Each day at 5 p.m. we collect the five top food and supplement headlines of the day, making it easy for you to catch up on today's most important natural products industry news.

January 18, 2018

2 Min Read
5@5: Amazon sold $2B in groceries in 2017-report | The unexpected story behind a top organic beauty brand
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Amazon’s grocery sales increased after it devoured Whole Foods

Thanks in part to the addition of Whole Foods Market’s private label offerings, Amazon’s grocery sales now account for 18 percent of the U.S. online grocery market, according to a new report from One Click Retail. While most of its $2 billion in food and beverage sales in 2017 were packaged products, Amazon Fresh sales were up 35 percent in the last four months of the year, compared to the four months prior, the report says. The top categories for Amazon Fresh were dairy, meat, frozen, fresh vegetables and fresh fruit. Read more at The Wall Street Journal (subscription)…

 

The marriage ended. The company thrived.

Brad Black and Susan Griffin-Black have built EO products from a humble natural beauty brand that they started in their San Francisco home into a $50 million enterprise with a production facility that was once a high-tech film studio for “Star Wars.” But that’s not even the most interesting thing about their story. They started the company shortly after getting married in 1995. They divorced in 2007 but have continued running the business as co-CEOs—and the business has flourished. EO makes bath and body products from botanically derived essential oils and is one of the largest remaining independently owned natural beauty companies. Five years ago it launched a lower-priced line, Everyone, that’s sold mostly at Target. Read more at The New York Times…

 

Kroger is rolling out a new technology to nearly 200 stores that could change grocery shopping as we know it

Some 200 stores will replace price tags on endcap displays with Kroger Edge, a new digital technology that displays pricing and nutrition information, video ads and coupons, by the end of the year. By doing this, the retailer will be able to change prices and promotions instantly. Eventually, the goal is to have Edge communicate with shoppers’ smartphones to help them quickly select items as they’re in the store. Read more at Business Insider…

 

Hyper-personalized beverages

As far as beverages go, more brands this year will incorporate adaptogens, botanicals and protein into their products, and we may see the nitrogen infusion trend that’s started in coffee and beer expand into teas and juices, says beverage innovation firm Imbibe. The firm also predicts wider use of upcycled ingredients and products with big visual appeal. Read more at Prepared Foods…

 

Baltimore rebrands its food deserts: Now they’re ‘healthy food priority areas’

“Food desert” is a misnomer, according to Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, who says the term implies that there is no food in a certain area, when it fact the problem is actually an imbalance between healthy and unhealthy foods. And in Baltimore, nearly one-quarter of the population lives in one. Read more at The Baltimore Sun… 

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