• 🥛 The Latest Functional Ingredient Trend 
• 🔵 PepsiCo: ‘Resilient’ Despite Subdued Trends
• 🏪 Seven & i Holdings To Shed Non-Core Assets?
• 🐔 Cal-Maine Invests In Laying Hen Infrastructure
• 🥑 Target’s Avocado Oil Not 100% Pure, Claims Suit
• 🌭 Impossible Expands Retail Lineup
• 🎨 How The Subtle Art Of Innovation Is Expressed By An Iconic Brand

The plant-based protein category is shifting, consolidating and seeing once-flashy, high-valuation-touting brands being rolled up in the name of scale – and survival.

Simulate, the producer of alternative protein brand NUGGS, is the latest to follow this trend, announcing it has sold to The Ahimsa Companies via a combination of cash and equity at an undisclosed valuation, as reported by Axios late last week. 

According to the report, the brand opted for an acquisition over raising additional capital, noting it would have needed another significant round of investment to continue. The deal is part of a rollup of plant-based brands under Ahimsa’s platform, including its acquisition of Wicked Kitchen in June.

New York-based Simulate raised a $50 million Series B round in 2021 and at a time was valued at over $250 million. Its funding totals over $60 million since it was co-founded in 2017 by Ben Pasternak and Sam Terris. Simulate’s investors include Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and his venture firm SEVEN SEVEN SIX, Chris and Crystal Sacca, Imaginary Ventures, Day One Ventures, NOMO Ventures and frozen food company McCain Foods.

“We’ve spent the last year searching extensively for the right mission-aligned partner to help push Simulate’s technology forward. We found our match in Ahimsa,” Terris said in a LinkedIn post sharing the news. “Feeling especially grateful today for our team (past and present), the Board, our investors, and NUGGS fans everywhere.”

The food-tech-focused company has made significant investments in its processes over the years and released the second iteration of its alternative chicken nuggets platform, dubbed NUGGS 2.0, in 2020. According to its website it is also innovating with other alt-chicken formats including a chicken breast, chicken tenders, spicy nuggets and dino nuggets.

While the deal provides another signal that the plant-based space is heading towards consolidation, it also shows that brands that were able to secure early support may be successful in finding alternative modes to scale up their missions. 

Prior to its own Ahimsa-summoning, Wicked Kitchen raised upwards of $34 million and had a footprint spanning 100,000 doors at its peak; it was also acquiring other vegan-friendly offerings – adding alt-seafood producers Good Catch and Current Foods to its portfolio in 2022 and 2023, respectively. 

That deal followed the August 2023 acquisition of Alpha Foods, which was rolled into the LIVEKINDLY Collective and joined the plant-based ranks of The No Meat Company, The Dutch Weed Burger, Fry Family Food Co, Like Meat and Oumph!.

But strength (i.e successfully scaling) doesn’t always come in numbers. While not strictly focused on protein alternatives, plant-based food platform The Planting Hope Company, which owns alt-milk Hope & Sesame and RightRice, among others, has struggled to remain solvent and announced in June it would undergo a strategic review, removing its CEO and potentially discontinuing low-performing product lines.  

Nosh Insiders can access the full story for more details on the deal and the direction plant-based brands are heading.

Breast milk might not seem like an attractive attribute for adult consumers, but one protein in mother’s milk is starting to make an impact on the functional ingredient space. Lactoferrin is a protein found in mammalian milk that offers health benefits like iron regulation, immune system support and anti-inflammatory properties.

🤝 Biotech companies, including Heliana which raised a $45 million Series B funding round last month, are partnering with CPG brands to make lactoferrin less expensive to produce.

🐮 Using precision fermentation and cellular agriculture, food tech companies are making lactoferrin without the need for cows or the expensive dairy purification process.

🏃 These companies are partnering with nutraceutical and supplement makers as well as more traditional food and beverage brands to bring performance-enhancing properties to hydration beverages, cold brew coffee and plant-based alternatives.

🍼 Many of these biotech firms are in the process of scaling their production to meet the needs (and regulatory hurdles) of the opportunity in the infant nutrition category.

Insiders can learn about the companies finding new uses for lactoferrin and the different approaches to bringing this ingredient to market.

