Innovative Food Holdings Announces that The Simple Root has Selected IVFH’s Managed eCommerce and Foodservice Solutions to Accelerate the Launch of its Plant-Based Brand

BONITA SPRINGS, Fla., Jan. 04, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Innovative Food Holdings, Inc. (IVFH), a leading specialty food-focused eCommerce platform with comprehensive direct-to-consumer (“DTC”) and B2B omnichannel offerings, today announced that The Simple Root has selected IVFH’s end-to-end managed solutions to quickly launch its rapidly growing brand of plant-based food products.

The Simple Root is a global plant-based food brand backed by Pilot Lite and McCain Foods. The company uses an innovative process to craft versatile and delicious veggie-packed foods. The Simple Root Certified Plant Based® products are a creamy blend of wholesome vegetables, fruits, herbs, and spices. Vegetables are the number one ingredient in all The Simple Root products, unlike other plant-based foods that rely on allergens like soy, nuts and nut milks, or highly processed starches and oils. The products are not made with dairy, nuts, soy, eggs, gluten, wheat, or artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. The Simple Root brand provides tasty options for everyone including consumers eating plant-based or looking to reduce dairy and meat, and those avoiding key allergens and seeking simple ingredient lines.

The Simple Root selected IVFH’s managed eCommerce and foodservice platform to accelerate the national launch of its products in high-growth categories across multiple distribution channels. The Simple Root’s products include plant-based Dips, Cream Cheese-Style Spreads and Artisan Cheese-Style Spreads. Upcoming expansion plans for the innovative brand include plant-based cheeses (shreds, slices, snacking) and plant-based desserts.

Sam Klepfish, CEO of Innovative Food Holdings stated, “We are excited to partner with The Simple Root and help them rapidly grow their emerging portfolio of plant-based products.  The powerful end-to-end platform we have developed provides new food brands, like The Simple Root, to reach scale faster by offering a seamless, turnkey, and managed solution. This includes leveraging IVFH’s fulfillment capabilities, 3PL services, and omnichannel distribution resources across B2B, DTC, and marketplaces such as Amazon, and national in-store channels.  Today’s announcement reflects the compelling platform we have created to solve many of the challenges small and emerging brands face.  As a result, we are seeing an increasing number of opportunities for our services to meet the complex needs of U.S. and European based emerging brands. We look forward to working with The Simple Root as they focus on growing their brand.” 

David Behringer, CEO of The Simple Root stated, “IVFH provides us with an end-to-end food-based platform that will enable us to quickly grow our brand of plant-based products.  In addition, our partnership with IVFH provides us with a committed partner with the resources and experience to serve our customers and expand our distribution throughout multiple channels.  As a result, we are leveraging the unique capabilities across IVFH’s family of businesses including igourmet and igourmet.com, mouth.com, PlantBelly.com, Food Innovation, and Organic Food Brokers.  We are excited to reach more customers with our plant-based brand by leveraging IVFH’s managed eCommerce and foodservice platform.”

About The Simple Root

The Simple Root is a global plant-based food brand backed by Pilot Lite and McCain Foods. The company uses an innovative process to craft versatile and delicious veggie-packed foods in multiple categories. The Simple Root plant-based products are a creamy blend of wholesome vegetables, fruits, herbs, and spices. They are not made with dairy, nuts, soy, eggs, gluten, wheat, or artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives.

About Pilot Lite

Pilot Lite Group, the parent company of Pilot Lite Ventures and Pilot Lite Capital, is a pioneer and international leader in venture management, with a successful track record of helping Fortune 500/FTSE 100 corporates accelerate the commercialization of innovation. Pilot Lite Ventures helps corporate clients identify, de-risk, validate and launch early-stage technology, new ventures, and stranded intellectual property across developed and emerging channels and markets. Pilot Lite Capital directly invests in Corporate IP, products, and brands and converts the assets into free-standing, revenue-generating businesses.

About McCain Foods 

McCain Foods is the world’s largest manufacturer of frozen potato products and supplies french fries, potato specialties, appetizers and desserts to retail and foodservice customers around the globe. McCain is the international leader in the frozen food industry, employing over 21,000 people and operating 52 production facilities on six continents. McCain Foods USA Inc., headquartered in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, employs 4,000 people and operates production facilities in Idaho, Maine, Nebraska, Washington, and Wisconsin.

About Innovative Food Holdings, Inc.

IVFH’s leading end-to-end direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform and direct-to-chef platform connect the world’s best artisan food makers with top chefs and epicurean consumers nationwide. Our unique ability to reach both specialty foodservice B2B customers and consumers positions IVFH as a compelling resource for artisanal food producers, CPG brands, chefs, and consumers. IVFH’s owned online retailer brands on its leading DTC eCommerce platform include www.igourmet.com, www.mouth.com, and www.plantbelly.com.

Additional information is available at www.ivfh.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains certain forward-looking statements and information relating to Innovative Food Holdings, Inc. (the “Company”) that are based on the current beliefs of the Company’s management, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, the Company. Such statements reflect the current views of the Company with respect to future events and are subject to certain assumptions, including those described in this release. Should one or more of these underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as “should,” “could,” “will,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “intend,” “plan,” “might,” “potentially” “targeting” or “expect.” Additional factors that could also cause actual results to differ materially relate to the global COVID-19 crisis, international crisis and other risk factors described in our public filings. The Company has not verified any information with respect to third parties contained herein and disclaims any responsibility for such statements. The Company does not intend to update these forward-looking statements. The content of the websites referenced above are not incorporated herein.