Kim Malek

latest Snaxshot are you even ready?! 🌶 Momo-fuk-u takes everything back, best naive acting goes to Momofuku and marguerite mariscal just agreeing to everything, WOW! 📈Boisson retail is no more but NA continues to grow 🛒 Erewhon's RTD is apparently debuting in over 100 stores in SoCal 🍻Liquid Death, Not Beer and the vice-fication of water 👀Dr Smood Group's doubling down in CPG CURATION OF NEW BRANDS + MORE! immi's ramen-ventions: a category outlook

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I can think of no better trend than culinary professionals, influencers, and tastemakers finally saying out loud that high-quality processed foods are as good, if not better, than made-fresh-from-scratch ingredients. Just as I don't expect others to agree with me on politics, books, and movies, I don't expect everyone to enjoy repetitive cooking tasks. What I find meditative and satisfying others find tedious, boring, and pointless. Fair enough! We need high-quality processed goods so that everyone can enjoy exceptional food every day for every meal. IT IS POSSIBLE! It's time to demand that our food processing infrastructure deliver fresh, flavorful, nutritious ingredients that are both affordable and save time. https://lnkd.in/gCcwZBPY

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Climate change is changing our agriculture landscape and therefore the cost to consume our favorite things- especially coffee, which is why the work we are doing around organic cultivation with climate resilient varietals like robusta coffee is more important than ever. Thanks WSJ for speaking with me about this important work!

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Who’s podcast can I go on?!? No one is discussing misleading food labels and lack of ingredient transparency in the "healthy meal" prep industry? 🎙️ There's a lot to unpack about how meals are labeled as organic and healthy while lacking true transparency. The days of genuine wellness seem to be fading, with gas, additives, and preservatives extending shelf lives up to 14 days or more 😤 Let's delve into this on a podcast! Message me if you're interested in shedding light on this crucial topic. 🥳 #Podcast #FoodIndustry #Transparency #Wellness #HealthyEating

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You may order sauce on the side but it's still the main attraction. 🎡 Don't take it from me! Peep this Nation's Restaurant News article highlighting the QSR sauce BOOM 💥 → According to Innova Market Insights, 39% of consumers are most likely to try new flavors through sauces, seasonings + toppings. → Technomic, Inc. reports that 34% of consumers consider what sauces are available before deciding on a place to eat. → And Datassential shows that more than half of consumers have purchased a new sauce or condiment from a restaurant in the past 3 months. In a foodservice climate starving for new traffic, sauce-centric LTOs featuring new + exciting flavors on familiar menu items (e.g. 🍗 + 🍟 + 🍔 + 🌮) can be your most operationally friendly + craveworthy solution. Something I know for sure: There is one midwesterner who will *always* drive through for a new ranch flavor extension. 🙋‍♀️ -- What's your go-to, gotta-have-it, will-go-out-of-your-way-for-it sauce? 👀👇

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In today's CBD: Two of the largest Black-owned breweries, California's Crowns & Hops Brewing Co. and Full Circle Brewing Co., have struck a watershed alliance to leverage its members’ strengths and show up at market in a much bigger way. The new shared resources platform is dubbed “Circle of Crowns Beverage Group” (CCBG). The alliance “combines two leading Black-owned brands and centralizes production, sales and marketing between the two companies,” per announcement. Production will be centralized at Full Circle. Currently, the brands produce about 10,000 barrels collectively. It’s about “unlocking untapped opportunities” in the craft market, by "leveraging retail and venue diversity programs." Historically, Black suppliers have lacked the infrastructure to address these opportunities on a wide scale. CCBG also includes the historic Speakeasy Ales & Lagers brand, one of the oldest in San Francisco, and Sonoma Cider. "As you know, there's 9,000-plus breweries out there, and there's only 1% that are Black-owned," Arthur Moye, Full Circle founder, told CBD. "And I think, during a good period of the last half a decade or so, people have wanted to support Black-owned businesses. So you have major retailers reaching out to those 1%; you have distributors reaching out to those 1%; but then there hasn't been a structure by which they could significantly respond, because that 1% is mostly represented by people that don't have production facilities and can't create the margins and the economies of scale to sit on the shelves throughout the distribution networks of the chains." This starts to solve that. More here, we left the story open to all. https://lnkd.in/gsHErbeK

