Dairy-free brand Daiya has launched a new frozen treat in the US, Poppable Cheesecake Bites, designed to deliver convenient indulgence. The bite-sized frozen treats are available in three flavours – original, strawberry and chocolate. They each feature a creamy, dairy-free cheesecake centre, wrapped in a dark chocolate coating, in a ‘poppable, freezer-to-mouth’ snacking format. “What makes Cheesecake Bites exciting is that they make indulgence feel easy,” said John Kelly, chief marketing officer at Daiya. “The creamy cheesecake centre and rich dark chocolatey coating give you a real dessert experience, and whether you go for original, strawberry or chocolate, two to three pieces are just 100 calories.” The brand has teamed up with professional basketball player Cade Cunningham in a marketing campaign to launch the product, aligning with Cunningham’s dairy-free lifestyle. Daiya Cheesecake Bites are available in 227g individual flavour bags, in the frozen dessert aisle at Sprouts Farmers Market, Meijer and Kroger nationwide, priced at an RRP of $8.99.

European bakery products manufacturer Baker & Baker has acquired Scottish-based free-from specialist Lazy Day Foods, expanding its presence in the free-from baked goods market and creating opportunities for international growth. The acquisition will enable Baker & Baker to leverage its existing customer network and European footprint to expand Lazy Day Foods’ product offering and introduce its customer-facing brand to international markets. Founded in 2006, Lazy Day Foods manufactures gluten-free, milk-free, egg-free and nut-free bakery products from a purpose-built factory in Harthill, North Lanarkshire. The business supplies branded and private label products to major UK retailers, as well as customers in the foodservice sector. Its portfolio comprises approximately 75 permanent and seasonal product lines, including cakes, biscuits and traybakes. The company employs around 190 people at its 26,500 sq fy, BRCGS AA+ accredited facility. Following the acquisition, Baker & Baker’s UK manufacturing footprint will increase to five sites, including its first in Scotland, while its total workforce will grow to 2,650 employees. The Lazy Day Foods brand will be retained and actively marketed through Baker & Baker’s existing UK and international customer base. The deal builds on Baker & Baker’s existing expertise in gluten-free bakery products, supported by its Ashington site and marks its expansion into the wider free-from category. Matthew Acheson, CEO of Baker & Baker, said: “We believe that our scale and broad customer relationships will accelerate the growth of Lazy Day Foods, while Lazy Day Foods’ deep experience and expertise will further enhance our capabilities and category offering.” Acheson added that Baker & Baker was committed to maintaining operations and the employee base at the Harthill site, with plans to support the business’s future development. Lazy Day Foods shareholders David Kilshaw, chairman and joint managing directors Emer Bustard and Dr Sally Beattie said Baker & Baker’s scale and international reach would help bring the brand to more free-from consumers. The shareholders added that the Lazy Day brand and the Harthill facility would remain central to Baker & Baker’s category growth plans. The acquisition is Baker & Baker’s second since becoming a standalone bakery products business, following its purchase of a Pastel de Nata production facility in Peniche, Portugal, in 2022. The company supplies bakery products across retail, foodservice and artisan channels, with capabilities spanning doughnuts, muffins, brownies, cookies, cakes, speciality breads and viennoiserie.

