• 🍟 Ultra-Processed Foods Make Mass Headlines
• 💵 Report: The End Of A Sub-$100 Cookout?
• 💪 Simply Good Foods' Positive Earnings
• 🤝 Swander Pace Invests In Inovata Foods 

Still hungry for more news from the Specialty Food Association’s summer show? We just published another round of fresh insights from our team’s time in New York City this week. Here’s a sample:

🥬 The K-food Craze was in full effect at the Javits Center. A number of both established brands and newcomers proved out that consumer interest in Korean food continues to grow. For longtime players like Mama O’s Premium Kimchi and Lucky Foods, the demand for traditional fermented cabbage products has expanded into a less spicy, white variety that can be enjoyed by kids as well as the spice-adverse.

🍜 New category entrant DORO is backing that up with the launch of 3-serving meal kits that bring traditional Korean street food to home cooks. The brand said importers are finding space to expand their offerings from traditional Korean-made products and are now launching their own brand names to keep up with consumer demand.

🎂 Baking mixes are making a premium push. First-time exhibitors like Los Angeles bakery Butter Cake Shoppe and Portland, Maine-based Kittylamb brought elevated innovations to the cookie, brownie and cake mixes aisle. Flour & Olive is using an online map to lead consumers to international baked treats, while BaKIT Box is offering a DTC subscription model for a new generation of bakers.

🪞 The Fancy Food Show tends to be a great place to show off a redesign, which is exactly what South Asian-inspired hot sauce brand Peepal People brought. The newly reworked labels by the Pakistani-American husband-and-wife duo took inspiration from their home country’s vibrant food truck scene while also calling out to the offerings’ zero-sugar and lower-sodium attributes.

Nosh Insiders can access all of our insights from the Summer Fancy Food Show in the full story.

Ultra-processed food – the often vilified, rarely defined food category – remains a hot button issue among better-for-you food industry proponents, market researchers and federal regulators. Let’s take a look at the sentiments currently dominating this discussion.

🏛️ From FDA: During the Wall Street Journal’s Global Food Forum yesterday, deputy commissioner Jim Jones shared insight on the agency's upcoming nutrition-based initiatives (more on Nosh later today). But when pressed about its stance on ultra-processed foods, Jones evaded, saying it's not a specific focus for the agency, but offering up that it has tracked “a massive overlap” between products high in saturated fat, sodium and added sugar (a.k.a. key pillars to upcoming front-of-pack labeling schemes) and what many deem to be ultra-processed. 

📊 From the market researchers: The definition matters, according to Innova Market Insights. The F&B market intelligence firm published a report last week that found U.S. consumers “hugely underestimate” their consumption of ultra-processed foods, citing that 44% view this category as only fast food. The vast majority (50% of Gen Z and 60% of Gen X and Boomers) believe ultra-processed foods are under-regulated and said a scoring system for classification would be useful. 

🥜 From the peanut gallery: Earlier this month, a new study made headlines for pointing out a supposed link between plant-based diets and heart disease as well as other chronic health conditions. However, within the finer print, the plant-based diets consumed by participants include plenty of products that most wouldn’t necessarily consider vegan fare, but rather just plain old ultra-processed items – like fries, cookies and soft drinks. 

Though the overall pace of inflation has moderated since last summer, prices are still heating up. According to Rabobank’s 2024 BBQ Index – which measures the cost of staple ingredients for a 10-person barbecue – 2024 may be the last time we’ll see a summer cookout under $100. 

💰This year, the cost of a Fourth of July cookout will hit $99, up from $97 last year and $73 in 2018. Beer, beef, soda and lettuce are expected to account for a hefty 64% of the total barbecue cost. 

🥩 A tighter U.S. beef supply is driving up costs as challenging business conditions forced cow-calf producers to liquidate herds over the past five years. Consumer beef prices will continue to ratchet up and hit new record highs throughout the summer grilling season. 

🍗 To help cut costs, Rabobank advises shoppers to trade chicken breasts for parts, such as drumsticks, wings and thighs, as “in tough times, chicken maintains its value.” 

💭“The consumer is waving the white flag on food inflation. With an added 2% in price hikes in 2024 coupled with the cost disparity between dining out and cooking at home at its widest margin in history, we’re seeing heightened fatigue and frugality,” said Tom Bailey, senior consumer foods analyst at Rabobank, in a statement. 

The Simply Good Foods Company released its third-quarter earnings this morning, coming just two weeks since it closed its acquisition of OWYN. Though the protein shake brand didn’t contribute to this quarter’s earnings, president and CEO Geoff Tanner said OWYN “significantly strengthens” the nutrition company’s position in RTD shakes and “opens the door to a new consumer segment.” Let’s look at the numbers:

• Net sales were $334.8 million, up about $10 million compared to the year-ago period.
• Gross profit was $133.6 million, an increase of $14.4 million.
• Gross margin rose to 39.9% versus 36.7% in Q3 2023.
• OWYN net sales are expected to range between $25 to $30 million for the full year.

🗣️ Company executives said Quest was “on-track” to driving sales amid volume growth while Atkins was “improving” on its way to becoming a “sustainable brand.”

Swander Pace Capital, a private equity firm specializing in entrepreneur-owned consumer product companies, announced today it has invested in private label frozen entree manufacturer Inovata Foods Corp. 

🍽️ Inovata was founded in 1989 by Steve and Lisa Parsons and manufactures a range of frozen meals at its two facilities in Canada for customers throughout the U.S. and Canada. 

🇨🇦 Inovata is SPC’s 10th platform investment in Canada; that portfolio also includes Voortman Cookies, Recochem, Kicking Horse Coffee, Lavo, Pineridge Bakery and Liberté.

👀 In addition to Inovata, SPC is partnered with Vancouver-based Fine Choice Foods, a manufacturer of Asian-inspired foods selling under the SUMM! brand across North America, and St-Méthode Bakery, a Quebec-based bakery platform.