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Early on, a wine marketing "expert" challenged me on the value of Somm Says' data. The issue, as he put it, ran along the lines of "your data isn't 'real'!" He continued, "The customer could be anyone, anywhere, drinking with any food, in any environment." To which I simply responded, "Isn't that where your wines end up going to be in your consumers' glasses?" And, "don't you want to be there to hear what your consumers have to say?!" Now that I'm a few years more experienced, I'd argue that in today's marketing and analytics landscape, the raw experience, preference, and value data captured at scale for your consumers anywhere, anytime they enjoy a wine is the ONLY data that matters. Focus groups and marketing surveys are so yesterday. These approaches have to extrapolate from a small sample to the population and are therefore increasingly less relevant for actual, practical, actionable analytics and marketing. The reason is simple: consumers demand personalization and contextualization for everything they spend their money on. You simply cannot achieve a level of individual- or social-level personalization without real, raw, individual-level data. Segmentation does not equal individualization! That's exactly why I built Somm Says. And, I made Somm Says free because if the wine industry intends to bridge the gap rapidly widening between traditional players and emerging generations of consumers, it will take MASSIVE amounts of raw consumer data to do it. Take a look as I walk through real Somm Says data for 5,700 games played for 700 wines for Denver-area wine consumers: https://lnkd.in/eYBQ2Y7i #wineanalytics #winebusiness #winemarketing #winemaker #sommelier #wine

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Sorel: The ULTIMATE Modifier I'm about to say The Quiet Part Out Loud: the liquor industry has a problem nobody talks about: Alcohol (in its pure form) doesn't taste good. This is because the sense of taste is designed to detect poison. Over the millennia, the knowledge that alcohol is poison has dismayed humans, little. As a species we've spent thousands of years trying to figure out how to enjoy the effects of alcohol, without dying. There's a reason why alcohol is a controlled substance; why every bottle comes with a warning. The ancient Egyptians added botanicals to alcohol, creating tinctures. The Celts are credited with beginning the practice of aging alcohol in casks, to absorb the flavor of the wood. Over the centuries the methods of making alcohol more potable has become increasingly sophisticated. Big liquor's solution to this problem is to take vast amounts of GNS and simply add flavor. This is why we have blueberry flavored vodka, cinnamon flavored whisky, and jalapeño flavored tequila. Sorel Liqueur reverses the logic. Everyone else takes alcohol and adds flavor. We take flavor, and add alcohol. The difference in this methodology is what makes Sorel the most versatile modifier on the planet. Sorel does one thing better than any other modifier, in that it masks the taste of ethanol, while pushing flavor forward. Add Sorel to gin, and you'll get more floral notes. Add it to an aged spirit (whisky or rum) and you'll get more barrel notes. Add it to an agave base (tequila or mezcal) and you'll get more fruit and smoke. Add it to other liqueurs and you'll get pure flavor. Don't believe me? Try adding equal parts Sorel and Chartreuse. Or equal parts Sorel and Skrewball Peanut Butter whisky. With hundreds of possible flavor combinations to play with, and how its flavor changes based on temperature, the possibilities with Sorel are endless. We're honored to be included among this list of fine liqueurs. With thanks to SevenFifty Daily and Susannah Skiver Barton https://lnkd.in/ebPgM3Vg #DrinkSorel #BlackOwned #ForTheCulture #Caribbean #Brooklyn

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In recent years the beverage industry has witnessed a remarkable shift driven by the preferences of younger consumers. Two emerging trends, non-alcoholic spirits, and boba, have captured the attention of younger folks and are experiencing significant growth as a result. According to the article, one-third of consumers ages 18 to 24 abstain from alcohol altogether. This shift in drinking habits has paved the way for the emergence of non-alcoholic drinking options, providing consumers with sophisticated and flavorful alternatives to traditional alcoholic beverages. #DrinkingTrends #YoungConsumers #Boba #NonAlcoholicSpirits

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Have you joined yet? "Today's Foodbevy newsletter was especially helpful! Always good but there are 3 links I opened today." Marina Gabriela Brink, RA, NCARB. Every week you'll receive: 1) Inspiring Weekly News Celebrating CPG Brands 2) Educational Articles 3) Exclusive Opportunities and Partner Offerings Want an invite? Comment below and I'll add you to the list #CPG #foodandbeverage

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One in five consumers who purchase frozen food items usually buy a store-brand product, and that figure is growing, according to “The Power of Frozen 2023” report from the American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI) and FMI- The Food Industry Association. The big factor turning the eyes of consumers toward private label products, unsurprisingly, is price. While private label and national-brand frozen products each saw unit share erosion in 2023 — down 3% for private label and down 5.4% for national brands — both segments saw dollar sales grow 7.7% during the prior year. Also notable is the rather weak brand loyalty that consumers have within frozen food despite the category’s having some long-standing national brands. The AFFI report found that 20% of consumers usually purchase private label frozen food products, while 16% said that they prefer national brands. Nearly four in 10 said that brand preference varies by item, and 26% had no brand preference. | Progressive Grocer https://lnkd.in/gFZEj_j3 #retail #supermarkets #frozenfoods #storebrands #privatelabel #consumers

