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FoodTech Weekly #71 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
October 15, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #71
Hi there,
Tried some wines this week. Whites wines, red wines. Tasted great. The major difference from regular wine? These wines came in cans. Juice is a new brand, in beta, which will sell wines in aluminium cans. The company sources data that the CO2 footprint of aluminum cans is 72% lower than for conventional glass bottles. I like this idea, and I think we'll see much more in this space. To follow Juice's journey, here's their Insta.
This week's rundown:
What's buzzing: BeeHero raises $19M for IoT-powered beehives
Size does matter: The world's largest vertical farm is being built in the U.K.
Your tax money at work: The USDA awards $10M to Tufts University for cultivated protein research center
Let's go!
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Noteworthy
Israeli agtech startup BeeHero has secured $19M in Series A funding, from investors such as ADM Capital, Rabo Food and Agri Innovation Fund, and J-Ventures. The company installs IoT tech in beehives, making it possible to track the movement and health of the bee inhabitants in real time, and catch e.g. infestations before they cause serious harm to the bee colony. This helps drive better pollination and thus better crop yields. By the end of 2021, BeeHero expects to manage 100,000 hives and be the biggest pollination provider in the U.S.
Swedish traceability startup TrusTrace just bagged $6M in fresh funding. The company uses AI and blockchain technology to enable product-level traceability in sectors like food, fashion, and retail. I spoke with TrusTrace's CEO Shameekh Ghosh in FoodTech Weekly #14.
Nestle is launching plant-based options to egg and shrimp in select European markets. Last year, Nestle sold plant-based products for $216M (of a $90B total turnover).
Norwegian aqua startup OptoScale has raised $4.1M in its first VC round, 6 years after launching. The company has developed a device that uses sensors, AI, and software to give farmers more insights into the fish welfare. The device can do e.g. disease detection, lice counting, and fish mass measurements (of up to 200,000 fish per day).
Future Acres, a California startup which is building an autonomous electric vehicle platform / robotic harvest unit called Carry, just closed $1.6M in equity crowdfunding, from 753 investors. Carry can transport 500 lbs (226 kg) of produce, on all terrain and in all inclement weather conditions. It's sort of cute, like a little innocent Star Wars robot.
Carry
The Jones Food Company has broken ground in the U.K. on what they say will be the biggest vertical farm in the world. It'll offer 148k sq ft (14,000 sq. m) of growing space. The facility will open early next year, and will grow without pesticides and with 95% less water than a conventional farm.
Grounded Foods of California, producer of plant-based cheese, has raised$2.5M in pre-Series A, from investors such as Big Idea Ventures, Stray Dog Capital, Nucleus Capital, and Kale United. Grounded ferments hemp and cauliflower to create its cheeses.
Flippy the fast food robot from Miso now has its own TV commercial.
University of Basel scientists have developed a low-cost method of detecting the country of origin, to fight food fraud.
Israel is working to create a national drone network, called The National Drone Initiative. In the current phase, drones are making hundreds of flights per day to deliver food and e.g. donated blood. The drones have a 5 km radius and can carry a load of about 2.5 kgs (5.5 lbs).
Norwegian FoodTech company GroGro has raised a pre-seed round of NOK 4.5M (appr. €455k), according to a press release shared with FoodTech Weekly. Leading the round was Orkla Ventures and Aggregate Media. GroGro does cold-pressed infant food, which maintains nutrients and texture (but requires cold chain). The funding round will be used for further expansion in Norway and Sweden.
The EU Member states have approved grasshopper (Locusta migratoria) as novel food for human consumption, following a positive EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) opinion issued earlier this summer for an application submitted by Fair Insects, a Protix company.
The USDA has awarded Tufts University $10M to build a cultivated protein center of excellence, called the Institute for Cellular Agriculture.
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Kuva Space (Finland) is hiring a Head of Applications... Starbucks (US) is recruiting a Director of Sustainable Dairy... Plenty (US) has an opening for Senior Technical Program Manager... Formo (Germany) is looking for a Public Affairs Director... BIOMILQ (US) is hiring a Bioinformatics Scientist... Better Dairy (UK) is hiring a Senior Scientist, Gene Editing and Engineering... TrusTrace (Sweden) is recruiting a Head of Finance... Ignitia (Ghana) is looking for a Project Manager... CellulaREvolution (UK) has an available role as Chief of Staff...
Berlin-based Atlantic Food Labs is relaunching as FoodLabs, a €100M fund that will invest in FoodTech, sustainability and health startups. Atlantic Food Labs has previously invested in startups like Infarm, Formo, Mushlabs, and Gorillas. And right next door in the Netherlands, Rubio Impact Ventures announced the closing of its second impact fund at €110M; it'll invest in early and growth-stage impact enterprises. Rubio has invested in FoodTech companies like OLIO and Mosa Meat.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
Psychedelic water is a thing, apparently.
Five of the world's most remote bars.
Beauhurst has released a FoodTech report focused on the U.K. which seems pretty interesting.
I always felt there was something...odd about that 2009 Folgers coffee commercial. But after watching this Comedy Central version of it, plus reading this GQ explainer, it all makes sense.
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to You Got The Love by The Source & Candi Staton. 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.