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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

snacks

Beyond Meat and PepsiCo Partner Up for Plant-Based Snacks Joint Venture

Beyond Meat and PepsiCo announced today that they are forming the PLANeT Partnership, LLC, a joint venture that will develop snacks and beverages made from plant-based protein. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.

The PLANeT Partnership will lean on Beyond Meat’s plant-based protein food expertise and PepsiCo’s massive marketing and commercial sales infrastructure to scale any new product options created.

There are a couple of ways to interpret this news. First, PepsiCo’s involvement is another example of how plant-based protein is going mainstream. According to the Good Food Institute’s 2020 Plant-Based Market Overview, “grocery sales of plant-based foods that directly replace animal products have grown 29% in the past two years to $5 billion.” And those numbers were released before the pandemic, an ongoing event that’s spurred explosive sales of plant-based foods. Meticulous Research projected sales of plant-based foods would “grow at a CAGR of 11.9% from 2020 to 2027 to reach $74.2 billion by 2027.”

So it makes sense for PepsiCo to partner with a well-known brand in the plant-based food space to get in on some of that sweet plant-based money.

In addition to money, there’s another “green” aspect to the partnership: sustainability. One of the main benefits of plant-based foods is that they take less of a toll on the planet. PepsiCo isn’t exactly known as a steward of the environment (though it does run its Greenhouse Accelerator program), and creating the PLANeT Partnership allows them to get a little eco-halo effect and create a line of snacks that will appeal to conscious consumers.

I’m curious to see what role the direct-to-consumer sales channels play in all this. Both PepisCo and Beyond Meat launched D2C channels last year. Obviously PepsiCo has deep in-roads with traditional retail, and in-store is where the big money is. But as shoppers get comfortable with buying more of their groceries online, the PLANeT Partnership has an opportunity to build a robust D2C channel from the ground up and own more of its customer relationship and data.

But mostly, I’m interested to see what actual food comes out of this partnership. Having been in the Beyond Meat test kitchen, I know firsthand that its culinary team is remarkable and have no doubt they could come up with tasty treats.

Now we just need to see if this PepsiCo + Beyond Meat endeavor will get Coca-Cola and Impossible Foods to announce their own partnership.

Swedish Brand Nick’s Raises $30 Million for Its Sugar-Free Ice Cream and Snacks

Nick’s, a Swedish brand of sugar-free ice cream and snacks, announced today that it has raised a $30 million round of funding. The new round was led by Stockholm-based investment group Gullspång Invest and European food tech fund Capagro. Khosla Ventures, DNS capital, Djursholm Investment Group, and Skandrenting AB also participated in the round.

Nick’s creates a wide variety of healthier snacks that have no added sugar, gluten or palm oil. The company says its most recent product, an ice cream, has 70 percent fewer calories than other leading brands on the market. Nick’s has the exclusive license to use EPG, a plant-based fat replacement ingredient created by Epogee. Nick’s also worked with Perfect Day to launch a vegan ice cream collaboration.

Nick’s is among a rising cohort of smaller CPG brands looking to reinvent the ice cream space. As noted, Perfect Day’s animal-free dairy proteins are being uses in ice creams with Nick’s and also through Perfect Day’s own Brave Robot brand. Oatly’s oat milk-based ice cream is firmly ensconced in stores. And Eclipse has its own line of plant-based ice creams.

At the height of the pandemic last year, many consumers turned to snacks and other comfort foods. As the pandemic continues to rage on, consumers could be looking for “healthier” snack alternatives that still provide solace without so much of the waistline side effects.

Nick’s products are currently available in 15 markets across Europe and the U.S. The company said it will use the new funding for international expansion, primarily in the U.S. and Germany, and that it will build a production facility in Europe.

Goodfish Raises $4M for Upcycled Salmon Snacks

Goodfish, a company that upcycles salmon skin by turning it into snack foods, announced today it has closed a $4 million Series A investment round. The round was led by AF Ventures and Siddhi Capital. In a press release sent to The Spoon, the company said it will use the new funds to “support the surging demand for its products, deepen R&D capability and accelerate product innovation.”

Goodfish was started by the founders of beverage company Harmless Harvest, and products became available for online purchase this year. The snacks resemble crunchy chips in texture and are made from the reclaimed skins of Wild Alaskan Sockeye that would normally go to waste. The idea is to create a chip-like snack with far more health benefits (clean protein and marine collagen among them) and far fewer calories. The skins are sourced from well-regulated fisheries in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Cofounder Justin Guilbert, said in today’s press release that Goodfish’s online-only distribution strategy “paid off well above expectations” and led to an earlier fundraised than expected. Hence the close of the Series A round today. 

