Tractor Beverage Company Welcomes Asif Khalid as COO
Tractor Beverage Company, exclusive creator of the world’s only certified organic, non-GMO foodservice beverages, has welcomed industry veteran Asif Khalid to its executive team as the company’s first chief operating officer.
Khalid brings a vast wealth of beverage category experience to the company and joins its ranks following a 14-year career at 7-Eleven, where he served as director of store innovation. In addition to this leading role at the convenience store giant, Khalid was also the senior category manager of non-alcoholic beverages, senior product development manager of private brands and regional market operations manager. More recently, he was the founder and CEO of Good Gracious Beverages, a foodservice company committed to revolutionizing restaurant & hospitality beverage offerings with sustainable craft drinks designed to increase margins via product and equipment innovations that reduce footprints and overhead.
“Asif is a transformational leader whose experience in the beverage industry promises to catapult Tractor to new heights,” said Kevin Sherman, Tractor Beverage Company’s CEO. “He’s joining an already successful team, and with the inception of the COO role, I’m confident we will go into 2023 the strongest we’ve ever been, with a high-velocity operating model that will empower our team to deliver an unmatched caliber of service to our pouring partners. I’m eager to see what we can accomplish together as the remainder of this year unfolds.”
Khalid’s work at Good Gracious to both develop brand, vision, and strategy for a new-to-market family of beverages and commercialize product and equipment innovations for alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks alike makes him the ideal choice to boost Tractor’s efforts to disrupt the foodservice beverage industry.
“I am thrilled to join the Tractor leadership team and look forward to bringing my experience to this new role to help build on the brand’s success, innovating in the beverage space while creating more value for our customers, partners, and employees,” said Khalid.
As its new COO, a role created specifically to allow the company to leverage his diverse skills, Khalid will apply his knowledge and passion to the next phase of Tractor’s ongoing growth.
Founded with a mission to create better beverages for all, Tractor Beverage Company is the first and only certified organic, non-GMO full line beverage solution for foodservice. Tractor’s handcrafted drinks feature clean ingredients that deliver on taste, functionality, and an innovative consumer experience. Tractor’s vision is to use its beverage platform to expand organic farm practices—and, in turn, lead the way to a more sustainable and flourishing future for restaurants, consumers and farmers.
Tractor was named to Fast Company’s prestigious annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies in 2021. For more information, please visit drinktractor.com or follow along on Instagram at @drinktractor.
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Organic Infant Formula Company Bobbie Available on NYC Uber Eats
Bobbie, the mom-founded and led organic infant formula company, is partnering with Uber Eats to deliver its organic, European-inspired formula directly to New Yorkers’ doors. The pilot program is taking the direct-to-consumer formula brand on-demand this holiday season for the first time ever, to bring parents peace of mind in knowing they can nourish their babies in a New York minute.
With the formula shortage still lingering and more than one-third of caregivers reporting difficulties finding formula as recently as November, accessibility to high quality formula is top of mind for Bobbie and Uber Eats. Layered on top of holiday shipping delays (in 2021, 9.4 percent of holiday packages shipped to New York faced delays, among the highest in the country), and unexpected winter weather, there’s a number of “oh no” reasons New York parents may need a can of formula delivered to their doorstep at the tap of a button this holiday season.
Since spring, over 30,000 people seeking asylum have migrated to New York City, with over 20,000 living in shelters, including hundreds of families with infants. That’s why for each can delivered through the pilot program, Bobbie’s social impact arm of the business, Bobbie for Change, will donate a can of formula to the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City in support of recently arrived asylum seekers living in temporary NYC shelters, making a difference for local families in need.
“Formula is food and nourishes our most vulnerable population. For years, we’ve helped our customers order nearly every type of food on Uber Eats, and we’re so proud to work with Bobbie to now help parents and caregivers get their babies formula on-demand through our app,“ said Beryl Sanders, head of new verticals partnerships at Uber Eats. “As a Bobbie mom myself, I know how important it is to have access to high quality formula at any given moment. This first-of-its-kind partnership couldn’t have come at a better time against the backdrop of this year’s formula shortage, and we’re thrilled to offer New Yorkers the opportunity to get their beloved Bobbie on Uber Eats.”
The Bobbie Care team has seen first-hand the need for instant, on-demand formula deliveries since launch in 2021. Parents have called, emailed, and direct-messaged on social, panicked about running out of their formula unexpectedly, unable to wait for their next shipment. Never one to sit idly by while our customers are in-need, Bobbie has relied on Uber to deliver hundreds of cans on their own dime, helping parents in a pinch for a plethora of need-formula-now reasons.
