Food giant Kraft Heinz vows to stop using artificial dyes
Kraft Heinz promised Tuesday to purge certain artificial food dyes from its products by the end of 2027, a move that follows pressure from the Food and Drug Administration over the issue.
The company said it will replace food, drug and cosmetic (FD&C) dyes with natural versions when possible; create new colors and shades, if necessary; or simply remove colors in some cases.
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Forbes
15 minutes ago
- Forbes
Molly Baz's Ayoh! Sauces Enter Whole Foods Market For Its First National Retail Partner
Ayoh! Foods cofounder chef Molly Baz Ayoh! Foods Seven short months of globbing onto countless sandwiches, and now one of the most notable CPG launches of the past year is making its strongest squeeze yet. Ayoh! Foods, the flavor-focused condiment company from chef Molly Baz, enters Whole Foods Market stores nationwide. '[Ayoh!] is a colossal project,' Baz tells me. 'I am so grateful that people are chasing the product, recognizing its quality, and helping us get there so quickly.' Ayoh! Foods also reveals that it has raised a $4.5 million seed round, $3.3 million of which is new cash, led by Imaginary Ventures. In addition to its Dill Pickle, Hot Giardinayo and Tango Dijonayo varieties, Ayoh! will launch its flavored products on Whole Foods shelves with an exclusive flavor to the natural grocer, a brand new umami-rich flavor. 'I saw a white space in the marketplace,' Baz adds. 'I am committed to solving problems in the food industry and delivering deliciousness at all costs.' Molly Baz Ayoh! Foods Sandwich Shop To Countertop Jeff Mauro better make some room on the throne, because Baz keeps a close eye on each and every sandwich accoutrement possible. The venture for her particularly started during the pandemic. 'I became very sandwich obsessed,' she says. On her social media accounts, she's practically made condiments her entire personality, even starting a sandwich podcast where she would dissect the necessary minutia of the likes of tuna melts, BLTs and PB&Js. Ayoh! Hot Giardinayo sando sauce Ayoh! Foods From a Philly cheesesteak to a Chicago hoagie to a reuben at a New York deli, there's personal pride in each corner of the country that makes people feel at home with their sandwich of choice. Ayoh! capitalizes on that. 'I'm a huge fan of Chicago style giardiniera,' Baz says about her inspiration behind her punchy pepper Hot Giardinayo sauce. 'When I stir this giardiniera into the mayo, all of a sudden the mayo becomes so much more dynamic.' Ayoh! is a practical extension of those beloved staples. 'We're really trying to bring that sandwich shop to countertop moment at home,' says Ayoh! Foods cofounder and CEO David McCormick. That intention that the brand was founded on is working in real time. Baz has found that Ayoh! customers are not only using it in their homemade sandwiches, but they're bringing their deli-bought sandwiches home so that they can specifically squeeze Ayoh! onto it. 'For me,' she says, 'that's the ultimate success story of Ayoh!' Not Just Another Celebrity Brand Her pulsecheck that there was a vacuum specifically in 'dialed up, super bold-flavored, textured sando sauces,' as Baz puts it, seems to have been accurate, because consumers from the coasts to middle America are making it a staple in their homes. 'We sold out four months worth of inventory in two weeks,' says McCormick. 'It was almost 100,000 pounds of Mayo.' More than 170,000 bottles of Ayoh! have been sold since launch. Ayoh! Tangy Dijonayo sando sauce Ayoh! Foods And Ayoh! has proven that it's not some coastal craze. 'Early indicators when we launched showed there's plenty of momentum in the Midwest…that's really important to us,' McCormick says. 'We'll win the day if we can actually be just as popular in Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee. The great thing is there's a lot of affinity for mayo throughout the US.' That's something rarely seen in celebrity brands, but Baz and McCormick have managed to unlock genuine authenticity. 'Nobody sat down in a room and looked at categories and thought about the gaps…Molly was like, 'some people I know make boring sandwiches.' It's just that easy.' Ayoh's timely resonance also allowed the brand to raise a relatively quick seed round, the capital of which will go towards expanding the Ayoh! team, broadening brand presence, and facilitating wider distribution. '[Imaginary Ventures has] Flavor And Format While Ayoh! sells an original mayo, it will not be present on Whole Foods shelves, which already has a substantial assortment of original mayos. The flavors are at the core of the brand, and as Whole Foods Market's category merchant for shelf-stable condiments Juliana Bandin tells me, the retailer does not see any direct competitors. 'It fills a need for our shelves,' she says. [Flavored mayo] 'We are seeing double-digit growth since our most recent reset in March,' she adds. 'Brand launches like Ayoh! are going to help us continue the momentum.' That momentum includes a brand new flavor in the Ayoh! lineup, which Baz calls a sweet and salty 'umami bomb.' It will be exclusive to Whole Foods through September. Ayoh! Dill Pickle Mayo sando sauce Ayoh! Foods Between the squeezable, convenient format and flavors like Dill Pickle, Baz and McCormick have created a product that glides with the pace of culture. '[The Dill Pickle flavor] has this paradoxical moment of something that's so funky and strange, but also so certainly has clout and its own cult following,' McCormick says. 