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- FoodTech Weekly #230 by Daniel S. Ruben
FoodTech Weekly #230 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
January 24, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #230
Hi there,
Huge thanks to all of you who reached out after my LinkedIn post last week, where I wrote that I’m looking for a new full-time job or (full-time) consultancy. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.
This week's rundown:
💶 €15M in funding for ultra-realistic plant-based ham
😵 Sugary beverages responsible for 300K deaths annually, new study shows
🐠 Japanese aquarium cheering up lonely sunfish
Let's go!
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💰 Funding
🇫🇷 Aisprid, which develops agriculture robots (especially for greenhouse farming), has closed a €10M (appr. $10.4M) funding round, led by Innovacom and Bpifrance. Its flagship robot is designed for tomato plant de-leafing.
🇩🇪 Ingarden has scored €1.2M (appr. $1.25M) in Seed extension funding, led by Gemüsering Stuttgart. The company’s main product is a fully automated mini-garden designed for home kitchens, that allow users to harvest fresh, nutrient-rich greens in just seven days.
🇲🇽 Sistema.bio, which provides waste-to-energy solutions (such as turning waste into biogas and fertilizer) on e.g. smallholder farms, has bagged $7.75M from Novastar.
🇩🇪 Project Eaden has raised a €15M (appr. $15.6M) Series A round, led by Planet A Ventures and REWE Group, and backed by DeepTech & Climate Fonds, Happiness Capital, AgriFoodTech Venture Alliance, Creandum and FoodLabs. The startup makes ultra-realistic whole-cut plant-based meat such as ham.
Project Eaden
🎙️ Investment Climate
This week, Alex Shandrovsky met with Maximillian Bogenmann of Endless Food Co. The startup safeguards the future of chocolate while tapping into the flavor and value potential of overlooked resources. In this conversation, Max shares insights into the journey of launching an alternative chocolate company, e.g. building relationships with investors through genuine outreach and advisory support, despite lacking experience in food scaling and B2B sales. Max also touches on e.g. the importance of having advocates and early partners to support their growth. Endless recently raised a €1M pre-seed round led by Nordic FoodTech VC. The entire episode can be found on Spotify and Apple.
Top three findings from this conversation:
Overcoming Objections through Self-awareness and Support. Address lack of experience by surrounding yourself with trusted advisors and demonstrating the ability to learn and adapt. “ If you're really genuine with people and, and you are seeking help, most people are generally willing to offer you their own experience or advice from their own philosophy”, Max noted.
Leveraging Genuine Interactions for Goodwill. Authenticity and kindness can help establish meaningful connections without significant monetary investment: " I think we were able to get a lot of goodwill out of people because I think we were quite genuine in what we were trying to achieve, what we didn't know. I think that being hospitality professionals we were pretty good at sort of helping people with meals and, and a nice bottle of wine here and there".
Partnership with 7-Eleven. The partnership with 7-Eleven developed slowly, through a B2B approach, rather than a direct consumer-facing product. " I think we've always envisioned being a B2B product. ... we met the procurement manager ... and it took months before anything sort of happened. 7-Eleven came down and said, ‘we'd really love to make these cookies’ with a one-to-one swap with THICC, which is our product."
🧐 Noteworthy
🧀 Californian plant-based cheese producer Misha’s has acquired New York-based vegan cheese industry-peer Vertage for an undisclosed sum. In related news, alt cheese startup Willicroft will shut down after failing to meet its fundraising goals, founder Brad Vanstone announced.
🤑 Chipotle will double the size of their Cultivate Next venture fund from $50M to $100M. The fund was established in 2022 and focuses on early-stage investments in startups developing innovations in ag, supply chains, automation, and restaurant tech. Cultivate Next recently invested in e.g. CH4 Global and Plantible.
🍗 Is replacing beef with ostrich meat a good idea?
🥤 A new study by researchers at Tuft University estimates that sugary beverages lika soda and energy drinks contributed to over 330K deaths and 3M new cases of diabetes and heart disease combined in 2020. Since 1990, sub-Saharan Africa has had the biggest increases.
💡 DigitalFoodLab just released its annual report on the trends shaping the future of agriculture and food. The report groups 31 trends into six megatrends (the resilient farm, sustainable ingredients, food as medicine, the smart supply chain, digital retail, and food automation)
DigitalFoodLab
🌍 News from the FoodTech Weekly community
👨🏻💻 Essential (🇰🇪) is looking for a Commercial and Growth Lead… Hooked (🇸🇪) has an opening for a Business Development Intern (sales)… Terra Oleo (🇸🇬) is recruiting a Bioprocess Engineer - Microbial Fermentation… Esencia Foods (🇩🇪/🇪🇸) has a bunch of open roles… New School Foods (🇨🇦) has open roles for e.g. a Director of R&D and a Director of Engineering… Win-Win (🇬🇧) is on the hunt for a Chocolatier.
🧃 Persimmonhealth has achieved a groundbreaking milestone by producing concentrate (as sweet as honey, but priced lower and with more health benefits) from persimmons for the first time globally. The product can be used as a natural sweetener. The company is currently looking for a consultant to help understand the natural sweetener market and find initial customers. Contact Bahruz via email.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
🎲 Random Stuff
❄️ The science behind how igloos keep people warm.
👹 There’s no such thing as a Gruffalo.
🐟 A sunfish at an aquarium in Japan became unwell during renovations, but recovered after the tank was decorated with pictures of peoples’ faces, leading staff to suspect the animal had just been feeling lonely.
🍕 A pizzeria in Norwich, England has introduced a £100 charge (appr. $123) for anyone adding pineapple as a pizza topping, when placing their online pizza delivery order.
😽 Yukai Engineering has introduced a little cat robot, Nékojita FuFu, that one can mount on the side of a mug or a bow; the cat then blows air to help cool off the beverage or food. The Tokyo-based firm says the robot combines a fan and a ‘special algorithm’ to blow at random strengths and intervals. Says Tsubasa Tominaga, the chief marketing officer of Yukai:“The robot doesn’t just help you enjoy hot coffee. It can make it easier for seniors to down hot soup and reduce parents’ chores by helping kids eat with less help.”
Nékojita FuFu
I love you.
Daniel
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🎵 This issue was produced while listening to ouvi dizer by MARO.
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