Member News & Headlines Blog

Tootsie Rolls, Frango mints, Fannie May, Wrigley gum and more. Chicago was once widely known as the nation's candy capital — and the list of confections with ties to the Chicago area is still impressively long.

Article by Chicago Tribune

Our members Bluedog Design and Cresco Labs made this list! Lots of perks, flexible remote-work policies, great benefits, comfortable workspaces: Which Chicago-area companies are the best to work for? Since 2008, Crain's has highlighted the local companies rated highest by their employees. In a wide-ranging questionnaire, we ask about everything from workplace comforts to benefits and culture. A record 4,522 employees participated in our survey this year. This project has proved so popular that last year we began expanding our list of honorees to the 100 top scorers from 25. 

Chicagoland Food & Beverage Network member Kraft Heinz’s Springboard -- a platform dedicated to nurturing, scaling and accelerating the growth of emergent brands within the food and beverage space – is preparing to launch it’s 3rd cohort.

The Springboard Incubator Program was created to accelerate local food and beverage start-ups with emergent, first-to-market products and brands into thriving companies. The Incubator Program offers a wealth of resources inclusive of dedicated learning, mentorship from Kraft Heinz leadership, infrastructure access (including state of the art pilot plants and culinary kitchens at the Kraft Heinz Innovation Center in Glenview, Illinois), and funding. Kraft Heinz wants to learn from start-ups who are solving consumer pain points in a world of fragmented needs.

The Springboard team is currently seeking applicants that fall within one of the following four consumer trend pillars: natural and organic; specialty and craft; health and performance; and experiential brands, are already in market or have at least a ready-to-order product and a hunger for growth. 

Before applications for this new cohort close on Friday, June 14^th, come meet White Space Platforms Head, Elizabeth Obbard, and the new Springboard Incubator Lead, Kelsey Courser at CFBN’s first Founders Series Event on Wednesday, May 15^th. 

Following that event, Springboard will also be hosting “Office Hours” on Wednesday, May 29^th.  Elizabeth, Kelsey - along with several members of the Springboard team and graduates of the 2^nd Incubator class – will be on hand to share their learnings, answer questions on the program, and assist with the application process.

So Save These Dates for opportunities to learn about this incubator making a splash in the Chicagoland food scene (more information and registration is coming soon, please send us an email if you’d like to be added to the invite list)!  In the meantime, learn more about The Springboard Incubator Program here from the first incubator class!

This month's Innovation Breakfast topic looked at "Retail Technology - The Future Explained." We were joined by Laura Heller - director of external communications at Performics. Laura was incredibly engaging, as she spoke to the audience about the evolution of retail marketing, and how it's done wonders for the buyer experience. She offered the notion that it's evolved into more of a "service" to companies, as it's enhanced the relationship with consumers. 

Laura has been covering retail, consumer trends and technology for more than two decades. She most recently was the Editor of Retail Dive and FierceRetail, and has been reporting on mass-market retail trends and initiatives since 1995 as a reporter for B2B magazines, business outlets and websites including Forbes and The Week.  She has appeared on national TV and radio programs discussing retail trends including CNBC, ABC News Now and National Public Radio. Her blog – “The Point of Purchase” – appears on Forbes.com. Laura continues to study consumer behavior and how shoppers interact with brands through technology, as Director, External Communications, at Performics. 

Laura's been actively attending CES -- the Consumer Electronics Show --  for more than 20 years.  She says, "CES is at the center of innovation in the US right now.  It's the crossroads of software, hardware, people, and business.  All the retailers are trying to figure out how to be more competitive." 

As always, we thank the team at Fifty Gazelles for helping us put on a wonderful breakfast event. Thank you to Laura Heller for offering such engaging content. We can't wait to see you in May!

Cultivian Sandbox, which backs agriculture- and food-tech companies, has raised a $135 million investment fund.

It’s the third fund for the Chicago-based firm. The second fund, $114 million, was raised in 2014. New investors include several Illinois companies, including ag co-op Growmark, ADM, Ecolab and Griffith Foods.

Previous investors include DuPont subsidiary Corteva AgroSciences and Elanco Animal Health, both based in Indianapolis.

The fund, launched in 2013, is focusing more on the food-tech industry. One investment from its new fund, Phylagen, a San Francisco-based startup, brings biology and Big Data together to track food and other products in supply chains back to their source by using their microbiome signatures.

Read the full article from Crain's here.

