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FoodTech Weekly #74 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
November 05, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #74
Hi there,
Last week I mentioned Aqua Cultured Foods' recent raise- but I messed up the number. The correct figure they raised is $2.1M. Also, I mentioned DigitalFoodLabs' new FoodTech Trends 2021 report, but included the wrong link -- here's the right one.
On Nov 15-16, the U.S. Nordic Food Summit takes place, connecting the Nordic and U.S. food/ag startup ecosystems. Some 21 innovative and impactful Nordic startups will pitch in front of U.S. investors. And I'll be a panelist for one of the events. If you want to here me, and speakers from e.g. Oatly, Good Idea Drinks, UC Berkeley, Nordic FoodTech VC and others, you can sign up here (tickets go for $39).
This week's rundown:
Cultivated meat production ramps up: Upside Foods inaugurated its EPIC production facility
Good for long space flights: NASA and the USDA develop ever-flowering fruit
Crazy or genius? American man dines at amusement park daily for 7 years to pay off student debt
Let's go!
Conversations
To be frank, I have had a bunch of conversations with interesting people in FoodTech and AgTech recently; I just haven't had the time to summarize those chats here. But I will get to it -- pinky promise!
Noteworthy
Upside Foods, the company formerly known as Memphis Meats, has opened a 53,000 sq. ft (5,000 sq m) Engineering, Production and Innovation Center (EPIC) in Emeryville, California. The facility can produce 50,000 lbs (22 metric tons) of cultivated meat every year. EPIC is the first large-scale production facility of cultivated meat in the U.S. Production will start once Upside Foods receive regulatory clearance from the FDA and USDA.
Singapore startup TurtleTree has raised a $30M Series A round. The company cultivates human breast milk. The announcement follows that of U.S. competitor BIOMILQ's $21M Series A just two weeks ago (full disclosure: I'm an advisor to BIOMILQ).
Brazilian alternative protein company Future Farm, which develops e.g. plant-based chicken and tuna, has banked a $58M Series C round. The money will be used for R&D and for international expansion. Future Farm already sells its products in 20 countries. Also in the plant-based space, Impossible Foods announced they will launch in Australia and New Zealand.
California Cultured, which produces e.g. synthetic cocoa powder and cocoa butter, has scooped up $4M in fresh funding. Just last week, German synthetic chocolate startup QOA raised a $6M round.
Controlled Environment Farming startup Pure Harvest, based in the United Arab Emirates, has picked up $64.5M in convertible funding. The company operates several greenhouse facilities and is now planning to build indoor vertical farms as well. Meanwhile in the U.K., vertical farming tech startup Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) just announced that they have closed a $57.7M Series B round.
Migros in Switzerland has launched a plant-based hard-boiled egg; it looks very realistic, and allegedly tastes very similar to a conventional egg.
Image: Migros
Lithuanian startup Cogastro, which develops software to monitor and manage insect farms, has raised a $500K seed round. And speaking about this industry, Thai insect protein company Orgafeed, which makes pet food out of black soldier fly larvae, just received an undisclosed sum of financing from Thai Union.
U.S. company Nuro, which develops autonomous delivery vehicles, has secured $600M in Series D funding. The company's robots can carry out last mile delivery of e.g. produce and prescriptions to consumer's doorsteps.
San Francisco startup Martie haș launched with $3M in funding from Upfront Ventures; the company 'rescues' shelf-stable food with short expiry dates from being sent to landfills; instead, Martie sells the food online at a 40-70% discount. The model is akin to that of Sweden's Matsmart/Motatos, which has raised $46M and launched in several countries.
Miso Robotics, which produces restaurant robots, has unveiled Flippy 2; the robot uses machine vision to e.g. manage the frying station of fast food burger restaurants.
The USDA's Agricultural Research Service are working with NASA to develop farming technologies to grow fresh produce while in spaceflight. For example, they've genetically engineered plum trees to continually flower and produce fruit, akin to a tomato plant. This enables the growing of fruit on long-duration space missions, but could also be used to Earth in certain contexts too.
Diet-related diseases are a major risk factor in worsening outcomes for people that contract COVID-19 -- yet the U.S. is not taking action to curb and reverse the tsunami of diet-related diseases. Important piece in Politico well worth reading.
Researchers have invented a material that changes colors in response to how fresh seafood is -- inspired by chameleons. Inspiring read in The Spoon.
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Orbillion Bio (US) is recruiting for a number of positions... Hoxton Farms (UK) is hiring a Machine Learning / Software Engineer... Ivy Farm (UK) is looking for a Science Specialist... Clean Cooking Alliance (Kenya) is hiring a Venture Manager... Chromologics (Denmark) is on the lookout for a Senior Scientist for Product Recovery... Cultured Decadence is recruiting a Research Associate.... Ohayo Valley (US) is filling a role for a Scientist / Senior Scientist.... Phytoform Labs (UK) is hiring a Plant Genome Engineer... Protix(The Netherlands) has an available job for a Marketing Intelligence Expert.
The Breakthrough Institute just released 'The Clean Cow', a report on cutting the climate impact of U.S. beef production. The report finds that adopting existing technologies and policy could cut emissions by 18% by 2030; breakthrough technologies could help cut emissions by up to 48% by 2030. For some excellent reflections. read Theresa Lieb in Food Weekly.
Image: Breakthrough Institute
The Mylcubator incubator in Spain has kicked off its first cohort, with four participating startups, e.g. Real Deal Milk (Spain) and De Novo Dairy (South Africa) producing animal-free dairy protein using precision fermentation.
ReFed's new Food Waste Reduction Map is pretty important -- more on it here.
Image: ReFed
And speaking about maps, the Israel 2021 FoodTech Map was just released:
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
An American man paid of his student loans and bought a house, by saving money in an unusual way: He ate all his food at an amusement park every day - for 7 years: 'You can pay around $150 for unlimited, year-round access to Six Flags, which includes parking and two meals a day [...] If you time it right, you could eat both lunch and dinner there every day [...] As long as they keep changing the menu, I’m happy.'
The world's largest (?) potato has been found in New Zealand - weighing in at 7.8 kgs (17 lbs).
This commercial for German supermarket EDEKA with musician Marc Rebillet is sort of catchy (also because they play music on food that conduct electricity):
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to Another Shot by Vigiland. Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter. And here's the Appetizer which I co-host. Did your brilliant friend forward this to you? Subscribe here.