FoodTech Weekly #24 by Daniel S. Ruben

FoodTech Weekly #24

Hi there,

First, a correction: The image of an insect I featured last week was apparently of the Zophobas morio, not the Tenebrio molitor (thanks Ilkka for letting me know!).

Just like last week, Arman Anatürk and I have mapped some FoodTech companies that could be impactful in terms of sustainability, nutrition, and market share capture. This week, we did Swiss FoodTech startups:

• Agrosustain - Biological plant protection

• Planted - Natural plant-based meat alternatives

• SwissDecode - Real-time food authentication, compliance and safety for farmers

• Farmy - Online marketplace for local and organic food

• ‍New Roots - Swiss producer of 100% plant-based cheese

• Yamo - Provides 100% organic food for babies and kids under 10

• Mootral - Natural feed supplement for cows, which reduces methane emissions

• FlavorWiki - Flavor profiling and food personalization application for food producers

• Luckabox - On-demand delivery management platform connecting enterprises with courier-services

• MyBacs - DTC biotechnology company specialized in the human microbiome

The full list of 40 or so startups can be found onFoodHack. Go check it out -- there's much more to Switzerland than chocolate and cheese.

One more thing: I know no-one in their right mind would move to Stockholm in November. But Noquo Foodsishiring for a Strategic Business Development and Sales role. So if you think plant-based cheese deserves some plate share, check out the job posting.

Highlights

• Conversations: John Pattison (Cultured Decadence); Mazen Rizk (Mushlabs); Tilen Travnik (Bevo)

• Noteworthy: Self-watering soil; Soleatrac raises $1.3M for 100% electric tractors; largest-ever harvest of non-browning GM apples; Yindii food rescue app launches in Bangkok

• The Profile: Rosanne Hertzberger, PhD

• Random Stuff: Forced monkey labor; Indians asked to eat more sugar; saved by a whale's tail. And more.

Conversations

• Chatted with John Pattison, CEO and Co-Founder of Cultured Decadencethis week. John is from the Midwest, worked at a mutual fund, ended up in Asia, and came back to the U.S. for 4 years of active duty in the military. He then went to NYU Stern School of Business thinking he'd become an investment banker like Gordon Gekko, but decided he wanted to work in alternative protein. This led him to eventually founding Cultured Decadence. Crabs and lobsters have among the highest CO2 footprints, and you only get 25-30% usable protein of the entire animal. It's also hard to farm lobsters and crabs, and the populations have taken a hit from viral infections, acidification, higher sea temperatures etc. Cultured Decadence is growing cell-based crustacean meat, hoping they can have a pilot product in maybe 3 years' time. The startup is currently raising a round. If you're an investor, or a potential strategic partner -- e.g. if you work on the food manufacturing side -- or you're a chef interested in getting in touch, you can reach John via LinkedIn.

• Got an introduction to Mazen Rizk, PhD, Founder and CEO of Mushlabs. Mazen has a background in biotechnology. Originally from Lebanon, he came to Germany for school 10 years ago and never left. Mazen felt that the food system isn't sustainable, nor healthy or equitable. He wanted to create change and be part of something bigger, -- and felt fermenting mushrooms could be the tool to do just that. 'I don't give a f*ck about what people eat in Europe. I'm anti-FoodTech. The big problem we need to solve is: How do we feed 1B people that are undernourished? Giving back is not about creating the next gen burger that you and your hipster friends can take selfies with.' So he founded Mushlabs. The company, which has 14-15 employees, creates novel food products by using mushroom cells. Mazen has raised $13M so for for the startup, as it's scaling up production and plans to launch a few different products next year. 'I'm not Mother Teresa. I also want to make money. But for me, success is to create change in the food system. Who wakes up 5am in the morning with a passion to create meat replacements for people living in first-world countries? That passion should go into nourishing people in developing countries, that don't have enough food. If you have the power to create food and feed the undernourished, and you don't exploit that power, you're a failure.' Mushlabs is recruiting. So that's one thing. But if you're a philanthropy and understand what this could do in terms of food security for vulnerable populations in emerging markets, then you should definitely get in touch with Mazen.

• Spoke with Tilen Travnik of Slovenian plant-based meat company Bevo this week. Tilen majored in food science and biotech, and ended up founding and running a successful startup studio, that helped 50+ startups doing web and mobile applications to go to market. A few years ago, Tilen switched his diet, and also realized that alternative protein companies were becoming more agile, continuously releasing new versions of their products, akin to how software companies keep updating their apps and programs. After launching a local food-tech accelerator, Tilen co-founded Bevo, which can produce hyper-realistic animal muscle analogues. Soon, Bevo will raise funding to scale up production, expand the team, and increase sales. To get hold of Tilen, use LinkedIn.

