• 🆕 This Week’s Hot New Products
• 🌊 Better Sour’s ‘Moana 2’ Flavor
• 🇲🇽 Del Real Foods Acquired
• ✌️ Report: How to Exit Gracefully
• 🛒 Instacart Asks To Toss Investor Suit

minisocial has helped brands like Banza, Magic Spoon, and Perdue Chicken scale micro-influencers, UGC, Ad Assets, TikTok affiliates, retail-activations and more! With their no commitment plans, fully-managed projects, and high-quality creators it's no wonder they are the top UGC platform in the category. Learn more

What trends will drive innovation and consumer habits in 2025? Global retail analytics firm Mintel has released its yearly 2025 Global Food and Drink Trends report, categorizing how CPG companies can better align with future demands. Here’s a taste of what’s to come:

Mintel highlighted four categories, which focused on conscious indulgence, elevated demand for weight management options, consumers’ emerging interest in supply chains and the role of technology.

Rule Rebellion focuses on consumers’ demand for food and beverage that “breaks the rules.” For example, Mintel’s research noted that 75% of carbonated soft drink (CSD) consumers reach for a CSD to treat themselves.

Fundamentally Nutritious was the second trend that addressed the continued emphasis on weight management products ushered in by the rise of GLP-1 drugs and a desire for more products that can be considered food-as-medicine. It represents the evolution of consumers making food and beverage choices that directly correlate to health with F&B companies adding more protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals to formulations to meet that need.

• “I would argue, if those of us can get these basics, it allows us for a little bit more ‘rule rebellion.’ If we know we've gotten our protein content, maybe we're more than willing to treat ourselves to something new.” - Jenny Zegler, Mintel Food & Drink director, during a webinar presentation

The third trend, Chain Reaction, stood out in its focus on supply chains and consumer education. Starting with the pandemic and evolving into cargo ship delays from downed bridges and blocked canals, Mintel’s team explained that consumers have become more familiar with how products get to grocery shelves.

• Mintel argues that transparency in the supply chain builds consumer loyalty while also exposing customers to new ingredients or innovative ways to create familiar products with more sustainable or cheaper ingredients.

Hybrid Harvests demonstrates how technology and agriculture can work in tandem to benefit consumers, companies and the environment. This trend is rooted in how supply chains can be strengthened to improve accessibility and price while prioritizing environmental sustainability.

• This is also related to education and transparency within CPG. Mintel’s report said that if companies can “establish themselves as trustworthy agricultural innovators and educators” then consumers would be more willing to buy products that incorporate technological innovation.

Nosh Insiders can access the full report rundown for a deeper look into key insights and upcoming themes.

It's Friday, and that means it's time to round up all of this week’s new product creations and brand collaborations. Here’s a sample of what’s in store:

🍌 After three years of testing and innovating, Magnolia Bakery has brought its signature Banana Pudding into the CPG world with frozen-to-thaw banana puddings. The new treat is available in three varieties: Wafer Cookie Bits, Chocolatey Hazelnut Swirl and Red Velvet Cookie Bits.

🍫 Frozen dessert snack maker Doughlicious introduced its newest Cookie Dough & Gelato Bites flavor, Chocolate Raspberry. The new offering features chocolate cookie dough wrapped around gelato and dusted in freeze-dried raspberry and chocolate cookie crumbs.

🥣 Little Spoon has released Organic Oatmeal Baby Cereal with full visibility into the product’s testing levels for heavy metals and pesticides. Designed for infants aged four months and older, the new offering features a blend of ancient grains, including barley and millet. 

Check out the full roundup of new products on Nosh.

Better Sour has partnered with Walt Disney Animation Studios to launch a new Passion Fruit flavor of its sour gummies featuring “Moana 2”-inspired packaging, marking the brand’s first single-flavor SKU. 

🍬 The new variety will roll out to Sprouts, Publix, WHSmith banners, 7-Eleven Hawaii, Foodland, KTA and Longs Drugs ahead of the film’s launch on Nov. 27. Additionally, Better Sour has landed a distribution deal with Hawaiian Airlines to bring its Passion Fruit flavor 30,000 feet in the air.

📈 Since entering brick-and-mortar retail just over a year ago, Better Sour has expanded to more than 1,800 retail locations nationwide. With the added distribution for the soon-to-launch “Moana 2”-inspired gummies, the brand will close out 2024 in more than 3,000 doors. 

💭 “This collaboration further underscores the theme of this third wave of candy and flavor profiles and the movement of America’s palate. It’s really encouraging to see a major institution like Disney support it as well. It’s no small feat,” said Semira Nikou, co-founder and CEO of Better Sour.

Nosh Insiders can read the full story to learn about the product collaboration and Better Sour’s upcoming growth strategy.

Corporación Multi Inversiones has acquired Del Real Foods from private equity firm Palladium Equity Partners. Financial terms were not disclosed.

🫔 Del Real Foods produces refrigerated, heat-and-eat Hispanic meals and snacks that are sold in club, retail, foodservice and wholesale channels across the U.S. The company operates manufacturing plants in Mira Loma, Calif., and Moore, Okla. 

🗣️ What they said: “After 22 years in the U.S. with Pollo Campero, this investment in Del Real Foods, along with our new partners, the Cardenas family and Palladium, significantly expands our footprint in this geography, giving CMI a unique position to continue its growth plan in the U.S. market.” – Juan José Gutiérrez, chairman of CMI Foods

The founders of failed startup SCiFi Foods have penned a guide to exiting gracefully in the wake of winding down their venture-backed cultivated meat company earlier this year.

📝 The report, entitled “Graceful Exit: Navigating the Complexities of Winding Down a Deep Tech Venture” and funded by Astera Institute, includes checklists and strategies for preserving runway (i.e. buy time with layoffs, delay paying vendors), plus an overview of possible exits (i.e. asset sale, bankruptcy or a “simple wind-down.”)

💬 “Imagining your startup at the end of its runway is an unpleasant exercise. Still, it is important to be prepared for the possibility — or the likelihood, if you have less than six months of runway in the bank and no term sheet in hand,” the report reads.

Instacart is requesting that a California federal judge toss a class action suit brought by its shareholders after filing a motion to dismiss earlier this week; the suit alleges the grocery delivery tech service misrepresented its growth potential ahead of its IPO last year. 

❌ The company argues that it did disclose it did not expect to maintain its high growth rate sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic; Instacart also claims the suit relies on the word of former employees, including anecdotes from "low-level and isolated roles," Law360 reports. 

In other grocery-tech news: The partnership between Instacart and digital promotion service Ibotta Performance Network (IPN) is putting pressure on emerging brands. According to a post from Hayden Consultancy, as of today, IPN promotions will be pushed out to all of its partners (including Instacart, Walmart, Dollar General and more). 

• The move comes six months after Ibotta’s own IPO, two months since it partnered with Instacart and is expected to quickly squeeze the ad budgets of emerging brands. 

Another episode, another billion-dollar deal. In this case, the buyer (KDP), if not the brand (Ghost), is somewhat surprising. The hosts have their say. They also highlight a couple spicy collaborations, but are divided on one of them. We also speak with Lexy Prosszer, an investment principal at U.K.-based venture capital firm Btomorrow Ventures, which is focused on investments in innovative, functional brands.

Listen to the episode now.