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- FoodTech Weekly #16 by Daniel S. Ruben
FoodTech Weekly #16 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
September 11, 2020 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #16
Hi there,
Yesterday, Arman Anatürk was kind enough to name me a top FoodTech influencer to follow in 2020, and my inbox, LinkedIn, and newsletter signup notifications completely blew up. So to all new subscribers - welcome! Here's issue #1 of FoodTech Weekly, if you want a bit more insight on who I am. (And make sure to subscribe to Arman's newsletter 'This Week in Food').
Together with Peiman Milani and Dani Nierenberg (who, with 235,900 Twitter followers has just 235,565 more Twitter followers than I have), I wrote a piece for Nutrition Hub on how policy can change diets for better health.
The infographic was made by the awesome Na'im Samimi-Moore and his team at LVL.
Finland, for example, halved daily salt consumption amongst women from 12g to 6.5g between 1970 and 2002, reducing blood pressure levels significantly. Denmark managed to increase whole-grain consumption by 75% between 2007 and 2014 in its population and was the world's first country to ban trans-fats (which has helped decrease cardiovascular-related deaths). Chile launched a new policy 4 years ago to reduce consumption of sugary sodas, and purchases of those products dropped by almost 24% in the first 18 months of the new initiative.
I'm a big believer in technology and innovation as an amplifier and enabler of positive change, but it's important to keep in mind that smart policy can help achieve great things too.
Highlights
Conversations: Nils Österström (Tebrito)
Noteworthy: Credit Suisse's new sustainable oceans fund; FarmSense and TrapView capturing and counting insects to help farmers; NotCo secures $85M to fund U.S. expansion; Saga Robotics raises $11M for robot strawberry pickers
The Profile: Ryan Bethencourt
Random Stuff: 4,000-year-old bread; why cloning a small horse is a big thing; Sweden FoodTech Big Meet. And more.
Conversations
Caught up with Nils Österström, co-founder and CEO of Tebrito, HQ'ed central Sweden. Tebrito produces insects, more specifically mealworms -- that can be used as human food (here's a 2 min primer on that), animal feed, fertilizer, and more. Nils was excited as the frass (insect poo) has recently been approved and certified for use as fertilizer in organic, commercial-scale food production. So if someone ever wakes you up at 3am and asks what Chitin in insects is good for, tell them it's a powerful biostimulant. Tebrito is moving closer to commercial-size production, which means more automation as well as 1,500 tons of insects produced per year (which is a lot, but likely still pretty modest compared to what e.g. Protix, Ÿnsect, and AgriProtein churn out). There's a lot of interests internationally for insects as a more sustainable alternative to soy or fishmeal, which both come with pretty significant environmental impacts. Insects can upcycle nutrients in food waste and can thus help create a more circular food system. Tebrito is currently raising an €800K financing round and is also actively looking for commercial actors interested in doing pilots with the frass (as a sustainable fertilizer) out on the fields. If interested, or if you just want to get in touch with Nils, you can do so here.
Nils Österström, Tebrito
Noteworthy
Credit Suisse has rolled out a sustainable oceans equity fund, helping clients invest in pollution prevention, the low-carbon transition, and ocean conservation (and getting help from the Ocean Foundation in defining impact metrics and scope). This Fund follows S2G Ventures' new $100M Oceans and Seafood strategy, recently announced. The Sustainable Oceans Fundand Aqua-Spark are existing leading sustainability-focused actors in this space (Aqua-Spark's founders Mike Velings and Amy Novogratz were just listed on the Forbes Impact 50, alongside folks like Mark Cuban, Bill & Melinda Gates, Vinod Khosla, Jeff Skoll, Laurene Powell Jobs, Pierre Omidyar, Ray Dalio, and Eric Schmidt - indicating the outsized impact they're having).
Scientists at WUR in the Netherlands have successfully grown produce in a simulated Mars environment. Meanwhile, the entire U.S. West Coast is like: 'Simulated? Hold my beer.'
Earth Rover has netted a $250K pre-seed round. The startup uses cameras fitted to a tractor scan the plants (such as broccoli and lettuce) and measure their growth as the vehicle passes through the fields, on routine farm operations. The software then helps to make predictions around the size and timing of harvests, helping farmers e.g. plan their harvesting labor requirements.
FarmSense is automating the process of real-time classification and counting of insects, helping farmers better understand when to use various pest control tools in e.g. orchards. In the same industry, TrapView just secured $4.4M in funding; the company has 4,000+ traps operational in fields, that can give farmers better intelligence on the levels of insect infestations, and thus reduce the use of chemicals.
Fascinating article on what satellite data can tell us about how war and conflict impact farming.
Beyond Meat has signed a deal to build a production facility close to Shanghai, China. The country is the world's largest meat producer, consumer, and importer. As African Swine Flu has decimated pig populations, plant-based products like Omnipork have been gaining traction. Beyond's competitor Impossible Foods is still awaiting regulatory approval to enter mainland China, but is busy launching its products into Canada. In Latin America, Chilean plant-based foods startup NotCo, which has successfully launched a range of products across the continent, just raised $85M in a Series C to expand into the U.S. Meanwhile, Oatly has come under fire from some consumers and activists, for taking in $200M in investment this summer from a group that included Blackstone, which has been linked to deforestation in the Amazon.
U.K./Norwegian Saga Robotics raised $11M earlier in September. The startup develops autonomous strawberry pickers and robots that can blast fungus with UV light. The robotic harvesting sector was worth $5.5B in 2018, and the need for automation in the farm sector has grown during COVID, where farms in many parts of the world struggled (due to COVID infections and border closures) to secure enough labor to assist with the harvest of high-touch crops.
I might've mentioned this news before, but they're worth repeating: Startups developing innovative food and ingredients have already raised more funding in the first half of 2020, than they did in all of 2019.
The Profile
Ryan Bethencourt is a FoodTech / biotech scientist, investor, advisor, entrepreneur, b
iohacker, newsletter editor, and much more. He cofounded IndieBio, an SOS Ventures-backed accelerator, and early-stage seed fund; IndieBio helped fund about 70 biotech companies -- incl. e.g. Clara Foods, New Wave Foods, Memphis Meats, Geltor, and NotCo. He has done angel investments, is advising a number of FoodTech and biotech startups and is currently a venture partner with Babel Ventures (a $26M fund focused on emerging biotech companies), as well as the CEO of Wild Earth, which develops plant-based protein pet food. And this is just a very small sample of everything that he does.
Random Stuff
Forget about Brooklyn hipsters; an archeologist and the Xbox creator (!) brought a 4,000-year-old Egyptian sourdough back to life, and baked bread from it.
In a recent study, scientists could tell if people were intoxicated just by looking at their phones' motion data.
The first successfully cloned Przewalski's horse was born in August, the San Diego Zoo has announced. The species were once completely extinct from the wild, but have since been reintroduced. The new horse was cloned from horse DNA cryopreserved since 1980 and will help introduce more genetic diversity into the species that can help secure its survival. Speaking about newborns and California, the San Bernardino unit of the California Fire Department has confirmed that a gender reveal party using a 'smoke-generating pyrotechnic device' sparked one of the many wildfires currently ravaging California. The fire has since spread to at least 8,500 acres.
Reminder: On Sept 30 - Oct 1, Sweden FoodTech will host their Sweden FoodTech Big Meet. I will moderate one of the sessions. The event is fully online, and registration is free. It'll be fun. Sign up today.
No big deal. Just a Japanese micropig using public transport. On a ball.
I love you.
Daniel
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