• 🌮From Taqueria To Tortilla Trader: Tracking Tacombi’s Road To CPG   
• 🧑‍💻 Instacart Focuses On Leveraging Data With Platform Upgrade
• 🌱New Study: A Flexitarian Diet May Lower Risk of Heart Disease, Diabetes
• 💄Where’s The (Tasty Bite) Chapstick?

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has gone sour on promotions for alt-sweetener aspartame. 

This week, the agency sent warning letters to 12 registered dietician-influencers as well as the American Beverage Association (AmeriBev) and The Canadian Sugar Institute for misleading consumers about the origins of their aspartame-promoting social media posts.

What happened? The influencers did not provide “adequate disclosures” and failed to identify that these were paid promotions sponsored by AmeriBev and The Canadian Sugar Institute.

• The FTC’s Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers (sounds straightforward) instructs that posts must state any financial relationships tied to a specific message or video. 
• That disclosure should be in both the video or image as well as in the text description. 

A simple #Ad is all they are asking for here. If these influencers continue failing to heed FTC warnings, they could face penalties of up to $50,000 per violation. While this serves as a reminder to all who utilize paid social media promotions, the recently revived debate around the safety of aspartame was certainly a key factor. 

These letters also follow a joint investigative story published by The Washington Post and The Examination that found lobbying groups were paying dieticians to promote low and no sugar substitutes. Those efforts were attempts to counter the World Health Organization’s June report that named the ingredient a “possible carcinogen,” the story claims.

Though the FTC has signaled an intent to crack down on misleading information on social media, the WaPo-Examination story explains that the agency has inadequate resources to properly enforce its mandates. 

🔥More fuel on the fire: The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics also maintains a code of ethics for its members (in line with the FTC’s Disclosures 101) regarding social media promotions. But the group has received millions in donations from multinational beverage, candy and food companies – further blurring the lines between conflicts of interest.

💭“It’s irresponsible for any trade group to hire influencers to tout its members’ products and fail to ensure that the influencers come clean about that relationship,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Learn how the industry initially reacted to the WHO’s aspartame assessment on NOSH. 

Check out the presentation lineup for NOSH Live on Nov. 30 + Dec. 1 including:

• The Immi Story: From Inception to Investment
• Inside the TruFru Deal: Product, People and Position
• How Family Fund Keeps It All in the Family
• How to Build A Brand with Capital Efficiency Top of Mind
• Habits of Successful CPG Leaders

View the agenda and then register.

How did an old VW Bus converted to a semi-mobile taqueria in Playa del Carmen grow into a U.S. restaurant chain with 15 locations and a CPG brand sold in over 2,000 retailers nationwide? 

• It started with a commitment to authentic Mexican food and the vision of founder and CEO Dario Wolos… along with nearly two decades of perseverance. 
• While plenty of CPG brands also supply foodservice operators in the U.S., in Mexico, that ecosystem has been deeply ingrained for decades. 
• Wolos aimed to modernize that relationship while also bringing Mexico to life through Tacombi and later, Vista Hermosa. 

💭 “It was quite ambitious from the very beginning,” Wolos said.

From that start, Wolos set out to build a brand architecture with touchpoints that could flex and build between and beyond both foodservice and CPG. That approach would create the foundation and standards for everything Tacombi and Vista Hermosa would eventually produce.  

“If it’s good enough for us to serve in the taquerias then we are happy to put our stamp on it and put it in retail and that was really how the first Whole Foods deal started,” he said.

Read the full story on NOSH to learn how Wolos designed the brand to grow beyond the bus. And hear from Dario Wolos at NOSH Live on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 (Register here).

Instacart wants to be clear – it is not just focused on food delivery anymore.

📲 Today, the company unveiled a new offering aimed at better connecting brands and retailers – including digital sell sheets and direct access to prospective distributors. For retailers, the new program also allows more efficient new product browsing capabilities to source for their respective marketplaces.

🤓 The two new offerings further Instacart’s goal of moving beyond online grocery delivery and leveraging its database to better service brands and retailers in the digital sphere.

🤝 Brands including Chomps, Liquid Death and Poppi were listed as some of the first to use the “reimagined sell sheets” – showcasing sales data, product information and growth insights.

📈 Last week, Instacart released its first earnings report since going public with much of the Q&A portion of the shareholder call focused on how the platform can leverage its data to offer more advertising and growth tools to both brands and retailers.

Shifting from an animal-based diet of red and processed meats, eggs, dairy, poultry and butter – to plant-based foods such as nuts, legumes, whole grains and olive oil has been associated with a reduced risk of developing cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes, according to a new study published in medical journal BMC Medicine. 

• Researchers estimated that replacing one serving per day of processed meats, such as hot dogs or bacon, with a serving of whole grains, nuts or beans was associated with a 23% to 36% lower risk of cardiovascular issues. 
• Additionally, the study found that eating nuts instead of processed meats was linked to a 22% lower risk of Type 2 diabetes and a 21% lower risk of early death.
• The study draws data from 37 peer-reviewed reports.

Notably, the study did not consider processed products created as alternatives to meat, dairy and eggs within its assessment. Rather it suggests substituting plant-based foods into diets as often as possible and advocates for a flexitarian eating approach.

“Lip-smacking good Indian flavor right at your fingertips” – that's the promise Indian food brand Tasty Bite is selling with its new 3-SKU line of Spice Balms. 

🌶️Available in Tikka Masala, Vindaloo and Hot & Spicy flavors, at first glance we wondered – are these tiny spice tubes intended for cooking an authentic spice-filled meal? We imagined them somewhat akin to a bouillon cube or other forms of condensed spice blends. But oh, were we wrong… sort of. 

These gender-neutral balms are intended to go directly on your lips and no further – “one quick swipe packs some serious flavor,” Tasty Bite claims. The new products are available for $4.99 (the same price as the brand's ready-to-heat entrees) for a limited-time. Hopefully no one gets too hungry or else we may have to bring back this 2007 cultural moment.. with a South Asian twist.