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FoodTech Weekly #77 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
November 26, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #77
Hi there,
I was recently interviewed by the SustainNOW podcast (available on Spotify, Google, Apple etc). We covered a lot of ground in terms of food system challenges, but also some cool available solutions that are ready to be scaled.
By the way, I messed up the link for the Product Manager role at Stockeld Dreamery last week. This one should work.
This week's rundown:
Raising the steaks: Juicy Marbles bags $4.5M in fresh funding for plant-based whole cuts
In queso emergency: Cheese startup New Culture raises $25M for precision-fermented casein
Imperfect labeling: To sell an ugly vegetable, just call it that, new research shows
Let's go!
Conversations
Met with Tanja Bogumil, CEO and Co-Founder of Berlin-based Perfeggt (which came out of stealth just yesterday, announcing a $2.8M round backed by e.g. EVIG Group, Stray Dog Capital, E2JDJ, Good Seed Ventures, Tet Ventures, and Shio Capital). Tanja's mom's family did small-scale farming and animal farming, making Tanja conscious about where the food comes from. As a teen, she visited a slaughterhouse with her uncle, and then became a vegetarian, as she felt what she saw in the slaughterhouse wasn't right nor humane. Tanja grew up to become an entrepreneur, and built companies in the digital space for many years. After some soul searching, she re-entered the ag & food space in 2018, and was again confronted with how food is produced: 'I love eggs and cheese. It's still good food. Eggs are super convenient, nutritious, fast, easy to cook. But knowing the planetary and animal welfare costs of producing these, you realize things need to change.", Tanja says. She teamed up with Gary Lin and Bernd Becker, and explored the 1.3 trillion global egg market. 'Eggs play such a special role in the culinary aspect of different cultures, so it'd be an interesting challenge to use plants to develop eggs.' The first product -- soon to be available in the DACH region -- is a liquid, ready-to-use egg, which can be used to make e.g. scrambled eggs. It emulsifies, gels when heated, and binds. Fava bean is a key component, because 'we needed an ingredient that could be grown sustainably, not use soy or gluten (to enable all consumers to eat it), it needed to be commercially available, scalable, and not blocked by Novel Foods regulations', Tanja explains. Perfeggt's team of 10 are based in Berlin and other locations in Germany. The company will use the funding to boost R&D, expand the product pipeline, and to hire a bunch more people. To get in touch with Tanja, she can be reached via email.
Images: Perfeggt
Noteworthy
Slovenian plant-based meat startup Juicy Marbles has closed a $4.5M Seed round (full disclosure: I'm an advisor to Juicy Marbles). The company produces plant-based whole cuts, like filet mignon, set to launch in Q1 2022. (I cooked some up for FoodTech Weekly #43 if you want some pictures). Investors in the funding round included e.g. World Fund, AgFunder, and angel investors from Y Combinator and Fitbit. And speaking about plant-based whole cuts, products from Redefine Meat are now available at high-end restaurants in Europe and Israel.
New York-based Helaina, which uses precision-fermentation to produce human breast milk, has raised a $20M round (bringing its total funding to $24.6M). The company will use its proteins to deliver humanized infant formula, a $50B market estimated to be worth $109B by 2027. Helaina's funding news follows those of competitors BIOMILQ and TurtleTree, who raised $21M and $30M respectively in recent funding rounds.
Precision fermentation startup New Culture of California has banked a $25M new funding round. New Culture produces dairy proteins like casein by programming a microorganism (such as e.g. fungi, yeast, or bacteria) in bioreactors, and then use these proteins to create real cheese. The company hopes to have broader distribution already in 2023. Also in the precision fermentation space, South African startup De Novo Dairy announced it had raised an undisclosed sum of money.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has determined that DSM's feed additive Bovaer -- which is fed to dairy cows to reduce methane emissions -- is safe for the animals as well as for consumers. DSM plans to start selling the feed additive, which reduce cow methane emissions by 30-80%, in 2022.
Israeli company FlyTrex, which targets suburban U.S. consumers using a drone-based delivery service, has scooped up $40M in Series C funding. The company hopes to be able to deliver e.g. food to consumers' doorsteps in the not-too-distant future (note to self: Where is my upside-down rhino delivery service?)
