• 🤝 Smucker Divests Condiment Brands to TreeHouse Foods
• 👩🏿‍⚖️ Sweet Success: Sweegen Wins Patent War Over Stevia
• 🐔 Alpha Foods Makes A Run For The Box Office
• 🧑‍⚖️ CPGs In the Courtroom: KIND, Quaker and WanaBana
• 🍪 Coffee and A Shower: Girls Scout Cookies Has Mornings Covered

J.M. Smucker Co. announced yesterday it has completed the sale of its Canadian fermented food condiment brands to private label food and beverage manufacturer, Treehouse Foods. The all-cash transaction is valued at $20 million and reflects Smucker’s ongoing efforts to focus on its most profitable, growing business segments. 

🧅 The deal includes Bick’s pickles, Habitant pickled beets, Woodman’s horseradish, and McLarens pickled onions. Collectively, the brands raked in approximately $60 million in net sales in 2022.  

🥜 The company offloaded nut brand Sahale Snacks to Second Nature Brands (SNB) in September; two weeks prior, the Uncrustables maker had picked up Hostess for $5.6 billion.

⏪ The company’s portfolio reorg began in 2022 with the divestiture of its natural and organic grains business; private equity group Nexus Capital Management acquired all assets for $110 million. 

📉 Smucker saw sales drop 12% in Q2 last month – largely driven by divestments in pet – but offset by strong coffee and Uncrustable sales and bolstered by the integration of Hostess.

Go Deeper: J.M Smucker: Hostess, Uncrustables and Coffee Bolster Earnings

The nearly five-year battle between ingredient producers Sweegen and PureCircle over the much-sought after stevia sweetener Rebaudioside M (Reb M) patent has come to a close. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled yesterday that PureCircle’s patent infringement claims are invalid.

🏛️ The legal battle over rights to the stevia Reb M extraction patent have circulated the Federal District Court for the Central District of California since 2018. Ingredion, which acquired PureCircle in 2020, appealed a ruling last year that sided with Sweegen. 

🚪 The ruling could open the door to more widespread production of stevia Reb M as it asserts that PureCircle’s various lawsuits against other sweetener makers are invalid and that the “laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable” under 35 U.S.C. 101.

Jumping into one of chicken’s best-loved formats, plant-based protein maker Alpha Foods will debut limited edition vegan chicken nuggets in March to celebrate the release of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, the sequel to stop motion animated movie, Chicken Run.

🐣 The pairing will bring a new limited edition recipe to market and Alpha’s typical package will be co-opted by the film’s chicken characters along with the slogan “Choose plants—No Fowl Play!”

🍗 The early 2000’s movie follows a group of egg-laying chickens who escape their farm after learning it has become a slaughterhouse. Dawn of the Nugget checks back in on those chicks (now safely at a bird sanctuary) as they learn the rest of chicken-kind faces a “new and terrible threat” – the nugget. 

🐥 According to Alpha (which was acquired by LIVEKINDLY Collective in August), this type of collaboration brings newfound excitement to the stagnating plant-based alternative market.

In addition to stevia squabbles, some CPG food makers have been caught up in the courtroom. Here’s a rundown of the most recent industry issues. 

🍌 Amid the ongoing investigation into the source of the lead contamination, WanaBana, as well as purchase location (The Dollar Store), have been sued on behalf of a one-year old who has suffered from GI issues and “serious developmental indications” after consuming the product. 

🥣 The Quaker Oats Co. faces accusations that its food safety protocol are not up to snuff. A new class action suit was filed this week in response to the December 15th recall of over 90 different snack and breakfast items that were believed to be contaminated with salmonella while on the production line. 

🥜 KIND Snacks has been relieved of a 2022 lawsuit brought by Hanover American Insurance Co. Hanover aimed to recover settlement funds from an underlying suit brought after a child died from an allergic reaction to eating a KIND snack bar.

The post-holiday malaise of winter is characterized by short days, cold temperatures and, for some, the long-awaited sale of Girl Scout cookies. 

💪 But, the organization has found its cookies’ popularity does not have to be limited to sweet treats – it can also be used to build a licensing empire. This year the group partnered with a number of brands ranging from personal care products to RTD coffees and other CPG foods.

🥥 The nonprofit licensed Thin Mints, Coconut Caramel and Chocolate Peanut Butter to Chameleon Coffee for a line of cold brews using the cookie flavors. Earlier in the year, the Skippy brand launched three SKUs of its P.B. Bites using similar varieties.

🆕 The group’s licensing arm Earthbound has expanded over the years bringing the cookie flavors to everything from GNC brand protein powders to Stacy’s Pita Chips to Pillsbury baking mixes among others.