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FoodTech Weekly #116 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
September 30, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #116
Hi there,
I always had this weird ambition to do a Ph.D., likely on a FoodTech topic. Not sure I'd have the intelligence and patience to complete a Ph.D. program though, and now it may be getting too late. But since last week, I'm a published co-author in peer-reviewed journal Global Food Security, with 'The wholegrain manifesto: From Green Revolution to Grain Evolution.' It's available here (where you can download the article for free until Nov 11, 2022).
I'm incredibly proud to see my name listed next to co-authors / folks I respect deeply at e.g. Harvard University, Purdue University, the Rockefeller Foundation, ILRI in Kenya, and BCG. Thank you Peiman jan for letting me be a small part of this. You're one-of-a-kind.
Eat more whole grains (and cut down on refined grains). It's good for you. Here's a quick cheat sheet from the article.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2022.100649
As mentioned last week, you can now become a Premium subscriber of FoodTech Weekly, for just $5/mo. Why do this? Well, I'm spending quite a bit of time (and money on paid newsletters and databases) to stay updated on the ecosystem, so I can summarize it all for you. Becoming a Premium subscriber is a way to say thanks. Plus, you'll get the occassional long-read interviews with FoodTech superstars, behind-the-scenes reporting from key FoodTech events and conferences, extra discounts on key global FoodTech events, 1:1 calls with me, and bragging rights. And I will send you a food-themed book that I love, once a year (likely around the holidays). So please upgrade to Premium now.
This week's rundown:
Trapview of Slovenia raises €10M for solution that can help farmers understand the level of pest infection, and take better decisions
Livin Farms of Austria banks €6M Series A for automated black soldier fly rearing and processing system
Fetuses in the womb smile when their mothers eat certain types of food, new research show
Let's go!
Conversations
More convos coming up :)
Noteworthy
U.K. startup Adamo Foods has closed a $620K funding round. The company uses fungi to produce realistic meat steaks. Meanwhile, Spanish startup Innomy secured €1.3M in pre-Series A funding, for its alternatives to meat made from mycelium, the root structure of filamentous fungi. Finally, FoodTech scaleup ENOUGH has opened a mycoprotein production facility in the Netherlands initially capable of producing 10,000 tons per year.
Trapview, a platform developed by Slovenian agtech startup EFOS, has clinched a €10M Series B round. The automated traps from Trapview send real-time data to farmers about the pest situation in their fields (and provides predictions of pest dynamics). This helps farmers take quick and accurate crop protection measures, instead of blanket spraying the entire field, which saves pesticide costs and reduces environmental harm. Trapview claims it can monitor more than 50 insect species.
French anti-food waste scale-up Phenix announced a €15M raise, led by BNP Paribas Solar Impulse Venture Fund and Lombard Odier Investment Managers. Phenix, which is present in 5 countries in Western Europe, has a suite of solutions from farm to fork to help the entire food value chain avoid food waste. One example is that they help divert unsold food to charities, as animal feed, or for recycling, rather than sending it to a landfill.
More France: Paris-based startup Phagos has nabbed €2.4M in fresh funding, to target antibiotic resistance in animals. Most of the antibiotics used in the world is for livestock, and this leads to antimicrobial resistance. Phagos develops phages, which are viruses that can kill certain type of bacteria. Using phages can help reduce antibiotics use.
A little more about France, DigitalFoodLab just released its annual report on the state of French FoodTech. In 2021, French foodtech startups raised €875M, up 40% from 2020. DigitalFoodLab notes that foreign investors in FoodTech are more active in France than before, that early-stage deals are growing in size and quantity, and that M&A activity is up. Finally, DigitalFoodLab expects 2022 investments to top the record figure from 2021.
DigitalFoodLab
Canada set a goal this summer of eliminating plastic waste by 2030, but NGO Environmental Defence claims Canada is on tract to miss its target by more than 2M metric tons of plastic waste. On the note of sustainable packaging, Germany startup one • fıve raised a €10.5M Seed round. The company, which was founded by a couple of Infarm alumni, develops biomaterials used as sustainable packaging.
Swedish quick commerce startup Vembla, which had raised over $5M in capital, has filed for bankruptcy (article in Swedish).
A new report says that the EU is wasting more food than it imports; in 2021, 138M tons of food were imported, while 153.5M tons of food were wasted.
Intermittent fasting fan? It makes no difference to your metabolism, new research has found.
Here's some European startups revolutionizing the fertilizer space.
Aqua Mechanical, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Only 14% of angel investors in the U.K. are women -- and of the angels that have backed more than 10 companies, only 0.5% are women.
Livin Farms of Vienna, Austria has brought in €6M in Series A funding. The startup develops Hive Pro, a modular system that automated the process of rearing and processing black soldier flies into protein powder (and their poo, the frass, becomes organic fertilizer). This helps food producers and agricultural companies monetize their food waste.
Pat Brown, the founder of Impossible Foods (and its CEO until March 2022), is transitioning to a new role where he will lead Impossible Labs, a new venture which will exist in parallel with Impossible's current R&D team.
VC investment in foodtech during Jan-Sep 2022 is down 40% compared to the same period last year, Dealroom says. However, while investment in categories like food delivery and dark kitchens is down, VCs still seem to be bullish on vertical farming, agtech, and alternative protein.
Dealroom
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Stockeld Dreamery (Sweden) is hiring an Accounting Manager... Foodrunners (Sweden) is recruiting a Sales Development Representative... Djuce (Sweden) is seeking co-founders... HelloFresh (U.S.) looking for a Greenhouse Gas Manager.
FoodHack is doing their very first in-person meetup in Stockholm, Sweden. Register here, and join me and many other FoodTech nerds at Norrsken House at 8am on Oct 26.
KliMATdagarna, which offers 50 lectures on health, sustainability, and preparedness -- all revoling around food -- will take place on Oct 7-8 at the Luma Factory in Stockholm, Sweden. Get your tickets here.
The Yield Lab Europe is looking for promising Dutch AgriFoodTech startups that are building innovative solutions tha create positive, sustainable impacts on food systems. Focus areas include sustainability, circularity, deeptech, and biotech -- as long as there's a link to AgriFood. The winning startup gets a guaranteed minimum investment of €10K, and up to €1M, by the Yield Lab Europe. Applications close Oct 16 -- apply here.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
Oil on bird feeder to keep squirrels from stealing the bird food (30 sec video). I should use that on my kitchen fridge handle to prevent late night snacking...
Robotic harvester from Advanced.farm can pick 30 apples per minute (1 min video). Verrry cool.
A new study published in Psychological Science show direct evidence of fetus reactions to flavors in the womb -- and that they appear to react differently to different types of food. When their mothers ate carrots, the fetuses were more likely to smile, but when their mothers ate kale, they had a sad face. The researchers say that 'What we know from other research is actually that if the mother has a varied diet, like vegetables and fruit, babies are much less fussy eaters.'
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to A Moment Apart by Odesza. Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter. And here's the Appetizer which I co-host. Did your brilliant friend forward this to you? Subscribe here. And please support by becoming a Premium subscriber.