Meala FoodTech is set to enter full-scale commercial production of its texturising pea protein, with the company aiming to produce enough ingredient to replace 1,400 tonnes of eggs in food formulations in 2027. The Israeli food tech company has more than tripled manufacturing capacity across production sites in France and Germany, responding to growing demand from food manufacturers. According to Meala, the capacity expansion will enable the company to replace the equivalent of approximately 82,000 eggs per day next year. The pea-based ingredient is designed to replicate the multifunctional performance of eggs and hydrocolloids across a range of food applications, including bakery and meat alternatives. Meala said its solution can deliver cost savings of 30–40% across bakery applications, while helping manufacturers reduce their reliance on eggs and address supply chain volatility. Hadar Ekhoiz-Razmovich, CEO and co-founder of Meala FoodTech, said: “Texture is central to the eating experience – it creates the bite, juiciness, and mouthfeel that make a food memorable and worth sharing. Manufacturers seek ingredients that deliver this experience alongside reliable performance, competitive costs, and a stable supply chain.” Meala's pea protein is already being incorporated into branded products available on retail shelves, with the company working with dozens of food manufacturers across multiple categories. The company said its ingredients can be used to replace eggs or conventional texture additives such as hydrocolloids, while supporting shorter ingredient lists and increasing protein content without changing sensory attributes. The ingredient is marketed commercially through industry partners, including DSM-Firmenich, which markets Vertis PB Pea for savoury applications, and Lasenor Emul, which markets LASENOR VP-100 as an egg replacement for bakery products. On-pack, the ingredient can be listed simply as “pea protein”, according to Meala. The company has also reported the successful launch of plant-based meat alternatives incorporating its protein, which are now commercially available across Europe. Meala said the ingredient can help manufacturers manage formulation costs at a time when food producers are facing continued pressure around ingredient pricing and supply chain reliability. In an assessed sponge cake formulation, the company reported a potential formulation cost reduction of more than 40% compared with an egg-based reference. The ingredient could also reduce the need for refrigerated logistics associated with liquid eggs, potentially simplifying storage, transportation and inventory management. From a sustainability perspective, a life cycle assessment conducted by Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences found that Meala's pea-based protein has a 63% lower carbon footprint and a 96% lower water footprint per kilogram of protein compared with egg powder. The company said the ingredient can also help manufacturers diversify sourcing strategies by relying on plant-based raw materials. Dr Tali Feldman Sivan, co-founder and CBO of Meala, said: “In meat alternatives, our texturising protein provides binding and structure while replacing conventional texture additives. In bakery applications, it typically accounts for just a few percentages of the formulation, replacing egg functionality and enabling meaningful cost-in-use savings.” Meala will showcase its pea-based texturising protein at Fi Europe in Frankfurt from 17–19 November, where visitors will be able to sample egg-free baked products containing the ingredient.

Seven Sundays is expanding its cereal range with the launch of limited-edition Snowball Cookie Puffs, a seasonal cereal inspired by freshly baked cookies. Launching on 1 November, the new cereal features powdery, poppable puffs coated with a sweet vanilla-maple flavour. Snowball Cookie Puffs follows the success of Seven Sundays’ PB Puffs, the brand’s first puffed cereal, which launched at Target earlier this year. The new cereal is made with nine ingredients: pea protein, maple syrup, gluten-free oats, upcycled non-GMO corn, tapioca, coconut oil, potato starch, vanilla extract and sea salt. It provides 8g of plant protein per serving and is naturally gluten-free. The cereal contains no refined sugar or artificial additives. Seven Sundays said the seasonal launch is designed to bring a festive flavour to the breakfast category while maintaining the brand’s focus on simple ingredients and plant-based nutrition. Snowball Cookie Puffs will be available from 1 November at Whole Foods Market, Fresh Thyme, Central Market, Thrive Market, the Seven Sundays website and select local retailers.

Plant-based ingredients specialist Roquette has unveiled Wellence GF 1229, a new functional ingredient solution designed to boost performance and quality in gluten-free baked goods. Wellence GF 1229 is a novel cellulosic hydrocolloid designed to support processing flexibility. According to Roquette, it delivers increased bread volume and slice height, a finer and more consistent crumb structure, and softer texture retained over time. While consumer interest in gluten-free products continues to grow, challenges such as poor dough texture and handling, insufficient loaf volume, uneven crumb structure and loss of softness are holding back product quality. Recent European research highlighted quality and availability as important considerations for gluten-free consumers, while another study found that only 10% of global bakery launches in 2025 carried a gluten-free claim, despite 45% of consumers expressing interest in these foods. Wellence GF 1229 aims to help fill the gap, suitable for use in a wide range of product applications such as loaves and bread rolls, bagels, pizza dough and more. According to Roquette, the solution increased bread volume by 23% versus the market benchmark in recent application trials. Meanwhile, loaves made with the ingredient demonstrated approximately 50% lower instrumental hardness after 21 days, and customer trials have highlighted ‘strong proofing and loaf expansion,’ as well as improvements to texture, crumb structure and mixing performance. The solution benefits from a low recommended usage level, delivering improved cost-in-use, and can be easily integrated into established baking processes. For manufacturers already using cellulosic hydrocolloid solutions, in the case of like-for-like substitutions, no labelling changes are required, Roquette said. Matthieu Ramette, innovation project leader at Roquette, said: “Wellence GF 1229 shows what is possible when we put the consumer experience at the heart of formulation”. “By expanding our gluten-free portfolio, we are giving bakers new tools to solve some of the category’s toughest challenges and to create breads that people want to come back to.” Wellence GF 1229 will be presented officially at Food Ingredients Europe, taking place in Frankfurt, Germany, from 17-19 November 2026.

