A new year promises new sales prospects for Path of Life (Harvest Foods Group Inc.), a Naperville, Ill., side dish company that's committed taking its Live Simple brand beyond the freezercase.

Although there may be a pandemic-related slowdown, there’s no stopping new product development targeted at the commercial and non-commercial foodservice sectors. To better help its readers with new product development strategy, Prepared Foods asked Jeff Miller, founder and CEO of Cutting Edge Innovation, to create a thought leadership series connecting R&D strategy to foodservice sales. Cutting Edge Innovation advises on foodservice strategy, sales, business development, and innovation and Miller also created an online course, “Turbocharge Your Foodservice Sales.” 

Prepared Foods talks Latin food trends, tastes and ingredients with Anna Cheely, chef and senior scientist at Kalsec Inc. Kalsec, Kalamazoo, Mich., is an international leading supplier of natural spice and herb extracts, colors, antioxidants, advanced hop products, dry products and nutritional ingredients for the manufactured food, beverage, nutritional and pharmaceutical markets.

Steven Charles - A Dessert Company announced that it has filled two key leadership roles, including one appointment to the executive team.

Sony AI will use a variety of data sources – including recipes and ingredient data, such as taste, aroma, flavor, molecular structure, nutrients, etc. – to develop a Recipe Creation App that will be powered by proprietary AI algorithms to assist the world's top level chefs in their creative process of ingredient pairing, recipe design and menu creation.

Kellogg's® Away From Home opened the doors to its Menuvation Center™ at The Hatchery, a food and beverage business incubator in the heart of Chicago. The Menuvation Center marks a major investment by Kellogg's Away From Home in culinary innovation and partnership with operators. It's like a science lab, kitchen and think tank all rolled into one.

Path of Life, makers of frozen quinoa, rice and veggie blends is ready to go beyond the frozen side category. In order to create innovative new product lines, the Live Simple brand announced its preferred partnerships with two product development firms – Artisan Row and Brisan Group.

In 2020, the world as we knew it was turned upside down. Coronavirus changed the way consumers shop, socialize, entertain and more which is why it will be the biggest driver of food and beverage trends in 2021.

US subsidiaries of HelloFresh SE, entered into an agreement to acquire all of the outstanding equity interests of Factor75, Inc. HelloFresh is a provider of meal kits in the world and in the US. Factor is a leading provider of fully-prepared, fresh meals that combine health, convenience and restaurant-quality taste.