From using Uber to send a can of Bobbie to LaGuardia Airport when a customer was stuck with a delayed flight and a hungry baby to ordering an Uber ride through gridlocked Atlanta traffic to a mom who was on her last scoop and ran out of frozen breastmilk, formula is an essential good, and for parents who need a top-up in moments of crisis, there’s often no alternative solution readily available. Until now.
“From the earliest days at Bobbie, we’ve been focused on reimagining how to make formula one less thing modern parents stress about. As a team of moms, this couldn’t hit closer to home for us. That started with our business model, as the first direct-to-consumer formula brand in the U.S., continued with our launch on shelves at Target nationwide this summer, and it’s beyond exciting to add yet another way for parents to easily access Bobbie with a reliable partner like Uber Eats,” said Laura Modi, CEO and co-founder of Bobbie, and mom of three. “We’ve been putting cans of emergency Bobbie into Ubers and sending them to parents for years now. To see this partnership with Uber Eats come to life in an official way is surreal.”
The Bobbie x Uber Eats pilot will be available in NYC through Jan. 31, or while supply lasts. Deliveries will be available to most Uber Eats users in Manhattan. To order, open the Uber Eats app and search for Bobbie, or tap on the Baby and Kids Hub to see the Bobbie storefront. Cans are priced at $28 each.
Bobbie is an organic infant formula company that exists to build a parenting culture of confidence, not comparison, where every parent is supported in the feeding choice that is right for them and their baby. Bobbie launched in 2021 as the first direct-to-consumer, subscription-based infant formula company in the United States.
Today, Bobbie is the only mom-founded and led infant formula in the country and the fastest growing infant formula to enter the US market since the 1980s. Bobbie’s recipe is modeled after breastmilk and designed to meet the most recent EU nutritional standards for critical ingredients like DHA and iron, while also complying with all FDA nutritional standards for infant formula.
Bobbie is focused on providing a purposefully sourced, USDA Organic infant formula with Organic Valley milk from pasture raised cows. It was the first-ever infant formula to receive the Clean Label Project Purity Award and certification as a Pesticide-Free Product. Bobbie was founded in 2018, is based in San Francisco, and is venture-backed.
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Dream Refreshens Organic Dairy-Free Ricemilk Packaging
For longtime fans and those looking for their new dairy-free ricemilk, Dream Organic “Whole” Ricemilk and Dream Organic 2% Fat Ricemilk are hitting grocery shelves across the nation with a refreshed look. Both varieties of the versatile plant-based ricemilk are deliciously drinkable, refreshing with a hint of sweetness, and have a very similar texture and mouthfeel to dairy milk.
“The Dream brand was a pioneer that brought incredible growth to the plant-based movement in the 1990s,” said Mike Buick, senior vice president and general manager, SunOpta. “It was time to accelerate innovation with new products in the category, for which this trailblazer was originally known, and reinvigorate and reposition the brand for today’s consumer.”
The new and improved Dream Organic Dairy-Free Ricemilk is packed with five key nutrients in dairy–calcium, vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin B12 and riboflavin. Both varieties are certified organic and Non-GMO Project Verified. They’re also lactose- and dairy-free, as well as certified gluten-free, making them suitable for those with dietary restrictions. Both varieties are neutral in taste so they’re wonderful for baking, cooking, smoothies and drinking by the glass or in coffee. Whether you’re adding it to a mug of hot coffee or enjoying it with a batch of warm cookies, it’s the perfect addition to add to any winter treat.
“Dream Ricemilk is a good option for people following a plant-based diet who miss the taste and texture of dairy milk, especially for those living with food allergies,” said Sally Kuzemchak, registered dietitian. “It also offers some of the same key nutrients in dairy like calcium and vitamin D. Since it is rich in simple carbohydrates, it also tends to be easy on the digestive system.”
Dream Organic 2% Fat Ricemilk has 5g of fat per serving and Dream Organic Whole Ricemilk has 8g of fat per serving. They both come in 32-fluid-ounce, shelf-stable containers, which make them convenient to stock up on in either a refrigerator or a pantry for go-to recipes or pairing with meals, and have an MSRP of $4.29.
Striving to care for the planet and its people is a core pillar of the Dream brand, which offers a variety of plant-based milks that have a lower environmental impact than dairy. This philosophy aligns perfectly with the values and goals of the brand owner, SunOpta, which specializes in the pursuit of planet-friendly sourcing, processing, and production of organic plant-based food and beverages.
SunOpta’s re-released Dream Organic Ricemilk is now available nationwide at retailers such as Whole Foods Market, New Seasons Market, New Leaf Community Markets, ShopRite, Walmart.com and Amazon.com.
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