The European Commission has published the results of a new Special Eurobarometer on food innovation, offering insight into how EU citizens view ‘innovative’ foods, ingredients and crops. ‘Innovative’ foods in the survey are categorised as those made using advanced technologies, such as crop genomic techniques and biotech fermentation methods, to address key food industry challenges. The survey was carried out in all 27 EU member states, with more than 26,000 respondents included. These new food ingredients are associated with a range of potential benefits, with the most frequently mentioned benefit being reduced pressure on natural resources (27%), followed by supporting food security (25%) and improving consumer choice through clear information and labelling (25%). Almost one-quarter (23%) associate innovative foods with healthier or more nutritious options, while 21% noted opportunities for research, innovation and jobs, and 20% for supporting farmers with new options. The findings showed that public attitude remains ‘cautious,’ with comfort consistently higher among younger respondents, those with higher levels of education, those in urban towns compared with villages and other rural locations, and those who are more familiar with innovative foods. Consumer comfort with these foods varies in line with information and awareness levels, ranging from 72% among those who feel well informed, to 36% among those who do not, and from 59% among those who had previously heard of innovative foods vs 32% among those without prior exposure. Almost seven in ten (68%) agreed that food innovation can give farmers and food producers additional tools to deal with challenges such as climate change, pests, resource scarcity and supply disruptions. The highest level of acceptance was for fruits and vegetables from crops adapted to drought, pests or extreme weather, with 50% of respondents expressing comfort with such products. However, the need to address the information gap is clear: 72% said they do not feel well informed about innovative foods, ingredients and crops, while 51% said they have a negative view of innovative food products. Among respondents who feel well informed, 72% have a positive view – among those who do not feel well informed, the figure drops to 27%. The majority (85%) agree that innovative products should have clear names and provide understandable information about how they are produced, what they contain and where they come from. The Commission said the results can help inform future policy development, research and innovation, and communication efforts across the industry. Its findings will be relevant for Food 2040, the Commission’s policy framework for food systems, which forms part of its recently adopted EU Strategic Approach to Research and Innovation. Responding to the report, Alessandro Gardino, policy officer at non-profit think tank the Good Food Institute Europe, said: “With 72% of those who feel well informed having a positive view of food innovation, compared with 27% of those who do not, independent scientists, food safety authorities and companies should provide clear and accurate information and encourage well-informed dialogue. This will help build trust and transparency, giving more people confidence in these foods and realising their benefits.” “The report also finds that, among people willing to buy fermentation-made foods, 87% would do so only if they were the same price or cheaper than animal-based products, while 11% would pay more. This highlights the importance of investing in open-access research to make these foods as affordable as conventional products.”

UK plant-based gut health food brand Biomel has expanded its Prebiotic Gut Health Bar line-up with two new flavours: Peanut Butter, and Apple & Cinnamon. The snack bar line aims to make it easier for consumers to boost their fibre intake, with data suggesting 96% of UK adults are not getting the daily recommended 30g. The new flavours join existing options in the range – Belgian Chocolate, Chocolate Hazelnut, Red Berry and Chocolate Orange. Peanut Butter combines a ‘rich, creamy’ peanut flavour with a ‘subtle’ hint of salt, while Apple & Cinnamon combines ‘juicy’ apple pieces with cinnamon for a warm, gently spiced flavour. Each bar contains 13g of fibre, made from a blend of seven wholegrain fibres, alongside four vitamins and minerals included to support digestive and immune health. The brand said the bars were found to contain 45% less sugar than similar bars when comparing to over 100 similar products currently available on the market. They are 100% dairy-free and vegan, contain no artificial ingredients, and are also gluten-free. Stevan Hegarty, co-founder of Biomel, said: “Looking after your gut shouldn’t have to mean pills, complicated routines or forcing down something simply because it’s ‘good for you’. Our Prebiotic Gut Health Bars were created to make supporting your gut health simple and easy to fit into everyday life, without having to compromise on great taste.”

