• 🆕 MOSH Debuts New Look, Formulation
• 📱Nestlé's GLP-1 Nutrition Support Platform
• 🎯 Sprinkles Hits the Bullseye 
• 🎞️ Behind The Scenes: Common Ground

Thousands of attendees packed the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York this week for the annual all-you-can-eat cheese fest known as the Summer Fancy Food Show. According to the event’s producer, the Specialty Food Association, the specialty food market is projected to reach $219 billion in sales this year. That’s a lot of cheddar.

Among the 2,300 exhibiting companies were a selection of first-timers, startups and incubators in an area dubbed Debut District. Here’s a taste of the trends and products showcased in that section:

🌱 Baking with beans: Italian startup Loopini produces pizzas featuring a lupin bean-based crust, and Full of Beans markets a pancake and waffle mix crafted with fava beans. The products are positioned as higher in fiber and protein with fewer net carbs than traditional options.

💪 Powered by protein: Projo sampled its instant coffee mix incorporating marine collagen, with 12 grams of protein per serving. Smearcase offers a collagen-boosted, first-of-its-kind “froco” (that is, frozen cottage cheese-based ice cream) with 40 grams of protein per pint.

🥧 Interesting twists on dessert: Freezcake is a brand of freeze-dried cheesecake bites available in six core flavors including Turtle and White Chocolate Raspberry as well as seasonal releases like Pumpkin and Eggnog. Pastazerts is a line of dessert ravioli featuring chocolate dough stuffed with sweet, creamy fillings.

🔥 Turning up the heat: Culinary staples presented at the event represent a variety of cuisines, with examples ranging from Djablo small-batch Filipino hot sauce and Auria’s Malaysian Kitchen vegan hot chili sambal to Pink Salt Thai spicy roasted chili jam and Cuatro Mamas spicy red chili crisp oil.

🤝 Inclusive hiring practices: Pi00a, a brand of Asian-inspired neapolitan pizzas, has created an accessible workplace for Deaf employees using American Sign Language. Plant-based dessert company Vesucre provides work opportunities to individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

Read more of the latest news and standout products at the Summer Fancy Food Show on Nosh later today.

Brain health-supporting bar maker MOSH is restaging from the inside out. The brand announced a refresh today that will bring “retail ready” packaging to a new distribution partner and news that it has reformulated the bars with “better ingredients.”

🛒 MOSH will roll out the newly reformulated and redesigned bars to over 400 Sprouts Farmers Market stores nationwide; a selection of the brand’s 10 SKUs will be available at the retailer. 

🧠 Additionally, MOSH is now “the first and only protein bar” to be made with nootropic Cognizin. The ingredient is combined with the brand’s “brain blend” of lion’s mane, ashwagandha, omega-3s, and vitamins B12 and D3.

📈 The new look and retail rollout marks a milestone in MOSH’s growth, with Sprouts becoming it largest account. The products are also available on Thrive Market and at select retailers for $43.99 per 12-count box. 

💬 “To us, this is so much more than a rebrand. This is a result of us listening to our community and innovating beyond their requests,” said co-founder Patrick Schwarzenegger.

Nestlé Health Science announced its new GLP-1 nutrition support platform today, intended to help consumers navigate nutrition while managing their weight management on these drugs. 

👀 The platform, glp-1nutrition.com, address six key aspects of weight management: preserving lean muscle mass, supporting gut health, ensuring adequate micronutrient intake, staying hydrated, improving skin and hair health and supporting weight rebound. 

🤝 Additionally, the website offers expert nutrition insights and a community platform where individuals can share their experiences. 

💭 “The launch of this innovative new tool marks an important step forward in the mission and focus of our business. With this offering, we reaffirm our commitment to empowering healthier lives through targeted, personalized nutritional solutions,” said Anna Mohl, Nestlé Health Science CEO, in a statement. 

⏪ The platform launch follows Nestlé's announcement last month of Vital Pursuit, a new line of frozen foods intended for consumers using GLP-1 drugs and set to launch in Q4 2024. 

Go Deeper: Ozempic & CPG: Fear & Loathing, Or False Alarm?

Sprinkles, which touts itself as the world’s first cupcake bakery, has debuted a new line of Cupcake Cups exclusively available at Target stores nationwide. 

🧁 Available in three varieties at launch – Red Velvet, Birthday Cake and Double Chocolate – the Cupcake Cups are a chocolate-based treat that feature frosting-flavored filling. 

⏪ The new product release comes after Sprinkles entered the CPG scene earlier this year with a line of chocolate bars and chocolate minis launched at 4,000 Walmart stores across the country. 

💭 “The expansion of Sprinkles into the CPG category reinforces Sprinkles’ unwavering commitment to the values the business was founded on: innovation. Being able to deliver the quality, taste and joy that Sprinkles is known for into the candy aisle is something we’re incredibly proud of,” said CEO Dan Mesches in a statement. 

Is it the year of CPG cinema? We might not be rolling the red carpet out just yet, but common industry topics are slowly creeping into the mainstream (remember the food innovation thread woven into Unfrosted?). Later this year, the people behind ‘Kiss the Ground’, a Woody Harrelson-narrated documentary that details the benefits of regenerative agriculture, will begin streaming ‘Common Ground,’ a new flick that puts the topic even further under the microscope.

📽️ But who is behind the camera? Meet Rebecca and Josh Tickell of Big Picture Ranch. The couple lives on their farm/film studio in Ojai, Calif., and are currently working on the third production in their “soil-focused trilogy.”

🌱 The 4.5 acre former orchard has become both a “regenerative food forest,” as well as a full blown film studio where everything from “scripting, research, budgeting, pre-interviews,” takes place, the couple told The Hollywood Reporter.

🧑‍🌾 The piece details the Tickell’s experimentation with regenerative agriculture themselves as well as how it is taking shape in their upcoming production. 

On the heels of BevNET Live Summer 2024, the hosts revisit the final round of the New Beverage Showdown and explain why evaluating emerging brands at different stages of development can be challenging. They also highlight a handful of new products and talk about the influx of saucy condiments.

Listen to the episode now.