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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Camille Bond

What’s Next For Cellular Agriculture: 5 Takeaways From Tufts Cellular Agriculture Innovation Day

Pioneers in cellular agriculture came together in Boston last week to discuss the state of the industry – and what it will take to take cell-cultivated products to the next level.

Tufts University’s inaugural Cellular Agriculture Innovation Day featured panel discussions with industry leaders, researchers, and other experts. The panelists reflected on how far the technology to grow meat and other products has come over the last decade, and shared their visions of how that momentum will continue over the next few years.

A decade ago, “you could count the number of people dedicated to cellular agriculture on one hand,” said Isha Datar, executive director of the research nonprofit New Harvest, in a panel discussion at the event.

“To see 10 years go by, and to see 150 companies pop up, so much private investment pop up, lots more people in the academic space – to me, it’s like, ‘okay, the party has been started,’” Datar said.


All eyes on cell culture media

Cellular agriculture has many research and development hurdles to clear in coming years, said Mark Post, chief scientific officer at Mosa Meats, in a panel discussion.

In particular, the industry still needs to work “quite extensively” on the cost-effectiveness – and in particular, the resource efficiency – of its manufacturing processes, Post said.

The biggest cost driver for cell-cultivated products today is culture media: the nutrient-rich material that supports the growth of cells.

According to Andrew Stout, a PhD student focusing on cultivated cell lines and culture media at Tufts University, the cellular agriculture field has already seen success in cutting costs for some culture media components, such as growth factors.

Those components were the “low-hanging fruit” of culture media, Stout said at the event.

Moving forward, researchers in the field will likely address “the next lowest fruit,” such as amino acids and vitamins, he said.


Collaborating to solve key questions

Datar, the executive director at New Harvest, forecast that industry players will increasingly find answers to their questions by working together.

Much of the news from the industry in recent years has concerned individual companies and products – but over the next decade, we’ll hear more about how different companies and other players are working together to “solve [the] puzzle,” Datar said.

In particular, companies collaboratively address the challenge of scaling up using shared facilities, she said.

In 2021, we saw an announcement for one such facility in Europe: the Cultured Food Innovation Hub planned by Swiss flavor manufacturer Givaudan and other partners. The companies planned the Innovation Hub as a space for startups to access shared equipment, enabling more players to innovate in the field at lower cost.


Securing public funding

Bruce Friedrich, president and co-founder of the Good Food Institute, forecast that public funding will play an increasingly important role in helping the industry to address challenges of cost and scale.

In the last three years, governments around the world have already “gone from almost zero to hundreds of millions of dollars” in funding, Friedrich said.

Friedrich laid out a vision of government funding for cellular agriculture that would mirror investments in renewable energy and electric vehicles.

In the U.S., there could be bipartisan support for spending to support the industry, he said – pointing to efforts by the Good Food Institute to communicate with Republican lawmakers about the potential employment and economic benefits of such spending.


Introducing cell-cultivated products to the public

The speakers at the Tufts event also addressed the need to continue improving cell-cultivated products themselves before introducing them to consumers.

For Post, the chief scientific officer at Mosa Meats, one step to improve product quality could be improving the differentiation of muscle and fat tissues.

Academia can help to improve the quality of cell-cultivated products by identifying which genetic features can identify cells that will produce tasty end-products, according to Stout, the PhD student at Tufts University.

According to David Block, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Davis, another task for academia will be to ensure that cell-cultivated products are nutritionally equivalent to their conventional equivalents.

But the industry also has “an opportunity” to take more control over the nutritional quality and safety of its products than conventional agriculture, because cell-cultivated products are grown in much more controlled environments, Block said in a panel discussion at the event.


Moving toward semi-industrialization

The industry has begun to receive its first regulatory stamps of approval, and is “at the verge of getting regulatory approval in a lot of geographies,” according to Post.

In November, UPSIDE Foods became the first company to receive a “no questions” letter from the FDA – meaning the agency determined that the company’s cell-cultivated chicken is safe for consumers.

Eat Just, a San-Francisco startup, became the first company to receive regulatory approval for cell-cultivated meat when the Singapore Food Agency green-lit its cell-cultivated chicken in 2020.

With regulatory clearance in the works, and factories beginning to be built, “we are really getting to the level where [the industry] becomes sort of semi-industrial,” Post said.

But he added: “It will take a long time before [cell-cultivated products] will be a substantial part of markets where eventually we can make an impact on the environment, which is the root of all this.”

Uma Valeti, chief executive officer of UPSIDE Foods, said that it could be between 10 and 30 years before cultivated meat “takes off.”

From Machine Learning to Sensor Systems, Food Tech Is Leading the Fight Against Food Waste

Food waste is endemic across the supply chain, with staggering impacts for our climate. Each year we generate a volume of greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to that of 42 coal-fired power plants, and use up enough water and energy to supply more than 50 million homes — all to produce food that goes uneaten, according to the EPA.

