Member News & Headlines Blog

In a week of major changes, Dunkin’ Donuts confirmed it’s dropping the ‘Donuts’ from its name, launches its first canned RTD beverage and announces a limited edition coffee beer in collaboration with Harpoon Brewery.

Read this full article on Beverage Daily here

Read the full article here

PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi steps down today after a 24-year career with the company.

Born in India, the 62-year-old was one of a handful of people of color to run an S&P 500 company. During her 12-year tenure as chief executive, Nooyi transformed PepsiCo into one of the most successful food and beverage companies worldwide. Her push for healthier snack and beverage choices, along with an eye for product packaging, led to an 80 percent sales growth in the 12 years she was CEO.

Nooyi will remain as chairwoman of the board of directors until early 2019. As Nooyi readies for her next phase, here are the traits and habits she used to help steer her career.

1. Imagine you're the president

As a child in India, Nooyi and her sister were asked to play an unusual game. Each night at dinner, their mother asked her daughters to imagine what they'd do if they were the prime minister, the president or some other world leader. By the end of the dinner, the girls presented a speech and their mother decided which speech won her vote.

Though her mother instilled many traditional values in her daughters, she also encouraged them to be whoever they wanted to be. "She gave us that confidence," Nooyi said.

Article by FamilyFarmed

TeaSquares, a 2017 graduate of FamilyFarmed's Good Food Accelerator, is one of four companies accepted into the Chobani Incubator's intensive fall program. This is the latest achievement by the highly regarded company, located in Englewood on Chicago's South Side, which produces delicious energy snacks with a caffeine boost from tea, and pursues a social mission of teaching business skills to youths from underserved communities. Read more from Chicago Business Journal.

Chobani Incubator provides selected entrepreneurs, who are "taking on broken food systems to bring better food to more people," with a $25,000 no-strings-attached grant, mentoring, networking, and travel and lodging to attend Incubator sessions in New York and Idaho. Congratulations to Jordan Buckner, Isaac Lozano and the rest of the Tea Squares team.

Sally Grimes is the president of our member Tyson Foods and Prepared Foods.  

Grimes oversees more than a quarter of the company’s $38 billion in revenue and is helping to create a new corporate brand identity for the meat multinational.

The above mention was found on Fortune.com (link: http://fortune.com/2018/09/24/most-powerful-women-on-our-radar-2018/?xid=gn_editorspicks)

The Southwest Suburban Cook County American Job Center and the Food and Beverage Network are collaborating in helping Chicago and suburban job seekers obtain job opportunities in food manufacturing and packaging. Both organizations are hosting a mega job fair on Thursday September 27 2018 from 10a.m.-1p.m. There will be over 20 employers offering over 300 jobs in various sectors of the food industry that range from food assembly, machine operators, sanitation, quality assurance, warehouse, drivers, and maintenance mechanics. In addition, job seekers will be to obtain information and resources how to get training and certifications for careers in food manufacturing. Anyone looking for further information should call 708-222-3100.

In so many ways, milk has been just ripe for the taking when it comes to innovation. Fluid milk sales have been on the decline for decades, fueled largely by a boost in the development and availability of alternative offerings (which have taken direct aim at cow’s milk) and an overall inundation of food and beverage choices in general. The universe of drinkable nutrition and refreshment was exploding and it — admittedly — took a while for us dairy farmers to catch on.

But caught on we sure have! Fairlife’s our own contribution to the current dairy-powered movement meant to make milk matter again by highlighting the natural nutrition and vitality that milk brings to the table. The innovation of nature’s superfood is well under way and seeing tremendous growth.

Read the full article here

Have a food or beverage start-up and want to accelerate? Hear from the Springboard Incubator teams and Inaugural class on what Springboard can do.

To be navigated to youtube video click https://youtu.be/ORQ25wqeXpE

In partnership with the Loyola University Supply & Value Chain Center,
and AFN Logistics, CFBN presented 
Solutions Workshop: Hot Topics in Supply Chain Management on September 13^th. The event featured a panel of top supply chain experts from Walgreens, World's Finest Chocolate, AFN, Enjoy Life Foods and Lawson Products. This diverse, dynamic panel, shared key insights and challenges that supply chain professionals are experiencing in the industry. 

“Hot Topics” discussed included:

• The “Amazon Effect”: rising expectations based on the growth of Amazon, and overnight services.
• Tariffs: Operating within a whole new (and challenging) environment
• Transportation: especially tight truckload capacity, rising shipping rates, stringent compliance requirements
• Traceability and documentation: especially in regards to FSMA and allergens
• Warehousing and distribution: building a system to support your business by identifying and qualifying a network of providers

While the panel was able to touch on and discuss all of these issues (and more!), it was agreed that each hot topic could also represent an opportunity for a future “deep dive” at an upcoming event.

What do you think?  What supply chain topics are you and your company most interested in for the future.  Email us at info@chicagolandfood.org and tell us what conversations and topics would deliver the most value for you.