PepsiCo posted relatively flat third-quarter results this morning as it weathered slower North American sales, the continued negative impacts of the Quaker recall and “business disruptions from ongoing geopolitical tensions” internationally. 

Despite these headwinds, the company saw sequential volume improvement in its Frito-Lay North America business. PepsiCo expects commodity costs to challenge its organic revenue outlook, which leadership announced it had adjusted down to a low-single-digit increase (previously approximately 4%) in 2024. Here are the top-line numbers:

• Net revenue was $23.3 billion, compared to $23.4 billion in Q3 2024
• Organic revenue growth was 1.3%, compared to 8.8% in the same period last year
• Operating profit was $3.8 billion, slightly lower year-over-year from $4 billion

💬 “We expect consumers to remain choiceful and value conscious as the cumulative effects of inflationary pressures continue to impact budgets and spending patterns,” said CEO and chairman Ramon Laguarta. “As a result, we will continue to take actions to stimulate growth through targeted investments in our brand, package, and channel offerings where better value, amplified advertising and more precise marketplace execution are needed.”

Stay tuned for the full report later today. 

7-Eleven’s parent company Seven & i Holdings is aiming to fend off takeover efforts by Alimentation Couche-Tard after revealing it is considering divesting non-core assets such as its financial services arm Seven Bank alongside its supermarket businesses in China and Japan, according to an Axios report.

📈 The move aims to increase shareholder value, as reported by the Financial Times, and potentially bolster the company’s valuation, which experts believe could squash the takeover bid. 

⏪ In September, Alimentation Couche-Tard made a bid to acquire the Japanese retail giant for $39 billion but Seven & i later rejected the offer.

Cal-Maine Foods announced it is making a significant investment to expand its shell egg capacity, which will include $40 million put toward new projects such as five new cage-free layer houses in Texas, Georgia, Utah and Florida and the addition of about one million new birds.

💰 The egg producer will fund this new infrastructure with cash on hand, sales of securities and operating revenue.

🥚 Along with the yet-to-be built production facilities, Cal-Maine announced it was still converting the Missouri-based former Tyson Foods facility it purchased in March 2024 into a new hen-laying site where it will add 1.3 million free-range hens by fall 2025.

📈 The company announced positive Q1 2025 earnings last week raising net sales to $785.9 million compared with $459.3 million in Q1 2024.

Target’s Good & Gather 100% Pure Avocado Oil may contain additives including cheaper oils, alleges a class action lawsuit filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. 

🚫 The complaint cites the results of oil purity testing at The University of California, Davis and accuses the retailer of engaging in “economic motivated adulteration” by charging a premium price for oil that cannot definitively be proven as pure.

🧪 The researchers tested four samples of Good & Gather oil, two originating from Mexico and two from South Africa; the oils from Mexico didn’t pass purity standards, but both of the South African oils did.

❌ The plaintiff accused Target of overcharging consumers, as well as violating the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, Unfair Competition Law, participating in intentional and negligent misrepresentation and breach of express warranty.

🆕 In other avocado oil news, today Chosen Foods announced the debut of 100% Pure Avocado Oil Squeeze, which is packaged in a 27 oz. squeeze bottle and available nationwide for $15.99 to $19.99.

Impossible Foods unveiled a range of new plant-based products developed to offer convenient meal solutions for families. 

• Impossible Disney The Lion King Chicken Nuggets are golden, crispy nuggets shaped like Disney characters, with 10 grams of protein per serving and 60% less fat than leading animal chicken nuggets, according to the company.
• Impossible Meal Makers add a pre-seasoned spin to the brand’s plant-based grounds. Options include Taco and Italian-Style, each with 19 grams of protein per serving and 33% less saturated fat than animal ground beef.
• Impossible Corn Dogs feature the brand’s beef-style hot dogs wrapped in a golden, soft breading, with 40% less total fat and saturated fat compared to an animal-based corn dog.
• The new additions are set to roll out to grocery stores over the coming weeks.

Beth Buckner and Blake Layfield, who lead the innovation unit for iconic Kentucky bourbon brand Maker’s Mark, talk about how the standards set by its founder are integral to new product development and why they eschew trendy concepts in favor of nuanced expressions of the bourbon.

Listen to the episode now.