• Three flavors of Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk are featured in the first curated assortment of breakthrough new food and beverage products at Pop Up Grocer's new permanent flagship location in New York City's Greenwich Village
• Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk is featured at Coffee Fest New York City this week, March 5-7^th at Javits Center

CHICAGO, IL and VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 6, 2023 / The Planting Hope Company Inc. (TSXV:MYLK)(OTCQB:MYLKF)(FRA:J94) ("Planting Hope" or the "Company"), a plant-based food and beverage company focused on producing the world's most nutritious and planet-friendly products, is pleased to announce that three Stock Keeping Units ("SKUs") of the Company's Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk are being featured in the first curated food and beverage assortment at the new Pop Up Grocer flagship location in New York City. The featured Hope and Sesame® flavors are Unsweetened Vanilla, Chocolate, and Barista Blend Sesamemilk, packaged in 32 oz aseptic cartons.

"We have partnered with Pop Up Grocer at several of their regional ‘pop up' temporary locations across the US over the past two years, including Miami and Denver, and we are thrilled that Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk is featured in the first curated assortment at their new permanent flagship location in New York City," said Julia Stamberger, co-founder and CEO of Planting Hope. "Pop Up Grocer is known for expert curation of the latest and greatest up-and-coming brands, offering customers a unique opportunity to discover and connect new food and beverage brands right before they hit the mainstream."

At the first permanent location for the retail concept the Miami New Times called "all of the buzziest brands on Instagram under one roof," Pop Up Grocer is featuring a highly curated assortment of 400 shelf-stable and refrigerated food and beverage items. This selection represents just 1% of the assortment size in the average grocery store, which typically contains more than 40,000 product SKUs.

"We are focused on curating the best new up-and-coming food and beverage products to feature in Pop Up Grocer's highly selective assortment," said Emily Schildt, founder of Pop Up Grocer. "We seek out the exciting new food and beverage items, enabling the curious, conscious consumer to discover great new items to expand their kitchen pantries, deliciously! Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk fits with the qualities we look for in product selection, including quality ingredients, great story, and excellent branding and packaging."

Pop Up Grocer's permanent location opened Friday, March 3^rd, at 205 Bleeker Street in Manhattan's Greenwich Village neighborhood and is open daily from 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Prominently featured in both the store's street-level display window and on-shelf, Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk will be available for purchase by customers at this location throughout Pop Up Grocer's first 3-month rotating product cycle.

More information on Pop Up Grocer is available on the Pop Up Grocer website and the Pop Up Grocer Instagram page.

Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk is featured prominently in the street-level display window at the new Pop Up Grocer flagship location

Three flavors of Hope and Sesame®, including signature Barista Blend Sesamemilk, optimized for performance in hot and iced drinks, are featured at the new Pop Up Grocery location in Greenwich Village

Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk at Coffee Fest New York 2023
Hope and Sesame® is back at Coffee Fest NYC for the second year in a row, showcasing our breakthrough Hope and Sesame® Barista Blend Sesamemilk, optimized for excellent performance in iced and hot beverages, with a delicious taste and creamy texture. Hope and Sesame® Barista Blend Sesamemilk won the Best Product Award at Coffee Fest Chicago 2022 last June.

Several thousand distributors, independent coffee shops, baristas, and other members of the coffee foodservice and independent café industry are expected to attend this year's Coffee Fest NYC, co-located with the International Restaurant and Foodservice Show of New York. Open to the trade, Coffee Fest is located at Manhattan's Javits Center, with exhibit hall hours from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday March 6^th and Monday March 7^th, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 8^th. The Hope and Sesame® booth is #2228 in Hall #1A. More on Coffee Fest New York 2023 is available at this link.

Hope and Sesame® Barista Blend Sesamemilk on display at Coffee Fest New York 2023

About Hope and Sesame®
Hope and Sesame® has cracked the code on unlocking the dense nutrition in tiny sesame seeds to create a plant milk that's good-for-you, planet-friendly, and delicious! Sesame is highly sustainable, thriving in arid climates with very little water, is naturally drought- and pest-resistant, and can self-pollinate. Nutritionally comparable to dairy milk, Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk delivers 8g of complete protein per serving (including all nine essential amino acids) - that's 8x the protein in most almond and nut milks and 2x the protein in most oat milks! Developed for and approved by top baristas, Hope and Sesame® Barista Blend Sesamemilk froths, steams, and foams like a dream, is great for latte art, and delivers 4g of complete protein per 8oz serving. Sesamemilk is an excellent source of both vitamin D and calcium, and its core ingredient is the ultra-nutritious pulp upcycled from sesame oil extraction. All Hope and Sesame® products are vegan, Certified Gluten-Free and Certified Kosher, free from soy and dairy, Non-GMO Project Verified, and Certified by the Plant Based Foods Association. Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk is the only plant milk globally that is Upcycled Certified by the Upcycled Food Association. Available in both refrigerated 48 oz bottles (three flavors) as well as shelf-stable long-life recyclable aseptic cartons (seven flavors, including Barista Blend) in both US and Canadian bilingual packaging.

