• 💰 Starday Nets $11M
• 🤑 Glimpse Lands $10M
• 🍫 Feastables Goes Fairtrade
• 📖 Miyoko's New Cookbook
• ⏱️ TikTok Deadline Extended
• 📈 eGrocery Sales Soar 21% 
• 📖 The ‘Real’ Story Behind Spindrift’s Stunning Success

Ultraprocessed foods are an invention enabled by modern technology, and amid the growing pushback against them, The Paleo Diet sees an opportunity to revive its prehistoric approach to packaged food. 

After buying The Paleo Diet business and trademarks nearly seven years ago from its original creator Dr. Loren Cordain, now-owner and CEO Trevor Connor has worked to realign the company in order to promote the science behind the diet. In practice, those efforts have begun with the launch of a new certification program available at no-cost to food manufacturers.

The new program, developed in collaboration with chief science officer Dr. Mark J. Smith, debuted earlier this year and offers both guidance and flexibility to the industry and consumers via two distinct badges: True Paleo and Paleo Flex.

True Paleo indicates that a product follows the core Paleo principles: minimally processed, centers on whole foods and does not include grains, dairy, nuts and legumes, added salt, synthetic additives or more than 4mg of added sugars per 100 calories. 

In contrast, Paleo Flex maintains that a food adheres to the core Paleo principles, but it allows for some flexibility on processing, including the inclusion of a bit of salt, a slightly greater amount of sweeteners and one approved additive from a Paleo-derived source. 

What Connor Said: “The trends [around ultraprocessed food] that we're seeing are great for us… If somebody removes ultraprocessed and processed foods from their diet, if they go towards nutrient-dense foods, they're basically eating a Paleo diet.” 

Insiders can access the full story to understand The Paleo Diet’s approach to verified product claims.

Starday Foods raised a new $11 million tranche of capital to fuel its AI-powered packaged food platform and expand its distribution network.

🤝 The new investment includes $8 million in equity led by existing investors Slow Ventures and Equal Ventures (which led a previous $4 million round from 2021) and $3 million in a debt credit facility from Silicon Valley Bank.

👏 Starday plans to use its “intelligence platform” as it finds unmet demand in grocery “to develop and launch bespoke Starday-branded products,” a spokesperson for the company told Nosh.

🛒 The company has launched 14 products across four brands since its debut in 2021 – hazelnut cocoa spread Gooey, chickpea-based protein seasoning All Day, low-FODMAP seasoned rice blend Cozumi and allergen-free sweet potato crackers Habeya – and partnered with a variety of natural and conventional channel retailers.

Read about Starday’s plans for its new investment on Nosh

It’s a big day for artificial intelligence-fueled service providers (see Starday’s $11 million above). Glimpse, an end-to-end deduction management service for CPG brands, has closed a $10 million Series A round led by 8VC, with participation from existing investors Y Combinator, Origin Ventures and Informed Ventures.

🧑‍💻 Glimpse’s AI software automates deduction management and integrates with mainline distributors like KeHE and UNFI as well as retailers; it is already working with brands like high-protein ramen maker immi.

💸 The platform claims to bring four to five times average ROI for brands aiming to dispute deductions and finding inaccuracies in claimed chargebacks.

💬 “Deduction management is an expensive, complex, and often overlooked problem in the CPG world. Glimpse has built a solution that makes it simple, scalable, and smart, freeing up cash flow for brands squeezed by thin margins,” said 8VC partner Jack Moshkovich.

MrBeast’s Feastables is now sourcing all of its cocoa from Fairtrade certified cooperatives.

• The chocolate brand founded by YouTube star Jimmy Donaldson aims to eliminate child labor in the West African cocoa sector.
• New packaging featuring the Fairtrade certified mark will begin rolling out to stores this summer.

Catch up on other recent moves from Feastables.

Miyoko’s Creamery founder Miyoko Schinner debuted her latest cookbook, The Vegan Creamery, providing a “deep exploration” of different plant sources and their ability to coagulate into cheese or provide a base for ice cream without the addition of oils, gums or starches, per a LinkedIn post. 

• Consumers can pre-order the cookbook, which is slated to launch on September 16, on the Penguin Random House website for $26.99. 

What Schinner Said: “Yes, I have some favorites in here with which I could start another company (and who knows, maybe I will). But that’s not my hope. My hope is to create a compassionate world that de-commodifies animals. And to do this, I believe in spreading the knowledge far and wide.” 

Catch up on Schinner’s past riff with her previous company.

President Trump signed a second executive order on Friday to extend the deadline for a TikTok ban by an additional 75 days, buying more time for a potential sale of the platform’s U.S. operations from Chinese parent ByteDance.

⛔ But that extension violates the law, said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who also noted the reported likely deal under consideration wouldn’t meet the legal requirements.

👀 ICYMI: Amazon.com is among those bidding on TikTok, in addition to technology companies AppLovin and Oracle and private equity firms Silver Lake and Blackstone, but notably China has not publicly agreed to support a sale.

Catch up: TikTok On The Chopping Block: How To Prepare For A Ban.

Online grocery sales climbed 21% year-over-year to $9.7 billion in March, primarily driven by delivery, per the latest Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey. 

🚚 Delivery surged more than 30% due to the expansion of its monthly active user (MAU) base. 

👀 The performance gains also reflect the ongoing impact of “aggressive” promotions and deep discounts on annual memberships and/or subscriptions that began around May 2024, per the report. 

💭 “Retailers that elevate the experience with relevant offers and meaningful rewards won’t just meet shoppers’ evolving needs – they’ll build stronger connections that fuel long-term growth,” said Mark Fairhurst, chief growth marketing officer at Mercatus, in the report. 

Go deeper into past reports.

Even after 15 years and a majority sale of the company he founded – one reportedly valued at over $650 million – Bill Creelman remains convinced that Spindrift is just at the beginning of a “real” revolution.

Listen to the episode now. Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.