FoodTech Weekly #199 by Daniel S. Ruben

FoodTech Weekly #199

Hi there,

I just launched my new website (www.danielskavenruben.com), which showcases some of my experiences, podcasts and articles I’ve featured in, and clients I’ve had. On the website, organizations can book me for keynotes, moderating gigs etc. All is focused on building a better food system.

(I know I look like a tech bro in almost every single image of the website, so I’ll have to fix that going forward).

Big shoutout to Faria Qayyum of Creations by Faria, the website designer who turned my scattered ideas into something very pretty. She’s extremely skilled and professional, so if you need to build a new website, I’d highly recommend working with her.

I was recently interviewed by Rami Alhamad’s Action Potential on the future of food; emerging trends, the most promising technologies to help improve the food system, my thoughts on everything from vertical farming to functional foods, why I started FoodTech Weekly, and much more. Check it out!

And FoodHack asked me (and 13 other investors) on what solutions they’re looking for, to help fix the food system. I mentioned food waste, behavior change tech, and tech that helps decarbonize the food system — but the whole article is worth a read.

Finally, FoodTech Weekly reader Thomas Farrugia reacted to last week’s story on the $400 pineapple sold in California: ‘I have always found it really weird that these things which take 2-3 years to grow in Costa Rica can get shipped round the planet to the UK and sold in Lidl for £0.99. Very different to the Victorian era, when you used to rent a pineapple for your dinner party, as a status symbol.’

(Gotta go, am off to start a pineapple-as-a-service business. Raising a $10M pre-seed at a $200M pre-money valuation, Tier 1 VCs only)

This week's rundown:

• NewMoo emerges from stealth with $7M, will grow casein in plants

• Dutch researchers develop sticky substance protecting crops from pests

• BioCraft Pet Nutrition says its cultivated meat has reached price parity with premium traditional meat

Let’s go!

Conversations

Spoke with Corjan van den Berg, co-founder of revyve in the Netherlands. Corjan’s background is biotech and chemical engineering. He did his Ph.D. in fermentation, and ‘went down the micro algae rabbit hole but realized green biomass wasn’t going to be a winner because you always end up with a big green fraction as a side product’.

Revyve co-founders Corjan van den Berg and Edgar Suarez Garcia worked together as inspiring professor and student protégé at Wageningen University & Research (WUR). While researching how to make the most out of food-production side streams, they discovered the superpowers of upcycled beer yeast to mimic the power of eggs. So, Corjan left his tenure track position at WUR and together with Edgar he started FUMI Ingredients in 2019 (later rebranded to revyve). ‘Scientific papers collect dust. I wanted to make a meaningful impact, so starting a company was natural’, Corjan says.

So what does revyve actually do? The company collects upcycled yeast to produce high-performing texturizing ingredients. They break the cells, and process the biomass in a mild way (so no high temperatures or pH) into proteins and fibers, ending up with ingredients that have unique functional properties for e.g. foaming, gelation, emulsification etc. ‘Our ingredients are all natural and sustainable, helping to create the delicious food experiences consumers crave without the need for animal ingredients or additives’, Corjan explains.

(When revyve added a button on their website for an egg white replacer, hundreds of companies asked for samples. ‘And I was producing 2 gram samples’, Corjan laughs.)

In a couple of months, revyve will open a new state-of-the-art factory that’s capable of replacing 20M eggs per year. The Netherlands produces a few billion eggs per year, and 1/3 of them go to the food industry. Says Corjan: ‘In 5-10 years from now we’ll produce a range of functional ingredients, from different raw materials, that can be used for many applications, and consumers will not notice nor care, because the end products will be the same.’

Revyve sells its ingredient to companies doing baked goods, pasta, sauces, meat replacers (e.g. making plant based chicken meat more tender and flexible), and so on — any food product where eggs or egg whites are used today. Egg white replacement is a €7B market.

The company has 17 FTEs, and raised a €8M Series A investment from Cosun and Oost-NL last year. Next year revyve will do a new funding round.

If there are companies out there using egg whites in unexpected products (beyond the obvious ones — baked goods, sauces, meat replacement) Corjan is very interested to learn more about that. And if companies have any microbial biomass that they’re struggling to valorize, they should also reach out. Corjan can be reached via LinkedIn.

Noteworthy

• Ohalo of California, U.S. has come out of five years of stealth with $100M in funding for its ‘boosted breeding’ technology, which ensures that the progeny of two plants will receive their parents’ entire genome — a potential game changer in the crop breeding world, the company claims. Here’s an explainer on how the tech works.

• Chilean vertical farming startup AgroUrbana has harvested a $6M pre-Series B round to increase its production of leafy greens. The company now plans to expand its facility 5x, and incorporate new technologies to reach more customers.

• Metrovate of New Zealand has raised a $1M round from Sprout Agritech for its precision biostimulants that aim to improve plant growth while being safe and biodegradable.

• NUTRAMAMI of Denmark has bagged €450K (appr. $490K) in pre-seed funding led by Kost Capital and Planetary Impact Ventures. The company develops a plant protein powder designed to replace the nutrtients fround in animal meat products.

