Industry Buzz

Reading Roundup: March 26th, 2019

This week in food industry news: The disappointing PieShell shutdown, the future of CBD regulation, and a kombucha lawsuit is settled.

Reading Roundup: March 26th, 2019

The bad news: this week is all bad news. But bad news often contains valuable lessons! We learned about failure and fundraising, regulatory hurdles and the realities of labeling. You can put your entire heart into a business and still have it fail. You can build and market a product that may soon be legal, but that doesn't make regulation happen any faster. And you can still mislead customers even without overtly mislabeling your product (say, by placing it next to products with qualities you'd like your product to be associated with). Read on!

Here's a rundown:

PieShell, a Crowdfunding Platform for Food Innovation, is Shutting Down (The Spoon)

PieShell, the only food-specific crowdfunding platform, is set to close at the end of the month. After failing to raise enough VC capital to continue operating, PieShell will shut down on March 28th. This date was chosen to coincide with the last day of their final crowdfunding campaign, a project to support former Pilotworks businesses. We're sad to see the end of a food-focused crowdfunding platform, but glad that makers can still find success on other sites like Kickstarter.

Outgoing FDA chief says new CBD laws are preferred to regulations (New Hope Network)

Scott Gottlieb is on his way out of the FDA, and he's issuing a reality check to CBD enthusiasts. Because of the complex rulemaking that the FDA would need to undertake to regulate CBD, it could be three years or more before the ingredient could be legally added to dietary supplements. Thus, he suggests, legislation could be a quicker route. Is that really true, given the current rate of Congressional productivity? Time will tell.

Health-Ade, Whole Foods Reach $4M Settlement in Class Action Suit (BevNet)

A class action lawsuit against Health-Ade Kombucha and Whole Foods was settled last week, after customers alleged that both companies misled the public in marketing Health-Ade as non-alcoholic. Health-Ade has twice the alcohol percentage allowed for non-alcoholic products, yet the labeling and store placement lead customers to believe it contains no alcohol, the lawsuit claimed. Interesting to know that retailers can be held liable for misleading product labeling!

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The bad news: this week is all bad news. But bad news often contains valuable lessons! We learned about failure and fundraising, regulatory hurdles and the realities of labeling. You can put your entire heart into a business and still have it fail. You can build and market a product that may soon be legal, but that doesn't make regulation happen any faster. And you can still mislead customers even without overtly mislabeling your product (say, by placing it next to products with qualities you'd like your product to be associated with). Read on!

Here's a rundown:

PieShell, a Crowdfunding Platform for Food Innovation, is Shutting Down (The Spoon)

PieShell, the only food-specific crowdfunding platform, is set to close at the end of the month. After failing to raise enough VC capital to continue operating, PieShell will shut down on March 28th. This date was chosen to coincide with the last day of their final crowdfunding campaign, a project to support former Pilotworks businesses. We're sad to see the end of a food-focused crowdfunding platform, but glad that makers can still find success on other sites like Kickstarter.

Outgoing FDA chief says new CBD laws are preferred to regulations (New Hope Network)

Scott Gottlieb is on his way out of the FDA, and he's issuing a reality check to CBD enthusiasts. Because of the complex rulemaking that the FDA would need to undertake to regulate CBD, it could be three years or more before the ingredient could be legally added to dietary supplements. Thus, he suggests, legislation could be a quicker route. Is that really true, given the current rate of Congressional productivity? Time will tell.

Health-Ade, Whole Foods Reach $4M Settlement in Class Action Suit (BevNet)

A class action lawsuit against Health-Ade Kombucha and Whole Foods was settled last week, after customers alleged that both companies misled the public in marketing Health-Ade as non-alcoholic. Health-Ade has twice the alcohol percentage allowed for non-alcoholic products, yet the labeling and store placement lead customers to believe it contains no alcohol, the lawsuit claimed. Interesting to know that retailers can be held liable for misleading product labeling!

Our newsletter subscribers get our Reading Roundup delivered right to their inbox. Join them!

The bad news: this week is all bad news. But bad news often contains valuable lessons! We learned about failure and fundraising, regulatory hurdles and the realities of labeling. You can put your entire heart into a business and still have it fail. You can build and market a product that may soon be legal, but that doesn't make regulation happen any faster. And you can still mislead customers even without overtly mislabeling your product (say, by placing it next to products with qualities you'd like your product to be associated with). Read on!

Here's a rundown:

PieShell, a Crowdfunding Platform for Food Innovation, is Shutting Down (The Spoon)

PieShell, the only food-specific crowdfunding platform, is set to close at the end of the month. After failing to raise enough VC capital to continue operating, PieShell will shut down on March 28th. This date was chosen to coincide with the last day of their final crowdfunding campaign, a project to support former Pilotworks businesses. We're sad to see the end of a food-focused crowdfunding platform, but glad that makers can still find success on other sites like Kickstarter.

Outgoing FDA chief says new CBD laws are preferred to regulations (New Hope Network)

Scott Gottlieb is on his way out of the FDA, and he's issuing a reality check to CBD enthusiasts. Because of the complex rulemaking that the FDA would need to undertake to regulate CBD, it could be three years or more before the ingredient could be legally added to dietary supplements. Thus, he suggests, legislation could be a quicker route. Is that really true, given the current rate of Congressional productivity? Time will tell.

Health-Ade, Whole Foods Reach $4M Settlement in Class Action Suit (BevNet)

A class action lawsuit against Health-Ade Kombucha and Whole Foods was settled last week, after customers alleged that both companies misled the public in marketing Health-Ade as non-alcoholic. Health-Ade has twice the alcohol percentage allowed for non-alcoholic products, yet the labeling and store placement lead customers to believe it contains no alcohol, the lawsuit claimed. Interesting to know that retailers can be held liable for misleading product labeling!

Our newsletter subscribers get our Reading Roundup delivered right to their inbox. Join them!

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