From the farm to consumers’ kitchens, a range of technologies is helping to reduce that waste. Below, we’ve rounded up some of the most exciting developments in waste prevention tech, from a data-driven ordering system, to a food container that sends spoilage alerts to your smartphone.


Growers & Processors

Better packaging is one piece of the puzzle. Both Hazel Technologies of Chicago and AgroFresh of Philadelphia have developed next-generation packaging products that release active ingredients into the storage environment. Those ingredients counter the effects of naturally released hormones like ethylene, which would otherwise cause produce to ripen and spoil more quickly.

AgroFresh implements its packaging solutions as a part of an integrated storage management platform, which also uses aggregated data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to provide insights on spoilage. That platform recently helped Starr Ranch Growers, a Washington state fruit producer, to transition from manual warehouse inspections to a data-driven solution.

Machine learning can be used to also cut food waste at the processing stage, as demonstrated by a study on quality management practices in the dairy industry. Dairy items are some of the most likely food products to go to waste, largely due to contamination by microorganisms. The study, which was recently published in the Journal of Food Protection, analyzed data on bacterial spoilage at different dairy processing facilities to determine which processing, equipment, and inspection factors were most likely to lead to ruined food. Analysis like this could help dairy plants and other food processors to target their efforts on improving the manufacturing processes that will make the biggest difference.


Food Service

For the food service industry, the journey to reducing waste starts with data-driven ordering. Shelf Engine, a Seattle-based startup, generates probabilistic models forecasting the demand for a given store’s individual SKUs. Shelf Engine takes over as an automated order manager, and provides weekly reporting on sales and gross profits. The company estimates that it has saved 547 tons of food from going to waste so far.

San Francisco-based startup Therma is helping retailers to make food storage smarter with a system of humidity and temperature sensors that can be set up in storage areas like freezers and dry rooms. Therma’s system constantly monitors those environments to ensure stable conditions, and creates automated data reports. One of Therma’s clients, the owner of 14 McDonald’s stores in Louisiana and Texas, estimates that the system is saving $4,500 per year in labor costs (not to mention saved costs from avoiding food spoilage).

And when restaurants find that they have surplus food on their hands at the end of the day, software like the MealPass App can help them to partner with nonprofits to deliver those excess meals to families in need. The MealPass App also helps restaurants to claim rewards for those donations by generating data reports that can be used for IRS deductions.


Consumer Kitchens

New technologies are increasingly becoming available to consumers who wish to cut food waste in their own homes. U.K.-based startup BlakBear is developing smart food storage solutions for consumers as well as processors and retailers. As The Spoon reported last year, the company’s smart food containers sense the gases that food items emit as they go bad. The consumer version of the system will incorporate a smartphone app with analytics and alerts about impending spoilage.

To Good To Go, based in Denmark, allows consumers to purchase surplus food from restaurants at a reduced rate. The Too Good To Go app expanded to the U.S. in September, and recently announced a new partnership with restaurant chain Le Pain Quotidien.

The technologies above are saving food from going to waste in the first place. For food waste that does occur, upcycling can help to prevent spoiled food items from languishing in landfills, where they release methane, and instead find them second lives as valuable products. For example, ALT TEX is turning food waste into a polyester textile alternative.

In 2022, we’re likely to see further development of both food-saving technologies and the upcycling industry, as businesses increasingly recognize the cost savings that can go hand-in-hand with reducing waste.

SIMPLi Is Building a Regenerative Agriculture Network Using Soil Testing

The Spoon recently covered single-origin ingredients company SIMPLi’s mission to increase transparency in the food supply chain. The Baltimore-based company is implementing sensory technology and tracking data from farm to cargo ship to retail store.

SIMPLi is also working to bring its international network of grain, legume, spice, and oil producers to a more environmentally friendly standard — and the key to achieving that goal is soil testing.

In identifying growing partners, SIMPLi considers both farming communities that currently use conventional techniques but would like to move toward regenerative organic agriculture, and communities that have already implemented regenerative practices.

“A lot of our farmers have been doing these practices for thousands of years,” SIMPLi co-founder Sarela Herrada told the Spoon in a recent Zoom interview. “It is driven by niche Indigenous practices, but the certification really empowers them and creates differentiation on the shelf. It allows us to create a stable market where we can go to the farmers and say, ‘we’re gonna buy your whole crop for the next two or three years, at a fair price and above-market price.’”

When SIMPLi teams up with farming communities to transition to regenerative organic farming, they start by testing finished products for pesticide and glyphosate residues. As the communities implement new practices, the company also routinely analyzes the levels of phosphorus, nitrogen, and other minerals found in the soil. And to understand the impact that the new techniques are having on the farms’ carbon footprints, the company also tests the soil to see how much carbon it’s sequestering. (All of the company’s testing is done by third-party, certified laboratories.)

This month, SIMPLi announced new Regenerative Organic Certifications for its quinoa and lupini beans, which are grown in Peru. The certification, which is overseen by the Regenerative Organic Alliance, is helping SIMPLi and its growers to communicate the impact of its practices to consumers.

