Condiment brand Haven’s Kitchen ceases operations
Haven’s Kitchen, a CPG startup whose products were found in Whole Foods and Target, among other retailers, said it will be ceasing operations.
Haven’s Kitchen founder Alison Cayne announced the news in a LinkedIn post on Friday, in which she thanked employees, investors and retailers for supporting the company over the years. “I’m not gonna spin this into anything it’s not. I feel like we were just getting started and getting some stuff really right,” Cayne said in the post.
Cayne launched Haven’s Kitchen as a cooking school in 2012. In 2018, Haven’s Kitchen began selling a line of refrigerated cooking sauces and marinades, like Golden Tahini and Red Pepper Romesco, designed to help home cooks quickly spice up their meals. Last April, Haven’s Kitchen expanded its assortment with the launch of its first shelf-stable product, a line of aioli, in an effort to capture demand for condiments.
Haven’s Kitchen’s trajectory showcases all the ways that CPG brands had to pivot their business models over the past few years. These changes included pivoting to at-home cooking videos and slapping QR codes on products during the pandemic, as well as focusing more on shelf-stable products with bigger margins in recent years.
In a statement to Modern Retail, Cayne said the difficult decision came during a period of brand growth.
“We had an amazing year with the aïoli and actually were about to expand to more Whole Foods regions and a few other retailers,” Cayne said. “But even with solid margins, I couldn’t get it to profitability quick enough so we needed more cash and that’s just very hard to do these days.”
In the end, Cayne said it came down to investors not being able to front further cash to get the company to profitability. According to PitchBook, Haven’s Kitchen raised about $7.73 million in total funding over the years.
One bright spot, Cayne said, was that “I was able to let my team go with plenty of notice and severance and wind it down responsibly.”
Cayne said the brand’s shutdown further underscores the challenges many CPG startups face today. Though the past year brought along a few large CPG exits — with Siete Foods selling to PepsiCo for $1.2 billion and Spindrift selling a stake to a private equity firm — 2024 was especially tough for independent CPG brands. Some of the companies that have shut down over the past year include Field + Farmer, which sold dips, sauces and dressings, and ice cream brand Marco Sweets & Spices.
As more food and beverage brands have launched generally, it has gotten more competitive to get on the shelves of retailers like Walmart and Target, and even regional chains like Publix. Inflation has also made physical retail growth more capital-intensive, while venture capital has gotten harder to raise as the pace of dealmaking overall was slower in 2024.
“The natural channel is so expensive and that’s okay when you’re building to scale and have a war chest of cash,” Cayne said. “But if you’re building to profitability, it’s tough.”