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.

March 17, 2018

2 Min Read
5@5: Not all vendors are down on Whole Foods' changes | Cultured meat for pets
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Life after Amazon: Why Whole Foods will not become a ‘conventional grocery store’

Recent procedural changes at Whole Foods Market that may put more burden on vendors, or limit the ability of small companies to have a presence in the retailer’s stores, have garnered negative press recently. But not all companies are so down on the news. “They are still the leaders in innovation and have shown a capacity to be attentive and flexible with a small national vendor,” says Ethan Hirshberg, founder of drinking vinegar company Ethan’s. Kuli Kuli Founder Lisa Curtis notes some bumps in the road recently but says that if being under Amazon’s umbrella allows Whole Foods to fully execute promotions, then it’s a good deal for her company. Read more at Inc…

 

Why Wild Earth cofounder Ryan Bethencourt is applying the science of ‘vegan biohacking’ to pet food

While a handful of companies work in labs to create animal-based food without the need to actually kill animals, at least one entrepreneur is using that same approach to target the pet food market. Meat used for pet food can come from animals that are dead, dying, diseased or disabled, including those who have died from infection, and may also contain antibiotics. A recent recall of pet food contaminated with traces of barbituates used to euthanize animals illustrates the potential problems with this. Ryan Bethencourt, who co-founded a life science startup accelerator program and seed fund IndieBio and is an investor in Memphis Meats and Finless Foods, imagines a better way. His company, Wild Earth, is developing an animal-free dog food made from cultured koji, a distant relative of the mushroom, that reportedly has a similar nutrition profile as meat-based pet foods but with a lesser environmental impact. Read more at Forbes…

 

How a sustainable beauty brand upcycles fruit waste

Rather than trying to innovate with new ingredients, Terence Chung, a founder of natural cosmetics company Fruu, takes the approach of making the materials already being used for products more sustainable. Fruu uses discarded juice pulp, which Chung says still contains interesting oils, fats and vitamins, and turns it into lip balms geared toward teenagers and young adults. Read more at PSFK…

 

Online groceries are having their moment

It’s been a long, slow road for grocery e-commerce, but its day may be just around the corner. Walmart, Target, Kroger, Albertsons and Costco have all recently made moves to expand their grocery delivery offerings. Read more at Bloomberg…

 

Flooding has flushed 43 billion plastic pieces out to sea

Rivers are a significant source of plastic pollution for the world’s oceans, according to the first map of global plastic pollution just published in Nature Geoscience, and the ocean plastic problem is even greater than previously thought. Read more at Science Mag… 

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