After 16 years of blood, sweat and tears building a consumer brand, Hint Inc founder Kara Goldin has been through some ups and downs, and 2020 offered up both in equal measure. But while many beverage brands struggled to adapt in a rollercoaster year,...
Despite significant unmet demand for convenient keto products across categories, consumers who follow the diet are becoming more selective and less willing to settle for options that use low-quality or unhealthy ingredients to meet the diet’s strict macro...
With five times the production capacity available at its newest production facility, Nabati Foods is ramping up production of its plant-based 'cheeze' and meat products and has plans to introduce its latest innovation, plant-based eggs, later...
Terviva – a California-based firm commercializing ingredients from low-input, high-yielding Pongamia trees – has raised $54m in equity capital,* with an additional $24m in equity and debt capital to follow this quarter, and announced a collaboration with...
Cognitive decline over time may be inevitable, but according to the husband and wife team behind the recently launched whole food functional beverage blend Memore, feeding the mind the right nutrition early and often not only could delay onset and slow...
Daring Foods – a startup seeking to punch above its weight in the plant-based chicken category via a lower calorie product with a shorter, cleaner, ingredients list and bold branding – has closed a $40m Series B round led by D1 Capital Partners, and supported...
Eat Just Inc.'s GOOD Meat division has secured $170m in new funding to scale production of its cell-cultured chicken (and R&D into other animal protein including beef and pork) in North America and Asia through multi-million dollar investments...
With an infusion of $5m in series A funding, the bagless tea brand Tea Drops continues to push the boundaries of tea with innovative new products that offer convenience and a unique experience that supports consumers’ evolving emotional needs.
Austrian entrepreneurs are extracting cyanide from stone fruit seeds – a side stream of the fruit processing industry – before upcycling them into B2B food ingredients.
Eat Beyond Global Holdings, which has acquired a slew of alternative protein food brands in the past year, has made an investment in Daydream Drinks, a hemp and adaptogen-infused sparkling water brand based in Canada.
Boston-based Motif FoodWorks has gained exclusive access to technologies designed to address two key challenges in plant-based formulations: achieving melt and stretch in plant-based cheese, and healthier fat that enables marbling in plant-based meat....
Following its launch of chocolate products in November 2020, BeyondBrands' GoodSam Foods has introduced direct-trade coffee beans grown by small, family-owned farms in Colombia who use regenerative farming techniques.
Cell-cultured meat pioneer Memphis Meats is rebranding as UPSIDE Foods as it gears up for a small-scale consumer launch of its first product – chicken – by the end of the year, pending regulatory review.
Arbiom is a start-up developing solutions to convert timber by-products into food and feed ingredients. The group recently unveiled its first protein ingredient, SylPro. We caught up with the company to find out more about its technology and commercialisation...
The unprecedented shift to ecommerce during the pandemic and predictions that many consumers will continue to buy groceries online even after it is safe to return to retail stores has elevated the importance of an omnichannel strategy – but according...
An infusion of $10.5m in seed funding will accelerate the consumer life sciences company GEM’s mission to overhaul the $140.3b supplement market by replacing “reductionist” pills, tablets and candies with whole food bites designed to improve the health...
Baby and toddler food brand Raised Real – which has built a loyal following with its direct-to-consumer subscription business – is making its first move into bricks & mortar retail via a deal with Target, which is stocking six SKUs in its freezer...
SnackFutures, Mondelēz International's innovation and venture hub, has selected nine well-being snack brands to participate in its inaugural CoLab startup engagement program.
Ingredients giant DSM has teamed up with San Diego-based startup Debut Biotech to explore the potential of its ‘cell-free’ biomanufacturing platform, a next-generation manufacturing process it claims could unlock new opportunities to biosynthesize a far...
BrightFarms has opened its latest indoor farm in Hendersonville, North Carolina, capable of producing 2 million pounds of lettuce per year in the Southeast US region which currently has limited options for indoor-grown leafy greens on store shelves, says...
Thanks to advances in synthetic biology, with the right set of instructions, an army of microscopic little food factories (yeast, fungi, bacteria, algae etc) can now make animal proteins without animals, from collagen and egg albumin to whey protein if...
Pete and Gerry’s Organics’ decision announced yesterday to sell a majority stake of the family-owned free-range and pasture-raised egg business to the private equity firm Butterfly may be “unsettling” to some, acknowledges the CEO, but he says it will...
Tattooed Chef has entered into agreements to acquire New Mexico Food Distributors, Inc. and Karsten Tortilla Factory, LLC (collectively referred to as “Foods of New Mexico”) for approximately $35m to ramp up production of its plant-based frozen foods...
Asian plant-based meat sensation OmniPork is gearing up for a nationwide retail and foodservice launch in the US market later this year after debuting in a handful of restaurants in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Honolulu to celebrate Earth Day.
“There's no way we could have launched 10 years ago in America,” observes Julian Dyer, stockbroker-turned chef, turned-founder of London-based Pots & Co, which is looking to make a splash this side of the Atlantic with his upmarket desserts.
While adaptogens and nootropics are central to the calming and functional benefits of Moment’s trio of botanical beverages, they take a backseat in marketing, which focuses first on the behavior modifications and lifestyle the brand promotes – a strategy...
