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FoodTech Weekly #68 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
September 24, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 14 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #68
Hi there,
On Sept 29 at 9am CET / 12:30pm India, I'll join a panel discussion on innovative foods during the India-Sweden Agri-Food Tech Webinar 2021. The webinar will focus on smart protein alternatives, sustainable food production, and food security. Joining my panel is Dr. Ram Nair of Mycorena, Abhisek Sinha of GoodDot, and Mark Kahn of Omnivore VC. Registration is free, and the signup deadline is Sep 28.
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I promised to share some results from the FoodTech Weekly feedback survey I've been running for 2 weeks. You rank the Noteworthy section as the most useful, followed by the Weekly Community News, Introduction, Conversations, and Random Stuff. So that makes me feel less bad about not always including a conversation.
84.5% of you feel the newsletter length is just about right while 15.5% feel it's too long. I'll do my best to keep it concise -- maybe even stick to a strict word limit.
And a whopping 98.3% of you responded that the tone of voice is just about right. My reaction:
Am truly grateful for all your comments and input. I'll try to incorporate some of it going forward. If you haven't yet filled out the survey, please do so -- it'll take you less than 1 minute.
Have a great weekend!
Highlights
Blue White Robotics, Advanced Farm Technologies, and Iron Ox -- all robotics-powered FoodTech companies -- raise big funding rounds. (I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords)
The Counter casts doubt on the viability of cultivated meat
Netherlands-based online grocer Picnic brings in a massive $707M Series D round, led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust
Conversations
Had a chance to speak with Maximilian Marquart of QOA. Max holds a Ph.D. in material science from RWTH Aachen and ETH Zurich, and did work in the automotive industry for some years (e.g. helping rollout i3, BMW's first electric vehicle). He eventually left in 2017 and started a consulting company which scaled up to 35 employees, working for some of the largest corporations, but eventually got sick and tired of helping corporations save a few more cents: 'We spend most of our money increasing the margins for corporates. And the worst thing isn't that capital -- it's that smart people that could work on important problems like e.g. climate change and food instead choose to work on stupid stuff like fixing potholes for corporations.' Max had saved up a bit of money, so he decided to do something without making compromises. The problem he decided to tackle: The cacao supply chain. He sat down with his sister, a food chemist who works on flavors, got to work, and established QOA in May 2021 (the name 'QOA' is a play with the word cocoa). QOA can produce cocoa powder and cocoa butter in a sustainable way, using side stream ingredients (e.g. oat spelts or chickpea seeds -- whatever is available locally): 'Cocoa powder is easier, and cocoa butter more challenging, but we'll make it happen, says Max and continues: 'It is important to note that QOA is 100% natural and vegan.' A first consumer product will be introduced to the US market next year. Longterm, the company aims to be a B2B provider of cacao, thus offloading the cocoa supply chain. QOA currently has 7 staff, and is raising a Seed round. QOA is currently hiring biotechnologists and bioengineers, and is looking for partners such as chef that can help feature the product and want to experiment with it. QOA is also eager to partner with SMEs and corporates looking to do limited edition products. To get in touch with Max, email him here or ping him on LinkedIn.
Left: Max and Sara (siblings and co-founders) in the lab. Right: QOA chocolate. Image source: QOA
Noteworthy
GOOD Meat, the division of Eat Just tasked with developing cultivated meat, has raised $97M in new funding, adding to the $170M funding which was announced back in May. The company started selling cultivated chicken nuggets in Singapore last year.
Speaking about cultivated meat, The Counter runs a longer piece this week ('Lab-grown meat is supposed to be inevitable. The science tells a different story.') which I'm sure will generate a lot of discussion. If you're interested in the potential future of cultivated meat, this is a story worth reading.
Swedish FoodTech startup Hooked Foods, which develops and sells plant-based seafood, has reeled in SEK 39 million ($4.5M) in Seed funding (full disclosure, I'm an advisor to Hooked). Investors in the round include Brightly Ventures, Oyster Bay Venture, and Swedish singer Danny Saucedo. The new funding will be used to expand the team, build an R&D lab, and bring new products to market - e.g. plant-based salmon product, slated to launch at Swedish restaurants in spring 2022. Hooked launched its first product, a plant-based tuna product called Toonish, in Swedish restaurants earlier this year. Startups developing plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-derived alternatives to seafood raised $116M during the first half of 2021, accordingto new data from the Good Food Institute. Another startup in the space recently raising funding is Growthwell of Singapore, which just took in $22M in Series A. Growthwell. And over in Chicago, Aqua Cultured Foods is developing whole cut fungi-based seafood, calling its technology highly tunable [not my seafood pun].
Tom Johansson and Emil Wasteson, two of three co-founders at Hooked Foods. Like the single fish said, 'stay in school.'