To earn the certification, SIMPLi and its growers had to step up their soil regeneration practices even further: “We were working with companies that were growing quinoa,” Herrada said. “And that quinoa was rotated with maybe one other crop. But to get certified, it had to be rotated with at least three different crops.”

The company also communicates to consumers using social media, allowing potential buyers to see the difference that it’s making. “We have boots on the ground throughout the world, working hand in hand with these farmers on better practices,” company co-founder Matt Cohen told The Spoon over Zoom. “We can capture that with photography and videography.” The team is also exploring the possibility of using QR codes on product packaging to link consumers to content about that product’s journey along the supply chain.

SIMPLi sells its products directly to consumers via its website, and helps other businesses to source ingredients. Cohen said that the team is working to build more long-term, business-to-business partnerships with clients who are hoping to go carbon neutral or carbon negative. “That’s where SIMPLi adds value,” Cohen said. “We create fully vertical supply chains for our clients that are fraud-free, and that drive environmental impact.”

Regenerative agriculture and technology are sometimes framed as two opposing forces influencing the food system — but SIMPLi’s tech-driven approach to tracking and quantifying farming practices’ effects shows that the two can work hand-in-hand.

Image Credit: SIMPLi

Kvarøy Arctic Is Using Blockchain Tech and AI To Make Fish Farming More Sustainable

We’ve recently written about land-based aquaculture and cell-cultured seafood, two high-tech production techniques that could help to satisfy rising seafood demand while reducing environmental impacts. But conventional fish farming is still a big part of the picture: Global aquaculture production rose by almost 530% between 1990 and 2018, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Kvarøy Arctic, a third-generation family-owned aquaculture business, has been farming salmon in the Arctic Circle since 1976. Over the last two decades, the company has taken steps to reduce its environmental footprint. Last week, The Spoon got on Zoom with company CEO Alf-Gøran Knutsen to find out how Kvarøy is using tech to work toward that goal.

The company’s biggest innovation has to do with blockchain technology — which Kvarøy is using to boost transparency and traceability, creating a system where customers can hold the company accountable at every step along the journey from roe to packaged fish product.

“We already had a lot of basic data on where the fish were bred, how they were fed, how they were selected,” Knutsen told The Spoon. “But all of this data was fragmented and kept separate.” With the new system, data on the salmon roe, smolt production, in-sea production, harvesting, and processing are consolidated into blocks. Then those blocks are linked together, creating a chain of data that incorporates information from every stage of the fish’s life cycles. By partnering with fish feed producer Biomar, Kvarøy has even made the individual ingredients in its salmon feed traceable on the blockchain.

Kvarøy’s packages are already printed with QR codes, and the company hopes to fully implement the tracing system with its retail partners sometime next year. The data is also helping the company to improve its own practices, boosting efficiency and reducing fish mortality. For instance, the company is currently experimenting with a prototype of a tool that tells the team when to start raising salmon roe in order to sell a certain amount of fish by a certain date.

The company has also found a way to treat its salmon for parasitic sea lice without using antibiotics. Using Oslo-based tech company Stingray Marine Solutions’ laser delousing system, which is powered by machine vision, the Kvarøy team can eliminate lice without harming the salmon or polluting the environment.

In the near future, artificial intelligence may also help Kvarøy to monitor the health of its fish. The company is considering implementing a system that would recognize and track individual salmon, keeping track of wounds and other potential health issues.

Kvarøy estimates that it takes about 1.4 kilograms less carbon and 500 kilograms less water to produce a kilogram of fish than it would to produce the same amount via standard, non-organic aquaculture. Knutsen attributes most of that difference in environmental footprint to Kvarøy’s fish feed: In addition to fishmeal and krill, the company uses plant-based proteins, starches, and oils to feed its fish. “We are always trying to innovate,” Knutsen said. “And we’re always trying to find new ways of sourcing feed closer to where we produce our fish.”

Last year, Kvarøy launched a U.S. brand, placing its products in Whole Foods Markets and other grocery stores. The company is now working on transitioning away from fossil fuel use, and powering more of its operations with renewable electricity. And in the coming year, Knutsen said that the team will work toward the launch of its first land-based fish farm.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, properly managed fish farms can help to maintain and even rebuild fish stocks. Kvarøy’s approach provides an example of how aquaculture businesses can combine generations of experience with tech innovation to have a better impact.

Image Courtesy of Kvarøy Arctic

Three Tech Trends Helping To Save Water in the Food Industry

Between disappearing glaciers and groundwater and intensifying droughts, water supply pressure is on the rise in many regions, creating a great need to use water more efficiently.

The Spoon took a look at emerging technologies that are driving smarter use on farmlands and in food processing facilities. Here are some key innovations that could help the food system adapt to a water-depleted world:


Precision irrigation

Crop irrigation accounts for about 70% of water use worldwide, according to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. High-tech monitoring systems can help to ensure that irrigation water is being used as efficiently as possible.

