• 🫒 New Chefs Life Squeeze Bottles
• 🍔 SciFi Foods, Lupii Close
• 🌡️ Celsius’ Snack Attack?
• 🛒 Online Grocery See Sales Dip 
• ⛔ Report: Fake Meat Linked To Heart Disease
• 🫒 Can You Cultivate A Phenomenon? Graza Has. Here’s How.

DayDayCook’s (DDC) vision of building the “General Mills of Asian food” is steadily coming into focus.

The publicly traded company announced today it has made its third acquisition in under a year – buying up sauce and noodle brand Omsom in a deal that includes a combination of cash and stock to be paid out over a four-year period.

Joining forces with DDC will allow Omsom to accelerate new product development, according to the announcement, with the brand expecting to be able to slash its R&D timeline in half under the ownership of the Asian food platform. Omsom co-founders will remain involved with the company with CEO Vanessa Pham moving into a strategic advisor role and Kim Pham staying on in a “fractional capacity” following the close of the transaction.

Strength in Numbers: DayDayCook, which began as a content creation and recipe platform in Hong Kong in 2012, has steadily grown its presence in the U.S. since acquiring Asian noodle and meal kit brand Nona Lim last August. The company later bought sauce startup Yai’s Thai in December, only one month after going public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). 

“Our presence in the U.S. is rapidly growing with the addition of Omsom to our U.S. family of brands,” said DDC founder Norma Chu, in a press release. “Having three notable Asian food brands in our portfolio will create enhanced synergies and resource integration, and make our operations more efficient and profitable.”

Omsom, which produces a 7-SKU line of sauces and expanded into the noodle category last May with three varieties of its Saucy Noodle line, is well positioned to capitalize on the growing manufacturing and operational infrastructure behind DDC. 

“In the last couple years, our rowdy branding, damn delicious flavors, and unapologetic perspective have illuminated the way – and now, those same values are showing us to our next chapter,” said Kim Pham, in a press release. “They say, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go with others,’ and that’s what we’re excited to do with DayDayCook.”

DTC-native Omsom has been steadily growing its presence in U.S. retail since its launch in 2020, growing revenue in the grocery channel 324% year-over-year, and is now sold in over 2,000 stores nationwide including Whole Foods Market, Target, Sprouts and The Fresh Market. 

Nosh Insiders can access the full story and get all the deal details.

Seeking to capture a greater share of the cooking and finishing oil market, Chefs Life – the brand founded by celebrity chef and restaurateur Brian Malarkey – is introducing a new collection of squeeze bottles. 

👀 The squeezable line is filled with the brand’s flagship Cooking (a olive, sunflower, avocado and grapeseed blend) and Finishing (extra virgin olive oil) oils as well as two new certified organic offerings, 100% Avocado Oil and Extra Virgin Olive Oil. 

⏩ Starting next month, the squeezable Cooking Oil will be available at Whole Foods in a 25.4 oz. bottle with a SRP of $19.99 and Chefs Life’s squeezable Finishing Oil will be available at Kroger in a 16.9 oz. bottle with a SRP of $15.99. The organic products will also be available via the brand’s website. 

💭 “Right now we’re in oils, but we definitely have plans to expand beyond oils. We’re thinking about the platform and the experience that we have with somebody like Chef Brian, and how we can excel further,” said CEO Jamie Schapiro. 

Read the full story on Nosh.

It's hard to land the plane when you run out of runway. At least that appears to be the case for SciFi Foods (formerly Artemys Foods), which announced it had run out of capital and “handed off” its operation to an advisory firm to run the sale of the company’s IP and assets. 

• The company said in a LinkedIn statement that it could not raise enough money to commercialize its cultivated meat product.
• Co-founders Josh March and Kasia Gora called the decision “disappointing” in the post and said it “reflects the challenges that the cultivated meat and general meat alternative markets are facing today.”
• The food tech company raised $22 million in a Series A round in June 2022. 

⛔ Additionally, lupini bean-based food company Lupii announced today it has also ceased operations. 

• The brand launched in 2019 and produced a 5-SKU line of protein bars made with its hero ingredient. 
• In 2022, the company also expanded into the pasta alternative category with three lupini bean-based products.

With its core energy drink business approaching $2 billion in annual retail sales, Celsius may heat up its portfolio with a vision to expand into new categories, including water and food products, according to recent comments by CEO John Fieldly.

🚰 There’s no immediate plans for category extensions, Fieldly recently told Food Dive, and any innovations would be several years away. But the proclamation shows Celsius is beginning to think beyond energy as it seeks to grow its platform.

🏃 Fieldly pointed to successes by Gatorade – owned by Celsius’ exclusive distribution partner PepsiCo – in branching out into new categories like protein bars, powders and, most recently, bottled water as inspiration and affirmation that Celsius could potentially succeed outside of energy drinks.

May eGrocery sales totaled $6.8 billion, a 0.4% slide versus the prior year period, according to the latest Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopper Survey. Despite a year-over-year rise in monthly active users (MAU), sales growth was hindered by a pullback in order frequency across all receiving methods.

📊 Delivery and ship-to-home receiving methods saw sales grow 0.2% and 9%, respectively. Meanwhile, pickup sales dropped 3.9% primarily due to a 6% decline in order frequency combined with a slight decline in AOV. 

📉 Repeat intent rates were down with the likelihood that a consumer will complete another online order next month with the same eGrocery service falling two percentage points to 57.8%. 

New research published this week in the medical journal The Lancet Regional Health-Europe found that ultra-processed plant-derived foods – including meat substitutes – are linked to an increased risk for heart attack and stroke.

🧃 Other plant-sourced, ultra-processed foods cited in the study included pastries, potato chips, soft drinks and sauces. 

👍 The good news: Minimally processed fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts are associated with lower risk of heart disease and death, the study found.

🤔 “Recognizing the role of food processing is crucial for favorable [cardiovascular disease] outcomes, even in plant-sourced diets,” the authors of the study said.

▶️ The study, funded by the World Cancer Research Fund, analyzed data from 118,000 adults over roughly a decade.

Andrew Benin, the co-founder and CEO of Graza, talks about how the olive oil brand and viral sensation has developed influencer relationships “at scale,” why taking a bet on the upside has guided its demand planning strategy, being an “early team-led company” versus a founder-led one and his nuanced perspective on profitability.

Listen to the episode now.