• 🔍 Albertsons’ Suit Against Kroger
• 🍫 Blue Stripes' World’s Biggest Bar
• 🍟 Post Exploring Lamb Weston Deal
• 🔬 Clinical Trial Results on Sweet Proteins
• ✅ The EVERY Co. Secures E.U. Patent
• 🏆 Why Winners Win (And Will Continue To Do So)

Mesquite may be best known for barbecue, but the plant also produces nutritious pods that can be subbed for cocoa beans in chocolate. 

Enter Mez Foods, a Chicago-based startup that is championing the ingredient’s use in a line of premium tablet bars that are made with a base of mesquite bean flour, combined with illipe butter, chufa flour, pea and rice protein fermented by shiitake mycelium, sugar, carob powder and oat fiber. 

• The brand was launched last year by brothers Ben and Bob Schultz, respectively a hardware designer and a food scientist, who recognized an opportunity for Americans to embrace a native, regenerative crop packed with protein, polyphenols and minerals. 
• As a bonus, mesquite does not contain caffeine or theobromine (a.k.a. the compound that makes chocolate not canine-friendly).

As soaring cocoa prices threaten the global chocolate supply, investors are backing high-tech alternatives including lab-grown options. Could mesquite – a staple of Indigenous diets for centuries – become a viable solution?

“We're continuing to realize that this plant pushes beyond sustainability into regenerative in a lot of ways. Because it's a desert-native and arid-climate tree, it naturally needs very little water to grow and fruit each year. It's also self-fertilizing. It's in the legume family, so it fixes nitrogen into the soil. It actually regenerates and improves soil quality where it is planted,” Ben Schultz told Nosh. 

Additionally, mesquite is significantly less bitter than cacao, so the brand’s chocolate bars contain less sugar than traditional chocolate and no artificial sweeteners. The wood is increasingly being used as a coffee alternative as well (looking at you, Kamana and Fig Brew).

But while the ingredient appears to offer plenty of upside, he anticipates challenges in scaling the business – and the concept – to gain acceptance among mainstream shoppers. The 1.87 oz. bars – available in Mellow Milk, Peanut Butter and Warm Spices flavors – retail for $8 each on the brand’s website, which is pricier than many premium options. A 1.76 oz. Tony’s Chocolonely milk chocolate bar, by comparison, costs $2.39.

But perhaps an even heavier lift for the brand will be establishing a supply chain for mesquite, which is not currently agriculturally produced at scale.

Insiders can read the full interview to learn more about Mez Foods’ mission and why the brand is zeroing in on foodservice first.

Albertsons claims Kroger failed to maintain its contractual obligations to the now-blocked $24.6 billion mega-merger in a 140-page lawsuit, which was just unsealed six days after it was filed in Delaware Chancery Court on Dec. 10. 

❌ Albertsons outlined five distinct failures, revolving around Kroger’s willingness to divest “an adequate package” of stores and non-store assets as well as delaying communications with regulators, mismanaging the process for finding a divestiture buyer and not cooperating with Albertsons “in good faith.”

🤑 The suit goes on to claim that Kroger “squandered its credibility” by presenting regulators with an “indefensible divestiture package” that elevated its own bottom line rather than meeting its contractional obligations to Albertsons. 

🗣️ From the complaint: “The ink on the Merger Agreement was barely dry before Kroger began to develop buyer’s remorse. Multiple factors – including negative market feedback on the deal and its impact on Kroger’s debt burden; and ominous economic signals for the grocery sector – combined to change Kroger’s financial assumptions, creating a disincentive for Kroger to go as far in seeking antitrust approval (including the divestiture process).” 

💰 Albertsons is seeking billions in damages including a $600 million termination fee as well as "benefit of the bargain" damages for stockholders.

Go Deeper: Kroger, Albertsons Terminate Megamerger Agreement

Sustainable cacao fruit-based products purveyor Blue Stripes, alongside chef Nick DiGiovanni, has broken the Guinness World Record for the largest chocolate bar. The record-breaking confection – which measured 416 square meters – was created to raise awareness about the global cacao crisis and inspire sustainable innovation in the industry.

🇪🇨 The bar was crafted in Ecuador, where Blue Stripes produces all of its products. According to the brand, achieving the record in this location honored the country’s rich cacao heritage and emphasized the importance of supporting sustainable cacao farming practices. 

👀 After the record was certified, Blue Stripes broke the bar into 100,000 servings of chocolate and donated them to schools and community centers in Ecuador. 

🗣️ What they said: “This was about more than just breaking a record. It was about spotlighting the challenges in the cacao industry and showing the world how we can reimagine chocolate, using every part of the cacao fruit to reduce waste, make additional value to the cacao farmers, and create something extraordinary, delicious and healthy.” - Oded Brenner, co-founder of Blue Stripes

Amid activist-investor calls for new leadership, frozen food maker Lamb Weston is also the subject of acquisition rumors by Post Holdings. Post is reportedly working with investment bankers to acquire the potato product maker, Reuters reported. 

📊 Lamb Weston will report its Q2 earnings on Thursday which investment banking firm Jefferies claims will be “crucial” to forecasting the company’s future. According to analysts, Post could get a deal done at about $115 per share or less; Lamb Weston is currently trading at around $81 per share.

🤝 Jana Partners – which alongside strategic and operating partners owns more than 5% of the business – this week called for board and leadership changes amid “a multi-year period of uncorrelated failures” and for the company to explore a sale.

🍽️ Post had shown an appetite for acquiring Lamb Weston back in 2015 as well when it was part of the Conagra Brands portfolio.

🥔 Lamb Weston was also recently called out in a price-fixing class action lawsuit last month for colluding with other members of the “potato cartel.”

Israel-based Amai Proteins announced today that it has completed human trials on its sweelin ingredient and found that it does not raise blood insulin or glucose levels in healthy adults even after consuming an amount equivalent to the sweetness of 75 grams of sugar.

🥼 The company was not required to do a human clinical trial but is using the results to show proof of concept and boost market confidence in the novel product’s efficacy. 

🤤 Sweelin claims to be 3,000 times sweeter than traditional sugar with one teaspoon being equivalent to 26 pounds of sugar.

🧫 The sweet protein ingredient is made from yeast in a precision fermentation process and Amai’s Pro-Design AI-Computational Protein Design platform.

Alt-egg and protein food tech company The EVERY Co. announced it has secured patent approval in the E.U. for its recombinant Ovalbumin ingredient.

• The news comes just weeks after the company received a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to begin exploring stateside manufacturing of its novel egg replacement ingredients
• The company also holds a patent for Ovalbumin in the U.S., Finland, Germany, Denmark, Great Britain, Mexico, and more.
• While the company has not yet secured approval for use of the ingredient in food and beverages in the E.U., it currently has active commercial partnerships with European food giants Grupo Palacios and Unilever. 

The grind is real. And fun as heck. Exhausted, but buoyant, the hosts recap Nosh and BevNET’s just-concluded winter events and specifically highlight the three pitch slam competitions and how each respective winner successfully communicated the traction and potential for their brands.

Listen to the episode now.