According to reporting from The Times, UK nut butter and snacking brand Pip & Nut is exploring a sale that could value the business at up to £100 million. The Times’ report states that the brand, headquartered in London, has hired advisers from US-based multinational investment bank and financial services firm Piper Sandler to examine possibilities for the business. Sources reportedly identified large manufacturers such as KP Snacks owner Intersnack, and confectionery giants Mars and Mondelez International, as potential buyers. Pip & Nut declined to provide comment on the reports when approached by FoodBev Media. The company was founded in 2013 by Pippa Murray, initially focusing on nut butters. Its range has since expanded into adjacent product categories, offering a chocolate spread, protein bars and a ‘Nut Butter Cups’ confectionery-style snack product alongside its range of peanut and almond butters. The brand’s expansion into the snack bar category came in 2024 through the launch of its line of nut butter-stuffed oat bars. It then unveiled its first line of protein bars last year, positioned as a healthier and more natural alternative to highly processed protein bars made with artificial additives. The brand's entire range is free from palm oil and centred around an ethos of 'real,' high-quality ingredients. Snacks and bars now account for a third of Pip & Nut's sales, demonstrating the significant opportunity for growth through tapping into the growing demand for high-protein and high-fibre bar format products. Pip & Nut achieved a 50% sales increase last year, reporting over £26.4 million in revenue and recording its first-ever operating profit at £251,000. Top image: © Pip & Nut

French food group Fleury Michon has acquired Allplants, a UK plant-based food brand previously owned by Deliciously Ella founder Ella Mills. The Allplants brand generates approximately €5 million in annual revenue according to Fleury Michon. Its range of products includes ready meals, pasta products and veg-forward snacks. The brand was founded by Ella and Matthew Mills in 2022 under the brand name Plants by Deliciously Ella. The name change to Allplants followed the Mills’ acquisition of D2C plant-based ready meal brand Allplants’ brand name and marketing assets in 2025, after the ready meal brand fell into administration. Fleury Michon, headquartered in Pouzauges, France, said the Allplants business will serve as a marketing platform for its plant-based range in the UK. The deal covers 100% of the Allplants capital, aiming to offer Fleury Michon long-term growth prospects in Britain and allow it to capitalise on new opportunities in a market for plant-based foods it says is more developed than in France. It encompasses all of the company’s marketing activities, teams and rights related to the brand. The transaction, the financial terms of which were not disclosed, closed on 20 October 2026. Top image: © Fleury Michon

UK tofu brand The Tofoo Co has broken ground on a new production facility in Yorkshire, set to double its production capacity and support the company’s growth plans. The new plant, located in North Yorkshire’s Malton Enterprise Park, will provide twice the capacity and 3.5 times the productive space as the brand’s current facilities, providing a platform for the brand to reach production of over 10,000 tonnes of tofu by 2033. The Tofoo Co noted growing demand for natural sources of protein, including tofu, as shoppers seek versatile, protein-rich ingredients and become more conscious of artificial ingredients. The expansion is designed to address these needs, with the brand’s growth pipeline recently seeing the launch of new products in both the French and German markets. The Tofoo Co said it sees ‘substantial’ growth opportunities in these countries. Once operational, the new site is designed to support sales of £73 million. Supporting the brand’s ongoing growth ambitions, the new site will include a dedicated space for a Tofoo Co development kitchen and a pilot plant to support new product development, trials and customer experiences, while 25% of the facility’s non-allocated space will be retained to accommodate future products and evolving business needs. The company said sustainability has been a central consideration in the design of the site, which will be equipped to support resource efficiency and reduce environmental impact through measures such as reduced wastewater, on-site solar generation, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and heat recovery systems. David Knibbs, CEO of The Tofoo Co, said: “We’ve built a strong position in the UK tofu market, and we see significant opportunities ahead as more consumers discover tofu as a natural, versatile source of protein”. “This investment is about creating the foundations for our next chapter and ensuring we have the capacity, capability and flexibility to meet growing demand from both the UK and Europe.”

