Lincoln, Nebraska | February 1, 2024: A+ Berry, a market leader in creating innovative and delicious antioxidant drinks from Midwest super fruit Aronia berry, announced that the company won a top pitch competition prize at the Hy-Vee OpportUNITY Inclusive Business Summit, which took place on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024 at the Scott Conference Center in Omaha, Nebraska.
Out of over 100 Midwest-based, minority- and women-owned businesses, A+ Berry was one of the 15 companies selected to participate in one of three pitch competition categories (Food & Beverage, Tech & Innovation, Health, Wellness, & Beauty) to showcase its products. In the final, A+ Berry won the 1st place $5,000 prize of the Food & Beverage category.
“I am so excited and greatly appreciate this opportunity and support offered by Hy-Vee. Undoubtedly our business and product have been recognized by Hy-Vee and we are looking forward to a higher level of collaboration”, Dr. Xiaoqing Xie, Co-Founder of A+ Berry, stated. “We also thank all the produce managers, health and wellness managers, and their team who helped us launching our AroJuice product in their stores”.
About Hy-Vee and Its Inclusive Business Summit
Hy-Vee, Inc.is an employee-owned corporation operating more than 550 business units across eight Midwestern states with sales of more than $13 billion annually. The supermarket chain is synonymous with quality, variety, convenience, healthy lifestyles, culinary expertise and superior customer service. Hy-Vee ranks in the Top 5 Most Trusted Brands and has been named one of America’s Top 3 favorite grocery stores. The company’s more than 75,000 employees provide “A Helpful Smile in Every Aisle” to customers every day. For additional information, visit www.hy-vee.com.
Hy-Vee’s OpportUNITY Inclusive Business Summit brings together local businesses and community members to help advance minority and women business owners with an expo that offers resources for small businesses, learning opportunities through presentations and panel discussions, the chance to be inspired by others and more.
For more information, please visit aplusberry.com, or contact xxie@aplusberry.com.
Lincoln, Nebraska | September 5, 2023: A+ Berry, a market leader in creating innovative and delicious antioxidant drinks, announced that the company has received $300,000 R&D Grant for Innovative Research Projects. Upon successfully launched its first product, AroJuice, under the support of a $100,000 R&D Phase I Grant from the Nebraska Department of Economic Development, the company has received a $300,000 R&D Phase II Grant from the Department for developing and launching 3 new innovative antioxidant products. This R&D grant is a critical support to A+ Berry, which enables the company to continually develop more innovative antioxidant drink and ingredient products, and strengthen its leadership in this market segment.
The 3 new products to be developed include AroConcentrate, AroWine, and AroPowder, all based on Midwestern superfruit Aronia berry. AroConcentrate is a freeze-concentrated natural antioxidants that targets to the sports nutrition market. The company is testing this product with performance nutrition team and athletes at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, aim to reduce inflammation, resolve muscle soreness, speed up post-workout recovery, and enhance immunity of athletes. AroWine is a premium non-alcoholic red wine by mimicking regular wines with aronia juice and ingredients down to molecular level, which targets to the rapid growth non-alcoholic wine market. AroPowder is a high antioxidant and dietary fiber ingredient upcycled from aronia pomace. Its versatile functions include as natural colorant, antioxidant, inhibitor of lipid oxidation, and prebiotics have attracted food, pet food, nutraceutical, and cosmetics companies to test it.
A+ Berry is collaborating with the Food Processing Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to develop these products, and partially based on a licensed technology by NUtech Ventures at the university.
“We are very excited and greatly appreciate this grant support from the Nebraska Department of Economic Development. It undoubtedly will strengthen the product portfolio and competitiveness of A+ Berry, enable the company to be a leader in value-added and sustainable processing of aronia berries in the United States”, Dr. Changmou Xu, Co-Founder and CEO of A+ Berry, stated. “The successful completion of these innovative research projects will bring high value products to our customers, and also provide substantial benefit to other related businesses in the ecosystem, meanwhile help develop a sustainable Aronia berry industry in the Midwest”.
A+ Berry expects to launch the 3 products within 2 years, with AroConcentrate to be ready for the market as soon as early 2024. Previously, A+ Berry launched its first product AroJuice in January 2023, which has been sold to customers in over 20 states across the country.
About A+ Berry
A+ Berry is a BIG 10 Food Tech company founded in 2021 at the Nebraska Innovation Campus by food scientist Dr. Changmou Xu and Dr. Xiaoqing Xie with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Food Innovation Center. The mission of A+ Berry is to improve human health through innovative and delicious antioxidant drinks that utilize cutting-edge food technologies and the top-ranked super fruit aronia berry, and bring positive impact to the Midwestern Agriculture. A+ Berry is an alumnus of NMotion and gener8tor, a well-known startup accelerator in the Midwest, and a partner of the American Aronia Berry Association.
For more information, visit aplusberry.com. To arrange a press interview, please contact cxu@aplusberry.com.