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FoodTech Weekly #120 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
October 28, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #120
Hi there,
Last week I mentioned the French stretchy cheese competition. FoodTech Weekly reader Benjamin Bach reached out with the following comment, which I'm publishing with his blessing:
'As a food lover and specialist you need to know that the stretchy cheese competition actually involves "Aligot", which is actually not pure cheese, but a mix between mashed potatoes and "tome fraîche d'Aligot", which is a fresh cheese from the Auvergne region; it also includes a little bit of garlic to give it a bit of oomph... Maybe that is the reason why it gets so stretchy, but when you get it served in restaurant, they definitely like to make that point for sure, I guess it's a sign that it's going to be yummy!'
Benjamin also said that L'Ambassade d'Auvergne in Paris serves a decent Aligot. I guess we all learnt something new today.
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Speaking about odd foods, can we just settle the divisive issue of Hawaiian pizza once and for all?
Pineapple on pizza - yes or no? |
I'm not going to try to steer you in any particular direction, but here's a group of Italian Hazmat volunteers sanitizing a pizza from pineapple.
Hawaiian Pizza
This week's rundown:
Nitricity banks $20M to help scale its low-emission fertilizer
Singapore gives regulatory approval to 'air' protein Solein from Solar Foods
Israeli cultivated seafood startup ForSea lands $5.2M in new funding
Let's go!
Conversations
More convos coming soon!
Noteworthy
U.S. company Viome has scored $67M in Series C funding. The company offers gut microbiome tests for consumers, and then provides nutrition recommendations based on the results. It has also developed an at-home mRNA analysis test that aims to detect biomarkers linked to early signs of oral and throat cancers.
AgTech and FoodTech investment in Asia broke records in 2021, reaching $15.2B, a new report from AgFunder shows. India has now overtaken China as the biggest investment destination for AgTech and FoodTech.
U.S. company Roboburger has banked $10M in Seed 2 funding. Roboburger deploys burger making vending machines, that can prepare and assemble a burger in 4 minutes.
U.S. startup Nitricity raised $20M in Series A funding for its low-emission fertilizer tech. Nitrogen fertilizer causes massive amounts of climate emissions. Several companies are trying to tackle this problem in different ways (e.g. Pivot Bio, NitroCapt).
Spanish alternative meat market leader Heura has secured $20M in new funding through convertible notes (from e.g. Unovis / New Crop Capital), in advance of an anticipated larger Series B round next year. In total, Heura has raised about $55M.
Heura
Singapore has given regulatory approval to 'Solein', the microbial protein powder grown from electricity and CO2, by Finnish scaleup Solar Foods. The commercial launch is now planned for 2024; Solar Foods has also applied for regulatory approval in the U.K. and EU. Here's a cool, and beautiful, 3 min video on how Solar Foods actually grows its protein.
Nourish Ingredients, founded in Australia in 2019, has banked $28.6M in Series A. The company employs precision fermentation to produce animal fats that will be used as an ingredient in plant-based meat alternatives to make those products more realistic.
Increased sales of plant-based food in the U.K. during Veganuary 2021 didn't result in a corresponding decline in meat sales, a new University of Surrey survey shows.
Norway-based aquaculture firm AquaCon has postponed its plans to build a massive RAS (land-based) aquaculture facility in Maryland, which would have produced 15,000 metric tons of Atlantic salmon every year.
Israeli cultivated seafood startup ForSea has caught a fresh catch of $5.2M in new funding, in a round led by Target Global and joined by The Kitchen FoodTech Hub, PeakBridgeVC, FoodHack, Zora Ventures, and Milk & Honey Ventures. Forsea cultivates eel in bioreactors without scaffolding.
The ForSea team. Image: Gilad Artzie
Australia has signed up for the Global Methane Pledge, a voluntary commitment by 122 countries aiming to reduce their methane emissions some 30% below the 2020 levels, by 2030. Instead of taxing livestock emissions, Australia will invest in feed additives that will cut those emissions.
The Dutch government has announced it will allocate €60M to support the ecosystem around cellular agriculture, which enables the production of meat and milk products without using animals. The Netherlands will also add €25M in co-financing, bringing total funding to €85M.
Growth investor Verlinvest has anchor invested in a new VC fund called V3 Ventures, which will invest up to €100M from preseed thru Series A in U.S., European, and Indian startups working across food & beverage, e-commerce, health, and beauty.
Impossible Foods are working on a filet mignon, founder Pat Brown reveals to the MIT Review.
Some French farmers are using Agrivoltaics -- the combination of land for solar energy and agriculture. Nice 90 sec feature on Euronews.
The tractor says vroom! Image: Euronews
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
SALLY has launched the Preferable Future of Food, in collaboration with FoodTech VC Gullspång Re:food. The project aims to guide people towards new food systems 'that work for our planet'. Three key mind shifts were identified to make this shift possible; One Hour Food System, Urban Food Revolution, and One Planet Plate. In all shifts, tech, ideas, and entrepreneurs come together in creating the new systems needed. Check out the website, it's pretty neat!
A new VC Fund focusing on WineTech (from AgTech to Consumer, Data, supply chain, packaging...) is looking for 1 Co-Founder with experience in AgTech; vineyard context a plus. U.S. or European presence is preferred. For more info, please reach out to [email protected]
SuperMeat (Israel) is hiring a Development Researcher... YourBeet (Sweden) is looking for a CMO... New School Foods (Canada) is recruiting for a number of roles, including VP of R&D, Food Materials Scientist, and a People & Culture Manager... GFI Europe (remote) is looking to hire a Research and Resource Manager.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
Three quick observations on the current market conditions for fundraising from Ivan Farneti, Founding Partner at French FoodTech VC Five Seasons Ventures; (1) The best deals are not coming to the equity market right now, (2) A few great companies are still obliged to raise external rounds, and (3) There is still a considerable amount of dry powder for new investments in Europe.
In 2021, all-female teams raised just 1.1% of venture capital in the Nordics, a new report claims, Sifted reports.
A new research study in Sweden examined the relationship between university student appearance and grades in an engineering program; it showed that when education takes place in person (in courses with significant teacher-student interaction), attractive students receive higher grades. Grades of attractive females declined when teaching was conducted remotely (during COVID), whereas males experienced a 'beauty premium' even after the switch to online teaching. I guess this study explains how I got through law school.
People working at Ben & Jerry's apparently get to take home 3 pints of icecream per day.
Piglet balancing on a little ball (17 sec video)
A man in Iran, nicknamed 'the world's dirtiest man' as he didn't shower or take a bath for more than half a century, has passed away at the age of 94.
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to Friday I'm In Love by The Cure. 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.