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- FoodTech Weekly #10 by Daniel S. Ruben
FoodTech Weekly #10 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
July 31, 2020 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #10
Hi there,
I had a newsletter joke, but it couldn't be delivered.
There's too much noise and negativity in media and in politics. If life expectancy at age 40 for high-income women in Denmark increased by 3.0 years between 2001 and 2014, you can be sure that someone will point out that it only increased by 2.9 years for low-income women in Denmark during the same time period. And that the U.S. is doing much worse.
The inspiring thing about food and FoodTech is that we can focus on the opportunities. That we have chance to build a sustainable and resilient food system, which nourishes all people, in our lifetime. I hope this newsletter helps instill hope that the future is worth looking forward to.
Highligths
Conversations: N/A
Noteworthy: Geltor closes $91.3M funding round; ShopRite trials salad-making robot; 3D-printed steak hits restaurants this year.
The Profile: Keiran Olivares Whitaker
Random Stuff: Drunk people excelling at problem solving; forgotten nuts. And more.
Conversations
Noteworthy
California-based biodesign company Geltor raised a whopping $91.3M Series B round led by CPT Capital, to boost its global expansion. Geltor started out in 2015 with an aim to replace animal-derived ingredients such as gelatin (in e.g. gummy bears). Gelatin is made from the bones, tendons, and ligaments of cows and pigs; lanolin is made from wool grease, and squalling is made from shark liver oil. Geltor can replace all of these with unique, tailor-made cell-derived proteins brewed in a bioreactor/fermenter, like beer. Today the company has a broader goal of becoming an Ingredients-as-a-Service platform, for ingredients used in e.g. cosmetics, skin care, and the food business. I first met Alex Lorestani (CEO/Co-Founder) and Nick Ouzounov (CTO/Co-Founder) at their San Leandro HQ back in 2017, and immediately realized how Geltor's tech would disrupt entire industries. And now it feels like this revolution is starting for real.
Alexander (left) and Nick of Geltor. Image: Geltor
New data from PitchBook and FoodTech VC Finistere Ventures shows that $4.8B has been invested in FoodTech during the first 6 months of 2020, vs. $7B for all of 2019. In AgTech, $2.2B has been invested during the first 6 months of 2020, vs. $2.7B for all of 2019. Investment activity in FoodTech and AgTech has actually accelerated during the COVID crisis.
South African restaurant chain Nando's, with 930 outlets worldwide, will feed algae and insects to its chickens, in an effort to reduce its reliance on soy as animal feed -- the second biggest contributor to global deforestation, after the beef industry. To reduce its carbon impact, Nando is also switching to agro-ecological (more sustainable) methods of wheat production, sourcing more sustainable soy, switching to 100% renewable gas by 2022, and increasing its range of vegan options (source: Financial Times/$$$). KFC, meanwhile, is bringing its (vegan) Beyond Fried Chicken (in partnership with Beyond Meat) to 70 locations.
U.S. food retailer ShopRite is piloting salad-making robot Sally, built by tech firm Chowbotics. Sally is a contactless alternative to salad bars, and offers consumers a selection of 22 ingredients including dressings, fruits, nuts, vegetables, eggs, chicken, and ham.
A group of U.S. engineering students have built a device that can scan and predict when an avocado will be ripe, and deliver this information to the consumer in an app. The goal is to reduce food waste.
Redefine Meat, which we covered two weeks ago, works on 3D-printing plant-based steaks. The company now says it plans to start selling the steak in Israeli restaurants later this year, and via supermarkets in 2022. Another Israeli startup, SavorEat, can 3D print and cook plant-based steaks simultaneously; the company announced a $3M raise this week.
U.S. at-home vertical farming company Rootically (where I'm an advisor) is raising a $550K pre-seed round. If you are an investor (or know one) and want to get in touch, email Rootically's CEO Azra Tanović here.
Rendering of Rootically's indoor growing platform.
U.S.-based Better Meat Co has raised $8.1M. The company, led by well-known animal advocate and author Paul Shapiro, produces plant-based protein that can be blended with animal meat to create hybrid products. Doing so, they can boost the sustainability and nutriton profiles of animal-derived products.
French insect-as-animal-feed company Ÿnsect has received approval from ANSES (the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety) for its natural insect fertilizer, YnFrass. This it the first time any company in the world has received regulatory approval for frass as fertilizer. The fertilizer Ÿnsect produces is derived from the frass (insect waste) of the mealworm Tenebrio Molitor. Tests carried out by Ÿnsect shows that their frass fertilizer improves yield and soil microbial activity, compared to when using 100% chemical fertilizer. Ÿnsect's $125M raise in 2019 was the then-largest ever AgTech fundraise in Europe. If you really want to dig in, here's a nice two-pager on edible insects on the European market. (Meanwhile, in the U.S., Grubbly Farms raised $2M+; the company grows Black Soldier Fly Larvae which is supplied to the backyard chicken market).
While Ÿnsect and Grubbly are busy growing insects, other companies are busy trying to figure out ways to fight the bugs. Taranis has closed a $30M Series C financing round. The Tel Aviv-based startup has developed AI for drone cameras that captures high-def images of crops, detecting risk factors and enabling more informed real-time decisions about cultivation (e.g. fertilizer and pesticide application, as well as optimal crop harvest times). The technology is detailed enough to see even tiny insects on lower leaves.
The Profile
Keiran Olivares Whitaker is a fundamentally mission-driven guy. When he realized the full scope of the environmental damage of the meat industry, he decided to do something about it: "We have to use capitalism to make change happen - because if it's not financially driven or sustainable, it's not going to make a difference", he told me when I visited Entocycle's production facility inside/under the actual London Bridge last year. Entocycle, which has raised $3.3M, produces Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL), which is turned into animal feed. This cool 3 minute video of Keiran and Entocycle is worth watching. “We have the world's most hipster insects. They’re eating coffee waste, and brewery waste, from the neighborhood artisanal coffee shops and micro breweries". Most of the large actors in the insect-as-feed space use centralized production (Protix, Ÿnsect, AgriProtein etc) but Entocycle uses a contract rearing model (sort of similar to the chicken industry). No matter what model, the insect-as-feed industry has a lot of scaling to do if it wants to make an impact. The world uses over 1B tons of animal feed each year. The entire global insect-as-feed industry produces a few ten thousand tons. But individuals like Keiran Olivares Whitaker are determined to change the status quo.
Image: LinkedIn
Random Stuff
Not sure how to comment on this one, but here goes: According to the Harvard Business Review, 'Drunk People Are Better at Creative Problem Solving'.
This is nuts. Another victim of COVID is the nut industry. Turns out, when people stopped going to bars and flying on airplanes, the demand for nuts collapsed by as much as 90%.
Erik Byrenius at FoodTech VC Trellis Road has written a fantastic post on where to start your FoodTech startup (12 min read), benchmarking the U.S., Europe, and China, and looking at key things such as funding, exits, academia, regulations, eating habits etc.
Venture Lab of Switzerland is hosting a Food Scaleup Day on Sept 8, 2020. FoodTech startups / entrepreneurs can apply for one of 20 spots to meet online with 12 management representatives from Nestlé, Migros, Givaudan, Firmenich, ADM, and Bühler Group.
I love you.
Daniel
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