5@5: Softer school lunch rules | Fresh funding for natural energy drink startup

More salt in school lunch, less nutrition info on menus: Trump rolls back food rules

New agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue announced plans to give schools more flexibility in implementing nutrition standards set by the Obama administration. That includes delaying a mandate that would require schools to further cut sodium from the lunches they serve, and allowing them to serve some grains that aren't whole grains. Read more at NPR...

 

Durham startup Mati Energy raises $2.5M

Fresh funding from Duke Angel Network, IDEA Fund Partners and more will support the company as its builds up distribution and scales manufacturing. Mati makes energy drinks with tea, fruit juice and guayusa leaves that are sold at Whole Foods, Kroger and more. Read more at The Herald + Sun...

 

Crushing blow to soy processors as Chinese grow wary on GMO

Consumer backlash against GMOs in China is beginning to impact demand for soy oil, which accounts for more than one-third of cooking oils used in Chinese kitchens. Sales fell 1 percent last year, as replacements grow 2 to 6 percent. Read more at Successful Farming...

 

Chicago makes history with first vegetarian museum

A private donation of $90,000 allowed restaurant owner Kay Stepkin to create a traveling interactive exhibit focused on vegetarianism that's making the rounds in Chicago-area libraries. Read more at NWI Times...

 

Just Salad's war on plastic continues with a new paper bowl

The fast-food chain started by Nick Kenner in New York City 10 years ago has prioritized recycling and cutting down on waste from the start with its reusable bowl program. It will soon replace the disposable plastic bowls it gives to customers who don't want the reusable ones with paper-based bowls that decompose quickly. Read more at Modern Farmer...

Q&A: Why snack brand Banana Joe is picky with its produce

Banana Joe began in 2012 when friends Nat Meechubot and Joe Vachiravich Sirichokvanich got together with a common goal: to develop a fun and accessible way to share the exotic and unique flavor of their Thai bananas with the world. The result? A banana chip that truly mimics a potato chip, utilizing only the best Hom Thong bananas, valued for their sweet and creamy taste.

Today, Banana Joe offers trendy varieties like Sriracha with Pickled Garlic, Gruyere Cheese, and Thai Sweet Chili alongside longtime favorites like Hickory BBQ and Sea Salt. And, in 2017, the brand was noticed with a Nexty nomination in Best New Snack category during Natural Products Expo West.

Here, we chat with cofounder and general manager Nat Meechubot about the earliest days of Banana Joe, the challenges associated with sourcing the best banana, and what’s next for this innovative brand.

What was the inspiration behind Banana Joe?
Nat Meechubot: Joe and I are longtime friends who love to eat great food. We decided that good snacks were not so abundant on the market, nor did they offer the same taste as regular snacks—hence, a huge compromise. In an effort to bridge that gap, we wondered what could be made. Looking at the best-selling snacks on the market, it was evident that people just loved chips. It was dominated by potato chips, with some baked potato chips emerging but they tasted rather dry. We saw vegetable chips come to the market, but again, also not great tasting. We thought, what could we do better? The only way to push the envelope was to look for a fruit, and years of testing resulted in Banana Joe. Our motto is simple: Believe in taste.

We tend to make people happy. We have seen a mother walking down the supermarket aisle with her child, the mother wanting fresh fruits, the child wanting potato chips. Neither were able to compromise, until now, and we are happy that both sides can be happy.

Why do you prefer Hom Thong bananas over other varieties?
NM: We have eaten over 30 varieties of bananas. We did not even know there were that many before we started our venture. Our Hom Thong bananas are by far the best tasting bananas. In fresh form, they have an aroma that is unmatched by any plain cavendish banana that you typically find in the supermarkets. The Hom Thong is the original banana so to speak—the ones your grandparents were able to eat. But to make bananas more resistant, the cavendish was developed. And while they might be more resistant to insects, weather and disease, they just do not have as much flavor to them. People always ask us why our banana chips taste like a real and proper chip, not like the thick chunks of banana chips they have previously tasted, and the answer is simple: we pick the best bananas. The chips are light, thin, airy and crispy.

What kinds of sourcing challenges exist surrounding this type of banana?
NM: Using only one type of banana is always a challenge. That means that we grow in tempo with our farms. We cannot grow faster than the farmers we work with. There are seasonal highs and lows with bananas as well, and we are always at risk during the rainy seasons, where high winds can knock down banana trees. Working with fresh produce that cannot be stored, there is always risk involved.

We work with small, family-owned farms—they own one hectare or less—which means that we have to work with a lot of different farms. While smaller farms grow the best bananas, there is always a challenge to time the harvest in tune with our customer requirements. There is lots of coordination involved—it’s bananas!