Noteworthy​

• Okanagan Specialty Fruits, which has developed a non-browning apple (by silencing the PPO enzyme which make apples go brown) announced its largest-ever harvest of about 13 million lbs (appr. 6000 metric tons) of apples. As the apples don't go brown when cut or bruised, they can be used in different ways from conventional apples, and food waste is reduced. Meanwhile, Del Monte has launched a genetically modified pineapple with pink flesh and a sweeter flavor -- at $49 a pop.

• Finnish biotech startup eniferBio has raised a €1M Seed round from Nordic FoodTech VC and Voima Ventures. eniferBio is fermenting bio-based side streams (e.g. forest pulp) and turn it into a protein ingredient which can replace soy in fish feed. In the UK meanwhile, biotech startup Deep Branch has secured €2.5M in funding from the European Innovation Council Accelerator. Deep Branch turns CO2 from industrial emissions into novel protein sources for animal feed (such as fish feed)

• Bangkok-based startup Yindii has just launched a new app that will fight food waste by connecting restaurants and cafés wanting to offload unsold food, with consumers looking for a good bargain. Similar solutions to watch in Europe include Karma and Too Good To Go.

• Australian NuFarm and German Crop.Zone are using electricity to kill weeds. As the tractor drives across a field, it sprays an organic liquid that is conductive on the plants; then an electric charge is applied, and weeds are killed off. Pretty neat.

• Israeli startup Mileutis, which recently raised $20M, has developed a solutionwhich it says can cut the need to use antibiotics in livestock. Overuse of antibiotics is leading to antimicrobial resistance, which is linked to over 700,000 deaths worldwide every year. Mileutis' solution reduces the Mastitisdisease, and thereby also the need to use antibiotics to treat the disease.

• NotCo, which is LATAM's answer to Impossible Foods and recently raises a $85M Series C round, is launching its Not Milk into Whole Foods. And Hooray Foods' plant-based bacon is heading for 300 Whole Foods stores. I've had the chance of experiencing their products in person -- they're pretty impressive. If you live in the U.S., try them out and let me know what you think.

• Soleatrac, which develops, assembles, and distributes 100% battery-powered electric tractors for agricultural tasks, has secured $1.3M in investment from Ideanomics.
   

• Researchers at University of Texas at Austin are developing self-watering soil. By using 'hydrogels' (the same material used in many contact lenses) these polymers can retain and release water. Hydrogels is mixed into soil, and then absorbs water during cooler nighttime weather, and release it to irrigate crops during during the warmer daytime conditions. The research team did a trial with radishes - those in the hydrogel soil were still fine two weeks after watering had stopped; the control group radishes in dry, sandy soil perished within two day of watering stopping. The technology is still costly and in its infancy, but the scientist are optimistic.

• Israeli startup SuperMeat has established The Kitchen, a restaurant/test kitchen outside Tel Aviv where guests can buy chicken burgers, where the meat was cell-based (lab-grown). The actual production takes place behind glass walls. SuperMeat hopes to launch in restaurants within 1-2 years. Another Israeli FoodTech startup, MeaTech, announced this week that it has closed a $7M funding round. MeaTech, which is listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and is preparing for a U.S. IPO, has 3D printed steaks using cell-based meat.

The Profile

Rosanne Hertzberger, PhD, is a Dutch author, columnist, and independent researcher (and she's writing about pretty odd things). She wrote the book 'Ode aan de e-nummers' ('In Defense of Processed Foods') where she discusses things like artisanal vs. industrial, processed vs. unprocessed, and natural vs. artificial. I once attended an event where she spoke in the Netherlands, and she said that e.g. 'Natural vanilla is to a large extent produced using child labor. That’s one of the reasons I prefer chemically produced vanilla -- vanillin.'  Herzberger argues that we shouldn't hide useful technologies such as food additives that are completely safe, but that companies have started to do so because consumers are scared of chemicals: 'How do we solve the paradigm that natural is healthy and artificial is not? I have a PhD in microbiology, and I don’t know. To me, fossil fuels are natural, but they're not healthy.'

Random Stuff

• CostCo has dropped Chaokoh coconut milk after allegations of forced monkey labor.

• Beautiful data visualizations of animal populations of Europe.

• Disney has developed a new skinless robot that can blink and it's not scary at all.

• Hello diabetes! "Indians asked to eat more sugar to tackle oversupply."

• In case you missed it: A Metro train that overran the stop blocks at a station outside Rotterdam, the Netherlands earlier this week, came to a stop on the plastic tail of a whale sculpture (which was quickly renamed by local authorities to 'Saved by a Whale's Tail' from its original name 'Whale Tails').

  

​I love you.
Daniel
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Disclosures: I'm a consultant to the Rockefeller Foundation Food Team. I'm a mentor at accelerators Katapult Ocean, Big Idea Ventures, and Bloomer. I'm an advisor to Noquo Foods, BIOMILQ, Volta Greentech, VEAT, Hooked, IRRIOT, Rootically, Holistal, Vultus, and Ignitia; 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 as regards to any investment, divestment or retention decision taken by readers of this newsletter content.