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FoodTech Weekly #86 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
February 11, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #86
Hi there,
It's Friday again. This week, I spoke with TrueInvestor on food system challenges and opportunities, and why I remain an optimist. Check it out here.
Also, an alternative protein startup I know (with really great consumer products) is looking for good distributors in the Netherlands and the Nordics, that can help them get into wholesale, foodservice, and retail. If you have any good leads, let me know.
This week's rundown:
This larva doesn't grub you the wrong way: Protix raises €50M to expand insect-as-feed production
No cowincidence: Volta Greentech shows 80% reduction in methane emissions with seaweed feed additive
Stocking up: Robotic food canteen Bolk takes in $4M to deploy dozes of its machines in France
Let's go!
Conversations
I've had a couple of really fun conversations recently, that I just need to find the time to summarize. Have a little patience!
Noteworthy
Netherlands-based insect farming startup Protix announced a €50M round, joined by European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF), BNP Paribas, The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, and The Good Investors. Existing investors such as e.g. Aqua-Spark, Rabo Investments, and Invest-NL also participated in the round. Protix runs one of the largest insect-as-feed production facilities in the world, and uses Black Soldier Fly Larvae that are turned into feed for chicken, fish, and pets, as well as oils. Protix will use the funding from the new round to intensify R&D and expand internationally.
Protix facility in Bergen op Zoom, the Netherlands
Swedish insect-based dog food brand petgood raised a $2.1M round, which will be used for product development, adding more team members, and expanding internationally, e.g. to Australia. Petgood sources its insect protein from Protix (full disclosure: I'm an advisor to petgood). Meanwhile, insect-based dog food startup Tomojo of France banked a €3M round (article in French. Seriously, how could I not link to a website called J'aime Les Startups?). Tomojo's fresh funding came from SWEN Capital, BNP Paribas, and a number of angel investors, and the startup will use the money to extend distribution, support product R&D, and double the size of the team.
Volta Greentech of Sweden has conducted a commercial pilot, which showed that their seaweed-based feed additive reduces methane emissions in cows by over 80%. The company will now build an industrial-scale facility to increase production capacity (full disclosure: I'm an advisor to Volta).
Agritask of Israel has bagged $26M in Series B funding. Investors included Lichtenstein Group, Smart Agro Fund, the InsuResilience Investment Fund, and Bridges Israel. The Tel Aviv-based agricultural analytics company uses a network of connected sensors, weather stations and satellite imagery to give farmers and insurance companies insights into soil and crop health. Agritasks covers more than 50 different crop types in some 35 countries.
Sistema.bio of Mexico has secured $15.6M in its Series B. The company develops and deploys modular biodigesters for smallholder farmers, which helps convert farm waste into clean energy and biofertilizer. Founded in 2010, the company is now reaching more than 200,000 farmers in 30 countries, and has manufacturing sites in India, Mexico, Colombia, and Kenya. The funding round was led by AXA IM Impact Fund and KawiSafi Ventures, with participation from existing investors Engle RDE, Chroma Impact, Blink CV, Co Capital, EU ElectriFI, and Triodos.
French robotic food canteen Bolk has banked €4M. Founded in 2020, the company can produce up to 60 meals an hour. Using a mix of sweet, savory, cold, or hot ingredients, the Bolk machine can make up to 300 total combinations. The company's plan is deploy up to 40 Bolk machines around France during 2022, starting with corporate offices. Here's a pretty neat video showing how the machine works.
Image: Bolk
U.S. startup Endless West has secured $60M in Series C funding (bringing its total funding to $95M). The company can break a product (e.g. whiskey or wine) down to its molecules, assess the ingredients, and then change them based on other materials found in nature. This means the company can e.g. infuse wood molecules into a whiskey to make it age in a faster and more sustainable way, compared to the conventional method.
As the price of chemical fertilizers keep rising, and there's incresed regulatory pressure to reduce environmental impacts from fertilizer use (which make up 2.4% of total GHG emissions), companies and researchers are increasingly looking into microbes such as fungi as a replacement for chemical fertilizer.
U.S. plant-based burger brand Everything Legendary has raked in $6M in Series A funding, backed by e.g. General Mills corporate VC arm 301 Inc, CircleUp Growth Partners, and Mark Cuban. The target demograpgic for the company is the Black community. Meanwhile, Blue Horizon invested in Argentinian plant based meat brand Tomorrow Foods.
Ujaze of Paris has cashed in $4M (article in French). The company provides a service where it collects, washes, and returns reusable packaging from restaurants and supermarkets across France.
The Chicago City Council is considering forbidding restaurants from including sugary drinks in kids meals unless parents specifically request them.
What is the true cost of a cookie? Boston Consulting Group traced the value of a cookie made from ingredients sourced from multiple countries and sold in the U.K. The retail price of the cookie was about $0.55, but that doesn't account for many hidden costs (e.g. GHG emissions, water scarcity, food waste, health impacts, air pollution, and the social costs of underpaid cacao farm workers). When taking these externalities into consideration, the true cost of the cookie was $0.89 (of which 63% are hidden costs).
Source: WEF / BCG
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Nowadays (US) is looking for a Product Manager... Future Fields (Canada) has a number of open roles... Fermify (Austria) is hiring a Bioprocess Engineer... Nilus (Mexico) is recruiting a Junior Category Manager... Mushlabs (Germany) has a ton of open positions... Stockeld Dreamery(Sweden) wants to bring on a Copywriter and a Graphic Designer... ColdHubs(Nigeria) is hiring a Chief Business and Marketing Officer... Marinas(Singapore) needs a co-founder -- a Food Technologist.
+impact accelerator is open for applications until Feb 13, 2022 (that is, this Sunday!). The Accelerator has 100+ alumni like Dryp and Innoscentia, and offers support for Nordic-based growth-stage startups. The program will run from March 8 to April 13, 2022, and selected startups will get hands-on support to help scale their growth.
The world is just 8.6% circular, according to the new 2022 Circularity Gap Report. This means that more than 90% of what we extract from Earth is going to waste. The report outlines 21 solutions to cut annual material use, by e.g. using less, using longer, regenerating, and using again.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
Why Italians Don't Drink Cappucino After 11am (video, 6 mins).
The True Cost of Your Cheap Chicken, by the New York Times. Tough 10 min video to watch.
California vineyards use barn owls instead of pesticides, by WEF (1 min video).
England's perhaps oldest pub, which traces its origin to the 8th century (and its building to the 11th century), may now permanently close due to economic difficulties caused by the COVID pandemic.
It's clear they didn't think of email spam filters when they named this pub a thousand years ago. Image: Wikipedia.
A U.S. congresswoman is being ridiculed after mixing up Gestapo and gazpacho.
Researchers at ETH Zurich have now shown that shared micromobility solutions like e-scooters and e-bikes cause more CO2 emissions than the alternatives they replace (walking, public transport, and cycling).
Japan now has oyster vending machines.
North Korea hacked a guy. So he returned the favor by hacking and bringing down North Korea's entire internet.
Most COVID restrictions just lifted in Scandinavia:
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to Another Love - Zwette Edit by Tom Odell & Zwette. 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.