California-based startup Ceres Imaging company captures aerial images of farmers’ fields, and then runs them through crop-specific data models to analyze plant health. Ceres can get an idea of how much water is in the soil using color infrared imaging — and can also use its proprietary Water Stress Index to detect irrigation issues. CropX of Israel takes a different approach, using a network of soil sensors to analyze moisture and other conditions.

Updated irrigation systems are also helping farmers to save water. Drip irrigation involves laying “drip lines” of tubing along crop rows. The drip lines are fitted with water drippers at intervals to apply a specific amount of water to each individual plant.

Wastewater management

At the processing stage, many plants consume large quantities of water to perform cleaning operations. Businesses must then decide what to do with the resulting wastewater, most of which flows back out into the environment.

A handful of startups are developing high-tech systems that help businesses to find secondary uses for that wastewater. California-based startup Aquacycl has developed a microbial fuel cell (powered by bacteria) that both treats wastewater and generates electricity. According to a Forbes interview with company CEO Orianna Bretschger, the system removes 70% of suspended solids and high levels of carbon and sulfur from wastewater — and the cleaner, resulting water can be recycled for use in cooling processes and other industrial operations.

Indoor farming

Indoor farming systems allow growers greater control over evaporation and soil drainage. Growers can also recycle irrigation water using recirculating systems; and can precisely control the amount of water that is applied to each plant using automation systems. The budding industry also cuts water use at the produce processing stage: There’s no need for triple-washing, as indoor-farmed produce is grown in a clean and controlled environment.

So it’s no wonder that many indoor farming companies boast high rates of water savings. Gotham Greens, Freshbox Farms, and Infarm all estimate that their systems use 95% less water than conventional agriculture to grow the same amount of produce.

The U.S. Forest Service estimates that 50 years from now, about half of freshwater basins in the country will be unable to meet monthly water demand. Annual drought conditions as well as concerns about a water-scarce future are likely to continue driving tech innovation in the space. Food growers and producers alike may also find that increased transparency around water-saving practices appeal to consumers who are looking for sustainable options.

We Read the Public Comments on Cell-Cultured Meat Labeling So You Don’t Have To

After receiving about 1,700 comments, including many from private individuals, the USDA has closed its window for public comments on labeling standards for cell-cultured meat and poultry products.

Some of the most comprehensive responses to the USDA’s list of questions came from the Good Food Institute and New Harvest, nonprofit groups that share a mission of advancing the alternative protein industry. Environmental groups, agricultural associations, and cell-cultured meat startups also entered the fray. Here are some of The Spoon’s takeaways on the debate.

Brave new labeling requirements

The Good Food Institute and New Harvest presented different opinions on a key issue: whether or not the USDA should create unique labeling requirements for cell-cultured meat and poultry products.

Pointing to precedent created by regulatory agencies’ responses to other non-traditional production techniques, the Good Food Institute argued against the need for a new set of labeling requirements. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service “has generally promulgated new labeling requirements only when a new process or method materially alters the finished product or where it raises different or increased food safety risks,” the Institute said in its letter. Even the practice of harvesting meat from cloned animals, the Institute pointed out, has not warranted new requirements.

While the Institute argued for maximum flexibility, New Harvest seemed focused on guiding the creation of a framework that would be easy to navigate and empirically informed. The group advocated for a required qualifier term, disclaimer, or visual icon on cell-cultured meat labels, but suggested that the USDA wait to decide on a specific qualifier until we have a better understanding of how consumers will react to different options.


Good words, bad words

Per the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the U.S. government currently defines “meat” as “the part of the muscle of any cattle, sheep, swine, or goats which is skeletal or which is found in the tongue, diaphragm, heart, or esophagus…”

In its letter to the USDA, the Arizona Department of Agriculture argued that this refers only to muscle derived from living animals. Other legacy agriculture groups (including the Alabama Farmers Federation and U.S. Cattlemen’s Association) agreed that cell-cultured products should not be considered meat.

But there are other ways to interpret the government’s definition. The Good Food Institute wrote that it does apply to cell-cultured products, because they’re grown from skeletal muscle and fat cells. New Harvest argued that in order to eliminate any room for ambiguity, “strong consideration should be given to amending the statutes and implementations to expressly clarify that ‘meat’ […] may also be produced outside the animal.”

When it came to identifying appropriate qualifier terms for the new products, most of the groups commenting from inside of the industry expressed a preference for “cell-cultured,” or “cultivated.” Alternative seafood startup BlueNalu pointed to research that the company commissioned on the use of different terms, which found that the term “cell-cultured” maximized consumer appeal while minimizing confusion.

Notably, legacy agriculture corporation Tyson Foods (which has invested in UPSIDE Foods and other cell-cultured meat startups) supported the use of the same terms. Tyson also argued that it could be appropriate for cell-based companies to use product descriptors that consumers may associate with conventional meat, like “pork loin” or “steak.”

The Good Food Institute discouraged the USDA from adopting certain terms that have been put forward by legacy agriculture groups, such as “lab-grown,” “imitation,” and “synthetic.” The Institute argued that these terms do not accurately describe cell-cultured meat.

