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FoodTech Weekly #166 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
September 29, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #166
Hi there,
FoodHack recently interviewed 42 FoodTech and ClimateTech investors (incl. yours truly) on what 100+ technologies startups should be working on. Some solutions I mentioned included fossil free fertilizer, CRISPR, food waste tech and better alt protein products through improved ingredients and infrastructure. The article is pretty interesting, so don’t miss it.
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DigitalFoodLab just released a report on FoodTech in Denmark. Danish FoodTech startups raised €143M in 2022, in 28 unique deals, and are expected to raise €160M during 2023. DigitalFoodLab identifies strong public support plus links to Danish research universities as key advantages for Danish FoodTech startups. Below is the Denmark FoodTech Top 10 according to DigitalFoodLab.
Source: DigitalFoodLab
One month to go until AgriVest and FoodTechIL during Israel AgriFood Week. Use codes AGRIVEST10 and FoodTechWeekly10 for a 10% ticket discount on each event, respectively.
This week's rundown:
Meet giant JBS builds $62M innovation center for cultivated meat
Austrian Kern Tec bags €12M to upcycle stone fruit pits into sustainable ingredients
The English government eased sodium regulations, resulting in 24,000 premature deaths
Let's go!
Conversations
Noteworthy
Brazilian company JBS, one of the largest meat processors in the world, is building a $62M innovation centre for cultivated meat. Located in Florianópolis, Brazil, the centre is slated to open at the end of 2024. The center will focus on how to produce cultivated meat efficiently, scalable, and at competitive prices, Vegconomist reports.
U.K. plant-based meat startup THIS has received a media-for-equity investment worth at least £1.5M from British media company ITV. (For anyone interested, I interviewed THIS’ co-founder and CEO, Andy Shovel, back in August).
Vietnamese edible insect startup Cricket One has opened what it claims is Asia’s largest cricket processing facility in Binh Phuoc north of Saigon (processing 1K metric tons per year, and increasing to 10K tons over the next five years). Cricket One also says it has closed a ‘seven-figure’ Series A round led by Singapore-based investor Robert Alexander Stone and supported by Cub Capital and a Singapore-based family office.
Austrian FoodTech startup Kern Tec has bagged a €12M (appr. $12.7M) Series A round, backed by Telos Impact, PeakBridge VC and the European Innovation Council. Kern Tec can upcycle stone fruit pits such as apricots, plums, and cherries, and turn them into sustainable ingredients for plant-based dairy, cosmetics, and confectionary products. Each year, 500K metric tons of discarded fruit seeds such as cherry and peach pits go to landfills in Europe alone. Kern Tec can help avoid this, advancing a more circular food system.
Image: Kern Tec
Complete Farmer of Ghana has raised a $10.4M pre-Series A round ($7M equity, the rest in debt) led by Acumen and Alitheia Capital/uMunthu II Fund and Goodwell Investments). The company acts as an end-to-end marketplace, connecting African producers and global industries, e.g. enabling smallholder farmers to understand how to cultivate commodities that conform to global market specifications, thus ensuring buyers post-harvest.
Busan, South Korea startup PureSpace has nabbed $4M in Series A funding. The company has developed a filtration technology for refrigeration trucks and food storage facilities which targets ethylene in the air, thus slowing the ripening process of fresh produce (h/t FoodHack). PureSpace now aims to raise a $10M Series B round to expand to the U.S.
Treetoscope of Israel has harvested a $7M Seed round led by Champel Capital. The company has developed a precision irrigation management platform that can e.g. measure plant water consumption in real time, and which can save farmers appr. 30% in irrigation costs (h/t DigitalFoodLab and FoodHack).
Australian agtech startup SwarmFarm has launched a dock-and-refill capability which allows its ag robots to autonomously refill and refuel themselves.
Mill Industries of the U.S. has clinched $70M (towards a $100M target) in Series C funding from e.g. Lowercarbon Capital and Breakthrough Energy Ventures for its subscription food waste collection service that collects scraps from households, processing them into chickenfeed. In somewhat related news, UBQ Materials of Israel also raised $70M from e.g. TPG Rise, to turn household waste into biobased thermoplastics (h/t DigitalFoodLab).
Image: Mill
In 2006, England initiated a program that led to people there consuming 20% less salt. The approach was changed in 2011, which led to increased salt intake in the population. Researchers estimate that this led to 24,000 premature deaths due to stroke and heart disease over a four-year period.
‘Farmers turn to tech as bees struggle to pollinate’ — good BBC read.
The Dutch arm of vertical farming company Infarm has been declared bankrupt. The company is now said to focus on establishing growing centers in Canada and Qatar.
The EU will likely ban product claims such as ‘carbon neutral’, ‘environmentally friendly’, ‘eco’, ‘natural’, ‘biodegradable’ etc by 2026, in an effort to stop greenwashing.
Scientists at Singapore’s Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL) are working to reduce methane emissions from rice farming by at least 20%, by optimizing things such as e.g. soil additives, rice varieties, and irrigation techniques.
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Fermify (Austria) is looking for a Director of R&D… SuperMeat (Israel) is recruiting a Senior Researcher for Analytics Dept… Savor (U.S.) is hiring a Business Development Manager… BettaF!sh (Germany) wants to bring on a Chief of Staff… Mineral.ai (U.S.) has an open role for a Ag Data Engineer… WNWN Food Labs (U.K.) is seeking a Sales Director.
Vinnova, Israel Innovation Authority, Innosuisse and Enterprise Singapore are hosting a networking webinar on Oct 25, for their upcoming FoodTech call on alternative proteins for projects between Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, and Singapore. GFI Europe will provide an overview of R&D&I needs within FoodTech and alt proteins.
The Female Founders in FoodTech Virtual Pitch Event is seeking founders who have raised less than $1M in capital. Pitch to win a grand prize of $25K in equity-free capital plus pass + flight to SXSW 2024, visibility, networking opportunities with outstanding investors, and much more. Submit by Oct 15, 2023.
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Random Stuff
Harvesting almonds using an almond tree shaker (and then sweeping up the almonds) — cool quick videos.
Yes, correlation does not imply causation etc. Still, I found this interesting:
U.S. fast casual restaurant chain Chipotle is using a new robot that can produce almost 200 burrito bowls per hour.
A brand new research study indicates that Zoom backgrounds affect judgements of trust and competence. Tl;dr, use books and house plants in the background to look smart and trustworthy.
On second thought, perhaps correlation is causation…
I love you.
Daniel
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