If you’re checking out our blog, you probably already know a bit about Imbibe. Here’s a little more on why we’re a competitive contender to win Food Processing Magazine’s R&D Team of the Year for 2019:

Under the expert tutelage of VP of R&D extraordinaire, Joe Farinella, our PD team works side-by-side with our flavor team on technically challenging formulations, enabling our clients to bring great tasting and innovative products to market. The team has really hit their stride in the past year, developing numerous plant-based dairy alternatives, protein waters, and nitrogenated cold brew coffees. Our business requires us to exercise discretion, but Milkadamia was so pleased with the result of their macadamia nut dairy alternative that their employees starred in a case study video that outlined Imbibe’s iterative process, challenges associated with building and flavoring plant-based beverages, and ultimate technical expertise that resulted in several SKUs of each of their product lines.

Click here to learn more about Imbibe & vote for them in the small business category!

After much anticipation, our dine-around event, “Taste the Trends” took place in the brand-new space of Kitchen United River North on Thursday, April 4. With over 100 guests in attendance, we were excited to showcase this event that we had been planning for months, with the help of our friends from Datassential and The Research Chef Association (RCA).

Upon arrival, guests were split into two groups. The first group joined Chef Jennifer Aranas for a presentation about food and beverage trends impacting the foodservice industry, which also gave a bit of insight into what the innovation chefs would be offering that evening. After the presentation, all guests were given the chance to walk the kitchens, converse with our chefs and sample their delicious dishes.

Chef Eric Clark, part of CFBN member US Foods’ culinary team, featured his dish, a global and sustainable Shrimp Roll made with Harbor Banks Argentine Red Shrimp and Rykoff Sexton Harissa Paste.

Chef Jaime Mestan, and her team from Vienna Beef, featured their Greenhouse Chili (with 100% plant based & vegan toppings bar), with CBD olive oil.

Chef Tom Leo, of Grecian Delight, featured his bite-sized Falafel Fritters, with traditional Hummus whipped with Olive Oil, and their FABI Award winning Spicy Four Pepper Cilantro Sauce (Skhug) & Garlic Sauce.

Chef John Draz, of CFBN member company Miniat, featured his Lamb Birria Tacos (Jalisco Region, Mexico)

Chef Jennifer Aranas giving her presentation on the popular food and beverage trends that we should be expecting this year.

The event also involved sampling from two CFBN member companies – Jimmy’s Vegan and Mele Shake. On hand were Jimmy Prude to sample his vegan cookies, and Elise Tresley who sampled several of Mele’s shake flavors!

Taste the Trends was our first two-part, interactive experience. We wanted our guests to truly gain a sense of the trends that are sure to be popular in 2019. The innovation chefs did an outstanding job, incorporating unique flavors into their tasty treats.  All in attendance had an amazing time and we look forward to having more tasting events in the near future. We want to send a big “thank you” to the Datassential team, the Research Chefs Association (RCA) and Kitchen United for supporting our efforts and making this magical experience come to life.

Follow our chefs and start-up entrepreneurs on Twitter!

•       @ViennaBeef

•       @USFoods

•       @grecian_delight

•       @miniatholdings

•       @meleshake

•       @jimmysvegan

•       @culinology

•       @datassential

•     @kitchenunitedHQ

Imbibe, an industry-leading beverage development company focused on formulating and commercializing cutting-edge products, released a report on beverage trends at Expo West, which took place Mar. 6 to 9 in Anaheim, California. The report covers the most prevalent trends for non-alcoholic beverages by category, ingredients, and popular product claims. It can be requested by emailing thedrinktank@imbibeinc.com.  Here is an overview of the most popular trends at the trade show:

• Clean Label – Products with no artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners or preservatives have become standard in the natural food and products industry. Many brands called out natural ingredients on labels by making bold claims like “clean eats” or “cleanest protein.” Products in the sports nutrition and energy category that have typically used ingredients not perceived as natural are transitioning to cleaner ingredients as well. Brands showcased organic and/or natural energy drinks using ingredients like green tea, green coffee, guayusa, and yerba maté. Examples include Inko’s Organic Energy, Zola Hydrating Energy Drink, and Runa. Additionally, several sports nutrition brands are transitioning to natural color, flavor and sweetener and incorporating plant-based ingredients that improve power and performance such as pea protein and MCTs. Examples include BodyLogix, Protein2O, and Aloha RTD plant-based protein beverage.