'We don't take ourselves too seriously.' Whole Foods Market has a keen finger on that same pulse, and it resonated with the grocer too–format now becoming a priority for the products they start to carry. 'I don't think the jar would have done it justice,' Bandin says. '[Whole Foods is] seeing growth substantially in dipping sauces…Going forward, that's going to be really big, but again that is for squeeze bottles. It all kind of ties back together to that same trend' Ayoh!'s presence thus far has been limited to d2c, Amazon, and several hundred independent grocers. 'D2C has been tremendous,' McCormick says. 'We sold out four months worth of inventory in two weeks. It was almost 100,000 pounds of mayo…people will buy mayo online, much to my surprise,' McCormick says. The strategy here was to first activate Baz's fanbase before those who may not know her would discover it during a grocery outing. It's a homecoming of sorts for McCormick as well; he started his career at Whole Foods at the store level and worked his way up to become Grocery Director in the Rocky Mountain region. 'I couldn't think of a more meaningful, fun place to bring that completely full circle,' he says. He and Baz even met through a mutual friend from Whole Foods before starting Ayoh! together. The line of sando sauces is just the first of many that Ayoh! plans to penetrate the breadth of grocery stores with. 'Right now, Ayoh! is synonymous with our mayonnaises, but I think that there's a really bright, big ecosystem of food products that we build,' Baz says. 'I'm hoping that Ayoh's future looks like Heinz or Kraft Foods.'
Washington Post
15 minutes ago
- Washington Post
NAACP files intent to sue Elon Musk's xAI company over supercomputer air pollution
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The NAACP filed an intent to sue Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI on Tuesday over concerns about air pollution generated by a supercomputer near predominantly Black communities in Memphis. The xAI data center began operating last year, powered by pollution-emitting gas turbines, without first applying for a permit. Officials have said an exemption allowed them to operate for up to 364 days without a permit, but Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Patrick Anderson said at a news conference that there is no such exemption for turbines — and that regardless, it has now been more than 364 days.
Forbes
18 minutes ago
- Forbes
AI Expands Our Capacity, But Are We Expanding Our Skills?
Asian woman watching hologram screens. Business and technology concept. Smart office. GUI (Graphical ... More User Interface). Nearly 25 years ago, our HR business partner team was facing a challenge similar to what we are experiencing today with AI adoption. As we transitioned to a shared services model, we recalibrated not just how work got done, but also what work was most valuable. The 'less valued' transactional tasks that most HR business partners wanted to offload, like answering questions about benefits, running headcount reports, and managing performance issues, were the very things that gave them their sense of worth. What appeared to be resistance to a changing strategy was actually resistance to a changing identity. As an HR business partner, I had been preparing for a more strategic role through graduate studies, doing some external coaching work, and practicing what I was learning with the leaders I supported. I knew the skills needed to be a 'strategic HR business partner', and while I didn't have all of them, I was clear on the gap I needed to close. However, many of my colleagues had not confronted that deeper question of what 'strategic' really meant and the skills they needed to acquire and practice to become that. Today, as AI promises to automate routine work, we're seeing the same pattern. On the surface, employees are resisting the use of technology and AI tools, but what they are ultimately resisting is the change to their identity. The roles they have played, the workflows they have been part of, even how they are expected to communicate is changinging, yet most leaders are not being clear about what those roles and that identity is evolving to. Is the new identity that we are supposedly carving out for them better than the one they have? Would it be better for them to resist and continue to have a healthy level of skepticism until they better understand what is expected in their new work context? Beyond identity, I am also seeing the skills gap that is not being addressed. How are organizations supporting employees in not only learning AI tools, but in helping them develop new skills that they need to learn with all that extra time? The cultural shift we underwent in HR so many years ago was a two-way contract. It was we, as HR Business Partners, agreeing to change, but also our managers and HR leadership clearly articulating what that change looks like and how they were going to help us get there. The option was clear: either we evolve to become more strategic, partnering with business leaders differently, move into a more operational role, or leave the company altogether. Some HR business partners chose to move into the shared services center when they realized they genuinely enjoyed the transactional work they had spent years trying to escape. Others left the company to