• 💰 FABID’s 2023 Annual Report: Deal Doldrums
• 🌿 Fresh Thyme Helps Usher In New Local Retail Program
• 🤝 Distro Roundup: Emerging Brands Gain Big Opportunities
• 🌍 Voyage Foods Is On A Run

For many in the packaged food industry, the lonely and often unforgiving grind of entrepreneurship has been compounded by unforeseen challenges over the past few years – from mounting costs to depressed valuations. 

Half of startups fail within the first five years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. So how does a founder know when it’s time to move on? We spoke with four food entrepreneurs who shuttered their businesses last year. Here are their top takeaways:

🧠 Mental health matters. Seventy-two percent of startup founders indicated they are suffering from high stress, anxiety, burnout, depression or panic attacks. 

💭 “If I were to do it again, I would double down on… that intention of self care as the first thing you think about in the morning and every day before you even think about anything else,” said Sri Artham, founder and CEO of Hooray Foods.

👪 Find a support system. Entrepreneurs should build and nurture relationships with others who can offer emotional and tactical support. Kirsten Sutaria, co-founder and CEO of Wonderlab’s Doozy Pots, noted many founders in the industry are “usually generous with their time and their thoughts.”

😡 Beware of bad brokers. Mathew Thalakotur, founder and CEO of Mighty Gum, warned of a flaky partner who delivered a crushing financial blow to his business.

🤔 Rethink failure. “Companies that have fed people good food for years are successes. If they didn’t continue because of market conditions, things beyond your control, that’s not a failure,” said Max Elder, founder and CEO of Nowadays. 

☎️ Join Community Call on Wednesday, Jan. 31 with story author Monica Watrous to continue the discussion and get tactical insights for weathering challenging market conditions as well as insight from founders on whether it's time to stay the course, pivot, or close up shop. Register here.

Go Deeper: Read the full story on Nosh for more on how these founders ultimately found peace in new beginnings. 

For those of you looking for a variety of levels of investment capital, the frustration was real in 2023. Deals were down. Again. That’s the skinny from the FABID 2023 Annual Report, which hit our screen yesterday. Here’s a rundown of the conclusions and numbers drawn by FABID founder Ryan Williams:

💸 Seventy-seven fewer brands raised venture capital last year than in 2022, when the number was 308. It was only 231 in 2023.

📉 Total investment was down by 36 percent from last year, for a total of $1.6 billion, according to Wiliams, with average investment per brand falling to $6.9 million from $8 million in 2022.

🥩 The plant-based meat category was crushed in the deal environment last year after attracting a high of more than $1 billion in total investment in 2021. 

⚡ One Spotlight: Celebrity brands are on the rise, according to the report: at the current pace, over 100 actors will have launched a CPG brand by 2024. Talk about Actors’ Equity…

Read more about the doldrums on Nosh. 

Naturally Chicago and Fresh Thyme Market announced this week they’ve teamed up to launch a new program designed to expand the presence of local brands on the retailer’s grocery shelves. 

🤝 The Locally Made Retail Access Program is a new initiative by Naturally designed to help retailers give back to the communities they serve by supporting local entrepreneurs.

🛒 Fresh Thyme is the first retailer to join this initiative and will support a curated group of natural product entrepreneurs as they navigate the competitive retail grocery segment. 

💭 "Partnering with Fresh Thyme Market has been a strategic choice for Naturally Chicago… Consumers increasingly seek out local brands, and we appreciate Fresh Thyme Market's role in helping to meet this growing demand,” said Jim Slama, Naturally Chicago co-founder and managing director. 

For most CPG food brands there is no better way to welcome in a new year than to line up fresh distribution partnerships. Let’s dive into some recently announced deals:

🇦🇫 Afghan-style chutney maker Maazah is entering 270 Target stores in the Midwest and Southwest regions adding to its over 400 retail doors. The brand has moved out of its Midwest home region to find retail partners in Texas and Southern California.

💪 Supergut was picked for the Sprouts Forager program and, in the process, landed in over 400 of the retailers locations. Additionally, the brand is bringing its prebiotic snack bars to the “it” grocer of SoCal, Erewhon.

🐶 Need more Snoop Dogg in your life? Grab some of the rapper’s ice cream brand Dr. Bombay from Albertsons banner stores like Safeway, ACME or Jewel-Osco among others.

Read the full roundup of distribution news on Nosh.

Hot off a $22 million capital raise, food-tech platform Voyage Foods released a Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) reporting that its Cocoa-Free “Milk” and Semi-Sweet Chocolate products are “the most sustainable chocolates ever to come to market.” The LCA was conducted by Sphera, a ESG software, data and consulting company, 

⛽ Compared to traditional chocolate, Voyage Foods cocoa-free variety generates up to 84% less greenhouse gas emissions and produces up to 88% fewer emissions from deforestation caused by land clearing for new cocoa production.

🍫 Voyage uses a combination of proprietary technology and upcycled seeds and fruits to produce both its cocoa-free chocolate and allergen-free nut butter and coffee alternative.

💭 “Whether you’re looking at water use, land use, greenhouse gas emissions or deforestation, it’s clear that the production of traditional chocolate is problematic – and our cocoa-free chocolate is a much-needed solution,” CEO and co-founder Adam Maxwell said in a statement.