Use of botanical ingredients in the beverage category has taken off, with floral-infused sparkling waters, to bottled water with ashwagandha, and yerba mate energy drinks, while the market for botanicals in snacks and packaged food represents a smaller,...
TerViva – a California-based firm seeking to commercialize ingredients from low-input, high-yielding Pongamia trees – aims to have commercial quantities of 'golden buttery' oil available by mid-2022, with ‘highly soluble’ protein isolates to...
The next iteration of the Beyond Burger - featuring 35% less saturated fat and 75% more iron than 80/20 beef burgers, a comparable level of B vitamins, and a meatier flavor – will hit grocery stores next week and restaurants in June, with a leaner version...
Taste and smell are fundamental to how consumers experience food and beverages, but most tools for understanding and measuring these senses – including a highly trained human nose – are subjective, imprecise, and expensive making it difficult to cost-effectively...
With so many emerging bar brands vying for space in a crowded market dominated by large CPG -- Clif Bar, KIND (Mars), RXBAR (Kellogg's) -- and retail sales still down in 2021, what's the future of the bar set, and how can brands punch above...
Bay area startup Clara Foods has teamed up with ZX Ventures, the innovation arm of the world’s largest brewer AB InBev - which knows a thing or two about large-scale fermentation - to help realize its dream of making ‘animal-free’ egg proteins using microbes...
For many consumers a freshly toasted bagel is a source of joy, comfort – and guilt, but thanks to food-tech startup Better Brand Inc.’s proprietary Grain-changing Technology, Americans can soon enjoy a clean label option that tastes and functions like...
DouxMatok, the Israeli firm behind patented technology that makes regular sugar taste sweeter, has launched limited-edition chocolate spreads in the US with half the sugar of leading brands to give consumers the chance to taste products made with its...
The Very Good Food Company Inc. -- part of Eat Beyond Global Holdings' portfolio of alternative protein brands -- has upgraded its manufacturing facility to significantly expand production of its plant-based 'butchered' meat alternatives....
Berkeley-based startup Perfect Day has underscored its sustainability credentials with the release of a lifecycle assessment suggesting its ‘non-animal’ whey protein - produced by microbes - produces up to 97% fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than...
After finetuning a diverse range of plant-based meat and seafood that goes far beyond the burger- and sausage-heavy offerings of today, Hungry Planet is ready to ramp up production and distribution of all nine of its proteins across retail, foodservice...
Vejii Holdings, an online retailer of plant-based products, has acquired VeganEssentials.com and announced a C$10m capital raise, becoming the largest online marketplace in the US that exclusively sells vegan products, says Vejii CEO Kory Zelickson.
Meati Foods and Atlast Food Co - two fungi-fueled startups blazing a trail in the alternative meat market with ‘whole cut’ products made from mycelium, the fibrous root structure of mushrooms – have both announced significant funding this week as they...
With this week’s appointment of industry veteran Paul Nardone as the new CEO of HIPPEAS, the organic chickpea snack brand is building an all-star executive team with a strong track record of high-profile exits to help it leverage pandemic-inspired shifts...
While a downturn in sales for snack bars in the past year suggest consumer demand has softened, snacking behavior has hit a fever pitch and innovation in this set is hotter than ever as brands evolve to meet shifting consumer demands.
Steve Turner, the former global executive creative director for Apple's Media Arts Labs (where he worked with Steve Jobs to launch a number of iconic Apple products), has been appointed as chief experience officer at Impossible Foods, where he will...
Applications are now open for Rabobank’s FoodBytes! Pitch 2021 program, which is seeking emerging CPG, food tech, and ag tech brands to pitch their innovations and network (virtually) with corporate leaders and investors.
In the aftermath of a Congressional report investigating heavy metals found in baby food, brands that follow stringent protocols for heavy metals and other contaminants set by The Clean Label Project are experiencing ignited consumer interest, says founder...
With VC-backed food tech startups deploying molecular biologists and astrophysicists now competing for shelf space in the red-hot meat and dairy alternatives market with equally deep-pocketed multinational meat and CPG companies, where do independent...
Berkeley-based startup Mission Barns – which has developed a platform to grow fat from animal cells, outside of the animal - has raised $24m in a Series A round to help scale up its technology and build a pilot plant due to become operational later this...
Gathered Foods, parent company of plant-based seafood brand Good Catch, has secured $26.35m in a B-2 Bridge Funding Round to ramp up product innovation and dramatically increase its retail footprint.
Ag-food tech company Moolec Science is expanding its alternative protein platform to cater to plant-based bakery and beverage categories. “Moving into egg and dairy alternatives was a natural next step for our roadmap,” explained CEO and co-founder Gastón...
Startup Alchemy FoodTech is arming manufacturers of baked goods, pasta, rice and other products high in refined-carbs with a new weapon in the war against carbs led by advocates of the keto, paleo and other low-carb diets.
The pandemic’s negative impact on sleep, anxiety and mental health is creating a unique marketing opportunity for low caffeine coffee, which can deliver an energy boost without the jitters or negative impact on circadian rhythms, but which previously...