Read the full article here

Imagine you launched a successful consumer brand — a healthy, snack-size ice cream sandwich that has no fat, only three all-natural ingredients, actually boosts energy and tastes like the most indulgent dessert ever created. Even better, your brand has achieved success with key target consumers, and you’ve grown revenues to over $4 million.

But to broaden distribution to a larger market and capture enough “share” — both the mind and market kind — you’re going to need capital. After working for many years in the private equity business with both legacy and emerging brands, I know that it takes serious money to grow your manufacturing footprint, find distribution partners, support a multi-channel advertising campaign and develop data analytics that show market-changing metrics.

Whether you are a start-up or a legacy brand looking for investment capital to help you expand, or you’re ready to sell and move on to your next challenge, private equity or venture firms will put you through a due diligence process that can be onerous. It runs the gamut from financial review and risk tolerance to market size and trends, competition, sales and customer satisfaction. Today, smart brand owners are coming to the table with some of those key insights already in hand.

The value of consumer testing

A little background: we’ve seen a craft brands boom over the past decade, and many have found sticking power because they are purchased by market leaders who would rather buy a winning product than create one from scratch. Private equity and venture capital firms are also competitors for these market disrupters. But the competition for their money is fierce. And failures like the very publicized Theranos disaster have made the investor community cautious, no matter the category. What do you need to get past the gatekeepers and survive the rigor of due diligence? I submit, consumer testing.

Here’s what the Harvard Business Review has to say about what imprimatur testing can provide when you are competing for investment dollars:

 “Advantages of consumer testing: The risk of failure of the product is minimized. Marketers get good exposure to the marketing environment in order to measure the performance of sales…testing reveals different aspects like price, packaging and advertising claims.”

Recently, my company launched a consumer-testing platform called eFive™, a sensory and product insights platform designed to give both legacy and emerging brands quick, accurate and affordable consumer insights from industry-leading sensory experts. The insights provide a wealth of information on topics such as: product readiness for expansion, consumer purchase decision process, market and demographic opportunity, flavor and texture profiles, and – this is key – how the brand performs against the competition.

When you are ready to sell your brand, doesn’t it make sense to have already checked some of the major boxes associated with due diligence? eFive™ not only provides consumer insights on how a product appeals to the senses: taste, touch, sound, flavor and texture; it also answers critical questions on packaging. Does the brand packaging convey a believable value proposition? Is it engaging? Does it communicate the key product differentiator?

Emerging CPGs that are serious about selling a successful brand or taking it to the next level partner with e-Five to prove out product claims, measure overall ‘liking’ among a target demographic and test their product against a market leader. Services include onsite consumer testing at facilities in Chicago, Dallas, New York and San Francisco markets, as well as focus groups and even at-home research to gain insights on real-life consumer experience with products.

The platform enables brands already in the market to make vital adjustments to improve market performance. And for those brands seeking investment capital, these data points can speed the process significantly.

About Sean Bisceglia

Mr. Bisceglia served as an Operating Partner at Sterling Partners for 2 years before joining Curion Insights as CEO and overseeing the launch of eFive™. Bisceglia’s business success began 25 years ago when he founded TFA, a technology-focused ad agency that achieved significant success. TFA was sold to Leo Burnett in 1998. Bisceglia then partnered with William Blair to acquire CPRI, where he doubled revenues in less than 2 years. In 2007, he founded TalentDrive, one of the first technology-enabled staffing businesses.

To discover how eFive™ consumer testing can work for you, visit https://efiveinsights.com

Perkins Coie is pleased to announce that partner Randy Bridgeman was a recent finalist for the “Food & Beverage Dealmaker of the Year” category in The Deal Awards Middle Market, which recognizes leaders and innovators in the world of dealmaking. Over the past several months,The Deal received hundreds of submissions, nominating individuals and firms across dozens of categories and sectors. The awards covered deals involving at least one U.S. party that clocked in at under $500 million.

Randy Bridgeman, co-chair of the firm’s Corporate & Securities practice, recently led a series of cross-border, co-manufacturing joint ventures for a global food manufacturer as well as the sale of a family-owned business specializing in the production of caramel color for beverages. Known for immersing himself in his clients’ businesses and industries, Randy has extensive experience representing companies with domestic and overseas operations in the food and beverage sector.

The Deal is an intelligence service that provides actionable information on deals and dealmakers, offering over 100,000 users the unique opportunity to identify potential deals and target dealmakers to accelerate revenue generation. The Deal  Awards Middle Market recognizes the leading lawyers, bankers, investors and advisers in middle-market transactions.

Access the full list here