How have you overcome these challenges?
NM: For weather challenges, we try to work with farms from different geographic areas. That gives us a bit of leeway so if one area has bad weather, the other areas might be okay. Every few years, however, there can be a bad storm and everything gets hit. It’s nature, and we simply just work with the farmers and rebuild right away.

There can sometimes be shortages, so we do try to promote growing Hom Thong bananas as well. It takes time though, and we would like to help more farmers grow Hom Thong bananas.

What's next for Banana Joe?
NM: We are just scratching the surface of the market at the moment, so we really need to get the message out and get people to try Banana Joe. Fortunately, 99 percent of people who try Banana Joe say they are the best tasting banana chips they have ever tasted. We would like to think that we are the best fruit chip on the market, delivering a true chipping experience while eating a fruit. Getting the message across of how we harvest our bananas fresh everyday, and harvest it green just before it turns yellow so that the prebiotics of green bananas are still there while naturally low sugars, is something we will concentrate on for the future.

Retailer roundtable: What promotions are working in your store?

"We have joined forces with Humboldt Made, an organization that supports local makers and producers. Together, we offer special Humboldt Made Tastings where customers can meet the makers of their favorite local products. Humboldt Made tastings occur during our town’s monthly Arts Alive and we feature artwork from our local high school art institute. This promotion aligns with our mission and showcases what it means to support local!"

-Aaron Gottschalk, general manager at Wildberries Marketplace in Arcata, California

 

"Multiple promotion avenues are important to meet current and new customers where they are. This year we created new TV commercials with a more youthful feel, highlighting our three generations of history. These stretched our ‘normal’ style and have resonated with customers. We’ve also incorporated live radio and TV talk shows, and more educational seminars. We are active on social media, finding video has a greater impact on consumer interest. And the weekly customer newsletter might seem old school, but it is the best tool to share events, sales and seminars."

-Silvia Atsma, director of marketing at Harvest Health Foods stores in Michigan

"We create fun and unique promotions to attract new customers as well as engage existing customers. E-blasts provide opportunity to send out dollar-off promos to help drive sales in a department or category. Recently $2 off smoothies saw a strong response. Kids Eat Free and Takeout Mondays are ramping up and drive business for both existing and new customers."

-Bart Yblonsky, director of operations at Dawson’s Market in Rockville, Maryland, and Ellwood Thompson’s in Richmond, Virginia

5@5: How one Big Food company found success with content marketing | Instacart's big expansion plans

How BuzzFeed and Mondelez brought healthy food videos to the masses

Goodful, which posts quick, healthy food videos mostly on Facebook, is giving us an education in marketing in today's food world. It was started about a year ago as a partnership between snack food giant Mondelez—which realized that consumers were increasingly dodging advertising—and media brand BuzzFeed. Goodful found rapid, somewhat unexpected success, and now Mondelez is handing over the reins to BuzzFeed, although it will still sponsor videos. "As audiences become more empowered to control their viewing experience, the old model of interruptive advertising is rapidly becoming irrelevant," said a Mondelez spokeswoman. "This pilot gave us key learnings in terms of how consumers connect to content, enabling us to accelerate our content marketing capabilities." Read more at Wall Street Journal...

 

Instacart everywhere: Grocery-delivery service plans big expansion

Partnerships with new stores and expanding into different markets is grocery delivery service Instacart's strategy for continued growth in a tough business. But one roadblock could be a seemingly increasing discontent among its shoppers who fulfill orders. That, and competition. Read more at San Francisco Chronicle...

 

Amazing Grains to close; downtown co-op to begin phase out sale Tuesday

In a letter to members, the 45-year-old North Dakota organic grocer and deli said it is closing its doors. Amazing Grains has seen a 30 percent sales loss since Natural Grocers opened nearby in August. Read more at Grand Forks Herald...

 

Donald Trump is taking on Michelle Obama's healthy food legacy

The former first lady focused her efforts on improving nutrition and fighting obesity. But the new administration's anti-regulation stance may push back against some of those efforts. For example, incoming agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue just put forward an interim rule that gives schools more wiggle room for interpreting federal nutrition standards for school lunch. There's also been talk that the new nutrition labels set to be implemented by July 2018 may be delayed. Read more at Vox...

 

Another investor pushes Whole Foods to explore strategic alternatives, report says

In addition to Jana Partners, the New York City-based investment management firm Neuberger Bermann Group has also encouraged the board of Whole Foods Market to evaluate its strategic options. The firm owns 2.4 percent of the retailer's shares. Read more at Austin Business Journal...

Could changes in U.S. politics affect the organic industry?

"There's an opportunity to thrive on chaos."