Snapchat has added a new feature for its U.S. users called FoodScan, which uses computer vision to understand what foods and ingredients are right in front of you. Users can e.g. scan a carton of eggs and will immediately get relevant recipes (there are 4,500+ recipes available, based on 1,200+ ingredients). The Spoon tested the new feature and gave it mixed reviews.
Image: Snapchat
Impossible Foods has closed a $500M funding round, bringing its total funding to date to $2B. The company will use the money to keep growing. Meanwhile, Nestlé has led a $4M funding round into Sundial Foods, a California startup which develops plant-based skin-and-bones chicken wings.
Is plant-based meat better for the planet? Interesting semi long-read in Vox.
New research shows that supermarkets should label visually atypical produce 'ugly', rather than using euphemisms such as 'imperfect'. The researchers also found that a moderate 20% discount led to more purchases than a steep 40-60% discount, as this may send the message that there really is something wrong with the produce (h/t Sophie Attwood).
JALA of Indonesia, which uses tech to drive the shrimp industry more sustainable, has raked in $6M in new funding from e.g. Meloy Fund and Althelia Sustainable Oceran Fund.
Phytl Signs / Vivent of Switzerland has closed a €1.8M funding round from Astanor Ventures and ePlant, Inc. The company has developed what it claims is the first commercial crop health diagnostic system based on plant electrophysiology. This enables farmers to get early warning signs on disease, pests, nutrient deficients and water stress, as communicated by the plants themselves. Phytl Signs says their technology enable increased yields, improved crop protection effectiveness, and more environmentally sound solutions. The technology is currently used on e.g. tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, and eggplants.
Old news from September, but I had missed them: Farming tech company Halter of New Zealand raised a $32M round. The company sells high-tech solar-powered collars to manage and monitor dairy herds remotely. The collar guides cows around a farm using sound and vibration, creating virtual fencers.
Image: Halter
U.S. indoor farming company Local Bounti has IPO'd in a $1.1B SPAC. Local Bounti operates a growing facility in Hamilton, Montana, which uses 90% less land and water compared to open field farming.
Gelatex of Estonia, which develops scaffolding for cultivated meat, has raised$1.2M from Change Ventures and Crosslight Partners. The company claims it can help cut cost of growing cultivated meat by up to 90%.
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Orbillion Bio (US) is looking for a scientist... Hoxton Farms (UK) is recruitinga Lab and Facilities Manager... Because, Animals (US) has several open roles... Formo (Germany) is on a hiring spree... Veg of Lund (Sweden) is on the hunt for a Commercial Executive based in the U.K... Geltor (US) is recruiting a Director of Fermentation.
Juice Wines are looking for co-founders, and built a very pretty website to prove it.
Grainly Foods Company, a US-Nordic food company, is looking for a founding team member to focus on sales. Grainly Foods is making sustainable dried full meals, and recently raised a round from e.g. Sustainable Food Ventures, looking to push for rapid growth in 2022. The potential co-founder should be accustomed to a startup working culture and ideally should have experience in food industry sales. For more info, please email Grainly here.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
FoodHack just wrote a great article on rising fertilizer costs impacting the food system - read it!
A supermarket in Sweden has -- in collaboration with food rescue app Too Good To Go -- managed to cut food waste in the bread aisle by 50%, by adding realistic images of bread. This means that the store can reduce its purchase volumes of bread, and thereby reduce waste. The store is also selling unsold bread to breweries, to be used in beer production.
Image: Too Good To Go
Does eating cheese cause vivid dreams?
Four FoodTech accelerators open for applications right now.
VC investment in European startups is close to hitting $100B this year, which is about double the funding of last year. It was also the first time more money went to VC in Europe than agricultural subsidies in Europe, which is a big deal (h/t: Azeem Azhar).
An Australian startup, Ilume, is offering chef-prepared, custom-made, home-delivered meals for spoiled dogs (the service runs at about $300/month).
A Chinese man who live-streams his food binges has been banned from an all-you-can-eat-BBQ restaurant in Changsha city for eating too much. The man, known as Mr. Kang, says that the restaurant is 'discriminatory' against people who can eat a lot.
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to Nightcall by Kavinsky. 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.