Fruist, the healthy snack company known for its jumbo blueberries, has raised $150 million in an equity round led by new investors. JP Morgan Asset management. Billionaire Ray Dalio’s family office has doubled its existing investment in agricultural startups. The company is valued at more than $1 billion and is rapidly expanding into the estimated $800 billion snack market, where consumers are spending more on healthier options at premium prices.
Fluist has now raised a total of $443 million in equity capital from investors, and says the new funding will help it expand into retail stores around the world. In the United States, its berries are already sold at stores such as Costco, Giant, Publix, ShopRite, Sprouts, Trader Joe’s, Wakefern, Walmart, and Whole Foods. Due to explosive growth in the European market, the company also plans to expand distribution of its recently introduced single-use take-home packs of fresh blueberries, “Flutist Snack Cups,” as well as its new and larger Legend Super Jumbo Blueberries.
The company told CNBC earlier this year that its annual sales exceed $400 million, and blueberry sales have tripled in the past 12 months. No new revenue or new valuation was disclosed for the latest investor round. Steve Kaplan, co-founder of Aliment Capital and Oaktree Capital Management, also participated in the new funding.
“We are investing in increasing production and expanding capacity,” said Fluist CEO and co-founder Steve Magami, citing the company’s agricultural operations in eight countries. “The amount of dollars in circulation is increasing because demand far exceeds supply capacity,” he said.
The majority of the new investors’ funds will fund new plantings and infrastructure investments, including cold storage and automation, to strengthen quality and distribution controls.
“We believe that Fruitist’s control of the value chain, significant organic growth opportunities ahead, and its position as a driver of premiumization in the berry and health categories will enable sustained expansion,” Brad Damon, managing director at JPMorgan Asset Management, said in a statement announcing the transaction.
Recently introduced Fluist Snack Cups in supermarket coolers have expanded to 750 stores in Spain from an initial 30 in April, with the number expected to reach 1,000 in the future, Magami said. Something similar is happening in the U.S., where most retail partners will add the product in at least a few stores, he said.
The flutist was ranked 18th on the 2025 CNBC Disruptor 50 list.
“We see the snack industry as being between $600 billion and $800 billion, and the healthy snack industry is one-eighth of that, and we know that our product is on the far right of the top right quadrant,” Magami said. He added that the company does not see traditional berry industry players as competitors, but said they are “rather a product” and that Fluteist belongs to a new snack category.
“Over time, you’ll find that regular blueberries are good in mixers and cakes, and these are snack berries that replace meals,” he says.
Steve Magami, Founder and CEO of Fluteist
flutist
Sally Lyons Wyatt, chief advisor for consumer goods and food service insights at consulting firm Circana, said that in a relatively flat snack market, the healthy snack category (often referred to as the “better-for-you” category, which includes fruits, vegetables, cheese, yogurt and nuts) has seen significant growth. “What sustains the core snack category are ‘better-for-you’ products,” she says.
“Berries are rich in antioxidants and are one of the healthiest fruits in this snacking story,” Lyons-Wyatt said.
He said this trend began before COVID-19, but was boosted by the increased focus on health and wellness during the pandemic and the rise of social media influencers as advocates for consumer brands, and has since been further boosted by the GLP-1 weight loss drug boom.
Magami said The Fruitist’s research showed that GLP-1 users had “substantially reduced intake of all foods except fruits and vegetables” six months after starting the drug.
“We believe we are at the intersection of wellness culture and on-the-go snacking, and we know there is a willingness to pay for more reliable fruit,” he said, adding that his goal is “to build the world’s largest healthy snacking business.”
While the flutist has expanded into cherries, raspberries and blackberries, Magami said the additional berries are “just getting started on the ground floor.”
He said cherry production already in China will be introduced to other markets, including North America, within the next year. “We want to scale quickly,” he said, but added that new produce lines are currently a very small, single-digit percentage of the business and “on their own, they’re not going to be as big for us as blueberries.”
Is the IPO coming?
Magami declined to comment on the timeline for the initial public offering, but said the company is closely monitoring the IPO plans of Jennifer Garner’s Once Upon a Firm, which recently filed to go public.
Matthew Kennedy, senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, an IPO research and IPO ETF firm, said growth is as much, if not more, a driver than the theme of healthy snacking for investors looking at companies like The Fruitist and Once Upon a Farm.
“Companies often go public when growth trends look most optimistic, so the biggest risk for investors is when that growth becomes unsustainable, either because it was a fad or because there was a highly committed initial customer base that didn’t translate to the broader market,” he said.
In the food industry, from traditional packaged goods and beverages to beyond meat dairy alternatives Oatly — and companies close to fruitists like Vital Farms, which produces eggs and butter — Kennedy said finding the perfect match can be difficult. But he added that investors generally like to look at portfolios of products, “which is why we’re seeing Flutists expanding beyond their core blueberry products and Once Upon a Farm expanding beyond their pouch products.”
Kennedy also said there have been “many losers” in the food sector this year, so “it would be especially impressive if one company could sell a premium product and gain market share while the rest of the industry is under pressure.”
Circana has been monitoring consumer fascination with berries for years, “and year after year, berries are one of the products that continues to outperform most traditional packaged snacks,” Lyons-Wyatt said.
Growth rates for snack produce have slowed, she said, but that’s due to the fact that just a few years ago it was a very small market. She said Sarkana’s current growth rate of 4% for snack produce is much lower than the 19% growth it recorded in the 2019-2020 period, but what is more important is continued growth and a business model that is “almost as pure and transparent as snack produce”.
“We think this product will continue to gain traction and will be a huge hit around the world because it meets all aspects of what consumers are looking for,” she said. He added that the biggest limitation to widespread adoption by consumers is price.
“The price is about $6 per clamshell,” Magami said. “We’re not selling Champagne Strawberries for $19. We’re focused on building a durable business and growing the brand, and we have a significant runway ahead of us,” he said. “We will deliver significantly above-average growth, which is rare in this sector.”
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