In this instalment of 'Start-up spotlight,' we speak to Naomi Partridge, co-founder of Holos Kombucha, a UK handcrafted kombucha brand centred around campaigning for social change. Read on to find out more about Holos' journey and what's next for the brand. Can you tell us a bit about Holos Kombucha, its journey and the mission behind the company? Holos is Brewed For Good – we brew authentic, award-winning and gut-friendly drinks whilst supporting survivors of exploitation and trauma through paid work placements and grants via our charity, The Holos Foundation. Our journey started with a life-changing moment in Cambodia, where co-founder Megan and I met whilst volunteering with women being exploited on the streets of Phnom Penh, and we saw the power of employment in helping them find freedom, for good. We decided to start Holos to create these kinds of safe, supportive work opportunities for the 120,000 people in exploitation in the UK. Kombucha became our social impact vehicle, and alongside our co-founders and husbands Tom and Joseph, our journey officially began in 2018. We brew our organic drinks in West Sussex, and are now stocked in Waitrose, Whole Foods, Selfridges, Ocado, Amazon, healthy wholesalers, independents and beyond. How did you navigate building a brand within the competitive functional beverages space? We are still learning how best to navigate this highly competitive and quickly evolving space. There is a real nuance to the balance of staying true to what makes you unique as a brand, including your founder story, your product and positioning, whilst responding to emerging consumer trends and the competitor landscape. Our big wrestle has always been about how we manage our messaging hierarchy – between our social impact and our product. We believe we’ve landed on the right direction with something far more focused on the theme of GOOD – both feeling good and doing good. A shout-out to Brand Growth Heroes Mini MBA, Fi Fitzpatrick and all sponsors for the transformative coaching support that helped us get to this point. How do you balance health benefits with flavour and taste when building a kombucha brand? From the start, we’ve been absolutely obsessed with taste – especially driven by our MD Tom, who, when he first tasted another kombucha back in 2016, thought it tasted like cheese water and wanted to create a drink people would choose on its own merit, not just as a gut health option. Our belief is that when you brew kombucha the authentic, traditional way, you don’t have to make the choice between taste and gut health. Fermentation, when done right, creates an incredible complexity of taste – and we’ve found a fantastic combination of flavour pairings that unlocks it. Our repeat purchase rate reflects this, alongside our wide range of taste awards, including the UK Soft Drinks 2026 award for Best New Concept Drink for our Mulled Spice chilled kombucha. What role has sustainability and social responsibility played within Holos Kombucha's story? We simply wouldn’t exist without our social mission – that came first, and kombucha was our vehicle of choice to make the impact we wanted. We are purpose architects. Equally, every choice we make – from being organic to our supply chain, our packaging and even to the quality of our product, has impact and sustainability in mind. We believe it’s just the way business should be done, and find the new wave of brands and businesses with purpose and sustainability embedded as a really exciting development – and a return to the original call of business to serve the people and planet, not the other way around. What has been the company's biggest achievement to date? Gaining a Waitrose listing that then grew seven times its size in just ten weeks was a huge achievement. They backed not only the quality of our product, understanding the nuances of the functional drinks space and where premium, authentic kombucha plays – but also our social mission, and through them we have now funded (at the time of writing) four grants for survivors of exploitation to help rebuild their lives through therapeutic interventions… and we’re just getting started. Can you tell us about any notable challenges on your journey so far and how you navigated them? So many challenges! At a personal level, two co-founding couples – and we’ve had six kids between us in the last eight years. That’s a lot to navigate whilst building a challenger brand that also manufactures in-house, requiring a relentless focus on quality production. Navigating Covid – we lost our brewer to return to New Zealand overnight, and the subsequent shutdown of the hospitality and on-trade. Winning and losing listings. Cash flow during challenging economic times. And all throughout whilst maintaining a commitment to our social mission and ensuring we continue to provide jobs for survivors. What do you think is the functional beverage category's next big trend? From a kombucha point of view, if the US and Australia markets show us anything, they tell us that a maturing of the market will come – mindful consumers are becoming more discerning in terms of 'health-washing,' ultra-processed foods and what is genuine kombucha, and are seeking simpler, cleaner solutions. In a more mature market, authentic brewing matters. The 'no and low' alcohol growth will continue and there is more space for craft functional drinks to play in that occasion, too. What's next for Holos Kombucha? Any exciting plans you can share with us? We remain committed to driving forward our chilled range – but we also know that our consumers drink us not only for gut health, but also as an alcohol alternative. This is an area that we are exploring further as we look forward. We’re also going to be moving towards a more playful approach as a brand, because consumers need those moments of feeling good when they drink Holos, not just doing good to their bodies. What advice would you give to other start-ups in the food and beverage industry? Firstly, don’t skimp on quality. A winning product has to be something that people will buy more than once, and taste is your passport to that. Immerse yourself quickly in the industry to get expert opinions – and find people who will give you brutal, honest feedback. Test and learn fast; don’t wait for perfection before you launch into the world – test quickly, direct to consumer. Check the market to find something that will actually expand the category rather than just compete with what’s already out there; this will make life a lot easier to get those initial conversations. Make sure you have the emotional bandwidth and ‘village’ in your lives to sustain the ups and downs of challenger brand life… especially if you are building other things at once, such as families and caregiving. Overestimate what it will take to do this – not just funding, but time, energy, etc. It’s rewarding, AND it’s a huge, risky commitment. Collaborate and find your people – not just consumers and stockists, but other brands – together we go further. And finally, don’t wait until you are ‘big enough’ to map impact into your business. Find that purpose up front, see what you can uniquely bring to the world with the platform you have; it’s a privilege – why not use it for real good?

