Dairy-free brand Oatly has partnered with Texas-based Project Pollo restaurants for a seasonal Pumpkin Swirl Oatly milkshake, available at Project Pollo locations. This limited-edition flavor joins the traditional chocolate and strawberry Oatly shakes currently featured on the plant-based restaurant’s menu and is perfect for anyone seeking an alternative to dairy.

Afia, a Mediterranean food company headquartered in Austin, Texas, driven by a mission to make food powerful, launched its newest flavor, Sun-Dried Tomato Falafel, today on Afiafoods.com and in select retail stores, including Bristol Farms, Mother’s Market and Natural Grocers, all new retailers this month. The product will be available in additional retailers throughout the fall.  

United Supermarkets opened its newest location in Southwest Lubbock, making it their 12th store in the Texas city. Representing a true evolution for the United Family’s flagship banner, this is the next generation of United Supermarkets stores. Now the 97th location for the United Family, this store will bring all of the things people know and love while also showing off some the freshest concepts and partnerships the company has to offer.

Brookshire Grocery Co. (BGC) has announced it raised wages for almost 13,500 hourly employee-partners which totals more than $33 million investment in salaries. Part of this investment is the company making the extra $1 per hour in COVID appreciation pay permanent for the hourly retail and logistics employee-partners along with raising the minimum pay for several positions in retail.

Blenders & Bowls and Laura’s Gourmet Granola, two women-owned food brands, have combined their products to create a healthy meal or snack on-the-go from your freezer: smoothie bowls.

La Vaquita, Houston’s #1 Hispanic cheese brand, today announced its expansion into the butter category. Made with pure cow’s milk with no added growth hormones and no artificial ingredients, this new butter offers a fresh, creamy flavor for a variety of cooking and baking needs.

Afia, a Mediterranean food company headquartered in Austin, Texas, driven by a mission to make food powerful, has released new brand positioning, packaging and identity. Launched in 2017 at a farmers’ market, the company has grown distribution 340% percent in the last year and now is available at over 800 retail locations nationwide.

Groundbreaking has started on Houston ColdPort, a 315,101-square-foot speculative cold storage warehouse in Houston, Texas. Houston ColdPort will feature a 50-foot clear height warehouse, a 60-foot-deep cold dock, 38 dock positions with vertical storing hydraulic dock leveler equipment, LED lighting throughout, a Tyco Quell dry fire sprinkler system, a 200-foot-deep truck court with 57 trailer parking spaces and ample automobile parking. Houston ColdPort can accommodate a single tenant or can be demised for a two-tenant layout.

Cold Creek Solutions (CCS) has announced a second project in the state of Texas, this time in San Antonio. The roughly 305,000-square-foot facility will provide storage for 45,000 pallets of frozen or refrigerated products upon completion. Unlike existing vintage facilities and other new builds in the region, this new project, designed by ARCO National Construction, will allow for efficient large-scale or multi-operator build-out. CCS anticipates breaking ground this fall, with the facility scheduled to open in late 2022.

Cacique, a leading privately-owned Hispanic foods company and maker of the #1 brand of authentic Mexican-style cheeses, cremas and chorizos in the U.S., officially broke ground on an $88 million dairy processing facility in Amarillo, Texas. The new 200,000 square-foot facility will help meet the growing demand for Cacique's high-quality products nationwide. The company is planning to begin operation at the new facility in the fall of 2022 and expects to create approximately 200 new full-time jobs.