• 🍗 Cell-Cultured Meat Innovates Entirely New Food
• 🥞 Long Table Plots Pancake Future With Popcorn
• 👁️ Is Amazon Done Watching Shoppers?
• 🍫 Tony’s Chocolonely Adds New Shareholder
• 📸 Reel News: The FDA Is Now On Insta
• 🍸 WTF? N.A. Retailer Goes M.I.A.

Earnings season is in full swing, and Nosh is here to bring you digestible insights on how publicly traded food companies are performing. Today we are running down highlights from snack and frozen food giant Conagra Brands as well as nutritional product producer Simply Good Foods. Here’s what you need to know: 

Conagra's stock jumped roughly 5% to an 8-month high in early trading after both profit and sales beat analysts’ projections. In Q3, the Reddi-wip and Healthy Choice maker saw net sales fall 1.7% y/y to $3.03 billion (compared to analysts’ expected $3.01 billion). 

• Organic net sales decreased 2%, driven by a 0.2% negative impact from price/mix and a 1.8% decrease in volume due to lower consumption trends. Though volumes in the U.S. are still down, the declines are decelerating. 

• Quarterly gross profit increased 2.4% to $859 million, and adjusted gross profit rose 0.1% to $870 million thanks to higher productivity offsetting the negative impacts of lower organic net sales, cost of goods sold, inflation and unfavorable margin leverage.
• “Importantly, outstanding progress on delivering cost savings helped fuel investments in key areas, enabling us to simultaneously improve volumes and sustain margin recovery,” said CEO Sean Connolly in a prepared statement. 
• Looking ahead, Conagra is upping operating margin expectations for FY2024 to approximately 15.8%; the company reaffirmed net sales expectations, a decrease between 1% and 2%, and adjusted EPS to be between $2.60 and $2.65.

The Simply Good Foods Company saw Q2 net sales increase 5.3% to $312.2 million due to the continued growth of its Quest Nutrition brand. Comparatively, Atkins’ brand performance did not meet the company’s expectations for the quarter, according to CEO and president Geoff Tanner. 

• Simply Good Foods’ total retail sales increased 1.3% for the thirteen weeks ending February 24 in Circana measured channels (MULO + C-Stores). Meanwhile, total retail takeaway increased roughly 3% in both measured and unmeasured channels. 
• “We remain confident in the long-term potential of both of our brands [...] work is progressing on the Atkins revitalization plan, and we have accelerated some elements, particularly innovation,” said Tanner, pointing to the upcoming launch of Atkins Strong, a shake with 30 grams of protein.
• Due to lower-than-anticipated Atkins consumption in Q2, the company has updated its FY2024 outlook and now expects net sales to grow between 4% to 6% (around the midpoint of Simply Good Foods’ long-term algorithm). 

From the cell-cultured company that brought us the woolly mammoth meatball now comes Quailia: an entirely new food developed from the cells of a subspecies of Japanese quail and crafted into a product sold under the name Forged Parfait. Created by alternative meat company Vow, Forged Parfait is available only in Singapore at Mandala Club’s MORI from April 12 through April 27.

🧑‍🔬 To make Forged Parfait, Vow started with cells of a quail and isolated those that contribute to taste and texture. Then the cells were grown in a bioreactor and eventually mixed with other ingredients to make a unique culinary food product that can be used in a variety of dishes.

🤔 “​​Unlike its traditional counterpart, Quailia is without a heart, brain, feathers, or bones – its entire body consists only of rich flavors, delicate textures, and delectable meat made to be eaten,” a press release stated.

🤯 The Australian alternative meat company has focused its innovation on testing the boundaries of what foods cell-cultured technology can create. Forged Parfait is the flagship product of Vow’s Forged brand.

How does a theater professional win over the heart of an acrobat? By milling regeneratively grown popcorn into a new kind of flour and making pancakes out of it. That’s the origin story of Chicago-based pancake and waffle mix brand Long Table, which, for the past year, has been using the momentum of its “Shark Tank” appearance to build a scalable business.

📺 Founded by husband-and-wife team Samuel Taylor and Lindsey Whiting in 2017, Long Table saw sales skyrocket in early 2023 as its TV debut drew attention to the small farmers market brand.

🖼️ Late last year, the company refreshed its packaging and overhauled its website in an effort to pop out on grocery store shelves and tell a more complete story of the brand’s mission.

🌽 Now, as Long Table steadily widens its distribution network, it is seeking investment to fund supply growth and map out a sustainable trajectory for its heirloom grain pancake mixes.

Read the full story on Nosh.

It appears Amazon’s experiment with checkout-free grocery may be coming to an end, according to a report this week in The Information. 

🏪 The ecommerce giant is phasing out its Amazon Fresh “Just Walk Out” program, which purportedly allowed shoppers to skip the checkout line as cameras and sensors tracked which items they left with and automatically billed their Amazon accounts.

🧑🏽‍💻 But the technology may not have been as automated as it seemed. The Information alleged that Amazon employed over 1,000 people in India to monitor the stores to ensure purchases were accurate. Amazon aimed for under 50 out of every 1,000 purchases to be reviewed by a human; instead, on average, 700 out of every 1,000 needed a human-powered review.

🛒 Amazon has maintained that only “a small minority” of sales require review. However, the company is now embracing its Dash Cart model – shopping carts that come with an embedded scanner and screen so consumers can check out while they shop.

⛔ The news arrives amid reports that Amazon has laid off “a few hundred” employees from its physical stores technology team, according to GeekWire.

Netherlands-based Tony’s Chocolonely announced this week that former Starbucks CEO and chairman Howard Schultz has joined as a minority shareholder. Tony’s last raised $21 million in 2023 from existing majority shareholder Verlinvest and JamJar Investments.   

🚚 In addition to the new investor, Tony’s also announced a national retail rollout with Walmart. The mass retail partnership significantly expands Tony’s availability; products are currently sold at Whole Foods, Target, Safeway and CVS.   

📈 According to the company its retail footprint will grow 20% between 2023 and 2024. That uptick has led the company to direct some of its recently raised funds to scale U.S. production capabilities in Chicago.

💬 “Tony's rapid revenue growth, rising popularity with U.S. consumers and increased investor interest demonstrates that building a company that balances shareholder returns with its impact on people and planet is not only right thing to do but the smart thing to do for companies today," said CEO Douglas Lamont, in a press release. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been working to modernize its human foods program over the past two years – from overhauling label claims and requirements to reorganizing its internal operations and oversight teams – the department even secured its own head honcho a.k.a. deputy commissioner Jim Jones to get the job done. But this week, the federal agency sent out an update unlike any other, one that is sure to be integral to ensuring the safety of the U.S. food system – the FDA’s food arm is now on Instagram. 

While its grid is pretty empty at the moment, @Fdafoods said it will be sharing the agency’s latest updates on nutrition, food safety and chemicals in the food supply.

We are now keeping count of how long it takes Jim Jones to post his first Reel.

BevNET spirits editor Ferron Salniker joins the podcast to dive into why the adult non-alcoholic beverage category might be facing struggles in light of the news that Boisson, one of the largest independent retailers of NA beverages, is closing all of its brick-and-mortar shops. The group talks about the recent investment and rebrand of Lucky Energy. To wrap up the show, Monica, Brad and Lukas debate the reach of edgy marketing campaigns and how it can take time for brands to find their lane in competitive categories like energy drinks. 

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