Whole Foods Market has long been a gateway for startups seeking entry into mainstream markets via the natural channel, but the retailer’s latest accelerator cohort, announced yesterday, offers more than a golden ticket to the 10 brands it selected – it is also a roadmap for where grocery may be headed.
The retailer revealed on Sept. 24 the 10 companies, out of more than 2,000 applications, that will participate in its Local and Emerging Accelerator Program (LEAP), which offers founders a 12-week crash course in bringing grocery products to market, “meaningful connections” across the industry, a shot at a $25,000 equity investment from the retailer and, of course, a potential space on the retailer’s shelves.
In its fifth year, the program has hosted 40 brands and of the 10 that participated in the 2025 cohort, nine have secured a spot on Whole Foods Market shelves, with the last one slated to launch in November, according to Whole Foods.
But the program is more than an express lane to a high-profile distribution deal – it is also a window into the flavors and trends that Whole Foods Market consumers are craving, and the entrepreneurs and products that could help shape the future of grocery, according to foragers for emerging brands at Whole Foods Market.
So, who made the cut for the cohort and what does their participation say about where grocery is headed?
The next phase of the protein boom
Despite consumers’ seemingly insatiable demand for protein, not everyone is willing to sacrifice the pleasure of eating for the sake of the macronutrient – and for them, cohort participants Cotto and HOL Health Club offer an alternative to the legacy shakes, powders and bars that shaped the first wave of the protein craze.
Cotto whips cottage cheese into smooth, rich dips with 23 grams or more of protein per container in classic flavors, such as French onion, buffalo and garden ranch. It also skips the gums and fillers many modern consumers are avoiding, but which often appear in high-protein snacks.
Company founder Kendall Kransdorf explains on the company’s website that the she wanted a healthy alternative to the existing high-protein products that upset her gut and left her “feeling weighed down.”
She explains that she realized “the issue wasn’t the protein. It was the way it was being added. So, I turned to foods that were naturally rich in protein,” like cottage cheese, which “always made me feel great,” but was held back by its texture.
Whipping it made it easier to consume in new ways, she said.
HOL Health Club offers a similar proposition: high protein from “real ingredients minus the preservatives, additives, artificial sweetness, artificial flavors and, according to the startup: “nonsense.”
HOL’s bars standout from the pack because of its “secrete ingredient”: Organic chicken bone broth, which helps contribute 6 grams of collagen to each bar for a total of 20 grams of protein. The bars also include organic peanuts for plant-based protein and healthy fats, organic dates for binding and sweetness, organic oats for chew and fiber and organic honey, cocoa powder, cacao nibs, vanilla extract and cinnamon as well as a “pinch” of sea salt “to make every flavor pop,” according to the company website.
Both of these products show how protein is moving out of the gym aisle and into everyday foods to reach a broader audience and more usage occasions for incremental growth rather than stealing existing market share.
Function and fun collide
While protein may have turbocharged consumer interest in functional food, it is far from the only nutrient or benefit that consumers want – and Bonny and üm’s participation in Whole Foods LEAP cohort underscore this expanding opportunity.
For example, Bonny is helping to meet growing consumer demand for fiber with a prebiotic fiber supplement that feels more like a snack than a supplement. The brand’s fiber bites and powders are made with dried fruit and available in decadent flavors that make healthy eating fun.
Likewise, üm takes a similar approach. Rather than offering functional mushrooms as a pill or powder, they are blended into sparkling beverages designed to enhance mental clarity, energy, immunity and hydration. And, like Bonny, they come in approachable and sometimes feisty flavors, such as a Zesty Lime, Mango, Raspberry and Lemonade.
Ultimately, these show how the benefits consumers want are expanding and how creative brands are making them more enjoyable by blending function and fund.
Heritage is becoming a growth strategy
For several brands in the Whole Foods’ LEAP cohort, the story behind their products is almost as important as the product itself. The family recipes, regional ingredients and culturally specific flavors in the products create a premium proposition that is also playing out in the broader grocery industry.
For example, Heydoh’s soy sauces are made with single-origin Taiwanese black soybeans that the company says are slowly fermented to unlock “a deep, round umami with real complexity.” The sourcing differentiates the products from other brands that Heydoh says use fast-fermenting yellow soybean grits.
Yah Yah Yah’s ready-to-drink canned coffees are a “love letter” to a traditional way of making coffee in Baghdad where the founder Sarah Yahya grew up, according to the company’s website.
Yahya explains on the website that she combines her cultural and family’s heritage to create a lineup of beverages based on recipes passed down from her grandmother, including Dubai Mocha, Baklava Latte and Cardamom Latte.
The coffees also have 5 grams of prebiotic fiber to support gut health and are sweetened with honey for a “clean and intentional” beverage without artificial preservatives, colors or flavors.
For both brands, cultural specificity isn’t simply a story to tell on the package, it is a point of differentiation in categories where consumers have plenty of options.
Clean label merges with better-for-you
Many of the brands participating in the cohort tout “clean ingredients,” but the emphasis goes beyond just ditching undesirable ingredients. Rather, they are connecting a greater level of ingredient transparency with better-for-you positioning.
Folkland Foods, for example, claims on the opening screen of its website that “clean food is dirty work” – a cheeky reference to the Pennsylvanian farm that grows the organic potatoes that make the brand’s better-for-you frozen fries.
Beyond the potatoes, the brand uses olive oil – allowing it to make an increasingly popular seed oil free claim that is also aligned with the better for you food movement.
Sababa Foods’ “Saturday Sauce” blend clean label and convenience by offering a versatile product that can be used as a simmer sauce, dip, condiment, spread “and so much more,” according to the website. While the product is touted as “not just a single-use pantry item,” it also claims to use only pantry ingredients, including tomatoes, onions, olive oil, tomato paste, garlic, salt and spices.
In addition, 70% of the ingredients are organic and selected using the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen as a guide, according to the company.
Taken together, these two brands exemplify how “clean” increasingly is less about putting a halo on conventional products and more about making the ingredients part of the value proposition.
Grocery is being upgraded
The final thread running through the cohort brings together two predictions Whole Foods made for 2026 – kitchen couture and instant reimagined – with a broader opportunity for brands to make familiar eating experiences feel more elevated without asking consumers to change their habits.
Two of the cohort’s brands show how that strategy can work in categories that are hardly new.
Tea with Tae, for example, takes a commodity-like product – whole leaf tea and herbs – and puts them in plant-based sachets with attractive packaging, gift bundles and subscriptions to create a lifestyle brand that drives discovery.
Joon Pistachios takes a similarly familiar grocery staple and gives it a more distinctive identity with bold flavors, like Dill Pickle, in addition to Original Salted and Salt & Pepper varieties designed to let the quality of the nuts shine.
Together, they show that growth doesn’t always require creating the next big category. Sometimes, it comes from making an existing one more distinctive, more discoverable or more worth trading up for.
And that’s perhaps the biggest takeaway from the LEAP cohort: Whole Foods isn’t just giving 10 emerging brands a path to its shelves. It’s offering the broader industry a glimpse at what it believes can make the next generation of grocery products worthy of one.