Given that folks have been snacking their way through this pandemic, it’s no surprise companies offering healthier alternatives are getting noticed (and receiving funding). Others include Renewal Mill, which uses upcycled okara flour to make cookies, plant-based pork rind-maker Pig Out, and jerky made from jackfruit by a company called Jack and Tom.

Goodfish did not say whether it plans to eventually expand to brick-and-mortar stores for distribution. For now, products are available via the company’s own direct-to-consumer website. 

Plant-Based Pork Rinds, Upcycled Cookies and Potato Nacho Cheese: The Best Alt. Snacks I’ve Tasted

I don’t want to brag, but being stuck at home for the past five months, I’ve become pretty good at snacking. Too good at snacking, judging from my most recent trip to the scale.

So when both Outstanding Foods and Startup CPG recently asked if I wanted to try out their wares — well, who am I to turn down free snacks sent to my door?

Outstanding makes Pig Out, the plant-based pork rinds. What’s funny to me is that when I’ve mentioned them to other people, they wrinkle their nose in befuddlement and are hesitant to try them. As if gluten-free, non-GMO, soy-free, vegan and certified kosher rinds made mostly from rice, sunflower oil and pea protein is grosser than rinds made from deep-fried pig skin.

Anyhoo.

Pig Out rinds come in flavors like Original, Hella Hot, Texas BBQ and Nacho Cheese. While the main taste is salty, they are delicious! My wife in particular was hooked on the Hella Hot flavor, lamenting that left to her own devices, she could eat the entire bag. (I could too.)

Meanwhile, Startup CPG is a service that connects emerging CPG brands with each other and investors. The company sent me 25 different products to try out, and these are the ones you should hunt and chow down as soon as you can:

  • 12 Tides seaweed snacks. Delicious puffs of organic kelp that are light, airy and satisfying. Plus the packaging it totally compostable.
  • Loca plant based nacho sauce. This potato-based cheese spread is akin to the “cheese” you find in a convenience store. I’m not going to lie — it smells to high heaven, but tastes devilishly good!
  • Renewal Mill chocolate chip cookies. Made from upcycled okara flour, these cookies are soft and chewy and a perfect sweet treat in the afternoon.
  • Kween Granola Butter. A spreadable granola with a lovely cinnamon tinge to it. My only complaint is the texture is a little gritty, but it is a nice sweet counterbalance to the saltiness of a Wheat Thin.
  • Jack and Tom jerky. I’m not usually a fan of jackfruit, but prepared and dried in this fashion, this is a great vegan alternative to meat jerky, and the spiciness is powerful, yet playful.

The sad part is that most of these snacks are more expensive than your standard CPG brands. But they are probably better for you (in moderation) and definitely better for the planet. Plus, most of these plant-based alternatives are just getting off the ground now and haven’t scaled up production to bring down prices yet.

But, since it looks like lockdowns won’t be ending anytime soon, it might be high time to invest a little more in your snack game.

Outstanding Foods Raised $5M for Plant-based Pork Rinds

Snack company Outstanding Foods announced yesterday that it has raised a $5 million round of funding led by SternAegis Ventures.

Outstanding currently makes Pig Out, a plant-based “pigless pork rinds,” in flavors like “Hella Hot,” “Nacho Cheese,” and “Texas BBQ.” The rinds are gluten-free, non-GMO, soy-free, vegan and certified kosher. The main ingredients in the rinds are rice, sunflower oil and pea protein, with a bunch of spices thrown in.

This funding round comes at a good time for Outstanding Foods, which sits at the nexus of a few trends happening right now. First, Outstanding is creating a plant-based alternative to an animal product at a time when sales of plant-based food are taking off, so there is definitely a receptive market for pigless pork rinds.

Second, this pandemic has driven people to stock up on snacks. The NPD Group recently found that snack food consumption is up 8 percent during this time of COVID as we all look for comfort foods.

Finally, while Pig Out is available in select stores, Outstanding also sells directly to consumers via its website. This is an increasingly common tactic for nascent food brands that are able to create a direct relationship with consumers through a variety of online channels like Twitter and Instagram. Magic Spoon cereal is only available online and Impossible Foods recently launched its own D2C channel.

The only issue for Outstanding Foods might be if its pigless pork rinds taste too much like the real thing. While this verisimilitude may appeal to flexitarians, the more ardent vegan and vegetarian community may be turned off by this realism, having given up meat and pork for a reason. Plus, just because something is plant-based doesn’t make it healthy — there’s still plenty of processing that goes into making these treats.

Regardless, with $5 million in fresh funding in the bank, now is the time for Outstanding to, err, pig out on its expansion plans.

NPD: Consumers Sought Solace in Snacks During COVID Quartantine

When the pandemic hit the U.S. in full force, the grocery shopping habits in our house immediately changed. Our online grocery carts were suddenly filled with salty, sugary, pre-packaged snacks: bite-sized Snickers, Mac-n-cheese in cups, Wheat Thins for days. All of these “treats” had long shelf-lives, and were easy to grab as we gobbled up our anxieties.

