Commentary: Food & Beverage Corporate Venture Funds; It’s what’s for Dinner

Established CPG players accelerate investment in emerging brands

Consumer preferences around food & beverages are shifting. Younger consumers have taken the “you are what you eat” mantra to a whole new level, demanding products that fit into broader lifestyle habits and align with their habits and beliefs. With this macro trend continuing to play out, smaller food & beverage brands, often better able to address millennial and generation Z consumer demands, are taking market share from the large CPG players. To respond, larger CPGs have been using internal venture-capital style “funds” to identify and then invest in emerging brands.

Read Baird’s commentary on this trend and where it’s headed in the future.