New Fare

Couldn't be more excited to welcome Laura Zhang to the New Fare team as a Summer MBA Associate! Laura was most recently a senior analyst in Citi's #IB division and will be pursuing her #MBA at The Wharton School this fall with a focus on #entrepreneurship and #innovation. Laura is looking forward to leveraging her finance experience and passion for startups as she transitions to the #VC world. She is incredibly excited to work alongside the team at New Fare and learn more about emerging #CPG companies and how new consumer trends are taking shape. In Laura's free time, she enjoys running, baking, and muay thai. Laura is also always on the hunt for fun new recipes and foods, and looking forward to finding lots of inspiration this summer!

Calling #CPG #Sales leaders ! Actual Veggies is growing their team–and with a truly standout product (and innovation launching), plans to double #retail footprint from massive distribution wins and a laser-focused team, this opportunity is not to be missed. #VP #Sales #CPG. JD / apply here: https://lnkd.in/eRYqskQu

This is big time. Walmart just announced a #privatelabel lined called “Bettergoods” described as an “elevated experience that delivers quality, unique, chef-inspired food at an incredible value”. This isn’t your run of the mill #PrivateLabel brand (which already have hit record growth numbers in recent years and represent 20.7% of #grocery industry unit sales today). The line of over 300 products hit three categories: 🧑🏼🍳 Culinary experiences  🌱 Plant-Based ⛔️ “Made Without” (Has Walmart been studying the New Fare thesis? 😎). This type of launch shows Walmart is paying attention and by developing a unique white label that isn’t solely competing on price, but delivering a specific #experience driven by consumer-driven preferences, proves what Americans expect from their food today. Better Goods. New Fare Hallie Bonnar Jaewon Kang Jesse Newman Whole Foods Market #cpgindustry #cpgbrands #retail #consumer #grocery https://lnkd.in/eTHMi6Jv

Loved talking with Katie Deighton for this piece in The Wall Street Journal on branded produce. 📰 🍎 🥗 I remember giving a #trends presentation in 2016 (!) when I was still at Whole Foods Market on produce borrowing from the “grocery playbook” to differentiate themselves and connect consumers more deeply with agricultural practices (think Bowery Farming, Gotham Greens, Smallhold). Katie’s piece is a fun look at today’s fruit and veg landscape and the development of that playbook we saw in its early years at WFM. So great to see Ark Foods, one of our first investments at New Fare, highlighted, and an early player to cultivate a #brand centered around their specialized varieties: shishito peppers, honeynut squash & heirloom tomatoes. 🌶 👩🌾 🍅 Great read, and still early days of (what once were) commodities utilizing the #CPG game to grow loyalty! New Fare Hallie Bonnar Sriya Koganti Leland Carter The Wall Street Journal Michael Sinatra Noah Robbins Eduardo Mestre Lindsay Belfatto Andrea Hernández Benjamin Walker Mary Beth Vultee https://lnkd.in/e-mJ3kfS

Made by Nacho looking 👌 at this year's Global Pet Expo

Join me next week and the Northern New England Women’s Investor Network, on April 10th at 5pm ET for “HerStory”. I’ll be sharing my background and career journey - a unique path to venture - during this virtual event. Come one, come all, interested (women)! https://lnkd.in/eayF56A9

Congratulations to the team at Mid-Day Squares … In. The. Black. 📈 It’s so important to callout these milestones and remind young companies - who are building for high growth (key note!) - that profitability takes time and huge effort. For Mid-Day Squares, 5.5 years. Proud of the team at MDS, another big year ahead! New Fare BFG Partners Selva Ventures Siddhi Capital Mike Fata Rachel Mansfield Jordan Carpenter #cpg #cpgbrands #foodandbeverage #growth #team

🎉 3 years since we officially launched Made by Nacho! April 5th, 2021 Hallie and I waited all morning in Times Square to see the brand announced up on the big screen (we missed it by 3 hours but worth the thrill!). When we started building Made by Nacho there were a lot of pessimists - “cat’s too small a market”, “no one cares about cats” (sacrilege!), “cat is too hard, they’re too finicky” - but we persevered knowing these were the exact reasons to take on the challenge. Today, total Cat growth outpaces Dog 20% to 14%, and there are more cats in the US than dogs (89.7M vs 88.2M). Not to mention Cat Food is a $13B segment. So proud that we’ve developed products that kitties love! (81% repeat customer Rate), a brand that’s resonating, content that strikes a chord, and recipes utilizing the highest quality proteins and only real ingredients. Grateful to all the people who believed in us early - PetSmart, Sonoma Brands Capital, NQV8, LLC. And the team along the way! Hallie Bonnar New Fare Tom Morton Yasmin Siddiqui, MBA Julie Nelson Tessa Gould Oliver Fickes Alex Edinger Anna Seeley Jackie Borders Leslie Benigno Tim Moss Jimmy Carrasquillo Jr. Rebecca Ulanoff Elyse King

📣 A huge shoutout to Anna Seeley, our Senior Manager of Social at Made by Nacho, who continues to break the internet (people still say that?) every month, across every platform. She (teaming up with Elyse King !) drives some of the most entertaining and dynamic #content in #CPG. 📣 The numbers speak for themselves … 🐈 Made by Nacho in the top 5 performing brands (#3) on TikTok with a 7.1% Engagement Rate 🐈 Made by Nacho in the top 5 performing brands (#1!!) on TikTok with an entertainment score of 6.1  🐈 Made by Nacho in the top 4 performing brands (#2) on Instagram with a 2.2% Engagement Rate 🐈 Made by Nacho in the top 5 performing brands (#1!!) on Instagram with 86% effectiveness 🐈 Made by Nacho outperforms the average effectiveness for CPG brands on TikTok by +383%! Congrats to Anna on being named a Dash Hudson Industry Benchmark Leader for this incredible performance. And big thanks to the whole Nacho team who has been bringing our early idea of a devoted cat dad in the kitchen to life … almost 5 years later! Hallie Bonnar New Fare Tom Morton Laura Brooks Rebecca Ulanoff Oliver Fickes Alex Edinger Yasmin Siddiqui, MBA Tim Moss James Elasky Brian Nugent PetSmart Chewy Petco Jen Hsu John C. Kuenzi Elyse King Michael Dubin Martin Dolfi Jonathan Sebastiani Jared Jacobs Drew Taylor Ben Jacobs

Been talking about small format #grocery for years now, exciting to see the number of players entering the space. Trader Joe's just opened a grab n go concept (they say their one-and-only), Pronto, in Union Square #NYC. A few weeks ago Whole Foods Market announced a larger strategy and plan to roll out Whole Foods Market Daily Shop - longtime coming! And stores like Happier Grocery, Choice Market and Luke's Local have come in alongside Foxtrot as stand-alone (non spinoff) offerings in cities across the country. Interesting to think about what people want and expect from their #grocery stores today. To me this movement says a lot about how we’re eating, the time and attention we give to meals, and how blended these occasions are with snacking. (I'm also biased but think that Whole Foods Market did such an amazing job during its heyday to bring in lunch and dinner business - that grocery stores and customer expectations were changed forever). There's major room for growth with smaller footprint stores matching younger generations' appetite for short form eating. The concepts who nail their assortment, focus on speed, quality and convenience, stand to win. New Fare Christina Minardi Mitchell Madoff Rob T. #groceryretail #cpg #cpgbrands #4wall #realestate #omnichannel #snacking #fastcasual https://lnkd.in/eQi2fJ8R