Hope and Sesame® products have received myriad industry and consumer awards, and they keep coming: Hope and Sesame® Barista Blend Sesamemilk was awarded Best Novel Creamer by Good Housekeeping in their 2022 Best Coffee Awards, won Best Product at Coffee Fest Chicago 2022, received the international Gama 2022 Innovation Award for Best Hospitality Product, and was a finalist for Best Product of the Year at the 2022 Specialty Coffee Awards. Additionally, Hope and Sesame® Unsweetened Sesamemilk received the Best Plant Milk award at Hong Kong LOHAS Expo 2023, won Best Milk Alternative and Best Plant-Based Sustainability in FoodBev's 2021 World Plant-Based Food Awards, and signature Chocolate Hazelnut Sesamemilk flavor received the 2020 Sofi Award for Best New Product, Plant-Based Milk from the Specialty Food Association.

About The Planting Hope Company Inc.
Planting Hope develops, launches, and scales uniquely innovative plant-based and planet-friendly food and beverage brands. Planting Hope's award-winning and cutting-edge products fill key unmet needs in the skyrocketing plant-based food and beverage space. The Planting Hope brand family includes Hope and Sesame® Sesamemilk, Barista Blend Sesamemilk, and Sesamilk™ creamers, RightRice® Veggie Rice, Mozaics™ Real Veggie Chips, and Veggicopia® Veggie Snacks. Planting Hope products are currently found in more than 15,000 retail doors and 70,000 total distribution points across North America. Founded by experienced food industry entrepreneurs, Planting Hope is a women-managed and woman-led company focused on nutrition, sustainability, and representation.

For more information about Planting Hope please visit plantinghopecompany.com, sign up for Planting Hope news emails HERE and follow on LinkedIn.

An informational webinar on The Planting Hope Company from CEO and Co-founder Julia Stamberger is available HERE.

To follow the brands on Instagram and Facebook, please visit: @hopeandsesameco, @rightrice, @mozaicschips, @veggicopia.

To find Planting Hope products at a store near you in the United States or Canada, please visit the store locator at each brand website: Hope and Sesame store locator, RightRice store locator, Mozaics store locator. Planting Hope products are also available at plantinghopebrands.com and ecommerce retailers including Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

Contacts

Company Contact:
Julia Stamberger
CEO and Co-founder
(773) 492-2243
julia@plantinghopecompany.com

Investor Relations Contact:
Glen Akselrod, Bristol Capital
(905) 326-1888 ext. 1
glen@bristolir.com

Media Contact:
Alex Jessup, Jessup PR
(323) 529-3541
alex.jessup@jessuppr.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" (collectively referred to hereafter as "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements that address activities, events, or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will, or may, occur in the future, including statements about the Company's ability to execute on its goals, the timing pertaining to these goals the potential demand for the Company's products, the timing and success of anticipated product launches and distribution of the Company's products, and the Company's business prospects, future trends, plans and strategies. In some cases, forward looking statements are preceded by, followed by, or include words such as "may", "will," "would", "could", "should", "believes", "estimates", "projects", "potential", "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "continues", or the negative of those words or other similar or comparable words. In preparing the forward looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including, but not limited to, the assumption that demand for the Company's product will be sustained or increase in accordance with management's projections, that the Company's internal research and analysis is indicative of broader market trends and the Company's anticipated future demand for its products, that changes in consumer preferences in the plant-based food industry will continue in accordance with the Company's expectations, that the Company's current business objectives can be achieved and that its other corporate activities will proceed as expected, and that general business and economic conditions will not change in a materially adverse manner. Although the management of the Company believes that the assumptions made and the expectations represented by such statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any forward-looking statement herein will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated, or intended. Risks and uncertainties applicable to the Company, as well as trends identified by the Company affecting its industry can be found in the Company's annual information form dated January 6, 2022 and the Company's continuous disclosure record available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Such cautionary statements qualify all forward-looking statements made in this news release. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

SOURCE: The Planting Hope Company Inc.