Israeli biotech company Brevel has signed a 50/50 joint venture agreement with Indian conglomerate The Wave Group to build a full-scale facility in North India, based on Brevel’s illuminated fermentation technology. The planned site, to be located in Uttar Pradesh, marks a significant scale-up from Brevel’s existing 5,000-litre-capacity bioreactor in its current facility in Israel. The new plant is designed to produce a total capacity of 300,000 litres, aiming to meet growing demand for Brevel’s microalgae-based ingredients and serve the scale-up needs of the emerging plant cell culture industry. The Wave Group will fund the project through the collaboration, with total investment in the joint venture facility estimated at $10-15 million. Construction is slated for later this year, with full-scale production planned to commence in 18 months. The plant will initially produce Purallis, a clean-label ingredient made from the microalgae chlorella. It will be equipped Brevel’s proprietary technology platform, and will be capable of producing additional products and organisms that benefit from light. Brevel’s technology, protected by four patents, combines controlled fermentation with light in a closed system. The company has created a platform for manufacturing bioactives that rely on light-driven metabolism for growth – sugar provides the energy and nutrients needed for efficient fermentation, while light enables photosynthetic microorganisms like chlorella to produce valuable compounds, including chlorophyll and carotenoids. © David Grab The facility will also align with a circular economy model, with Brevel set to utilise sugar production side streams from Wave’s sugar mills. The proximity of the site to the sugar mills will also reduce environmental footprint and cut transport costs. According to Brevel, initial trials with Wave’s sugar mill byproducts have already yielded strong results in its bioreactors. Both companies’ teams are now working to further optimise the system’s performance. Yonatan Golan, CEO and co-founder of Brevel, said: “This partnership marks a major step forward in our ability to serve global markets, opening new opportunities across microalgae, plant cell culture and beyond”. “Our work with partners such as Ayana Bio, a US leader in plant cell technology, already demonstrates the broad potential of our platform. Together with The Wave Group, we can turn that potential into commercial-scale manufacturing.” Chairman of The Wave Group, Manpreet Singh Chadha, commented: “Brevel’s Illuminated fermentation, combined with our deep expertise in sugar manufacturing, defines a new era in biomanufacturing. We look forward to playing a pioneering role in the future of food ingredients and nutraceuticals in a world of limited resources.” Top image: © David Grab