FoodTech Weekly #122 by Daniel S. Ruben

FoodTech Weekly #122

Hi there,

I was in Tel Aviv this week too; a ton of fantastic events took place thanks to Israel's AgriFood Week. I attended e.g. the (FoodTech incubator) Fresh Start Demo Day, a FoodHack / GFI networking event for founders and investors, and of course the main event, FoodTechIL. FoodTech Weekly Premium subscribers will get a more comprehensive report, but below are some highlights.

FoodTechIL convened over 2,000 people from 48 countries at the Bronfman Auditorium of the Tel Aviv Culture Center — investors, entrepreneurs, startups, corporates, innovation leaders from 48 countries — and many others working on the future of food. There were 67 exhibiting startups (almost all Israeli), showing off things like sugar reduction technologies, animal-free dairy ice cream, plant-based alternatives to animal-sourced foods (e.g. beef, egg, and dairy), cultivated fish, novel ingredients like microalgae for cheese, mycelium products, 3D printed plant-based beef, and much more. The event did not disappoint. There were the high-level speeches from the Strauss Group Chair Ofra Strauss, the Israeli President Isaac Herzog (in a video speech) and the Israel Innovation Authority CEO Dror Bin. There were various panels and side events. There was the FoodHack Award Ceremony to the top ranked FoodTech VCs, as voted by startup founders (congrats Nucleus Capital, FoodLabs, and Unovis/New Crop Capital!). But the main value, as with any conference, was the people. Just walking around and talking to new and old friends. Learning, tasting, being inspired.

In the images above (from top left and going clockwise), you see the founders of Sweet Victory (a chewing gum that will bust your sugar craving), the main auditorium, a tasting I attended for samples from Imagindairy (non-animal dairy ice cream and cream cheese -- Roni, if you're reading this, I'm sorry I wedding crashed your private tasting event), and a 1:1 sugar replacement from Resugar, which has 70-80% less sugar content than regular sugar.

I've been to many FoodTech events around the world; e.g. New Harvest and Good Food Conference in the U.S, and European ones like FoodHack Summit, Sweden FoodTech Big Meet, EAT Stockholm Food Forum, and countless future of food conferences at places like Wageningen University & Research -- and FoodTechIL was definitely the largest, and absolutely one of the most impressive, so far. I highly recommend it.

On Nov 8, I joined a FoodHack / GFI networking event with 150-200 foodtech founders and investors (which I think local super connector Ofek Ron of Plantish catalyzed -- he's pictured below). The event featured lots of great food and drinks, but more importantly a panel with Oatly co-founder Björn Öste and GFI founder and President, Bruce Friedrich.

Bruce noted that 'if animal agriculture goes up, we’ll blow past 1.5C and 2C climate targets. The climate community is asleep on this. So we need alt protein products that taste the same or better, and cost the same or less, as animal-sourced foods. And we're still in early days; for the most part we haven't gotten the metrics right yet.'

Björn on his hand observed that e.g. 'by 2029, Gen Z will be the biggest consumer group the Earth has ever seen. They want transparency and authenticity. If you don’t build an authentic brand, you’re toast. You have to eat, live, and be who you are. If you do that, you'll get Gen Z with you.'

Bruce concluded by speaking directly to the founders and investors in the room, saying: 'Food is the #3 climate problem, and animals is the #1 problem in food. The fate of the planet is depending on you guys.'

Above, the view from the event venue, the panelists (and moderator, Aviv Oren), Ofek Ron from Plantish, and yours truly with two-thirds of the FoodHack founding team.

Seeing the Israeli FoodTech ecosystem up close is impressive. It's one of the leading ones in the world; e.g. some $620M was invested in 2021 in Israeli alternative protein startups alone. Expect much more food and ag innovation to come out of this little country in the future.

(For a more comprehensive report from Tel Aviv with more pics, data, and reflections, become a Premium subscriber).

Let's go!

Conversations

• Will soon feature some super exciting conversations that I've had ! Just need to find the time to edit these texts.

Noteworthy

• Agriconomie of France has landed some major dosh - a $60M Series B round. The round was co-led by Temasek, Aliment Capital (formerly known as Pontifax AgTech), Treïs Group, and supported by Eurazeo. Agriconomie is an e-commerce platform that sells ag supplies directly to farmers, and help them transition to regenerative and sustainable agricultural practices.

• U.S. startup meez has secured $11.5M in a round led by Craft Ventures. The company develops a recipe management software that help chefs decrease training times of new team members by up to 80%.

