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FoodTech Weekly #155 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
July 07, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #155
Hi there,
It’s summer. Maybe FoodTech Weekly will take a little vacation soon, but there’s still plenty of exciting news to report on.
This week's rundown:
Australian vertical farming startup Stacked Farm raise $65M
UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat legally sell cultivated meat in the U.S. for the first time
Italian teacher who got sacked after 20 years of absence vows to defend herself
Let's go!
Conversations
Caught up with Tomas Turner, Co-Founder and CEO of Cultivated Biosciences. Tomas grew up in the Italian part of Switzerland, and went on to study material science at EPFL in Lausanne. From a young age, he was involved in climate change work, and he started looking at the biomaterials space as a way of driving positive impact. ‘GFI however opened my eyes to the problem of factory farming, and all its ramifications’, Tomas says. After graduating from EPFL, he founded Cultivated Biosciences a few years ago together with process engineer Dimitri Zogg, to cultivate dairy fat in order to bring creaminess that consumers crave in plant-based dairy products such as cheese, yoghurt, baked goods, and so on.
‘We ferment a non-GMO yeast in bioreactors by feeding them with simple sugars, and can then extract microstructures extremely similar to those found in dairy milk, and how the milk fat is organized’, Tomas explains.' The actual fermentation is quick; in just five days, the company gets the cream extracted from the yeast, which acts as a functional fat. It can then be sold B2B to e.g. plant-based dairy companies — Cultivated Bio has already been contacted by the big players of the industry and has already over 20 LOIs in place.
‘The fat works as an emulsifier, so you can cut your ingredient list, and it sustains well in pasteurization, homogenization, and so on’, Tomas continues.
Cultivated Biosciences has done some internal LCAs and claim they can save 4 tons of CO2e for each ton of animal-based dairy cream that’s replaced. ‘We can cut hundreds of megatons of emissions every year in the future — our solution will drastically reduce the demand for animal-based dairy and fats’, Tomas believes.
The demand for Cultivated Biosciences’s cream may amount to billions of dollars each year. Their first launch market will be the U.S., as the regulatory pathway is quicker there (likely already in 2024, vs. 2025 for Europe).
Cultivated currently has 12 team members, mostly in R&D, and has raised $1.5M so far. The company wants to engage with brands selling plant-based dairy products in the U.S. looking to improve the creaminess of their products. Cultivated is also raising a $4.5M Seed round. Tomas can reached via [email protected]
Images: Cultivated Biosciences
Noteworthy
Australian indoor vertical farming company Stacked Farm has raised A$100M (about $65M), in a round led by Tayside (which is run by the family behind Australian foodservice distribution PFD Food Services).
French e-commerce company Willy Anti-Gaspi has banked €1M; the anti-food waste startup sells dry and hygiene, organic and local products at reduced prices. Investors in the round included impact fund Business Angels, as well as Good Only Ventures, La Nef, and BPI (h/t: DigitalFoodLab)
Also from France, Proteme harvested a €605K ($657K) funding round joined by Exerte Partners and business angels from BeAngels and WeLikeStartup; the company has developed an edible, natural coating that extend shelf life of fruits such as bananas and lemons.
Indonesian aquaculture tech scaleup eFishery has reeled in an additional $47.7M for its Series D funding, bringing the total round size to nearly $176M. The company develops solutions for shrimp and fish farmers, such as smart feeders, digital farming operation systems, an online marketplace, and access to financial services.
Following the final USDA approval, U.S. startup UPSIDE Foods became the first company to sell cultivated chicken in the U.S. It took place at Dominique Crenn’s Bar Crenn in San Francisco. UPSIDE’s industry peer GOOD Meat shortly after sold cultivated chicken meat in chef José Andrés’ D.C. restaurant China Chilcano.
Image: UPSIDE Foods
Netherlands-based ag robot builder Honest AgTech (that built what seems to be really neat and smart ag robots!) has gone bankrupt.
Israeli AgTech startup N-Drip has closed a $44M Series C round. The company has developed a gravity-powered micro-irrigation system that allows farmers to irrigate more efficiently without the use of expensive pumps or pressure-based filters.
Researchers at McGill University in Canada have created a new packaging tray that can alert producers, retailers and consumers in real time when the contents of a sealed food package containing raw or cooked food such as chicken are contaminated with e.g. salmonella or other dangerous pathogens.
How U.S. hospitals are nudging patients to eat more plant-based foods.
The number of people with diabetes worldwide is set to more than double to 1.3B by 2050, a new study finds.
Image: Tesa Robbins / Pixabay
Irish startup StrongBó AgriTech has bagged a €750K Seed round, led by Gallagher and joined by Enterprise Ireland, the 519 Growth Fund, and the Grand River Agricultural Society. The company has developed an Automatic Animal Weighing Device, which can weigh livestock remotely.
How scientists are using CRISPR to fight pests that are causing crop damage.
The Audacious Project has given $60M to the Global Fishing Watch (a project founded by e.g. Google), which works to create a comprehensive map of all fishing vessels operating on the ocean. Global Fishing Watch combines GPS data with AI and satellite imagery to publicly display industrial fishing vessels as well as the hundreds of thousands of smaller-scale fishing boats and cargo ships out on the ocean. The goal is to help reduce so-called Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The EU has released new, legally binding goals for food waste reduction. Member states are required to take measures to cut food waste by the end of 2030, by 10% in processing and manufacturing, and by 30% (per capita) and retail and consumption (restaurants, food services, and households). More than half of EU food waste is currently generated by households.
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Developeat (Netherlands) is looking for a Food Science intern.
FoodHack, which runs Meetups in 40+ cities across the world, is now calling for Ambassadors for 11 cities to kick off ClimateHack Meetups. The Meetups will bring together local communities of entrepreneurs, investors, and operators through quarterly meetups.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
Waste heat from computer server farms could be used for food production.
Among a home gardening boom, plant butlers and plant hospitals are now a thing in Korea.
Cool strawberry picking robot from MiFood (20 sec video).
Video: MiFood
A new Instagram filter allows people to use their smartphone cameras to scan food products that have expired, and get ideas for multiple uses (coffee e.g. can be a mosquito repellant, and milk becomes a solvent to remove ink stains).
Chewing gums are, apparently, no longer cool (h/t: Marie Dollé). Some blame the introduction of the smartphone.
A French artist created a new musical instrument, inspired by the kebab (h/t Marie Dollé):
ICYMI #1: What it sounds like when plants cry.
ICYMI #2: About half of all honey sold in the EU is fake; most originate in Turkey and China.
An Italian teacher who was fired from work after being absent for 20 out of 24 years has vowed to defend herself, after Italy’s highest court confirmed the dismissal. The teacher told Italian newspaper Repubblica she has the documents to prove her story, while adding: ‘Sorry, but right now I’m at the beach.’
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to Baraye by Shervin Hajipour. 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.