Keeping cell-cultured consumers safe

The concept of consumer confusion has long been used by legacy agriculture groups pursuing stricter labeling requirements for plant-based meat and dairy products.

In its letter to the USDA, the Good Food Institute invoked a different kind of consumer confusion. Cell-cultured meats contain the same allergens as slaughtered meats — but if cell-cultured products are labeled differently, the Institute argued, consumers could be confused into thinking that they are free of animal allergens, creating a potential health risk.

New Harvest weighed in on some potentially misleading claims that could appear on cell-cultured meat labels. Descriptions of these products as animal-free, safer and more sustainable than slaughtered meats, or acceptable by different religious standards should all be subject to scrutiny, the group argued.

All in all, the dramatic differences between different commenters’ visions indicate the need for a clear and empirically supported framework — one that is built on a realistic understanding of consumers’ needs, and that protects companies’ rights to truthful commercial speech.

As New Harvest stated in its letter to the USDA: “Regulatory frameworks need to be redesigned to keep pace with innovation and technology and future-proof our food system. We cannot expect this technology to positively impact our food system when it is built on an outdated regulatory foundation and minimum public scientific data.”

UPSIDE Foods Develops Animal-Free Cell Growth Medium

If you want to grow a cell-based steak, you’ll need a good growth medium — a nutrient-rich soup that feeds the cells as they proliferate. We’ve written previously about the cell-based meat industry’s push to ditch fetal bovine serum, a growth medium extracted from cow fetuses, and develop animal-free alternatives. By cutting animal inputs, companies can cut the costs of cell-cultivated meats, as well as the products’ environmental footprints.

Californian cell-based startup UPSIDE Foods switched away from fetal bovine serum years ago, and set a research and development team to the task of developing an alternative medium with zero animal inputs. Last week, the company announced that it has achieved that milestone, converting to an animal-free medium.

“Since day one, we knew that developing animal component-free cell feed would be crucial to fully realizing our vision of meat that’s better for the planet and its inhabitants,” company founder and CEO Dr. Uma Valeti said in a press release. “Cell feed is among the biggest drivers of cost and environmental footprint for the cultivated meat industry, and optimizing it is key to maximizing our positive impact. Our ultimate goal is to remove animals from our meat production process entirely.”

UPSIDE has used its animal-free medium to grow cell-cultivated chicken nuggets and hot dogs, demonstrating the versatility of the substrate. The company plans to grow all of its products with the new medium in future.

The achievement will help UPSIDE to scale as the company moves toward commercialization. Last month, the company unveiled its new production and development facility in Emeryville, Calif. The facility can produce 50,000 pounds of meat per year, and the company plans to boost that capacity to 400,000 pounds over time. Commercialization is still on hold as the industry waits for the USDA and FDA to create a regulatory framework — but with lower costs and increased capacity, UPSIDE is poised to take its products to the public.

Gotham Greens Opens First California Greenhouse & Becomes B-Corp Certified

Gotham Greens operates greenhouses in New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, Illinois, and Colorado — a wide geographical range for a U.S. indoor farming company. Back in March, The Spoon reported on Gotham’s plans to open up growing operations in a new region: the West Coast.

Last week, Gotham officially opened the first phase of its new Davis, Calif. greenhouse. With the new facility, the company has cemented its title as the only nationwide controlled environment agriculture brand. Gotham also announced that it has become a Certified B Corporation™, reflecting the company’s emphasis on accountability and transparency.

Gotham Greens uses a climate-controlled, hydroponic system to grow salad greens and herbs. The company reports that its tech uses 95% less water and 97% less land to produce the same results as conventional farming.

Gotham Greens CEO Viraj Puri



The new California location will help Gotham to further expand its commercial footprint, reaching more retailers (including Whole Foods, Raley’s, and Sprouts Farmers Market) out west. “California is currently responsible for growing one-third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits, but has faced critical issues in the past years surrounding drought, food safety and worker welfare,” CEO and co-founder Viraj Puri told The Spoon via email. “Our approach is designed to cut down on food miles and bring our farms closer to you. Building greenhouses next to large urban populations and distributing our produce regionally allows us to reduce transportation time, fuel consumption and associated carbon emissions.”

Generally speaking, Gotham seeks out greenhouse locations that offer short delivery routes to retail locations. Aside from slashing emissions, the company’s regional hub model helps to cut transportation costs (one of the reasons why Gotham’s produce has achieved price parity with equivalent products).

“We’re also committed to adaptive reuse projects –– helping revitalize urban communities by transforming otherwise underutilized real estate into productive agriculture,” Puri said. The company built its Baltimore, Md. greenhouse on the site of a defunct steel mill; its Providence, R.I. greenhouse site was once home to a General Electric lighting factory.

