Bread & Butter - CAGNY Recap
🚀 La Fourche Redefines Organic Grocery After Q-Commerce’s Fall 🚀
Amid the Q-commerce shakeout, our portfolio company La Fourche is emerging stronger than ever. As featured in TechCrunch, their member-based model for affordable organic groceries is proving that sustainability and smart scaling win in the long run. We’re proud to support a team reshaping the future of organic grocery retail.
Other news from our portfolio!! 🙌🏼
Cortilia, the leading fresh food online retailer in Italy, is partnering with Amazon Italia to accelerate growth in Italy! The collaboration strengthens Cortilia’s mission to connect conscious consumers with high-quality, sustainable producers, making farm-to-table shopping more convenient than ever. Read more
Tropic Biosciences, a biotech company based in Norwich, making headlines with its innovative gene-edited, non-browning banana—set to tackle food waste and boost shelf life. A big step toward sustainable agriculture! Read the article or watch them featured in The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Nucao, The Leipzig-based better-for-you chocolate brand, has just been named Best Vegan Chocolate 2025 by PETA. On top of that sweet success, they’ve also wrapped up their latest crowdfunding campaign—closing it successfully and fueling their next phase of growth.
KoRo, Europe’s leading better-for-you snacking platform, is expanding its leadership team! Former Westwing COO Steffani Busch joins as Chief Operating Officer, bringing deep expertise in logistics and supply chain management. This move supports KoRo’s ambition to scale as one of Europe’s top snacking brands. More on KoRo
This year’s CAGNY conference, held last month, brought together over 30 leading global consumer goods companies and once again offered valuable insights. It was an opportunity to hear directly from CEOs and CFOs about their strategic priorities and investment plans for the year ahead. Here’s our take on the key themes from the event.
✨A snapshot of our takeaways from CAGNY 2025: ✨
💨 Persistent Headwinds: FMCG companies continue to face sluggish consumer demand, with price increases no longer masking stagnant sales volumes, making sustainable growth harder to achieve.
🛠️ Coping Mechanisms: To drive sales and profitability, companies are doubling down on their core categories while innovating with price architecture—such as portion-controlled and on-the-go formats—and expanding product lines. In parallel, efforts are being made to expand distribution networks, with focus on capturing growth within the rapidly expanding “away-from-home” consumption sector.
💰 The Return of Billion Dollar Brands: Increased investment is flowing into scaling and marketing major brands, with a focus on premiumization and digital channels to drive consumer loyalty and justify higher pricing.
Overall, our look at CAGNY 2025 reveals that Strategics plan to “focus on what is core to their business” this year, following a few years of relying mainly on price increases rather than volume to drive organic growth.
You can find a detailed breakdown of how leading FMCG players are putting these strategies into action in our full article here.
Valerie Evans will be speaking at the Grow: Beauty and Wellness in London 27th March for a day full of practical, direct-to-consumer growth & fundraising strategies for wellness brands.
Gaetan Kerloc’h will be joining the the world expo of solutions for the planet in Paris 24-25-26th April
Ivan Farneti & Sam Kaplan will be attending the Carlsquare Consumer Conference 2025 in Munich 27-28 May
Must-Read Picks for the Industry 📚
Bain: Insurgent Brands 2025
Agile insurgents are stealing market share by knowing their niche—and their customer—better than anyone else. Dive in here
Coefficient Capital: Consumer Trends 2025
“Less is more” (and smarter)! Consumers are trading up for quality and cutting clutter—premium, purposeful, and planet-friendly win the day. Check it out
Expo West 2025: Evolving Trends and Smarter Strategies
Better-for-you gets better-for-business! Expo West 2025 spotlights smarter strategies and evolving trends driving the next wave of health-forward innovation. Explore it🧼 Unilever Goes Wild! The FMCG giant snaps up refillable personal care brand Wild in a £230M sustainability play. A bold move doubling down on premiumization and eco-conscious growth. Read it here.
Looking for opportunities in our stellar portfolio? ⬇️
La Fourche - her1 - air up - mammaly - vly - THIS™ - Tropic Biosciences - Cortilia - Barkyn - Koro - Untamed - ARTAH