Member News & Headlines Blog

It's so rewarding for CFBN to be able to host events where our guests are able to meet new people, learn about different aspects of the industry and build business relationships. 

Last week, we kicked off the month of August with our friends at CPG Professional Networks, to host an event where attendees had the spotlight. It was a great opportunity to connect with the industry, so we appropriately named this event, “Hot Networking, Cool Drinks.” We truly had a blast bringing together the food & beverage industry of Chicagoland. Special thank you to our partners at CPG Professional Networks for a great event!

PITTSBURGH & CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 31, 2018--As part of its commitment to reduce natural resource needs and manage overall environmental footprint, The Kraft Heinz Company today announced the expansion of its environmental stewardship strategy to include time-bound targets for achieving greater packaging sustainability and setting science-based goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Specifically, Kraft Heinz supports the move toward a circular economy and aims to make 100 percent of its packaging globally recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. This announcement, a complement to its Growing a Better World strategy released in last year’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report, supports the Company’s broader efforts to improve the sustainability of its supply chain.

“Our collective industry has a massive challenge ahead of us with respect to packaging recyclability, end-of-life recovery and single-use plastics,” said Bernardo Hees, CEO at Kraft Heinz. “Even though we don’t yet have all the answers, we owe it to current and future generations who call this planet ‘home’ to find better packaging solutions and actively progress efforts to improve recycling rates. That’s why Kraft Heinz is placing heightened focus on this important environmental issue.”

A Matter of Science and Food (IFT 18) gave food industry professionals and science enthusiasts the chance to network, collaborate and share information. Attendees were given the opportunity to showcase their inventions, listen to expert panel discussions and explore the logistics of the industry. There was a ton of information to take away from this year’s show, so I decided to make a list of the top 5 things that I learned at IFT 2018.

• 1.     Food trends require science to come to life in products. Plant protein, coconut, coffee flavors, and fermented foods were just a few of the trends that I spotted at this year’s show. Often, what’s overlooked is the incredible amount of science and technology required to deliver products that meet consumer needs – yes, price, taste, convenience, and safety still matter – but science is necessary to deliver the trend. The IFT Show is one of my favorite places to see the hard work of food scientists in action, along with the continuing evolution of the food and beverage industry. 

• 2.     Our CFBN Members are killing it and making a difference.  A few examples….
• ·       Edlong – demonstrated and explained the art of dairy-free options
• ·       Imbibe – showed off innovative beverage trends
• ·       FoodMinds – presented multiple panels highlighting food industry efforts
• ·       FONA International – took time to teach educators about food science
• ·       IFSH – provided guidance for food safety and researching needs
• ·       CoreFX – shared a range of dry dairy, cheese and nutritional lipid ingredients
• ·       Kinsa Group – connected talented candidates to leadership opportunities

• 3.     The World attends IFT. The IFT18 show presented many amazing opportunities, including the chance to network with international representatives from:
• ·       ProChile
• ·       Invest Chile
• ·       Wallonia Trade Office/Belgian Trade Commission
• ·       New Frontiers in Food

• 4.     Business connections are invaluable, especially in the world of food science and technology. Truly, it’s the relationships that we create in industry that generate value and innovation over time.  The annual IFT shows make this incredibly clear. I’m so proud of CFBN’s relationship with the Chicago Section IFT, and we seek to grow and extend the incredible relationships that this group has been creating since 1941.  It’s also fun to connect with friends and colleagues from all over the country and the world. There are simply too many for me to list…but IFT 2018 brought us all together (again!)

• 5.     Chicago is the best place for IFT.  My favorite IFT experiences have always been in Chicago (despite my clear biases). Next year’s IFT show is set to take place in New Orleans, LA, and I’m sure it will be a great show (who doesn’t love New Orleans, beignets, and Cajun food?)…but what’s most exciting is that IFT will be returning to Chicago in 2020, and for the following 10 years! Is Chicago truly becoming the Silicon Valley of food? I sure think so!

Our friends at FoodNavigator give us an overview of the food and technology trends at IFT18!

Plant proteins are trending - but are they better when blended with animal? Coffee flavor is hot, but only if it's cold brew, and coconut is promising a whole lot more than just water. FoodNavigator has rounded up some of the highlights from the world's biggest food science show.

See all of the trends from FoodNavigator here 

When Joel Warady began working as a consultant to Enjoy Life Foods in the early 2000s, the small maker of gluten-free products was struggling to differentiate itself. "We'd heard that the (Food & Drug Administration) had designated eight common food allergens," recalls Warady, today the company's chief sales and marketing officer. "So we said, 'Well, what if we were gluten-free and free of the top eight?' We certainly didn't know the size of the opportunity."