Gotham purchased the land for its newest greenhouse from the University of California Davis. Puri said that the facility will help the company to step up its partnership with the university system. Gotham is a member of the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources’ new controlled environment agriculture consortium, which is exploring crop optimization for indoor farming, automation and artificial intelligence in growing systems, and other topics.

In achieving Certified B Corporation™ status, Gotham has also committed itself to standards of social and environmental performance. The company already relies primarily on sunlight and renewables to power its greenhouses, and has plans to both cut its electricity use and reduce its Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emission intensity by 5% by the end of 2024. According to Puri, the company’s investments in automation technology and LEDs will be key to achieving that goal.

In the next few years, Puri said, Gotham will also focus on expanding to more U.S. states and increasing operational capacity at existing greenhouses. The company will also seek out new partnerships with retailers to create salad dressings, dips, cooking sauces, and other products with Gotham Greens. (The company recently introduced a pesto sauce in Purple Carrot meal kits.)

So we’re sure to see Gotham expand and evolve in several different ways in the coming year. It’ll be particularly interesting to see what innovations the company’s partnership with the University of California might unlock, both in terms of building better indoor farming tech and advancing the agricultural workforce of the future.

In 2022, Molecular Farming Startups Will Move Toward Commercialization of Animal-Free Proteins

Like many of the technologies that are driving innovation in the alternative protein space, plant molecular farming has traditionally been used in the pharmaceutical industry. The practice — which involves genetically editing a crop so that its cells produce a desired protein — is being discussed as a way to rapidly produce proteins for COVID-19 vaccines.

In the food industry, molecular farming is one route to producing the animal proteins that give egg, dairy, and meat products their visual, taste, and functional properties. Molecular farming allows you to use the exact same protein that would normally be produced by a chicken or cow, without the need for any actual animals.

Moolec Science, a spinoff of Argentina-based agtech company Bioceres Crop Solutions, is probably the most prominent name in molecular farming for the food industry. Moolec already sells chymosin, a cheesemaking enzyme, which the company grows in safflower plants. They’ve also successfully grown meat proteins in soybean and pea plants.

The Moolec team believes that molecular farming can help to bring down the end costs of alternative meat products. (“There’s nothing better than low-tech farming to produce at an enhanced scale and low cost,” company CEO and co-founder Gastón Paladini told The Spoon back in October.) And they may be right.

Molecular farming can help producers to avoid some of the costly and tricky problems of growing proteins in traditional bioreactors. When you use a plant as your bioreactor, as food scientist and thought leader Tony Hunter pointed out in an article this year, you don’t need to worry about maintaining sterile conditions: Plants have built-in immune systems.

Moolec plans to launch its first animal-free meat protein in late 2022 or early 2023. The company is currently working toward regulatory approval for its products — and its progress will be an interesting test of regulatory tolerance of Moolec’s brand of genetic engineering.

One potential concern for regulators as they scrutinize molecular farming processes will be the possibility of gene flow from modified crops to related plants. Tiamat Sciences, a Belgium-based molecular farming startup, is limiting that possibility by growing its crops in a contained vertical farming system.

Tiamat has plans to expand alongside the cell-based meat industry. “By targeting nascent markets on the verge of scale-up, we’ve already demonstrated significant traction for our solutions and an early revenue potential that is outstanding for a biotech startup,” said Tiamat’s founder and CEO France-Emmanuelle Adil in a recent press release. The company currently produces GRAS-certified, animal-free growth factors for cultivated meat, and also manufactures proteins for the pharmaceutical industry.

Last month, Tiamat announced that it had raised a $3 million seed funding round led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm True Ventures. The company is using those funds to construct a pilot facility in Durham, N.C. — so we may see them boost their capacity in the year to come.

Molecular farming startups still have some issues to work out. As Tony Hunter noted in his piece on molecular farming, plant tissue has larger and fewer protein-producing cells compared to the same volume of mammal tissue, making plants less productive as protein factories. And there are costs associated with extracting protein molecules from plants at the cellular level.

Still, the same upsides of molecular farming that make it attractive to the pharmaceutical industry will likely continue to spark interest from alternative protein producers — especially as those producers seek ways to bring down the retail prices of their products.

After Going Public via SPAC, Controlled Environment Ag Specialist Local Bounti Looks to Disrupt the Produce Business

After Going Public, Indoor Farming Company Local Bounti Rings the New York Stock Exchange Bell

Most of the tech-focused indoor agriculture startups The Spoon covers have raised private funding rounds from investors as they scale up and expand. Local Bounti, a Montana-based controlled environment agriculture company, has charted a different course when it comes to raising capital.

Through a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Local Bounti went public in November. Co-CEO Craig Hurlbert rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange last week, celebrating Local Bounti’s emergence as a publicly traded company. It’s a milestone that reflects what makes the company stand out in the indoor farming space: a practical, somewhat old-school focus on business economics.

Hurlbert and his co-CEO Dr. Travis Joyner originally entered the indoor farming space as co-founders of a private equity firm seeking to invest in a controlled environment agriculture startup. But as Hurlbert and Joyner looked into existing companies, they saw an opportunity to create something unique.

