When cash is hard to come by and experts with insights are plenty, Aaron Younessi, owner/operator of Fr-Action Sales Management, makes a case that startups should be leaning into part-time hiring as part of their strategy to scale.

It started with a simple bag of grain. Later, that grain was processed into chips. But the fun really ramped up when West African food company Yolélé turned fonio, a niche “miracle grain” that the brand has made its hero ingredient, into a limited-edition beer.

Last week, Marty Makary, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner, alongside Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., proclaimed the administration’s desire to phase out the use of eight synthetic food dyes by the end of 2026.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a new directive for manufacturers to phase out eight synthetic food dyes used in the formulations of thousands of food and beverage products.

The Mindful Drinking Fest returned to Washington, D.C. this past weekend, bringing together over 1,200 attendees and nearly 220 adult non-alcoholic products in a Dry January celebration that has grown 10 times since its first iteration three years ago and 40% since just last year. Brewbound’s sibling publication BevNET stopped in for the second year in a row and saw the energy and acceleration brought by the sober curious crowd firsthand.

The Kroger Company and Albertsons Companies this week terminated the proposed $24.6 billion merger agreement that was initially announced more than two years ago, after a federal judge sided with the Federal Trade Commission suing to block the deal and Washington and Oregon state courts put permanent injunctions in place to halt the transaction.

The proposed $24.6 billion Kroger/Albertsons mega-merger was temporarily blocked today by a federal judge, who ruled in favor of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) suing to block the deal.

Two months after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) completed a review of Kroger and Albertsons’ proposed supermarket mega-merger and filed a lawsuit to block the deal, the grocery chains have added more store locations and assets to an updated version of their definitive divestiture agreement with C&S Wholesalers.

As speculated last week, the next challenge for the proposed $24.6 billion merger between Kroger and Albertsons is coming from the federal government. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today announced it has filed a lawsuit to block the merger in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, alongside a bipartisan group of nine attorneys generals from Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming.

Former Stone Brewing CEO Maria Stipp has been named CEO of Suja Life, the parent company to Suja Organics and Vive Organics, effective February 20, the company announced today.

Combining coffee, non-alcoholic beer and upcycled barley rice protein, the brains behind Super Coffee and Athletic Brewing believe they’ve created a product their core consumer base never knew they needed.

Beer and flavored malt beverage (FMB) sales were up +2% in Q4, while hard seltzer sales declined -3% in the same period, according to the most recent Beverage Bytes survey conducted by Goldman Sachs Equity Research.

Washington State’s Supreme Court extended the block on Albertsons’ $4 billion special dividend payment to shareholders late last week by granting the state attorney general’s (AG)’s request for emergency injunctive relief.

Grocery market competition, price reduction strategies for consumers, a sustainable plan for necessary divestments and the potential impact on the companies’ combined workforce were key points of contention as the CEOs of Kroger and Albertsons Companies each appeared before the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Committee last week to face tough questions about their companies’ proposed $24.6 billion merger.