Weekly Digest #16

17.11.2025

Welcome to The Fork’s Lens

Every week, we serve up a quick, flavourful dose of what’s cooking at the intersection of food, drink, and entrepreneurship.

Expect:

🍴 Sharp founder insights

📊 Bite-sized industry trends

🛠 Tools & tips to level up

🔥 Events & openings worth your time

For those of you building food brands, launching products, or just hungry for what’s next – this one’s for you.

Bold, Brands & Bowls

📨 Weekly #16: Bold, Brands & Bowls

🍴 What’s Up?

This week we are looking at bold moves from UK brands and a reality check for the bowl economy. Less noise, more signal. Let’s get into it.

🔥 UK Spotlight

• Little Moons losses top £50 million after factory upheaval
  Little Moons is still working through the turbulence from last year’s factory issues and has reported losses of more than £50 million. The team is pushing through operational fixes to steady production and rebuild momentum. The Grocer

• TRIP hits a 300 million dollar valuation
  CBD drink favourite TRIP has officially hit a 300 million dollar valuation. Its UK footprint continues to grow and the US wellness market is giving the brand an extra lift. Financial Times

• Julienne Bruno joins the Compleat Food Group family
  The Compleat Food Group has snapped up Julienne Bruno, bringing its chef-led dairy alternative brand into a bigger and better-resourced platform. A smart match that should help the brand win new retail and foodservice space.
  FoodBev Media

• Waitrose rolls out invisible milk tags to boost recycling
  Waitrose is now the first UK supermarket to roll out invisible digital watermark tags on milk bottles. The tags help recycling facilities sort plastics more accurately which means cleaner streams and better reuse.
  Packaging News

• McDonald’s launches Order Ahead nationwide
  McDonald’s UK has now launched Order Ahead across the country, letting customers place their order in the app before they arrive. The goal is to reduce queues, improve service flow, and ease pressure during peak times.
  BBC News

• Pepsi unveils non-HFSS compliant Cheetos and Doritos
  Its trio of core flavours – Tangy Cheese, Chilli Heatwave, and Cool Original – now feature more corn, tweaked seasoning and, with some fine-tuning to the traditional cooking process, PepsiCo has promised “the crunchiest Doritos yet”.
  Grocery Gazette

Source: Bloomberg

🥣 Special: The Bowl Economy Slowdown

• Bloomberg has been digging into what is happening with the so-called bowl economy led by Cava, Chipotle and Sweetgreen. The chart tells the story pretty clearly. Traffic is softening. Same store sales are cooling. Fifteen to twenty dollar bowls are starting to feel like a stretch for younger diners who have become more price sensitive this year.

• Is the stock drop a sign of something bigger?
  It is not an automatic red flag for a full economic crisis but it does show a shift in mood. These companies were priced like they could grow forever. Now that growth looks a little slower, investors are correcting their expectations. When premium fast casual starts to wobble, it usually means even higher-income customers are watching their spending, which can be an early sign of wider caution.

• What to expect from UK peers?
  UK brands like Atis, Farmer J, and The Salad Project are getting fresh funding and opening more spots. They’ve got some breathing room to experiment and move fast, but it’s not a free-for-all. The trick will be keeping costs under control, really standing out from the crowd, not overpricing, and making sure their food actually hits the local tastes in the new markets they launch. Basically, smart growth and attention to what people actually want will be key.

💭 The Fork & The Flame

“Build what people actually want, not the trend.”

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About Forks & Founders
We believe bold food brands deserve bold support. That’s why we’ve built a collective of seasoned foodies, retail rebels, creative storytellers, and numbers nerds – people who’ve been in the kitchen, the boardroom, and the shop floor. We jump in where you need us most, helping you turn big ideas into bites people can’t stop talking about. Because building a food brand isn’t just business – it’s passion, flavour, and a little bit of chaos. We’re here to make sure it’s the good kind.