“We came from the energy space, where unit economics is everything, and we thought we could bring that to the industry,” Hurlbert told The Spoon over Zoom last week. So they founded Local Bounti, aiming to build a unique CEA organization with a built-in focus on unit economics.

Local Bounti’s uses a patent-pending “stack and flow” growing system, which Hurlbert described as a hybrid of greenhouse and vertical farming. According to Hurlbert, the flexibility of the system should allow the company to expand its current catalog of eight profitable SKUs to over 30. The company estimates that its system uses 90% less land and water to grow its greens than it would take to produce the same output via conventional agriculture.

Since Local Bounti’s founding in 2018, the company has attracted some big-name investors, including Cargill and BNP Paribas. Hurlbert said that the team’s focus on unit economics helped to draw in those investors.

According to Hurlbert, Cargill also developed an interest in Local Bounti because the legacy agriculture corporation is taking note of increasing demand for environmentally friendly produce: “Cargill’s customers have been coming to them and saying, ‘We want to focus on a more sustainably grown, cleaner product that’s better for our end consumers.’ And that’s why they started looking at the CEA space.”

Cargill’s relationship with Local Bounti is three-pronged: The legacy agriculture corporation has invested on the equity side, contributed to Local Bounti’s $200 million debt facility, and helped the company to establish partnerships with its own customers.

Last year, though, Local Bounti’s leadership decided to depart from the normal capital-raising route. “We already know we have a differentiated technology. We know what our facility can do,” Hurlbert said. “It’s now time to balance the technology with capitalization so we can really get out there and make our mark.”

So Local Bounti completed a merger with Leo Holdings III Corp., a publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company, last month. Local Bounti is now trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “LOCL.”

“I’m so happy for the whole team that we were able to achieve this,” Hulbert said, reflecting on ringing the opening bell at the stock exchange. “And really, the finish line to the deal is the starting line to the company. So we’ve got a weekend to celebrate, and then we’ll get out there Monday morning and really go about the disruption process.”

On the retail side, Local Bounti has partnered with Idaho-based grocery chain Albertsons to get its products to consumers. The company has placed its products in about 100 Albertsons stores throughout the Intermountain West, and hopes to expand the relationship.

The company also has big plans when it comes to brand-building. “I would encourage you to go to the grocery store, look in the produce section, and ask yourself if there’s a brand there that you connect with,” Hurlbert said. He doubts that the answer will be yes — but he thinks that Local Bounti can change that with the expertise of CMO Josh White, formerly CMO at Chobani.

When it comes to the big picture for controlled environment agriculture, Hurlbert believes it’ll only take some time and consumer education to develop a loyal base of buyers: “I think when the consumer gets complete transparency about this product — how it affects the environment, how long it’ll last in their refrigerator — they’ll never go back.”

Introducing Manna Cooking, the Recipe App That’s All About Community

The idea for Manna Cooking came, in a way, from CTO and co-founder Guy Greenstein’s mom — a private chef who cooks all-vegan, all-kosher food. It dawned on Greenstein one day that his mom’s workstation was totally unmanageable, a chaos of notebooks and binders overflowing with heavily annotated recipe clips. He searched for an app that would help her to streamline things but came up empty-handed.

So Greenstein teamed up with his childhood friends and co-founders Josh and Rachel Abady to create a platform that would allow users like his mom to organize, customize, and share recipes. The app, Manna Cooking, is making its official debut today on the Apple App Store. I got on Zoom last week with Josh and Rachel (the company’s CEO and CMO, respectively) to learn more about the launch.

The name of the app was inspired by the three co-founders’ early years at a Jewish day school. “Manna is what supposedly fell from the sky to nourish the Israelites — to give them everything they needed,” said Rachel, who came up with the name. “Our app is supposed to be your buddy in the kitchen that gives you everything you need to cook.”

Rachel and Josh led me on a tour of the app over Zoom. The digital environment is bright and easy to navigate, made friendlier by Chef Mic, the app’s cartoon personality. The app draws on popular social media features to help users discover new recipes: You can flick through recipes dating app-style in swipe mode, or scroll through other users’ posts in the discover feed. Users can also create and import recipes themselves.

Manna follows through on its promise of creating a single, centralized space for users to manage their recipes. In the cookbook environment, the app allows you to edit any recipe you’ve liked and save a new version. (The app also automatically flags recipe ingredients that might be incompatible with your diet.) When you want to start cooking a dish, the app guides you through the recipe one step at a time in much the same way Google’s Maps app takes you step-by-step toward your destination, saving the need to scroll back and forth between an ingredients list and instructions.

There are currently about 10,000 recipes on the app. Some are from a collection of pre-approved websites from which users can instantly import recipes; some were created by the app’s beta testers; and some were curated by Manna’s in-house recipe creator.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced Greenstein and the Abady siblings to take an unconventional approach to fundraising. They had secured some funding pre-COVID (including from David Greenstein, Guy’s father and a co-founder of the brand incubator Wonder Brands) but the pandemic scorched opportunities to proposition restaurateurs and other funders. “But we realized, even more than it’s about food, our app is about community. So if we’re a community, why not use the community to be the source of our funding as well?” Josh said.

