Prepared Foods’ New Products Conference delivers the industry’s most focused look at food & beverage innovation—from consumer insights, product and packaging trends to the new tastes and latest technologies (e-commerce, artificial intelligence, etc) impacting R&D.

Costs for lab-grown meat products are currently higher than those of their conventional counterparts, but with increased volumes, production costs will ultimately be lower than those of factory farming. Clever Carnivore is uniquely positioned to streamline and scale up the cultivated meat production process due to the team’s background in low-cost cell culture media optimization.

IFF announced the opening of its new Nourish Innovation Lab at the company’s Union Beach, N.J., research and development center. In the state-of-the-art lab, scientists—including flavorists and food designers—will leverage tools, technologies and ingredient expertise to offer customers full product design, driving growth in the global food and beverage markets by fast forwarding innovation.

The Organic Trade Association’s latest Organic Industry Survey shows consumers returned to more stable, buy-as-you-need shopping patterns in 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, organic sales surpassed $63 billion, with $1.4 billion (2%) total growth over the year. Food sales, which comprise over 90% of organic sales, rose to $57.5 billion (roughly 2% growth), and non-food sales reached $6 billion in sales (7% growth).  

During the 12-week program, founders participate in classes presented by some of the industry’s top experts invaluable to CPG entrepreneurs, including channel strategy, positioning and branding, packaging, labeling and safety, operations and fundraising. 

Sokol Custom Food Ingredients has restructured its commercial team to expand support for the company’s culinary and innovation groups. Antonio Marungo was named Director of Culinary Development and Innovation and Max Pombert has been promoted to Director of Process Development and Commercialization.

Prepared Foods’ Spirit of Innovation Awards recognize product development teams for excellence with innovative new products. Winners are acknowledged for each step of the process: from insights and ideation through formulation and full development of the product. Join the virtual audience on August 9 at 11am EDT.

Sweet Thins were designed to help build the market for watermelon seeds, which come from a variety of watermelon that is specifically grown for its seeds rather than its flesh.

Danone NA’s Research & Innovation team continues to connect the dots and it forecasts even more market opportunity—enough to warrant substantial new product development. That led to several years of research and development behind Silk Nextmilk, which debuted January 2022 nationwide in Whole Fat and Reduced Fat varieties.

Last year saw Kellogg introduce MorningStar Farms® Incogmeato® Homestyle Chik'n Tenders so restaurant operators could add plant-based protein to the menu. This back-of-house product can be quickly fried or baked and used in any and every daypart.