This Week in CPG - The Future of Chocolate 🍫

The Big Story

Joywell Foods, a Davis, California Food Tech startup that was founded almost a decade ago, boldly rebranded as Oobli. More importantly, though, the startup announced that after eight years of rigorous development, it's ready to unveil its first product: modified chocolate bars that are better for consumers and the environment. For curious or adventurous readers, you can preorder their chocolate bars here. 

So what makes Oobli better than your typical chocolate bar? Oobli delivers the same sweet sensation as a Toblerone or a Twix with a fraction of the sugar.

Sweet proteins are the key to Oobli's improved chocolate bar. In short, sweet proteins are a family of proteins that are much sweeter than sucrose — sometimes 500 times sweeter — but unlike sucrose, they won't spike your blood sugar or impact your gut microbiome in any meaningful way. Sweet proteins accomplish this by essentially fooling our taste receptors: we experience the delightful sensation of sugar, yet experience none of the deleterious effects commonly associated with sugar consumption. In a sense it's magic. 

Sweet proteins have been around for decades but their pathway to commercial use has been obstructed by a number of factors, namely cost. Brazzein — the sweet protein that Oobli uses in its chocolate — is derived from Oubli, a West African shrub that's difficult to source. Additionally, the cost to extract brazzein from Oubli in meaningful quantities is prohibitively expensive. 

Oobli bypasses these obstacles by utilizing microbial fermentation. It's still expensive, but they can at least produce brazzein in commercial quantities. Microbial fermentation might sound like an intimidating concept but the process is pretty straightforward: brazzein is placed in fermentation tanks with genetically modified yeast and voila, more brazzein (to be clear it's much more complicated). 

Whether or not Oobli's technology is the future of chocolate depends on a lot of unpredictable factors, but if they can get the taste right while being cost competitive, they at least have a chance. 

Deals

• Silverwood Brands PLC, a London-based investor in consumer brands, acquired 19.8% of Lush Cosmetics for around £216m. Lush produces handmade cosmetics and sells them through its global network of 951 stores. Link

• Bansk Group, a consumer goods firm that typically acquires personal care brands like amika or Eva NYC, both haircare brands, did something a little different and acquired Red's All Natural, a frozen burrito brand from Franklin, TN. Link

• Danish multinational Carlsberg Group — the owner of beer brands Tuborg, Kronenbourg, Carlsberg, and many others — acquired Canada's Waterloo Brewing for $106m. Waterloo was founded in Ontario in 1984, making it Ontario's first craft brewer. Carlsberg paid 12.4x EBITDA. Link

• Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC), the second largest wine & spirits distributor in the US, invested in Thirstie, an e-commerce platform for alcohol brands. Link 

• German skincare giant Beiersdorf acquired S-Biomedic, a Belgian startup that's harnessing the skin microbiome to create novel skincare treatments. Beiersdorf also owns Nivea, Eucerin, and La Prairie. Link 

• UK-based Nurture Brands, a firm that's building a portfolio of plant-based food & beverage brands, acquired healthy snack producer Abakus Foods. Thus far Nurture has built an impressive brand portfolio entirely through acquisition: Primal Pantry, Doisy & Dam, Indie Bay Snacks, Jax Coco, and others. Link

• 82°E, an Indian skincare brand recently founded by Bollywood star Deepika Padukone, secured $7.5m in funding from Singapore's DSG Consumer Partners and IDEO Ventures. A number of angel investors and Padukone's family office also participated. Link

• Grounded, a plant-based protein shake brand from London, raised around $670K in seed funding from Rianta Capital, Lever VC, and Veg Capital. The company was founded by Gabriel Bean and Bryn Ferris. They sell some great-looking products. More elevated than the protein shakes we encounter in the states. Link

• Facial and skincare services provider Heyday raised an additional $12m in funding, bringing its total Series B round to $32m. Lever 5 Capital Partners led the round. Heyday currently operates 10 stores across NYC, LA, and Philly along with 7 franchised stores. Their stores are pretty stunning. Link

• Cabinet Health — a sustainable healthcare company that's working to eliminate single-use plastics by offering OTC medicines in attractive, refillable glass containers — closed on $17m in growth funding. Global Impact Fund led the round. Natureza and Unreasonable Group also joined. Link 

• B&G Foods (NYSE: BGS) agreed to sell plant-based snack brand Back to Nature to Barilla America. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Link

What's New...

• Untitled Group, a producer of popular music festivals in Australia, launched a fun, funky spirits brand – UGLY Vodka. UGLY fights food waste by converting unwanted or "ugly" apples into vodka. Link

• French indie suncare brand Mimitika expanded into skincare with four new serums. Link

• There's a new non-alcoholic amaro brand from NYC with a pretty cute name, Dr. Zero Zero. Link

• Starday Foods, the company aiming to build a next-generation food conglomerate with better-for-you products, launched a new gut-friendly seasoned rice brand, Cozumi. Love the branding. Link

• Kendall Jenner's 818 Tequila collaborated with Compartes Chocolates on a Toffee & Tequila Chocolate Bar. Link

• A great-looking new gut health supplement brand from London, JERMS. Link

Distribution Quickfire

• Tinned seafood brand Fishwife launched at Central Market in TX.

• London-based skincare brand Zelens is coming to the U.S. via Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue.

• Pureboost, a clean energy drink mix, is now available nationwide at Walgreens.

• Non-alc spirits brand Lyre's signed a nationwide distribution agreement with Breakthru Beverage.

• Saysh, the athletic footwear brand founded by U.S. Olympian Allyson Felix, expanded into Canada.

If you find this newsletter helpful, please pass it along to others who might enjoy it. See you again on Wednesday.