The team used Wefunder to raise about $150,000, which helped them to create a beta version of the Manna Cooking app. That crowdfunding approach also helped the team to create a pool of dedicated beta testers: “Our first wave of testers really had skin in the game, because they had given us funds anywhere from $100 upwards,” Rachel said. “So we already had built-in super testers.”

Manna has partnered with restaurateur and chef David Burke, giving users access to simplified recipes for restaurant dishes. They’ve also identified brand-aligned social media influencers, who are creating recipes, providing feedback, and helping to promote the app.

This spring, Manna will work on raising a more conventional seed funding round. In the next couple of months, the team plans to lock in a partnership with a grocery retailer, which will allow them to launch an automatic ordering feature.

But the team’s number one priority is user acquisition, and their success there may hinge on how well the platform fosters in-app community building. At the end of the day, the promise of the app is to provide a simplified, social cooking experience, especially for users with specific dietary needs — people who want to cook gluten-free food, or vegan food, and get inspired by others who cook and eat like them.

As Josh put it: “There’s millions of people who fit each of these descriptions, and each of them should feel like they have a community that they can engage with in one, centralized place.”

Hazel Technologies Announces New California Hub To Expand Produce Conserving Technology

Starting in the mid-twentieth century, the advent of new fertilizer production technologies allowed the world to grow crops at a new scale. While that so-called Green Revolution helped producers to feed more people than ever, it also created a focus on crop production rather than systems efficiency. And that imbalanced focus has led to a worldwide agricultural system that wastes about a third of the food it produces, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

During a stint as a chemistry fellow at the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern University, Dr. Aidan Mouat wondered what could happen if we used chemistry to create a new revolution — one that targeted the food supply chain. That idea led to the 2015 launch of Hazel Technologies, a Chicago-based company that manufactures high-tech produce packaging and storage solutions to extend shelf life.

Mouat, Hazel’s co-founder and CEO, told The Spoon that the company’s technologies will save about 500 million pounds of food from going to waste this year. And with a funding arsenal that includes about $90 million in private equity as well as grants from the USDA, the company is working on expanding, starting with a new hub in Fresno, Calif.

A primer on how Hazel’s technology works: The company’s packaging products extend the shelf lives of perishable foods, but not by adding chemicals to the foods themselves. Instead, they release ingredients (in the form of vapor) that help to control the atmosphere around the foods. One product, a sachet the size of a sugar packet, releases ingredients that counteract ethylene — a molecule that accumulates in the atmosphere around packaged fruits and vegetables, and triggers metabolic responses that make them go bad.

Hazel’s Aidan Mouat

Hazel also offers technologies that slow down microbial growth and sprouting. The company’s products come in different forms, from pads and papers that can be inserted into packages, to larger-scale solutions for entire warehouses.

The new Fresno location will bring Hazel closer to California’s bounty of fruit and vegetable producers, facilitating closer cooperation. “In order to do the best analytical postharvest work we can do, we need to be able to simulate the supply chain as perfectly as possible,” Mouat told The Spoon. “And that requires us to be on site with our customers, performing commercial-scale studies in order to truly understand the full ROI and impact that our products can provide for them.”

For instance, Hazel will be able to perform more on-site trials for customers like the Specialty Crop Company, the world’s largest fig producer. It’s the difference between “sending some fruit back east, or getting it to them today, so they can throw in a sachet and pack it today, and get back that real-time data,” Erik Herman, a farming and sales officer at the Specialty Crop Company, told The Spoon.

Mouat said that Hazel has broken ground on the new hub, and that the team is hoping to open the office by the end of this year.

Along with a customer support office and research center, the Fresno facility will incorporate a microdistillery. “As part of our zero waste focus, and in keeping with one of my various hobby interests, we do a lot of distillation of fermented food,” Mouat said. “It’s a great way to make sure that we squeeze out every last calorie, even from our test fruit.”

In the future, Hazel plans to expand its presence in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, establishing a network of food science research centers. The company will also work on expanding its range of product offerings to protect meats and other foods outside of the produce category.

Hazel also has its eyes on another kind of growth. The company wants to apply its technology at all of the stops along the food supply chain, from the pre-farm stage all the way to retail. The team even hopes to launch a line of consumer products sometime in the next few years.

To Mouat, the key to Hazel’s expansion lies in the accessibility and adaptability of the company’s packaging solutions. Hazel’s products can be integrated into existing supply chains around the world without the need for investment in new infrastructure or heavy equipment.

“You’re not going to be able to protect every crop on the planet, every category of food, with the one-channel approach of reconfiguring supply chains to suit the benefits of some new technology you’re trying to offer,” Mouat said. “If you want to approach a truly democratic solution for world agriculture, you have to lower the use barrier as much as possible — and we’ve done that.”