—Robert B. Anderson, Organic Trade Association 

Part 1: 'We are in limbo'

Highlights:

• George Washington University's Kathleen Merrigan, Ph.D., discusses potential domestic program budget cuts. 
• Former U.S. Ambassador Eric Bost talks trade and immigration and the impact on U.S. agriculture. 
• The Organic Trade Association's (OTA) Robert B. Anderson proposes that organic needs to position itself politically in terms of economic growth. 

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Part 2: Maintaining integrity 

Highlights: 

• Clarkson Grain's Lynn Clarkson relays the importance of keeping integrity as organic scales. 
• OTA's Laura Batcha raises questions about the impact of congressional decisions on the USDA. 

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Part 3: The organic economy 

Highlights:

• Panelists discuss how to "champion" organic as an economic force. 
• The role of organic in the global economy and risks perceived in global trade. 

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Part 4: Future obstacles 

Highlights:

• Panelists discuss National Organic Program (NOP) reform. 
• How the organic community and policy is supporting sustainable agriculture as a whole. 
• Obstacles around GMOs and misconceptions about the word "natural."

This session—The Political Outlook for Organic—was recorded at Natural Products Expo West 2017. 

Supplement market growth in China gives brands opportunity for distribution

"Online shopping has really become very disruptive and innovative ... historically, in China, the retail landscape has had a lack of scale and efficiency. That really created an opportunity when the internet came into play." 

—Shirley Huang, Vision Avenue Consulting

Part 1: Areas of growth 

Highlights:

• Overview of China's supplement market.
• Understanding the Chinese consumer and underlying market growth drivers. 

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Part 2: E-commerce

Highlights:

• Top e-commerce sites and flagship stores. 
• Online consumer segments and what categories of supplements are trending. 

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Part 3: Top-selling categories

Highlights:

• Chinese millennials are putting health as a priority and driving supplement market growth. 
• Top-selling categories of supplements and the top 10 brands succeeding in China. 

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Part 4: Questions and answers 

Highlights:

• What is the future for cross-border e-commerce?
• Are there any government regulations on e-commerce, or will there be in the future? 

 

This session—The Changing Chinese Consumer, Opportunities for Supplement Growth Abroad—was recorded at Natural Products Expo West 2017. Click "download" below to access the presentation slides. 

With expanding chip line, Forager Project proves food waste can be a valuable resource

About a year ago, Forager Project—known for its cold-pressed, HPP juices and more recently its cashew-based dairy alternatives—launched a line of vegetable-based chips using, as the base, the pulp leftover from making all that juice. It was an unlikely move for a company that had established itself in the pressed juice sector but wasn’t exactly known for snacks. So now, a year later, is that leap considered a success? Absolutely, says cofounder and COO JC Hanley, and in more ways than one.

It started largely as an effort to reduce food waste. "We had all this beautiful organic pomace that was being composted. We thought, 'there’s got to be something we can do with this,'" he said, and—after over a year of formulation and development—the chip was born. Now Forager has a product that not only utilizes the would-be compost, but is a vegetable chip that's actually made mostly from vegetables.

"It’s a really cool product that reflects what’s important to us. It’s a sustainable supply chain, and I think it sort of elevates what’s available in the category. If you look at the ingredient panel and compare it to most vegetable chips out there, it’s pretty different," he said.

The chips come in three varieties—greens, beets and roots—and the greens have been so popular that the company is soon launching them in three flavors: chipotle barbecue, (vegan) cheesy and wasabi greens. It’s a win-win expansion for Forager, because the greens are their best-selling chip, and the company also has more green pomace (juice pulp) than any other.

Hanley said the beets are the next-best-selling chip, and the roots are similar enough that the two have cannibalized each other—so it’s unclear if roots will remain in the product line permanently, but they’re not going anywhere yet.

Overall, it’s been a successful leap from the refrigerated aisle into the snack category—and the company is paving the way for continued future growth by talking with other juice companies about potentially sourcing some of their pomace as well for use in the chip supply chain. Forager Project hasn’t outgrown its own supply of pomace; Hanley said it’s more an insurance of sorts against running into that problem in the future and to enable the growth if it gets to that point.

There are no plans for new products at the moment—the company has its hands full with the three new chip flavors and a full line of recently-released cashew milks and yogurts—but Hanley said that’s not out of the question, including potentially using other streams of waste. "It’s all about making products that we don’t think are available to people, and that people might want," he said. For now, he’s proud of the supply chain the company been able to build out of what used to be wasted food.

"The goal is to not only do it ourselves but to get other people to do it, too," he said. "It’s becoming popular—there is a fair amount of companies doing it, and that’s exciting."