We were definitely not alone with our snacking. According to new data from the NPD Group’s Snack Food Behaviors in Challenging Times study, snack food consumption is up 8 percent during the pandemic. For comparison, during The Great Recession between 2008 and 2010, snack food saw a 1 percent increase.

From the NPD press announcement:

In April, during the height of the shelter-at-home orders, 37% of consumers told NPD they wanted to make sure they had sufficient snack foods on hand. They were well-stocked on salty snacks and frozen sweets more than other items. Also, in many cases, the more snack food packages in the home, the more frequently the item is consumed, which tends to be especially true of certain types of snack foods. For example, consumers who have five or more packages of crackers or salty snacks consume those foods at higher rates than consumers with fewer packages in their home.

Of course, the fact that people are buying tons of cookies and crackers isn’t necessarily a good thing. Chips and cookies can be cheaper than fruits and vegetables and last a lot longer, making them a much more attractive option for a nation experiencing record job losses. So the more affordable option is not the healthier one, reinforcing certain equity divides.

With the pandemic showing no signs of slowing down, and states halting re-opening plans, we’ll have to see if our snacking stays the same.

PepsiCo Launches Two Sites to Deliver All the Snacks to Your Doorstep

With quarantine keeping us all at home and near our pantries, we’re buying more food staples online — and snacking more, too. So it’s no surprise that PepsiCo announced today that it’s launching two ways that people can buy snacks (and other pantry items) directly.

On PantryShop.com, consumers can order curated bundles of popular PepsiCo products with names like “Family Favorites,” “Workout & Recovery,” or, of course, “Snacking.” These bundles have goods from PepsiCo brands like Gatorade, Cap’n Crunch, and Quaker. The Standard Size for the packs costs $29.95, while the larger Family Size is $49.95.

PepsiCo also launched Snacks.com, which is even more snack-specialized. On the site people can order crackers, nuts, and dips, as well as a whole litany of chips from Lays, Cheetos, Ruffles, and more. Orders over $15 ship free.

According to an email sent to The Spoon, the majority of orders placed on PantryShop.com or Snacks.com will arrive within two business days. Obviously that’s not going to sate any chip cravings happening right now, but in a time when finding a grocery delivery spot is almost as hard as finding the golden ticket, two days is actually not that long. And considering everything that PepsiCo is sending is shelf-stable, speed is not exactly of the essence.

Considering the meteoric growth of online grocery since the coronavirus pandemic began, it’s no surprise that PepsiCo is trying to take advantage by launching its own direct sales platforms. With Instacart orders, PepsiCo is competing with other brands to get in your cart. By taking the process onto their own site, they own your purchase 100 percent.

That is, if consumers will go for it. There may be increased interest in online grocery shopping, but I’m not sure if consumers are willing to add another marketplace to their digital purchasing habits. Do people have enough loyalty to PepsiCo brands to place an entirely separate snack order on Snacks.com, as opposed to just adding a few bags of Hot Cheetos to their regular online order?

I suppose, like so many things right now, we’ll have to wait and see. If PepsiCo does see some healthy interest you can bet we’ll see other Big Food brands like Coca-Cola or Nestlé following suit with their own online marketplaces. What better to go with your PepsiCo Snack Pack then a Coca-Cola Soda Pack to wash it all down?

Cargo and Uber Form Exclusive Partnership to Sell Snacks on the Go

Cargo and Uber announced an exclusive global partnership yesterday that will see Cargo’s snack vending boxes inside more cars in the ride hailing giant’s fleet.

Cargo allows drivers to make a little extra scratch from their driving gig by selling snacks and small sundries from their car’s center console. That includes stuff like gum, Skittles, or lip balm—small stuff you may not bring with you on your way out for the evening. Riders select and pay for items using the Cargo app, and the company says 7,000 drivers have earned more than $1 million since the company’s launch in 2017.

The partnership with Uber comes a little more than a month after Cargo expanded to LA, and is now opening up operations in San Francisco. Cargo, which was founded in June of 2016, has raised $8.7 million in funding.

Interestingly, despite the words “global” and “exclusive,” non-Uber drivers will still be able to use Cargo. For now, payments for snacks will still go through the Cargo app, but could get baked directly into the Uber app, which would throw up a (small) barrier to other ride sharing services.

This move to monetize more of a ride comes just a couple of months after a study showing that Uber drivers earn on average $11.77 an hour (after Uber takes its cut), and that the average wage (taking out additional costs such as vehicle expenses) was $9.21 an hour. Giving drivers the option of earning additional revenue for almost no extra work is a good way of incentivizing them to stick around and stay on Uber’s platform.