Recent Case Studies Trends – and luck – propel premium ready meal brand to success Imagine that you decide to create a range of meals that are “real food”, using only natural ingredients, without any preservatives or additives, produced in small batches and sold in the chiller section of the supermarket and with a shelf-life of just five days. read more The search for “natural energy” Energy is one of the largest, most successful and most profitable markets. read more Reinventing dairy to respond to rise of plant milks In the US one small dairy has already done it. In every other market, dairies that want to stay in business will take the same route – give up processing cows’ milk and become makers of plant milks. read more E-commerce to power free-from empire With $100-million (€92 million) to spend, The Safe + Fair Food Co plans to buy up small non-allergenic food brands with the aim of building an empire to dominate this highly-fragmented but growing niche. And it intends to market its products almost exclusively via e-commerce. read more Unilever aiming to scale Sir Kensington’s? Sir Kensington’s is a brand that lets Unilever play in the premium and vegan segments of the condiments category. read more Dairy giant places bet on fast-growth flax milk brand With a nut-free product that sets it apart from its competitors – and with a recent injection of capital from food giant Dean Foods – Good Karma looks set to make flax-based milk and yoghurts a much bigger niche in a plant-based yogurt segment that’s forecast to be worth $600 million (€530 million). read more Sweet stretch for cheese snack Sargento’s on-the-go protein-based snack, Balanced Breaks, remains a powerhouse not only for the traditional cheese company, but also for the total refrigerated snacking segment in the US. Its latest innovation is pitched at the consumer’s sweet tooth. read more Cautious approach helps clean protein bar to fill a gap Searching for a natural-protein nutrition or energy bar to fuel his workouts and daily life, Peter Rahal and a friend became business partners by creating their own bars based on egg whites and other whole-foods ingredients, and built Rxbar into an eight-figure startup in just four years. read more Premium-priced “real food” achieves mass-market success Real food with simple ingredients, marketed as being just like something you could make at home, with few concessions to vegetarians: Slimming World’s frozen ready meals have become a $70 million brand in less than two years despite selling through just one supermarket chain, showing that you can make a premium-price success even in the mass market. read more Solving dinner on the side Harvest Food Group has been around for 17 years co-packing and freezing vegetables for private labels and for brands. read more From semi-retirement to plant-based start-up Sweet Earth has leapt to more than $25 million (€23 million) in sales in just five years as a plant-based food brand. Its 42 frozen and fresh SKUs are available in more than 10,000 retail outlets across the United States, and the company is expecting double-digit sales growth in 2017. read more