FoodTech Weekly #3 by Daniel S. Ruben

FoodTech Weekly #3

Hi there,

For those of us a little OCD about handwashing, isn't this is a great time to be alive?

By the way, this little newsletter community already has about 400 members - let's keep growing it.Share the signup link.

Heading into the summer, there'll likely be fewer conversations in the next two months or so. But I still had a bunch of exciting convos in recent days, two of which I'm sharing from below.

Stay hungry, stay curious.

Highligths

• Conversations with Mats Lederhausen and Liisa Smits

• Noteworthy: PastureMap acquired; Launch of new FoodTech fund Trellis Road

• The Profile: Olivia Fox Cabane

• Random Stuff: Fungi meatballs. Pizza robots. And more

Conversations

• Had the privilege of engaging a bit with Mats Lederhausen. For those who don't know him, Mats has had a fantastic career. Born and raised in Sweden, he spent 17 years at McDonald's, e.g. serving as Global Head of Strategy (1999-2003); at McDonald's Ventures (2003-2007), he oversaw the investments in concepts like Chipotle (where he was chairman) and Pret A Manger. He also co-founded RedBox (which does DVD rentals) and Roti Mediterranean Grill (where he's still the chairman). He's a founding General Partner of VC firm CueBall in Boston, and he runs BeCause, his own private holding company that does purpose-driven investments (with a very cool portfolio). I could go on, but you get the point that Mats is a very accomplished guy. What I really like though, is how mission-driven he is; fighting for organizations to find a purpose bigger than their product; to help us all realize how connected we all are to each other, and that our job here on Earth is to try to be as 'useful' as we can to each other. Mats recently started a weekly newsletter (read the most recent issue here); I really enjoy it, and think you might too -- sign up for it here.

• Grabbed salad with Liisa Smits, the Founder/CEO of Ignitia (full disclosure: I'm an advisor to Ignitia). Lisa started out by getting Master degrees in meteorology and physics, and moved to the U.S. to work on climate change research at UW, as part of a NASA research project (bec

  

  ause why not). She realized that the formula for calculating weather patterns and forecasts for the tropics was extremely unreliable, so she built a team, developed a solution, founded Ignitia and moved to Ghana in 2009 (convincing her team to join her). Ignitia's forecasts are twice as accurate as the predominant global models -- and help farmers improve their decision-making on when to plant, apply fertilizer and other chemicals, hire labor, harvest, and dry their crops. And more. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 96% of ag is rain-fed, weather is hyperlocal, and weather variability account for 20-80% of yield variability. Farmers subscribe to Ignitia, and get local, daily, tailored text messages with a weather forecast. Studies have shown that farmers using Ignitia's solution earn on average $480 more during a growing season (Ramangamihanta, 2017). Back in 2015, Ignitia had 80,000 smallholder farmers subscribe to its service - today, over 1.5 million smallholder farmers (in West Africa but also Brazil) subscribe! This is such a beautiful impact case (and financial case - Ignitia is profitable). Since Ignitia is new to Brazil, they're looking for warm introductions to Farmers Associations, as well as large-scale farmers. If you have any ideas, let Liisa know via email! Also, Liisa will soon be relocating to the Netherlands to live close to Wageningen University, the #1 ag university in the world (which outranks UC Davis and the Swedish University of Ag Sciences) -- so if you're from the Ede-Wageningen area and know of a nice farm (or house) for sale, email Liisa (friends in the Netherlands: let Liisa plug into your networks!)

Noteworthy​

• MIT startup Cambridge Crops have found a way to wrap foods in silk for better shelf life; the company has already raised $4M. You might recall Apeel Sciences, that we covered in a previous newsletter, which has a similar solution to reduce food waste (which is a huge global problem - it's estimated that 30% of food grown is never eaten). Another Massachusetts company, Clean Crop Technologies, just raised $3M for a chemical-free solution that tackles post-harvest food waste, by killing molds and toxins common to grains and nuts, ensuring the food is safer, and lasts longer. Carcinogenic aflatoxins caused by molds affect as much as 40% of nut and grain harvests worldwide. Apeel Sciences is the first food waste startup achieving unicorn status (startup with a billion dollar valuation); let's hope many more will follow (my bet who will be first? One of the insect-for-feed companies, that upcycle food waste nutrients, via insects, into animal feed).

• JUST is bringing its plant-based (mung beans) egg, JUST Egg, to China. I've tried it - it looks like scrambled eggs, cooks like scrambled egg, smells a bit beany - and tastes OK. The texture is good. There's definitely a slight bean taste to it, but not too strong. Here's a little GIF of the first time I cooked some JUST Egg (which I brought back from the U.S.). It's been almost two years since JUST struck a deal with an Italian egg producer to bring this product to Europe, but the EU considers mung bean protein a novel food so it requires pre-market regulation (i.e. this is stuck in regulatory purgatorio).

• Impossible Foods launched direct-to-consumer shipping of its plant-based meat, in the U.S. (Why isn't Impossible's products yet available in Europe, you ask? See the regulatory purgatorio explanation above).

• Erik Byrenius is starting a foodtech fund, Trellis Road, together with Anna Ottoson. Both Erik and Anna have startup backgrounds (Erik e.g. previously co-founded and sold Onlinepizza to Delivery Hero for €25M+ in 2012). Trellis Road will focus on European FoodTech, and will invest in seed rounds. There are very few dedicated Nordic investment funds focused on FoodTech; when Nordic FoodTech VC started in early 2020 by Dr. Lauri Reuter and others, it was the first fund in the Nordics to investing explicitly in the future of food. So Trellis Road is a great thing for the ecosystem. Sign up for their monthly newsletter, The Pulp, here.

• PastureMap, which provides grazing management software (20 min video here if you really want to geek out), was just acquired by SoilWorks Natural Capital. Congrats to Christine Su, Co-Founder and CEO! Below is a picture I snapped of her chatting with young farmers, back in Dec 2019 at the Young Farmers Conference, at the Stone Barns Center in New York.

The Portrait

You know how a picture is worth a 1,000 words? Olivia Fox Cabane's work epitomizes this. She's an author, a columnist, a leadership guru, a founder, and more (e.g. she runs the Global Alternative Food Awards). But what's really cool are the alternative protein landscapes she's been curating for the last few years - broken down by e.g. plant-based milk, plant-based cheese, alt protein, fungi, and algae. I know few people that have had a bigger impact in visualizing the growth of this vertical, and thereby connecting the community, than Olivia. 

Random Stuff

• I recently covered my convo with Dr. Ram Nair who runs Swedish startup Mycorena. Just managed to get an early shipment of their Swedish Vegoballs, meatballs based on fungi protein (AKA mycoprotein). They're produced through fermentation, sort of like beer brewing. Cooked some Vegoballs for lunch - they were pretty good; nice chewiness, good texture, and no weird off-taste! It's hard to 'place' - it's not animal meat, it's not soy, it's something new.

• The Food Planet Prize is accepting nominations until June 30 - you could win $1M.

• As Amer Mohammed, Chief Digital Officer at grocery store chain COOP Sweden noted, 'how often have you had your kids annoy the hell out of you when you go grocery shopping'? COOP is launching the world's first (?) AR shopping game for kids. The teaser video looks super cool - sort of like Pokémon Go, but with a purpose. 

• Pizza robots have been all the rage (think of Zume). Now Piestro has built a pizza vending machine. Check out their video here.

​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, 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.