Berkeley, California-based alt protein company Ripple Foods has announceda $60M Series E funding round. The company develops and sells plant-based dairy products using yellow peas.
Israeli startup MeaTech says it can now produce over 0.5 kg (1.1 lbs) of cultivated chicken fat in a single production run. The manufacturing technology is based on that of Peace of Meat, a Belgian startup that MeaTech acquired last year. The company hopes that adding cultivated chicken fat to plant-based meat alternatives will make these products better tasting and more realistic.
Amsterdam-based grocery platform Picnic has banked $707M in Series D funding, led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust (an investment vehicle affiliated with the Seattle-based philanthropic behemoth). Picnic delivers groceries to consumers in The Netherlands via electric vehicles, and claims it can keep prices competitive with brick-and-mortar stores by owning its own supply chain.
Plenty of news in the robotics space this week: Autonomous farming startup Blue White Robotics has raised a $37M Series B, bringing its total funding to date to $50B. Founded in 2017 and based in Tel Aviv, the company offers a 'robotics as a service' platform that empowers a single operator to control a fleet of autonomous vehicles to carry out farming tasks like e.g. spraying, harvesting, disking, and seeding. Over in California, farm robotics company Advanced Farm Technologies just brought in $25M in fresh Series B funding. The startup has developed a strawberry harvester that can sense and pick strawberries from in-soil beds in the field. The robots can work 24/7 and help growers when there are labor shortages. Also in California, indoor ag startup Iron Ox has bagged $50M in Series C funding. Much of the new funding will go to launch a new facility in Texas. Iron Ox's farms relies on robots and robotic arms to handle more repetitive tasks like seeding and moving grow trays.
Strawberry harvesters from Advanced Farm Technologies
Nigerian agrech startup Releaf has raised $4.2M. Many farmers in Nigeria, as in other emerging markets, lack easy access to processing facilities, meaning crops will go bad before they reach their destination. Releaf sets up smaller factories closer to smallholder farmers, allowing the farmers to reduce processing and logistics costs, increase the margins, and reduce post-harvest losses.
Restaurant tech startup Agot AI has secured $10M in new financing. The company installs overhead cameras in restaurant kitchens that use computer vision to ensure that workers are preparing orders correctly and efficiently.
Indian digital farm advisory startup BharatAgri has raked in a $6.5M Series A round. The company offers farmers an app-based subscription platform, which give farmers advice on how to implement scientifically proven techniques to increase their yields and thus farm incomes. The company boasts 33,000 active paid users and expects to increase its user base to 150,000 paid users by March next year.
Nestlé is investing $1.3B over the next 5 years to support regenerative agriculture in its global supply chain, promoting practices that 'enhance biodiversity, soil conservation, regeneration of water cycles and integration of livestock.'
A large randomized controlled trial with 21,000 people in rural China showsthat lowering sodium with a salt substitute significantly reduced stroke, cardiovascular disease events, and total mortality -- with no serious adverse events or side effects (h/t Dariush Mozzafarian).
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
FarmWise (France/US) is hiring a Machine Learning Engineer... Phytofarm(UK) is recruiting a Plant Genome Engineer... Shiru (US) is looking for a Head of Fermentation... New Culture (US) has an open position for a Research Associate, Fermentation... FUL Foods (the Netherlands) is hiring a Head of Food Science... Gourmey (France) is recruiting a Research Engineer... Stockeld Dreamery (Sweden) has a bunch of open positions.
Fresh Ventures is looking for 30 mission-driven people that are eager to build a high-impact venture which transforms the food system. The program is designed for you to enter as an individual and end-up with a co-founder, a venture with the potential to make a systemic impact on the food system, a first investment, and the opportunity to build out the venture with the studio team. Applications close on Sep 30, 2021.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
Did you ever commit to something, only to realize you actually have to decline? Good HBR piece on how to say no after saying yes.
If you're a Seed or Series A stage startup and you're looking to set up a stock option plan, this nifty tool from Index Ventures is pretty impressive.
A truck driving around Charlotte, North Carolina recently featured a billboard saying 'Don't get vaccinated' with 'Wilmore Funeral Home' under the message -- and the pictures went viral on social media. It was actually a fake campaign, encouraging people to get vaccinated. Genius.
The U.K. only has a few more days of carbon dioxide supplies for making sodas / soft drinks. Also, U.K. pig producers are unable to stun animals with CO2 before slaughter, due to the shortage, leading to talks of culling animals.
Goth chickens is apparently a thing (the technical term is fibromelanosis or dermal hyperpigmentation).
Alice Coop-er? Cluck Norris? David Beek-ham? I could go on.
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to Work Song by Hozier. Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter. And here's The Appetizer podcast which I co-host. Did your brilliant friend forward this to you? Subscribe here.