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Yesterday marked National Craft Distillery Day, providing a pause moment to reflect on our incredible journey. Over the past decade, the craft distilling industry has experienced remarkable growth, and yet, I've witnessed firsthand how the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) can haunt entrepreneurs. In this industry, "going all in" holds a unique meaning for each of us. At Durham Distillery | Conniption Gin, it meant a bold commitment to one category: gin. We placed our bet on American gin. It holds immense potential, but it's not without its challenges. We are tasked with reintroducing it as a leading white spirit in this country and educating consumers that gin is naturally flavored vodka. Those unpleasant college memories of harsh London Dry gins? Total anomalies. Our mission is to ensure people understand that with the right gin, magic happens. Starting a craft gin distillery is not for the faint-hearted. FOMO is always present – it seems like everyone else has more resources, more people, more $$$$. We've seen other American gins backed by celebrities, but that’s not our path. We chose to be the rebels, to carve our own path, and to believe in Conniption Gin and our incredible team, from brand champions to our distributor partners. It's all about passion and perseverance – knowing that small steps can lead to giant leaps. Embracing the FOMO has been part of our story. While it can be a powerful motivator, pushing us to innovate and stay ahead, it also reminds us of the unique path we've chosen. Instead of chasing trends or celebrity endorsements, we've focused on what makes Conniption Gin special – our dedication to quality and our connection with our customers. The real joy comes from our gin lovers. Meeting customers who enjoy our gin, gift it to friends, or share their cocktail recipes with us is truly fulfilling and reminds me why we embarked on this adventure. Each positive interaction makes this marathon worthwhile. There are no shortcuts, and while I sometimes wish I could sprint to the finish line where Conniption Gin is the beloved American gin of choice, I wouldn’t trade this journey for anything. Well, maybe I’d trade one thing. Hey, Ryan Reynolds, you didn’t choose the right (best) American gin. 😉 Cheers to my colleagues on National Craft Distillery Day! Here’s to believing in our passion, pushing forward, and embracing the FOMO. #AmericanGin #Gin #ConniptionGin #FOMO #Entrepreneurship #Resilience #CraftDistilling #Spirits

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Check out my recent conversation with Christopher Campbell of The Food Institute We talked about the big funding gap in early-stage CPG investing and the growing power of angels... ...and how institutional investors' bias towards pro-operators has only grown since COVID. https://lnkd.in/gFu7D8XV #investing #business #entrepreneurship

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Over 10,000 jobs lost in the QSR/fast food space in California alone according to the California Business and Industrial Alliance (CABIA) Operators needed to raise prices and lay off workers to avoid shutting down Some still shut down These 10,000+ workers need to be repositioned in the workforce because QSR/fast food operators will turn to automation to stay afloat Food/beverage operators can't fight economics and math with heads in the sand Any job or repetitive task that can be automated will be so let's focus on how we can leverage workers in other roles that can't be automated #automated #repetitivetasks #workforce #operations

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Food Business News says that organic food sales are on the rise. This, while everyone’s sweating bullets over inflation and tightening their belts when it comes to dining out. It’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it? It means that whether the economy’s in the gutter or on cloud nine, food and beverage hustlers have a shot. You just need to know your crowd, the smart saps who’ll pay for what you’re selling, and make damn sure you’re giving them something better than the next guy. Leave the competition in the dust. Times might be tough, but there’s always a way to serve up something irresistible, and when you do, they’ll keep coming back for more. So, keep your eyes open, your wits sharp, and never stop pushing to be the best damn option out there. #foodandbeveragebusinness #restaurants

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Great insight from Kenji López-Alt, chef, author, and #FoodJournalist printed in the #NewYorkTimes. Kenji takes us on a journey through his experiments of salting #eggs before and after cooking them but lands on one philosophy- "just salt them whenever you darn well please." I am surprised that the type of salt he suggests didn't come up but perhaps that's a topic for another article. I'm no Kenji, but I suggest #Himalayan or #FlavoredSeaSalt, such as garlic/onion, porcini, or sriracha. What's your egg-salting method? #SeaSaltSuperstore

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We get asked a lot about bars Jumping Kegs (aka: daisy chain) and the impact on quality. Here's a short video that explains the antiquated concept and an alternative system.

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