Dive Brief:
- Back to the Roots has expanded its crowdfunding campaign on CircleUp, announced in January, into a $10 million Series A.
- Campbell's Acre Venture Partners led the funding round in addition to investments from S2G Ventures, Renewal Funds, and Red Sea Ventures.
- "We decided to take on additional funds to really accelerate our impact — being able to reach more families faster, and continuing investing in new product development to create more fun ways to reconnect with food," Back to the Roots cofounder Nikhil Arora told Food Dive.
Dive Insight:
"Our vision for Back to the Roots is to use it as a tool to radically transform the food industry as a whole by creating a renewed interest in transparency and knowing where our food comes," said Arora. It's a shared industry sentiment, though most notably similar to fellow startup Hampton Creek's mission. "No one's gonna change the world with mayo, but you can put a dent in it," the company's CEO Josh Tetrick told Food Dive earlier this year.
Back to the Roots began in 2009 producing ready-to-grow products, like an organic mushroom farm in a box, so consumers could feel connected with the food they eat and where it comes from.
But the company has since expanded into better-for-you packaged foods, and this additional funding will help make that expansion larger and faster. In the past year, Back to the Roots has launched three varieties of its three or four-ingredient Organic Stoneground Flakes cereals in addition to its Organic Breakfast Toppers. This approach may help Back to the Roots stand out in an otherwise struggling cold cereal category that has been breaking out of breakfast to find new revenue opportunities.
The question remains if simplicity and transparency could be enough to turn consumers on to yet another cold cereal option.