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FoodTech Weekly #47 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
April 30, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #47
Hi there,
I'm not saying that I miss traveling...but given how long it's been, I will feel a bit like Marco Polo the next time I go on a business trip.
For now, I've immersed myself in the cheese universe, through my new gig at Stockholm-based startup Stockeld Dreamery. To some degree, that means I'm a tiny bit more Sweden-centric at the moment (before Stockeld goes global and I with it), but I hope you'll still find value in this newsletter.
Two things (both in Swedish, sorry): I was recently interviewed on the future of food for E01 of Upplyst ('Enlightened'), a new podcast by investment firm Edastra (key investor in e.g. food rescue scale-up Matsmart/Motatos). Earlier this week, I was also interviewed for DI TV on Stockeld Dreamery and food system sustainability challenges (starting at 43 minutes in).
Wishing you a great weekend!
Highlights
Conversations: Mike Selden (Finless Foods)
Noteworthy: AgTech and FoodTech companies received over $22B in investments in 2020; Tortuga AgTech raises $20M for strawberry harvesting robots; the EU explores revamping its 2001 GMO legislation; cell-cultivated caviar is now a thing; Irish and Chinese ag and food drone companies raise big bucks; Swedish company Mycorena builds production facility for fungi-based protein
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Random Stuff: The architecture of runways; visualizing Earth's historic temperature; eating cell-cultivated human meat; the donut hole size trajectory. And more.
Conversations
Had a chance to catch up with Mike Selden, Co-Founder and CEO of Finless Foods. I first met Mike, a biochemist and entrepreneur, back in late 2017, in Finless' San Francisco Bay Area HQ. Earlier that same year, Finless had had a public tasting of the first-ever cell-cultivated seafood. Today, Finless has come a long way in making cell-cultured seafood a reality. The company raised a $10M Series A round last fall, has worked on cultured cells from over a dozen fish species and is about to move into a bigger facility, from which it’ll start producing bluefin tuna products. And the team is expected to grow from 15 to 40 people this year: ‘This is my dream job, so I’m excited that other people share that passion’, Mike smiles. Finless is not using FBS in its production and has immortalized fish cell lines, meaning that production of e.g. bluefin tuna can continue in perpetuity, without harvesting cells from live bluefin tuna. ‘No-one on our team has seen a live bluefin tuna for 2 years’, Mike explains. Regulatory is the main thing standing between Finless Foods and market launch, but there’s now a pathway to regulatory approval through the FDA, expected to take about 12 months. ‘By next year -- or maybe even this year, not just with our products -- we will see cell-cultured fish in restaurants and a few years later it’ll be in retail’, says Mike. Finless Foods always need qualified scientists (tissue engineers, bioprocessing engineers, and animal cell biologists). And Mike is interested in talking to people that could lead, or participate, in a Series B round. He can be reached via email.
Mike Selden (left) and some bluefin tuna. Images: Finless Foods
Noteworthy
A total of $22.3B was invested into AgTech and FoodTech companies in 2020, according to a new report from Finistere Ventures and PitchBook. Startups doing meal kits, delivery, e-commerce, and working on biotech crops, received the largest proportion of investments. The report says that FoodTech investments increased at a CAGR of 152% in the last decade.
California-based cell-cultivation startup Orbillion Bio just raised $5M; the company plans to use the funding to bring its first product, a cell-cultivated Wagyu beef, to pilot production. I interviewed Orbillion's co-founder Dr. Patricia Bubner for #19 on FoodTech Weekly back in October. Some additional cell-cultured news: British startup Caviar Biotech is cell-cultivating caviar (fascinating read!); Czech startup Bene Meat is the first cell-cultivation company in Central/Eastern Europe; and startups are working to ensure our pets will eat cell-cultured meat, too.
U.S. startup Tortuga just closed a $20M Series A round; the company develops harvesting robots, e.g. for strawberries. Speaking about robots, here's a cool one from Agrointelli planting potatoes in the Netherlands.
Tortuga strawberry harvesting robots in action. Image: Tortuga Agtech
Israeli startup BioMilk, which develops cultured breastmilk (and shouldn't be confused with U.S. startup BIOMILQ, which also develops cultured breastmilk...) just IPO'd on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Three notable news items in the food waste space; Dutch startup OneThirdhas raised €1.5M for its shelf-life prediction technology, which can be used in different parts of the food value chain -- and Seattle-based startup RipeLocker has bagged $5M. The company makes specialized containers that can significantly extend the shelf-life of produce post-harvest. And U.S. startup Farther Farms has developed a technology that uses CO2 to pasteurize processed foods so that they can sit at room temperature for up to 90 days before being eaten.
East African farming of insects-as-feed is taking off. Quartz Africa covers some projects that I helped my former team at The Rockefeller Foundation to support in various ways. One of the startups mentioned in the article is The Bug Picture. This 3 min video covers a bit of their work of collecting locusts and turning them into animal feed:
Some plant-based meat news: Beyond Meat is unveiling version 3.0 of the Beyond Burger, claiming it has a likability score on par with conventional 80/20 ground beef burgers; Israeli-startup Chunk Foods has taken in more money, bringing the total funding to $2M - the company uses fermentation to produce whole-muscle meat alternatives; and Indian startup Mister Veg has raised $570K for its plant-based meat and seafood products.
North American company Ostara has secured $20M in new financing. Ostara produces slow-release phosphorus fertilizers that release fertilizer in response to plant demand (I have to admit, this sounds very cool). The company claims its technology can increase yields and improve soil health while significantly reducing phosphorus runoffs.
Wild-caught salmon are getting smaller; could the solution be to farm salmon on land in indoor facilities?
Swedish startup Mycorena has announced the construction of a production facility for its fungi-based protein Promyc; the factory will become operational in 2022. The goal is to produce thousands of tons of fungi protein each year.
Image: Mycorena
The Controlled Environment Agriculture Food Safety Coalition has launched a food safety certification program for leafy greens grown in controlled-environment agriculture facilities.
Irish drone company Manna has raised $25M; the startup builds and operates a fleet that can deliver e.g. groceries, food, and pharmacies to people, in just 3 (!) minutes; meanwhile in China, drone maker EAVision has raised $30M in Series C, backed by e.g. Temasek, BASF and others. EAVision's drones are specially designed for hillside use (about 1/3 of China's farmland is in mountainous areas).
A European Union study has concluded that the Union's 2001 legislation on GMOs should be revamped, but some environmentalists are unhappy about this. In other EU/ag news, the European Commission is aiming to launch a carbon farming initiative.
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
FUNCiFUR is hiring a Customer Success Associate... Hooked Foods is looking for a Head of Sales... Entocycle is recruiting Entomology Technicians... Good Food Institute Europe has an available role for Head of Policy... Stockeld Dreamery is hiring a Food Scientist.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
The architecture of airport runways; beautiful animation - make sure to scroll (h/t Azeem Azhar).
A timeline of Earth's average temperature. Again, make sure to scroll (and zoom in if necessary).
Deprived of food traffic due to COVID, the Girl Scouts have $3M worth of unsold cookies sitting in an Atlanta warehouse.
“Growing yourself ensures that you and your loved ones always know the origin of your food, how it has been raised, and that its cells were acquired ethically and consensually.” Thought-provoking piece on cell-cultivated human meat for self-consumption, by Meera Zassenhaus of New Harvest.
Donuts as a leading indicator of obesity (h/t Jack Bobo):
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to Adiós Adiós by Jakobina. Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter (I'm @danielsruben on Clubhouse). Did your brilliant friend forward this to you? Subscribe here.