• Roslin Technologies of Edinburgh, Scotland has banked a £11M Series A round. The company develops pluripotent animal stem cell lines, that can divide indefinitely and differentiate into a range of different cells. Roslin Tech provides these cells to the growing cultivated meat sector, which is dependent on stable and immortal stem cell lines to produce their products. Roslin Tech is currently the only commercial cell line provider of stem cells for cultivated meat production.

• California seed treatment startup Andes Ag has secured about $13M of its targeted $15M equity funding.

• New Culture, which was founded in New Zealand but is now California-based, announced an undisclosed investment from Korean food and biotech company CJ CheilJedang (which also happens to hold 25% market share of the U.S. frozen pizza segment). New Culture uses precision fermentation to produce microbial caseins, which will be used to make cheese. The company plans to launch a melty, stretchy mozzarella in restaurants in 2023.

• India's first full-stack precision fermentation startup, Phyx44, has raised $1.2M in seed funding from e.g. Better Bite Ventures, Ahimsa VC, Big Idea Ventures, Peer Capital, and others. New GFI data shows that companies in the alt protein industry raised $420M in Q3 2022, a 51% reduction compared to Q2 2022. Global VC investments 'only' fell 34% on average between Q3 and Q2 2022.

• Pennsylvania, U.S. vertical farming startup Fifth Season has shut down. The company had previously raised $35M. This year, Netherlands-based Glowfarms and France-based Agricool, both vertical farming companies, also went under. Analysts believe that current rising energy costs 'could be the final nail in the coffin for many vertical farms.'

• P&P Optica (PPO) of Waterloo, Canada has scored $2.4M in fresh funding, from federal government department Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. The company uses technology to automate food inspection tasks, which help remove objects like plastics and rubber from food.

• How space travel might change the human microbiome. Fascinating quick-read.

• Japanese scientists from Hokkaido University have developed a thin-film coating, WCM (wavelength converting material) that can help accelerate plant growth. It does so by converting the sun's UV light into red light. In the experiment, Swiss chard plants grown using the new WCM coating showed 1.2x greater plant height and 1.4x greater biomass after 63 days, compared to plants not being helped by the thin film. The researchers believe the technology, which doesn't require any electricity to operate, can help alleviate food security issues in colder climates.

News from the FoodTech Weekly community

• Those Vegan Cowboys (Belgium) is looking for a Head of Food Science... Gelatex (Estonia) is recruiting a part-time lab assistant... The Nature Conservancy (U.S.) is hiring a Senior Policy Advisor, Freshwater... BIOMILQ (U.S.) wants to bring on a Director of Operations.

• Adam Bergman and team at Citi have just released a new report on food security which I haven't had time to read yet, but looks promising. (Speaking about food security, Eyal Malis, CEO of Israeli food and bev giant Tnuva, says that the global food crisis requires us to accelerate FoodTech investments).

Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.

Random Stuff

• The U.S. National Park Service is asking visitors to stop licking psychedelic toads, since the animals have 'prominent parotoid glands that secrete a potent toxin'.

• Food delivery robot from Starship Technologies getting crushed by a train (11 sec video).

• Speaking about trains, Deutsche Bahn trains to Switzerland have become so unpunctual (only 40% arrive with less than 6 mins delay) that Switzerland's SBB has decided to replace delayed German trains to Swiss cities by their own.

• Holiday gift idea: A whole town on the border between Spain and Portugal called Salto de Castro is for sale for only €240K. That gives you 44 buildings including a bar, a church, a school, and a swimming pool. The town has been inhabited since 1989.

• A cheaper holiday idea would be a scarf that you make yourself using the Cyclo-Knitter, invented in the Netherlands. It's a pedal-powered machine that knits a scarf in the 5 mins you're waiting for a train.

​I love you.

Daniel

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This issue was produced while listening to Beat Of My Heart by Lost Frequencies and Love Harder. 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.

Disclosures: I'm Head of Strategy and Special Projects at Stockeld Dreamery. I'm an operating advisor to VC/investment firms Nordic FoodTech VC, Trellis Road, and Blume Equity. I'm a mentor at accelerators Katapult Ocean, Big Idea Ventures, and Norrsken Impact Accelerator. I'm an advisor to BIOMILQ, FoodHack, Hooked, Ignitia, IRRIOT, Juicy Marbles, Lupinta, Oceanium, petgood, Rootically, Skira, Urban Oasis, VEAT, and Volta Greentech; in some of these startups, I have equity.

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