Anita Shepherd

Thanks Nick Bradley 🌱🥩 and Future-Proof Group Media for this very candid article about the differentiated and value-added cell-cultivated seafood company we are building at BlueNalu, and highlighting my recent Future of Foods podcast hosted by Alex Crisp. There's an outstanding agenda during the upcoming Cultured Meat Symposium and The Future of Protein Production conferences, being held in Chicago on February 24-25. I look forward to presenting our value proposition and latest updates at BlueNalu, learning from the insights that others will be sharing, and connecting with everyone there.

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The U.S. wine category is shrinking. Bonanza Cabernet keeps growing anyway. That's worth looking at if you're in any business where the category is moving against you. U.S. wine sales fell roughly 6% in 2024 (SipSource). Wine Intelligence (acquired by IWSR) forecasts volume dropping at -2% CAGR through 2027, faster than the -1% pace from 2017 to 2022. Regular wine drinkers aged 21-34 fell from 29% of the base to 23% between 2019 and 2023. The board decks all have the same sad category chart right now. And then a $20 Cabernet from the Caymus Vineyards family just keeps taking share. According to Impact Databank, Bonanza launched at 131,000 cases in the U.S. in 2020 and has added 60,000 to 80,000 cases every year since. Double-digit volume growth. The category was falling the whole time. We dug into how. Four things stood out. 1. They priced against the occasion, not the shelf position. Bonanza lives where a weeknight steak dinner lives. Around $20. The slot was crowded but no one held it with real winemaking credibility behind them. Silicon Valley Bank's 2025 State of the Wine Industry report found the top quartile of premium wineries grew revenue 22% in 2024. The value-with-credibility window is open. Has been for a while. 2. They borrowed trust rather than building it cold. Chuck Wagner's name is on it. Decades of Caymus equity, spent carefully on a value tier without pulling the flagship down with it. That's genuinely hard to do. Heritage brands tend to hoard the halo or blow it. Bonanza did neither. 3. They dropped the rules the buyer never cared about. No vintage on the label. No single appellation. They blend across California lots to hit a consistent taste profile every time. Wine people were unhappy about this. Buyers at Costco Wholesale and Total Wine & More were not. The person grabbing a bottle on a Tuesday just wanted it to taste the same as last time. Bonanza built for that person. The consistency thing is probably the most transferable idea here for anyone building a consumer brand outside wine. 4. Supply structure did the real work. Multi-region sourcing means they buy fruit where the value sits each year. Cost structure moves with the market. A Napa-only brand at that price can't follow. The wine world sells vintage variation as romance. The grocery shopper reads it as inconsistency. Bonanza picked a side and moved on. A declining category and a growing brand at the same time. It's not rare, actually. For any team staring at a flat or shrinking market: the category number is an average. Find the occasion that wasn't priced for. Use trust you already have. Ignore the rules your customer never knew existed. What brand in your category is pulling this off? Drop it below. If this is useful, follow me on LinkedIn. We do this regularly across growth, transformation, and value creation. #WineIndustry #BrandGrowth #MarketStrategy #ConsumerInsights

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Nootkatone is one of the key compounds that makes grapefruit taste like grapefruit. But here's the problem: it's expensive, hard to source, and present in tiny amounts. Grapefruit peel oil contains only 0.1-2% nootkatone. That's a small but measurable amount by GC/MS. Yet that concentration defines much of the grapefruit character. The bitter, woody, citrus-peel note that separates grapefruit from orange or lemon. For decades, formulators had two options: 1. Use massive amounts of grapefruit oil (expensive, inconsistent) 2. Source isolated nootkatone (even more expensive, limited supply) Then biotechnology stepped in. Fermentation-derived nootkatone is now commercially available. Companies like Lallemand use engineered microorganisms to convert valencene (from orange oil) into nootkatone through bioconversion. It's chemically identical to the natural compound. It solves the supply problem. And it's labeled natural flavor. But it's still expensive. Thousands of dollars per kilogram at 60-70% purity. Synthetic nootkatone is also available for flavor applications, though it must be labeled as artificial flavor. That's why mass-market grapefruit sodas often taste like orange flavor instead of authentic grapefruit. They're skimping on the nootkatone. Premium grapefruit formulations use nootkatone at 2-6 ppm in beverages. You taste the difference immediately. Key technical points: • Taste threshold: 0.8 ppm in water • Typical usage: 2-6 ppm in beverages • FEMA# 3166, GRAS status (regardless of source) Nootkatone is one of the most valuable aroma compounds in citrus. One scarce compound. High cost. Multiple production methods. All to capture authentic grapefruit. That's the economics of flavor. Follow for more flavor chemistry breakdowns that help you formulate better products.

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The new EAT-Lancet Commission warns that food systems alone could push us past 1.5°C, even if energy goes fully green. They call for a one-third reduction in ruminant meat by 2050 and a shift toward lower impact proteins like poultry, fish, and plants. This is not just about demand. It is a supply issue. We need to scale proteins that deliver taste, affordability, and climate impact at the same time. That is what I explore in this week’s Main Dish: the protein ladder. https://lnkd.in/edKd6tA4

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Hiring in CPG is COMPLETELY broken. And nobody wants to say it out loud... so I will. (Yes, I'm being dramatic. But trust me, the struggle is BEYOND REAL.) For years, I tried doing things "by the book" and where did it get me? Food science graduates?  Brilliant theoretical knowledge Zero real-world product development experience  They can recite textbooks... but can't build formulas that survive a grocery shelf for 90 days. CHEFS?  Mind-blowing creativity  Flavor combinations that make you weep  Restaurant cooking is NOT shelf-stable product development Let's be honest:  That dish meant to be eaten in 10 minutes?  It can't sit in a warehouse for 6 weeks.  Different universe. Different rules. So who ACTUALLY thrives in my lab? This still shocks people when I say it: Creative souls with culinary backgrounds.  Not rigid. Not textbook obsessed.  Not married to restaurant habits. People who can EXPLORE, adapt, experiment, AND take feedback without their ego imploding. My best hire today?  A culinary science graduate from LACC. Creative. Technical. Curious.  The exact blend this industry desperately needs. Because CPG isn't about perfect credentials. It's about people who can think, taste, adjust, And create products that survive the REAL WORLD. The industry isn't broken because of talent. It's broken because we're all looking in the wrong places. I don't need the "right degree." I need the right MIND. PS: Ever had to hire someone who looked perfect on paper but bombed in practice?

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A lot of beverage products run into problems later… because of decisions made early on. Not around flavor. Around cost. Ingredient choices, dosage levels, and formulation complexity all add up. And small decisions early can have a much bigger impact than people expect. Everything looks fine at first. But when it’s time to scale… Margins get tight. Pricing gets difficult. Growth gets harder. At that point, most people try to fix it with marketing. But the real issue is usually how the product was built from the beginning.

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