The Naked Market, a next generation CPG business building a portfolio of food & beverage brands, announced it has raised $27.5 million in Series A funding. Integrated Capital led the round with participation from Great Oaks Venture Capital, Pacific Tiger Group, Sope Creek Capital and Clearco.

The team brings more than five decades of collective experience in building, selling and growing well-known consumer food brands.

Kemin Industries, a global ingredient manufacturer that strives to sustainably transform the quality of life every day for 80% of the world with its products and services, will break ground on a new manufacturing site in Verona, Mo., to produce clean-label ingredients that are used in a variety of applications for the food technologies sector. 

SKU works by equipping startups with the tools they need to succeed. Startup companies receive the resources and relationships that they require to become breakout successes and household names. SKU then surrounds those stellar startups with a wraparound infrastructure of seasoned entrepreneurial mentors, customized curriculum focused on the entire CPG ecosystem, advanced operations support, and access to funding.

Kevin Spratt has been promoted to president, US-Canada region and David Faturos has been promoted to executive vice president, chief financial officer. Dave Cowperthwait will join the executive team as executive vice president, chief supply chain officer, a newly created role at Rich’s. 

On a continuing growth path, CuliNex, a clean label food product consultancy, has recruited two industry veterans to accelerate business development and marketing activities.

Tate & Lyle PLC, a global provider of food and beverage solutions and ingredients, and Nutriati, an ingredient technology company developing solutions from one of the industry’s most functional plant-based ingredients, have signed an exclusive five-year partnership for Tate & Lyle to distribute high quality, sustainable chickpea protein and flour.

Sweet treats with functional benefits took home the four finalist spots this week in the Real California Milk Excelerator product innovation competition created by the California Milk Advisory Board (CMAB) and VentureFuel.

Nexira, a leader in acacia fiber and natural plant-based ingredients for the food, nutrition and health industries, announced its acquisition of the Swiss company UNIPEKTIN Ingredients AG, a specialist and leader in natural hydrocolloids and premium ingredients.