That naive gambit, he jokes, has turned out beautifully.

Today, Chicago-based Enjoy Life—which posted revenue of about $40 million in 2014 and was acquired by Deerfield food giant Mondelez International for $81 million the following year—has emerged as a leader in the rapidly growing "allergy-friendly" packaged-foods category. The company, whose sales grew at a 40 percent year-over-year clip between 2011 and 2013, continues to see double-digit growth. ​

Estimates of the allergy-friendly food market are inexact, as most researchers lump it into the larger gluten-free category (itself projected to grow to $7.6 billion by 2020). Meanwhile, data providers Nielsen and IRI don't include Whole Foods Markets—a major purveyor of allergy-friendly lines—or Amazon in their sales data. But the allergy-friendly subset is undoubtedly increasing as more and more Americans deal with what can be a life-threatening issue. The rate of anaphylactic reactions to food, which can include throat swelling and difficulty breathing, increased 377 percent between 2007 and 2016, according to Fair Health, a nonprofit organization that analyzes billions of private health insurance claims. Reactions to peanuts increased 445 percent, while those to tree nuts and seeds spiked sixfold.

Read more from this Crain's article here 

The U.S. cold chain is growing more complex as changing consumer demands, new federal regulations and even factors such as warmer weather patterns spur shippers to adjust their approach to refrigerated truckload and LTL transportation. What do these changes mean for shippers and how are they responding?

Meeting Consumers at Their Doorstep

As any food manufacturer or retailer knows, consumer demands are fickle and subject to change with little to no warning. However, the biggest change that is roiling the retail landscape has been nearly two decades in the making: the shift in consumer preference from shopping in brick and mortar stores to shopping online. Only recently have changing shopping patterns begun to ripple across the supply chain.

Read more from Food Logistics HERE

This month's Innovation Breakfast, Food & Beverage Revolution...Chicago Style was sponsored and hosted by our friends at Fifty Gazelles. The panel discussion featured speakers from two innovative Chicago companies-- Home Chef, the nation’s third largest home meal delivery service, and Foxtrot,  an upscale convenience store and mobile delivery service. The innovators, shared insights about the changing market in food and beverage, retail service, and executing on consumers' needs. 

Jeremy Anderson, Brian Irwin & Mike LaVitola (left to right)

Brian Irwin, vice president of marketing with Home Chef, spoke about their recent $200 million acquisition by Kroger, a true milestone for Home Chef. Irwin emphasized that a key component to the company's success was creating a personable environment for the consumer, and a divine focus on consumer needs (in most cases, a clear preference for variations of meat and potatoes). Irwin attributed Home Chef's success to building an original, Midwest-focused business. Home Chef has a mission to create meal kits that are not only a millennial phenomenon, but can be enjoyed by a wide variety and range of ages.

       Panel discussion with Brian Irwin & Mike LaVitola

Mike LaVitola, CEO and founder of Foxtrot, reflected on launching his organization, while he studied business at the University of Chicago. He opened his first store on Lake Street, 10 years ago, and laughs as he recalled how slow and empty the neighborhood was at the time (compared to the present day west loop area, which is booming with people, activity and culture). LaVitola also reflected on some of the interesting things that he's noticed with incoming orders and consumer needs. He's seen a surprising demand for ice cream, liquor and cigarettes orders, usually placed after midnight. LaVitola's closing remarks included plans of expanding his business, as a more upscale version of a 7-11. An opportunity for growth is clear in Foxtrot's future. 

By Donna Berry

Ice cream, refrigerated desserts and baked goods such as cookies, cakes and pies are trending these days. The Specialty Food Association’s 2018 State of the Industry report attributes this to Millenials, who collectively cannot get enough of these sweet treats.

They want dessert, and often at strange times, according to Michael LaVitola, CEO and co-founder of Foxtrot, an upscale convenience store chain and home-delivery service in Chicago that delivers all too often a single pint of premium ice cream—usually Jeni’s or Coolhaus—to your door within 60 minutes of ordering.   

Read more HERE

• PepsiCo is launching a new center for innovation called “The Hive” to help cultivate its niche brands, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said on an investor results call.
• This incubator will be a separate entrepreneurial group outside of the core headquarters that will help nurture niche products already in the portfolio as well as look at other venturing brands that PepsiCo can bring into the fold.
• In June, PepsiCo announced it was partnering with the Chicago-based incubator “The Hatchery,” a nonprofit food and beverage incubator.

Innova Market Insights is a leading market research company, serving our customers with our unique and powerful Innova Database: the world’s largest database for the food industry, used by leading companies in food ingredients and manufacturing for future success in the dynamic

Access powerpoint HERE