• 👔 Better Sour Names Wangler SVP of Sales
• 🦊 Foxtrot Heads To Auction
• 💵 Voyage Foods Closes Series A+ Round
• 🍔 Inside Beyond Meat’s Q1 Earnings
• 🫒 Graza Launches Olive Oil Beer Cans?
• 💰 What’s With All The Recent M&A Deals?

Upcycled industry stakeholders remain optimistic about its long-term potential despite slower-than-expected consumer adoption. 

“We’re seeing a lot of great trends in the right direction,” said Upcycled Food Association CEO Amanda Oenbring, who is the third leader of the trade organization in less than two years. “Is it slow growth? And is that growth going to take time and nurturing to get there? Yes.”

Late last year, The UFA sold its Upcycled Certified (UCC) verification program to Where Food Comes From, a third-party certification company that also operates a range of other popular verification programs. There are about 100 companies in the program with over 530 UCC products, “a 110% increase” since the beginning of the year, according to Where Food Comes From.

But the data tells a slightly different story. This time last year, UCC product dollar sales were up 20.9% compared to the year-ago period. In the 52-week period ending April 21, 2024, dollar sales were down 7.4% with units also down 2.3%, according to SPINS.

• There is one outlier in the broader segment – UCC Snacks – which have seen dollar sales grow 87.5% in the last 52 weeks, according to SPINS, on top of 220% growth the year before.

What does this all mean? It might come down to messaging. Upcycled vegetable chip maker Trashy (formerly Pulp Pantry) recently rebranded in an effort to step away from its upcycled-heavy front-of-pack positioning, explained co-founder Kaitlin Mogentale.

“All of the comments were people saying it was a really cool concept but disgusting and that they hated the word ‘upcycled.’ No one had heard of upcycled, and people were really turned off by it,” she said.

But Trashy hasn’t totally turned its back on upcycled language with its new identity. Instead it has been relegated to a smaller role on the back-of-pack. In its place, the brand is calling out its veggie chips’ health benefits and marketing towards younger consumers. “Upcycled positioning was just not something that was going to make this a nationally successful brand,” Mogentale said. 

Upcycled companies have also made major gains as ingredient suppliers and B2B partners to large food companies. The concept is “top-of-mind” for many larger food companies looking for “opportunities to create circularity within their supply streams,” said Upcycled Foods, Inc. co-founder and CEO Dan Kuzrock. 

This sentiment was echoed by other category stakeholders, and Oenbring said buzzword terms like “circularity” have helped consumers understand the sustainability piece.

“Some companies [are] really leaning into [upcycled messaging] as a core differentiator or a standalone trend,” Kuzrock said. “Whereas our belief commercially is that it's gonna get to scale faster by using it as a tool.”

Go Deeper: Upcycling May Solve Food Waste Tomorrow, But Is It Worth the Cost Today?

Globally-inspired gummy candy brand Better Sour announced today that CPG veteran Steve Wangler has come out of a brief retirement to join as SVP of sales.

⏪ Wangler, who stepped down as VP of sales at The Good Crisp Company approximately six months ago, said he was inspired to come out of retirement and join Better Sour based on its “incredible” data story and rapid retail acceleration. It probably didn’t hurt that Wangler had retired to Hawaii, where Better Sour is based.

👀 At Better Sour, he plans to utilize a four-tier system of brand, broker, distributor and retailer to enhance the brand’s go-to-market strategy.

💭 “By the end of the year, we’re trying to get brokers lined up and then slip into the review schedules as they come about. That will provide the best opportunity for us to engage with retailers through our broker partners and sets us up for a very robust ‘25,” he said.

Check out the full story on Nosh.

Just about all of Foxtrot’s assets, including “inventory, intellectual property, accounts, chattel paper, documents, furniture, equipment, general intangibles and goods,” will be up for auction tomorrow, May 10, at 10 a.m. PT – less than a month after the stylish c-store chain’s abrupt closure. 

🔖 The sale will be held via Microsoft Teams with “substantially all” assets being liquidated; JPMorgan Chase Bank is serving as the sale organizer and Foxtrot’s secured creditor.

🛒 The public notice does not mention the chain’s sister store, Dom’s Kitchen and Market; however. Dom’s co-founder Don Fitzgerald announced this week on LinkedIn that he has joined management consulting firm The Partnering Group.  

Catch Up Quick: Post-Foxtrot, Early Stage Brands Feel They’ve Lost A Bridge to Growth.

Allergen-friendly alternative products maker Voyage Foods officially closed its Series A+ Round this week at $52 million; the round opened in December and includes the $22 million sum announced in January. 

🤑 The round was led by Level One Fund and Horizons Ventures with additional participation from Valor Equity Partners, UBS O’Connor, SOSV, Nimble Partners and the Collaborative Fund. 

💰 Voyage originally said it was aiming to close the round at $30 million; the new capital brings its total funding to approximately $92 million over multiple rounds. 

🥜 The news follows another big win for Voyage, which locked in an exclusive B2B partnership with Cargill in April to sell its peanut- and hazelnut-free spreads and cocoa-free chocolate innovations.

While at least one alt-meat competitor appears to be gaining sales traction, Beyond Meat continued to face headwinds in its latest quarter, including soft demand for its plant-based proteins. A few highlights from its Q1 earnings report:

• Net revenues declined 18% y/y to $75.6 million, reflecting lower volumes, increased trade discounts and pricing changes.
• Net loss was $54.4 million, compared to a net loss of $59 million the year before. (The loss was wider than analysts expected, sending stocks downward this morning.)
• For FY 2024, net revenues are expected to be between $315 million to $345 million.

💰 According to Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs has met with private credit lenders, seeking commitments of about $250 million of capital for Beyond Meat to improve the protein maker’s liquidity.

Graza announced the launch of its second product today – olive oil packaged in recyclable, nitrogen-sealed beer cans that are portioned to refill the brand’s signature squeeze bottles.

💡 Founders Andrew Benin and Allen Dushi said the packaging preserves the oil’s integrity and protects it from “the oxidative force of light.”

🛒 The refills – available in Sizzle and Drizzle varietals – are rolling out to select Whole Foods Market stores and online.

The CPG Week team gathers all in-person for the first time ever first, to taste some ketone beverages, and then to talk about the slew of M&A activity seen throughout the CPG industry in recent weeks.

🥕 Senior reporter Lukas Southard kicks it off with a deep dive into Bolthouse Farms’ decision to split its agriculture business from its CPG brands as it frees up debt to eye new acquisitions.

💪🏾 The team talks about Our Home’s most recent addition to its better-for-you snack brand portfolio and why manufacturing capacity is becoming a theme in CPG.

🏭 Did you say manufacturing? Senior reporter Brad Avery walks the team through his reporting on the merger of two snack bar makers and why brands are still selling high on protein.

Listen now on Nosh.com and subscribe to get a fresh episode every week.