluster”, with staff in some of the first stores to feature the product reporting “satisfactory” sales, but nothing to set the world on fire, says Ali Dibadj, senior analyst at Sanford...
Leavening agent sodium acid pyrophosphate (SAPP) doesn’t belong in products making ‘all-natural’ claims, even if they are USDA certified organic, the FDA has told a Massachusetts-based baker.
Nestlé and Kellogg have partnered with companies including General Mills and Unilever by joining Ceres' Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP).
What will we be eating in 2050? Insect bars, 3D printed food, lab meat and personalized nutrition bars? No one knows for sure. But with a growing population and a changing climate, food systems - and diets - will have to adapt to survive, say 11 thought-leaders...
Until relatively recently, probiotics - gut-friendly live bacteria - were largely limited to the supplement aisle or the dairy case. Today, thanks to the development of more resilient strains, they are creeping into every category in the store. But we’re...
Leading probiotic juice brand GoodBelly is ‘confident’ its partnership with the Microwarriors documentary will help advance public knowledge about the benefits of probiotics.
Conversations about maple water typically start with what it isn't, says Vertical Water co-founder Valentina Cugnasca. It's not ‘watered-down’ maple syrup (quite the opposite in fact - maple syrup is made by boiling up maple water); it’s not...
Just weeks after the US launch of Coca-Cola Life, PepsiCo has unveiled plans to launch its own mid-calorie soda sweetened with a combination of sugar and stevia under the Pepsi True brand.
The "traditionally domestic focused" dairy industry must adopt a "world view" to ensure increasing global consumer demand does not outstrip milk supply, says Tetra Pak.
Tata Global Beverages, Taylors of Harrogate, and Typhoo support Assam programme
The notion that defining ‘natural’ is just too hard - either for the FDA or for the food industry - and that we therefore shouldn’t even bother to attempt it, is defeatist and “disingenuous”, says the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
In part one of our coverage of FoodNavigator-USA’s natural & clean label panel debate we looked at whether the FDA - or industry stakeholders - should define ‘natural’. In part two, we look at all-natural lawsuits, and whether consumers understand...
Six months after resolving an IP fight with a competitor turned collaborator, KonaRed Corporation has made rapid progress in moving its coffee fruit beverage into nationwide distribution.
Buoyed by the surging popularity of hummus in the US, Sabra Dipping Co has unveiled plans to expand its hummus manufacturing facility in Chesterfield County, Virginia, doubling its production capacity and creating 70 new jobs.
While chia seeds are now appearing in everything from breakfast cereal to yogurt, it’s easy to forget that until surprisingly recently, the only place you could find them was in a health food store or on the web in “ziploc bags with the label written...
Diamond Foods is "competing with products addressing the trends in convenient protein, natural, organic, gluten-free, and non-GMO", CEO Brian Driscoll told analysts Thursday. And while its nuts and chips tap into some of these trends, he said,...
Chobani will serve as the official yogurt provider to Team USA for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Brazil, the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in South Korea, and the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Japan after striking a new deal...
While the jaw-dropping amount that General Mills paid for Annie’s ($820m) raised some eyebrows, it was “worth it”, says one corporate finance expert who says big CPG firms are increasingly eyeing up acquisition targets in the natural and organic foods...
Sales of packaged bakery products have been sluggish for years as shoppers have shifted their focus from the center of the store to the perimeter, but there are pockets of opportunity in industrially-produced 'artisanal' goods; ancient grains;...
Chobani’s ‘limited batch’ Pumpkin Spice Greek yogurt has emerged as the “fastest-growing SKU in the history of the company” and its most successful new launch, following its debut on Labor Day weekend, says the Greek yogurt maker.
While new class action lawsuits over ‘all-natural’ claims on food labels are still filed in the ‘food court’ in California on a weekly basis, some recent orders from judges handling these cases present a glimmer of hope for beleaguered food & beverage...
B&G Foods is the latest firm to be hit with a class action lawsuit accusing it of misleading shoppers by labeling products containing ingredients that are “highly processed” or/and derived from genetically engineered crops as ‘all-natural’.