continue doing the very work they tried to escape from for so many years. Most of us who stayed shared one major mindset shift. Rather than asking, 'Which tasks are being taken away?' we asked, 'Which behaviors and skills do I need to develop to deliver greater value to the business?' And we made sure we had a development system that was set up to learn and practice those skills with each other and our leaders. AI is taking over more of the transactional work, but are we ready to tackle the strategic work it now makes possible? Before rolling out another AI tool, organizations must demonstrate to employees how this shift benefits them as well as the business and provide them with the skills to work effectively alongside AI. The real question is no longer, 'What more can we get out of our employees with AI?', but rather, 'What more can we do for and with our employees and AI?' A recent Stanford study showed that while 83% of employees in China see AI as an opportunity for growth, only 39% of U.S. workers share that optimism. We are throwing tools, stats, and training at people in the name of more productivity and efficiency without connecting those things to what matters in an employee's day-to-day workflow—no wonder we are not excited in the US. The fundamentals of Change leadership include explaining why we are changing, what is changing, and how we are helping people change. Yet, every day, we continue to launch another internal AI sandbox and announce that usage will be tracked and measured. When has counting course completions ever guaranteed that employees are adopting the change and gaining the skills they need? Most organizations today see the opportunity of AI through two lenses: The productivity lens: 'Do more tasks per hour' and the efficiency lens: "Process every request faster." But what if we could be more productive and efficient while also giving employees additional opportunities to grow and develop those skills they will need to be more strategic when they are being more productive and effective with their time? What if instead of asking, 'How can we do more tasks per hour?" we ask: 'How can I use the time I get back from leveraging AI on more strategic work?" When people see that their company is leveraging AI as an amplifier to their work, rather than outplacing them, they will more readily dive into identifying opportunities where AI can free them up to focus on higher-impact activities. Here are two examples from Moderna and Klarna in how they have approached the 'why, what, and how' of leveraging AI with human augmentation. Moderna's shift to "work planning" from 'workforce planning' in the context of AI is a great example of this. Moderna's 'Why': create a more integrated strategic road map that not only increases opportunities for drug discovery but also allows employees to rethink workflows. Moderna's 'What': Develop over 3,000 tailored versions of ChatGPT, called GPTs, designed to facilitate specific tasks, like dose selection for clinical trials and internally, address basic HR questions related to performance, equity and benefits. Moderna's 'How': Redesign and reimagine how technology and people interface by merging HR and IT under one Chief People Officer. Moderna is also upskilling employees, helping them to leverage that productive time that they got back on more strategic work. What if instead of asking, 'How can we do more with less?' we ask: 'How do we ensure we are focused on the right priorities?' We know that being efficient alone isn't going to get us the results we want. Without deliberate human judgment, AI will only amplify hustle habits that keep us busy with everything, rather than prioritizing the few things that truly matter. Klarna's experience illustrates the risks of prioritizing efficiency solely over effectiveness. Their journey illustrates why focusing solely on speed and cost reduction, rather than both employee and customer value, ultimately leads to less effective results and a significant disconnection with employees. Klarna's 'Why': Klarna's CEO gave a clear 'why' to employees on using AI, but it didn't include developing or upskilling employees. It was solely focused on leveraging AI as much as possible to address customer service questions, disregrding the long-term impact and potential scenarios of letting go of 700 representatives. Klarna's 'What': After replacing customer service representatives with AI, they had to reverse course when they realized they'd "amputated" empathy from their customer interactions. Klarna's 'How': Today, they've adopted a hybrid approach where AI handles simple queries while humans manage the more complex cases. When AI handles the transactional load and we empower people to think strategically, we do more than speed up work; we redefine it. Instead of setting AI and humans in opposition, let's reinforce what they can accomplish together: higher productivity and efficiency, but also greater strategic leverage. In your next 1:1, open up a discussion about AI beyond how much they are using the tools. Ask them how they are leveraging their time now that AI is doing more of the tactical tasks. Ask them what support they need to keep doing that kind of strategic work. Clarify the skills you would like to see them build and ask how you can support them in developing those skills. It's through these kinds of discussions that we can continue to work strategically with AI, not against it, with humans leading the way.
