• 🛒 Kroger Fires Back At Albertsons
• 🏭 Co-Packer Heads To PE
• ⛔ Chomps Recalls Beef Sticks
• 🥚 The Ordinary Eggs?
• 🆕 What Else Is New?

Seed oils seem to be on everyone’s sh*t list: from consumers to influencers, to the people running the government, despite questions about whether they really need to be. The rising concerns have pushed some manufacturers to highlight existing ingredients as novel callouts or rush to reformulate products altogether, hoping to recapture demand. Others are taking it one step further by going straight to the source. 

Fresh cut fruit and vegetable distributor Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. has acquired a majority stake in Avolio, Uganda’s leading supplier of bulk crude and edible avocado oil, per an announcement today. 

Fresh Del Monte has been building out a new business division – biomass and specialty ingredients – that seeks to transform agricultural byproducts into solutions that enhance soil health and support a circular economy. Avolio fits right into that vision, marking a “strategic step” in its long-term plan to extract more value from its supply chain.

“These efforts not only reinforce our environmental stewardship, but also position us to compete in higher-margin categories that drive profitable growth and long-term shareholder value,” said Mohammad Abu-Ghazelah, chairman and CEO of Fresh Del Monte, in a statement. 

Avolio will be able to scale its extraction technology to 140 metric tons of avocados per day following the close of the transaction. Avocados are one of few fruits that can produce oil from its pulp, and Avolio leverages that attribute to create oil from imperfect inputs, the announcement explained. 

It's a major move for the fresh fruit producer: The $1.2 billion avocado oil industry is growing at a CAGR of 8%, per market researcher Fortune Business Insights. 

To meet rising demand, Fresh Del Monte said it plans to expand into other locations through increased production capacity and the development of new facilities. By the looks of it, demand won’t be fading soon as interest in avocado oil has increased significantly alongside the anti-seed oil movement’s growing momentum. 

• Dubbed the “Hateful Eight” – canola, corn, cottonseed, soybean, sunflower, safflower, grapeseed and rice bran oils – have been denounced by anti-seed oil advocates for their imbalanced ratio of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids believed to cause inflammation in the body. 
• The movement has also received a boost from recently appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as part of the greater Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) campaign; however, there is currently no scientific evidence indicating these oils are harmful to human health.  

Nevertheless, a number of CPG brands showcased products with anti-seed oil callouts at Expo West earlier this month, including Cedar’s new Reserve Hommus line, Jackson’s kettle chips (cooked exclusively in avocado oil) and Hiker Coffee’s coffee products, crafted in-house with flavoring using MCT oil as the carrier rather than seed oils. 

Go Deeper: Inside the Movement Against Seed Oil

Kroger shot back at Albertsons this week accusing the grocery giant of colluding with C&S Wholesale. In the words of senior reporter Lukas Southard, “this is turning into who has a bigger legal team!”

• In case you already forgot, C&S was the buyer Kroger and Albertsons lined up for their store divestments so that they could make the merger right in the minds of regulators. 
• Kroger claims Albertsons’ new CEO Susan Morris secretly communicated with C&S’s CEO and others to undermine its regulatory approvals strategy and caused regulators to believe that C&S was not an adequate buyer. 
• Kroger claims these communications were cited by the Washington court that ultimately blocked the deal, adding that within hours of that news, Albertsons terminated the merger and filed a 140-page complaint against Kroger. 
• Last week, C&S sued Kroger, looking to lock in its $125 million termination fee.  
• Kroger believes Albertsons’ and C&S’s misconduct makes their termination fee requests a moot point. 

Catch Up: C&S Sues Kroger

MSI Express now rests in PE hands. The food and beverage contract manufacturer was acquired by middle-market PE firm Nonantum Capital Partners as it works to scale its business alongside its customers. 

• Nonantum has previously invested in CPG brands such as Hawaiian Tropic and take-and-bake pizza brand Papa Murphy’s. 
• Indiana-based, founder-led MSI operates 15 factories “strategically located” across six states, offering solutions such as blending, packaging, and both dry and liquid filling.

In other PE deal news: Bakery products maker CraftMark has been acquired by One Equity Partners. The company makes bread dough, cookie dough, muffins, flatbread, baked cookies and filled dough for quick-service restaurants and retailers nationwide.

Chomps and its co-packer Idaho Smokehouse Partners are recalling approximately 29,541 lbs of Original Beef Sticks due to the potential presence of metal fragments.

📝 The company initiated a voluntary internal recall following an investigation of two consumer complaints, according to a statement on Chomps’ website. No injuries or illnesses were reported.

🚚 The affected items were produced between January 13 and 15 and shipped to retail locations in Illinois and California, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

Skincare brand The Ordinary has entered the egg pricing chat… but why? Over the weekend the vegan beauty brand started selling cartons of eggs for $3.37 per dozen at its two New York City storefronts. 

📣 “We heard NYC needed eggs” the brand posted on Instagram. However, its supporters were both confused and angry at the vegan and cruelty-free company for selling a clearly-not-vegan product from an industry with a long history of animal cruelty concerns. 

💸 But this stunt appeared to be in the name of The Ordinary’s other ethos: affordability. The brand gained popularity for its inexpensive items; it keeps costs low by utilizing minimal, “no frills” branding and only adding active ingredients.

What do you think readers – could this really damage the brand’s identity? Send your thoughts to adeluca@bevnet.com. 

Here’s a look at the latest product drops and marketing activations that have caught our attention:

🥔 Ore-Ida signed a name-image-likeness (NIL) deal with Brigham Young University basketball player Richie Saunders, the great-grandson of its founder (and tater tot inventor) F. “Nephi” Griggs. 

🍨 Talenti Gelato & Sorbetto teamed up with pastry chef Dominique Ansel to create The Dipped Whisk, a limited-edition handheld dessert inspired by the frozen dessert brand’s new bakery collection.

🍯 Tillamook Country Smoker has partnered with Mike’s Hot Honey to create a sweet-heat co-branded beef stick.

🌶️ Speaking of spicy collabs, Marzetti launched a refrigerated ranch dressing seasoned with Tabasco hot sauce.