• Israeli FoodTech startup NewMoo has emerged from stealth with $7M in Seed funding led by Lool and Zora ventures. The company produces casein proteins using plant molecular farming; the casein can then be used to make e.g. genuine cheese.

• Scientists from Wageningen University & Research and Leiden University have developed a sticky substance that protects crops from pest insects like thrips, while reducing the need for pesticides. The scientists were inspired by nature, in particular the carnivorous sundew plant (which made me think of this Ze Frank video — watch the full 5 minutes, try not to laugh).

• Can AI make crop production more sustainable? A group of researchers have produced a guidebook on how to help fill research gaps, and how AI plays a role.

• How supermarket branding is used to convey cheapness — interesting read from The Conversation (since consumers take 5-13 secs on average to make a purchase decision in-store, things like color are incredibly important).

• U.S. online retailer Misfit Market, which was started in 2018 and sells e.g. ugly produce, is on track to do $1B in sales.

• BioCraft Pet Nutrition of Vienna, Austria has announced it has reached price parity with premium traditional meat; $2.00 to $2.50 per lb (0.45 kg) sale price of cultivated meat. The company plans to have their cultivated meat in brand name products on shelves in early 2026.

• Australian insect meal producer Goterra has signed a partnership with aquafeed company Skretting to explore using Goterra’s insect meal in feeding local aquaculture species.

• Phytoform Labs of the U.K., which uses CRISPR to improve traits in produce like tomatoes and potatoes, has been awarded £100K from the inaugural Manchester Prize, and is one of ten finalists to compete for the £1M grand prize next spring.

• Saffron Tech of Israel has unveiled a new pilot facility which will be able to cultivate four cycles of saffron per year using Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) methods, meeting market demand ‘consistently’.

News from the FoodTech Weekly community

• Too Good To Go (Sweden) is looking for a Head of Key Accounts… Farmless (The Netherlands) is recruiting a Head of FOAK… Nutropy (France) has a number of open roles… ProVeg (Germany) is on the hunt for an Impact Entrepreneur (Trainee)… Essential (Kenya) wants to hire a Fungal Fermentation Scientist.

• Michal Klar of Better Bite Ventures has written a great post on how to decarbonize rice. Well worth a read!

• Digital Innovation in Food Processing Award will recognize leaders in digitalization of food processing technology. Apply by June 8. The finals will be held in Rome during World Food Forum, Oct 14-18.The award is co-hosted with SS4AF, HIGHFIVE, Qing and Next Tech Food Factories. 

• The Mondelez accelerator CoLab Tech is accepting applications from startups anywhere in the world, aiming to accelerate innovation in Mdlz’s core categories of chocolate, biscuits and baked snacks. This year they are focused on 🌿 early stage ingredient technologies, 🥫packaging technologies, and 🔄 sustainability technologies. Click here to apply; if questions ping Imran Afzal.

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

Random Stuff

• Ants learn faster on caffeine (it’s called the #1 legal productivity drug for a reason, I suppose). (h/t Azeem Azhar)

• India’s solar additions grew 5x in Q1 2024. And Germany has installed more solar capacity than consumer demand requires - turning electricity prices negative. Speaking about turning — turnstile turbines in the Paris metro generated electricity (h/t NotMyProblem):

• Pipedream is building a system of underground pipes to deliver packages to homes and offices. Cool 40 sec video. Is this an idea crazy enough to work? (h/t FoodHack)

• A software engineer built a frontend of Reddit which makes it look like you’re on Outlook at work:

• Corn Belt fertilizer is killing the Gulf of Mexico, WaPo writes.

• AI based in-store avocado scanner in the Netherlands (h/t FoodHack):

• How long do eggs really last? (NYT)

• Great weekend read: Scott Galloway’s piece on Earners vs. Owners. Favorite quote: ‘If you’re ever featured in a commercial calling you a “hero,” it means you’re getting fucked. The most fortunate in our society have no holiday, as they don’t need one. They recognize that holidays wallpaper over the inequity faced by anybody who gets a day in their honor.’

• A book (Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘Refugees’) borrowed from a Finnish library in 1939 was just returned, just 84 years late. The library may make the book — an edition published in 1925 — available to the public again since it was received in such good condition. Says librarian Heini Strand: ‘The quality of old books is usually much better than new ones.’

​I love you.
Daniel

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This issue was produced while listening to Hey Ya! by xoxo and Michael Shynes. Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter. Did your brilliant friend forward this to you? Subscribe here.

Disclosures: I'm founder of Solvable Syndicate. I’m an operating advisor to VC/investment firms Nordic FoodTech VC, Mudcake, and Blume Equity. I'm a mentor at accelerators Katapult Ocean, Big Idea Ventures, and Norrsken Accelerator. I'm an advisor to BIOMILQ, FoodHack, Hooked, Ignitia, Improvin, IRRIOT, Juicy Marbles, Lupinta, NitroCapt, Oceanium, petgood, Rootically, Stockeld Dreamery, Transship, VEAT, and Volta Greentech; in some of these startups, I have equity.

Boring disclaimer: The newsletter content is intended only to provide general and preliminary information to folks interested in FoodTech, and shall not be construed as the basis for any investment decision or strategy. I assume no liability in regards to any investment, divestment, or retention decision taken by readers of this newsletter content.