Fresh Take: Food Startups Face A Make-Or-Break Year In 2024

Inflation may be subsiding, but it’s still tough for food and beverage startups to find cash. Companies are struggling, and the pressure from investors remains. There are deals to be had, but few deals have been announced.

Maybe it’s about quality. How about this question, posed to me by a founder while drinking chaga tonics in Erewhon Market’s Venice location in the L.A. area earlier this week: Are any of the companies for sale actually good companies, or are the failing firms the ones trying to exit?

It is make-or-break-it for some brands, and that will be on display at the Fancy Food Show later this month in Las Vegas, as well as Expo West in March. I’ll be reporting from the expo floor and look forward to seeing you there!

— Chloe Sorvino, Staff Writer

Order my book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat, out now from Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books.

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What’s Fresh

Thrive Market CEO On What It Will Take To Stay Profitable

Nick Green, co-founder and CEO of Thrive Market, took almost a decade to deliver profits. Where does he grow from here?

Why Patagonia Is Getting Into The Beer Business

Patagonia Provisions was established as a division of Patagonia to promote regenerative agriculture and to promote food and beverages made from regenerative crops. “Eating is activism,” says the Patagonia Provisions website.

2023 Was Officially The World’s Hottest Year On Record

Scientists this week confirmed 2023 as the hottest year on record, as experts warn 2024 could be hotter still as climate change raises temperatures towards critical thresholds that could cause lasting damage to the environment and human health.

How Can Sustainable Products Make An Impression On Store Shelves?

With all the retail competition out there, both online and in physical stores, how can small eco-brands and sustainable products find and grow their audience?

Field Notes

I’m still blown away by the winter farmer’s market in Santa Monica. The biggest purple cauliflowers I’ve ever seen. Bright pink castelfranco and treviso radicchios. Mandarins and limes and lemons and grapefruits. These purple Brussels sprouts (pictured) particularly made me jealous of California’s winter bounty.

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Chloe Sorvino leads coverage of food and agriculture as a staff writer on the enterprise team at Forbes. Her book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat, published on December 6, 2022, with Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books. Her nearly nine years of reporting at Forbes has brought her to In-N-Out Burger’s secret test kitchen, drought-ridden farms in California’s Central Valley, burnt-out national forests logged by a timber billionaire, a century-old slaughterhouse in Omaha and even a chocolate croissant factory designed like a medieval castle in northern France.