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FoodTech Weekly #54 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
June 18, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #54
Hi there,
I'm getting vaccinated against COVID-19 this weekend, as one of the very first Europea...oh wait. While getting jabbed is an important milestone of sorts that I've been looking forward to, this is how I feel about the whole situation.
Yeah, vaccinations here took too long compared to many other countries.
Anyways. Looking forward to being able to travel again (looking at you, Lausanne, for the October FoodHack Summit).
Slightly shorter newsletter than usual this week. I'm perhaps getting picky, but I'm also somewhat biased towards news that can help make the food system become more nourishing and sustainable (so when e.g. the citizens of Quito, Ecuador finally can get pizza delivery by drone from Papa Johns, I might not cover those news).
Onwards!
Highlights
Conversations: N/A
Noteworthy: Motif Ingredients raises $226M to improve plant-based alternatives to animal-sourced foods ; Volare closes €700K round to turn food waste into animal feed and pet food using insects; McKinsey believes cultivated meat market could be worth $25B by 2030; the area of soy planted in South America has doubled since the year 2000; YO-Egg develops realistic plant-based alternative to eggs
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Random Stuff: Facial recognition for pigs; how eating pork potentially got an athlete disqualified from the Olympics; how Ronaldo made Coca-Cola lose $4B in market value. And more.
Conversations
Noteworthy
Motif Ingredients has closed a $226M funding round. Based in Boston, the company uses biotechnology to mimic proteins naturally found in meat, dairy, and egg. The goal is to make plant-based alternatives to animal-sourced foods more desirable by creating product traits that consumers value.
U.S/Australian startup Change Foods has secured $2.1M in Seed funding; the company uses precision fermentation to develop cow-free cheese, and hopes to launch a first product in 2023.
Israeli AgTech startup SupPlant has raised $10M; the company collects real-time data on plants, soil, and climate conditions, that help smallholder farmers make precise irrigation decisions. The tech can help farmers save money and water while increasing yields. SupPlant aims to reach 500,000 farmers in Kenya this year, and 1.5 million more farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa and India next year.
Volare, a spin-off from VTT Technical Research Institute of Finland, has bagged €700K in a round led by Maki.vc. It represents the largest investment to date in a company in the insect sector in Finland. Volare, which will have 10 employees this year, used Black Soldier Fly Larvae to turn food industry waste into protein and lipids for the fish feed, pet food, and cosmetics industries.
Israeli foodtech startup YO-Egg has developed a realistic plant-based egg substitute, using patent pending ingredients. It plans to launch in the U.K. within a few months.
Image: YO-Egg
McKinsey believes cultivated meat will be a $25B industry by 2030, according to a new briefing. The industry, which currently has less than 100 companies, attracted $350M in investments in 2020, and has attracted $250M thus far in 2021.
AgTech company InnerPlant has raked in $5.65M in pre-seed and seed funding. The company recodes plant DNA so that the leaves of a plant light up when there's a problem. Different colored lights indicate different issues (e.g. pests, nutrient deficiencies, water stress etc). The lights are invisible to the human eye but can be detected via drones or even satellites. More info, and pictures, in this Spoon article.
The area of soy planted in South America has doubled since the year 2000. An area larger than Spain is now covered with this crop, which is mainly used as animal feed. Most of the expansion occurred in the Brazilian Amazon, where the soybean area increased more than 10x.
Source: Song, XP., Hansen, M.C., Potapov, P. et al. Massive soybean expansion in South America since 2000 and implications for conservation. Nat Sustain (2021).
U.S. startup Molaer has scored $9M in a Series B round led by S2G Ventures. Molaer (which means 'tiny air' in Latin) pumps small air bubbles into water, making the water more effective for certain applications. For example, in plant irrigation, more aerated water can prevent water-borne illnesses to crops and create better nutrient conversion, which gives farmers the opportunity to increase yields while keeping the water use constant.
Children who consume large amounts of ultra-processed foods experience steady weight gains into adulthood, a new study has found. The weight gain in many cases led to severe overweight or obesity, placing the individuals at increased risk for e.g. diabetes, heart attack, and heart disease.
Over the long term, fishmeal and fish oil will fade away as an ingredient in aquaculture, argues Kevin Fitzsimmons, professor at the University of Arizona and leader of the F3 Alternative Feed Challenge.
A quarter of global harvests are at risk if agriculture doesn't adapt to climate change, a new study claims.
It's gettin' hot in herre. Credit: Sue Wing et al 2021
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Dr. Lauri Reuter of Nordic FoodTech VC is hosting a session on June 30, on the topic of how to raise capital. If you're a foodtech startup thinking about raising, check it out.
Thought For Food has announced the results of the TFF Challenge 2021: 5,000+ participants from 120+ countries, 1,400+ teams, 10 finalists and 13 topical track winners + runners up. From solar-powered cold storage to prevent food waste, to cultured lobsters to save the oceans, to circular packaging systems for food delivery, have a look at all the top solutions here.
The Israeli Trade Mission to the Netherlands is doing an event on greenhouse technologies, on June 29. A number of Israeli AgTech startups such as e.g. Arugga AI Farming and Growponics will pitch during the event.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
Researchers in England are working on facial recognition tech that scans animals' faces to interpret their emotions. The goal is to e.g. find factory farmed animals (especially pigs) that are stressed out, to be able to intervene with treatment sooner. Pigs really do smile, apparently (h/t: The Counter)
U.S. Olympic runner Shelby Houlihan was disqualified from this summer's Olympic Games in Tokyo (and international competition for the next 4 years), after blowing a drug test. Houlihan says she tested positive for the steroid nandrolone, because she had eaten a pork burrito 10 hours before the urine test, from an 'authentic Mexican food truck' near her home in Oregon. Nandrolone increases strength and improves physical performances. Some research (funded by WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency), has indeed shown trace amounts of nandrolone in pork.
I liked this article on how to raise a Series B round; it has some useful reminders for founders and VC's alike.
The subject lines in email newsletters truly impact open rates. Great takeaways from The Hustle (but I don't plan to change the subject lines in FoodTech Weekly).
ICYMI: Christiano Ronaldo removed two Coke bottles during a Euro 2020 press conference this week, instead exclaiming 'water!' Coca-Cola shares dropped about a dollar, lowering the soft drink giant's market value by $4 billion. Ronaldo has previously said he avoids alcohol and carbonated drinks to stay in shape. Critics were quick to point out Ronaldo's old ads for KFC(2013) and...Coca-Cola (2006).
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to The Man In Me by Bob Dylan (who just turned 80!). Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter (I'm @danielsruben on Clubhouse). Did your brilliant friend forward this to you? Subscribe here.