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. 

Knechtel, Inc. USA announced the launch of a strategic alliance with The Aurora Ceres® Partnership Ltd., UK. The collaboration brings together a synergistic range of services and capabilities to help drive innovation in the food, confectionery, pharma, and beverage industries.

When it comes to formulating sweet and salty snacks, a huge challenge is that of matching the vibrancy, versatility, and stability of synthetic food colorants. “The sensitivity of natural compounds to various stressors within the system causes them to be difficult to depend on and use effectively,” explains Ryan Erwin, food chemist and Innovation Manager for Fresca Foods, Inc.

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.

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.

Flavor Producers, LLC, headquartered in Valencia, Calif., completed an expansion project in Sharonville, Ohio, that includes more than 6,000 square feet of new application development, sensory, pilot plant product development capabilities and an additional 1,700 square feet for customer collaborative rapid prototyping workspace for food and beverage innovations.

Kerry introduces the Kerry Discovery Hub, an online learning center for aspiring and growth-oriented entrepreneurs. It’s designed to help visitors learn about a variety of topics important to the food and beverage industry—and, of course, to their business growth.  

CuliNex, a clean label food product and plant-based formulation consultancy, announced Danielle Custer has joined the innovation and product development team as a project manager. Custer will provide client support and team leadership for multiple clean label and plant-based clients served by CuliNex. She will also provide key culinary insights and inspiration to bring innovations to market faster.

This year brought more than 120 submissions and after two judged panel tastings, experts selected six items according to a 10-point scale for overall innovation, the team’s problem-solution story and sensory performance (including taste, appearance, texture, smell, etc.) 

Innophos, a leading international producer of nutritional specialty ingredients and custom formulated solutions, today announced the release of its latest whitepaper that builds upon the foundational work of their previous papers. The new whitepaper presents data from in-vitro digestion studies that show the absorption advantage of Chelamax® zinc bisglycinate.