Dive Brief:
- Label Insight, a data solutions provider for CPG brands, retailers, and other food industry players, has secured $10 million in a completed Series B round of funding.
- KPMG Capital, a global investment fund of KPMG International that focuses on companies creating data and analytics-based business solutions, led the round. The investment grants access to Label Insight's proprietary technology to KPMG member firms' retail food and beverage clients worldwide.
- Label Insight's first-to-market SmartSPEC technology facilitates food and beverage brands' adoption of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and Food Marketing Institute's (FMI) SmartLabel initiative.
Dive Insight:
Transparency has become an increasingly important goal for manufacturers that want to connect with consumers. Labeling initiatives, from SmartLabel to Campbell's recent GMO labeling announcement, have been one way to build transparency, but this method has created a need in the marketplace for the right technologies and strategies to make those labeling changes.
"Label Insight is disrupting the CPG data industry, and with its help we will be uniquely positioned to help solve the long-standing issue of exchanging product data between manufacturers, retailers and government agencies," Mark Toon, CEO of KPMG Capital, said in a statement.
One issue commonly associated with SmartLabel is GMO labeling, as opponents of mandatory GMO labeling have posited SmartLabel as a potential solution. GMO labeling supporters believe SmartLabel doesn't go far enough and discriminates against various groups of consumers who may not have access to the technologies SmartLabel requires. The GMA argues that retailers could provide customer service initiatives to help those consumers.
If SmartLabel becomes the norm in the food and beverage industry, KPMG will have found an attractive, disruptive investment target in Label Insights and could help the technology company expand to make SmartLabel more easily accessible to manufacturers outside of its own clientele.