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FoodTech Weekly #137 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
March 03, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #137
Hi there,
I'll be moderating a roundtable at Sifted Sessions in Stockholm next week (founders and senior folks from e.g. Einride, Klarna, Northvolt, Kry, Volta Greentech etc. will be at the event, so my inner impostor syndrome will rejoice). If you're around, hit me up.
And if you're going to Expo West next week, say hi to my colleagues and try our plant-based cream cheese.
Stockeld Dreamery at Expo West
Here's a chance for some of you to help influence European food policy:
Member of European Parliament Emma Wiesner (SE, RE) asks for input on the European Parliament report European Protein Strategy, which will be negotiated during the spring. Emma is the main author of the report, which aims to put forward concrete proposals in order to tackle the current protein production deficit in Europe. The report will focus on forward-looking non-legislative and legislative initiatives/barriers in order to upscale protein production (both for feed and food consumption) in the EU as well as to enhance the market for alternative proteins. If you have any concrete input, especially on specific legislative barriers, please reach out to her assistant Gustaf Svenungsson ([email protected]) before the end of March.
This week's rundown:
WNWN Food Labs gets $$5.6M Series A funding to bring cocoa-free chocolate to the masses
Divert receives billion-dollar investment to turn food waste and animal waste into renewable gas
How sustainable are food-sharing apps like OLIO? It depends how users spend the saved cash, new research shows.
Let's go!
Conversations
New convo coming up next week!
Noteworthy
Inarix of Paris, France, has closed a €3.1M Seed round joined by Ankaa Ventures, Label Investment, Newfund, and the Alliance for Impact and Resilience. Inarix has developed a crop analysis solution where farmers can take a photo of their crops using their smartphones, and get insights around the quality and value of the crop -- as well as real-time intelligence on what the crops need.
Nantes, France-based startup Aiheard has landed €2.1M in fresh funding led by Bpifrance (article in French). The company installs cameras in dairy cattle barns; an AI then identifies individual cows based on their spots/pattern, and can alert the farmer if any disease risk appears (h/t: DigitalFoodLab).
University of Missouri scientists have developed a new method of finding whether foods have been modified or adulterated with fillers such as vegetable oils. They e.g. tested 52 samples of grated parmesan cheese and found that almost 1/3 had been adulterated with palm oil (not mentioned as an ingredient on the label).
Elo Life Systems of Durham, North Carolina has secured a €24.5M Series A round, joined by e.g. AccelR8, Novo Holdings, and DCVC Bio. The company uses molecular farming to produce 'commercially valuable' ingredients. One current innovation is a plant-based sweetener 300x sweeter than sugar with no calories. Elo is also working with Dole to develop a fungal-resistant Cavendish banana to protect it from being eradicated.
WNWN Food Labs of the U.K. has bagged a $5.6M Series A round; the company makes cocoa-free chocolate 'that looks, tastes, melts, snaps, and bakes' like conventional chocolate out of e.g. cereals and legumes, which results in 80% fewer carbon emissions compared to conventional chocolate. The product is free from palm oil, contains no gluten, is free of caffeine, and is lower in sugar than conventional chocolate. The round was led by PeakBridge and backed by e.g. FoodLabs, PINC, and HackCapital.
Image: WNWN Food Labs
General Mills has discontinued its animal-free cream cheese brand Bold Cultr; the whey protein for the cheese was produced by Perfect Day using precision fermentation.
Is vertical farming a dead end? Good deep dive by Adele Peters in Fast Company.
Sweden-based Millow has emerged from stealth; the company develops 'minimally-processed' meat substitutes from oats and mycelium, and plans to launch a mince and bites next year.
U.K. supermarket chain Sainsbury's has launched £2 surplus fruit and vegetable boxes at over 200 stores in an effort to cut food waste.
Swedish plant-based fish startup Nothing F!SHY has reeled in an undisclosed amount of early-stage investment from Yuncture Food & Retail (article in Swedish).
Image: Nothing F!SHY
U.S. company Divert has been foie gras'd with $1.1B in funding ($100M in growth equity and $1B in structured project finance) from e.g. Ara Partners and Enbridge. Divert will build large-scale anaerobic digestion facilities, which will use microbes to break down food and animal waste to produce renewable gas (sequestering the methane and carbon during the process). The company already works with 5K food stores.
How sustainable are food-sharing apps such as OLIO? It depends on how app-users spend the saved cash, new research shows.
Our understanding of ultra-processed foods is evolving. But it's not a black-and-white situation. This WIRED UK article is worth your time.
Supermarkets collect a lot of data on their customers, including e.g. personal info, purchase history, location, biometric data, demographic data, mobile device data, and health-related data. The data is then sometimes sold, or used for targeted advertising.
Fascinating long-read on how high energy prices have led to a lack of tomatoes (or record-high tomato prices) on European supermarket shelves.
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
FoodFacts (Sweden) is hiring a CTO... Ordinary Seafood (Germany) has several open roles incl. for a Food Technologist... Klim (Germany) is recruiting for many roles incl. Sales Manager Carbon Credits... Lypid (U.S.) is looking for a Product Marketing Manager... Michroma (Argentina) is hiring a Senior Fermentation Scientist... Plenty (U.S.) is recruiting a Research Operations Grower.
Steve Molino of Clear Current Capital has written a good piece on the importance of setting reasonable expectations for how big of an impact any single sustainable food solution can have, to avoid disappointments and underinvestments.
FoodTech/AgTech conference Cumulus, which takes place in Las Vegas on Sep 11-13, just announced 150 speakers confirmed to attend (NB, I'm one of them). The ticket includes access to all sessions and the exhibit hall, breakfast and lunches, 3 receptions, unlimited 1:1 meetings, and more. Here's a $200 discount code to attend.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
A Brazilian movie theater showing Titanic was flooded, giving the moviegoers a true immerse 4D experience.
Today's 5-year-olds will likely live to 100.
Fascinating visual reminder how 150 years ago, most Americans worked in agriculture, and today less than 2% do (and yet the farms produce much more today).
Image source: Software is Feeding the World
Eating junk food is bad for people. New research shows that wild animals that eat human junk food also get sick.
Dismantling a LEGO tuna fish with a tuna knife (3 min video), h/t Arman A.
For-tuna-tely no fish were harmed when making this video
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to Hey Ya! by Outkast. 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.