Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Catherine Lamb

Soylent Relaunches in Canada as Meal-in-a-Bottle Sales Fuel Up

Starting today, Soylent’s meal-in-a-bottle drinks and powder will again be available for delivery to Canadian consumers, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

This comes after the more than two-year hiatus in Soylent sales in the Great White North. In the fall of 2017, Soylent had to halt Canadian distribution of its products after, as it wrote in the press release, there were “challenges with certain Canadian government filings.” Chiefly, it did not meet Canadian food inspectors’ standards of what constitutes a meal replacement.

Almost three years later Soylent has finally caught up on the proper regulatory paperwork and is returning north of the border. The company will relaunch in Canada with a more limited lineup, including three beverage flavors and two powders flavors. The product will initially be available only online through Soylent’s website.

Now is an ideal time for Soylent to expand its sales footprint. The aforementioned press release noted that the company’s return to Canada “comes at a time when many people are looking for shelf-stable, nutritious products that can be delivered directly to their homes.” In short, a pandemic — when people are panic shopping and anxious about having enough food that won’t go bad quickly — is actually kind of a perfect situation for meal replacement drinks like Soylent.

Jamie Sullivan, Director of Sustainability and Corporate Affairs for Soylent, told me over email that the company had seen “ebbs and flows” with their online sales that “seem to be aligned with the demand and worry about access to meals, groceries, and nutrition during this time.” She also noted that most of the company’s sales right now are coming from D2C channels — unsurprising, considering the rise in food delivery and grocery e-commerce as people shelter in place.

Soylent isn’t the only meal-replacement drink that’s navigating shifts in demand during the pandemic. James McMaster, the CEO of Huel, another complete nutrition company, told me that sales of their meal beverage have been “unprecedented.” He pointed out that Huel’s long shelf life (12 months), D2C sales channel, and low price point ($1.90 a meal) are all contributing to its popularity as we enter a time where people want to stay in more, shop less, and, with a recession looming, save money.

Meal replacement drinks could do more than just serve as back-up consumer nutrition for the pandemic. Sullivan also told me that Soylent is making donations to food banks. Thus far Soylent has donated more than 500,000 Soylent meals.

Normally I’d shy away from including blatant PR-y announcements like this in a piece. However, food banks are currently in desperate need of nutritious food, and meal replacements could actually be a viable solution to help pad nutrition gaps in donations. As well as in your pantry.

Food Tech News: Nestlé Expands Coffee Blockchain, Uber Expands Eats for Business

How are you all doing out there? I’m starting to get into a bit of a weekend routine: walk, bake bread (then Instagram it, of course), read, sleep. And read food tech news, of course. This week we’ve got stories on Nestlé’s new blockchain application, Chilean plant-based food startup NotCo’s layoffs, and Uber’s plans to expand Eats for Business globally. Enjoy!

Nestlé brings blockchain to its Zoégas coffee brand
Food giant Nestlé announced this week that it’s partnering with The Rainforest Alliance to expand its IBM Food Trust blockchain technology to its Zoégas coffee brand (thanks for the tip, FoodDive). With blockchain, consumers will be able to scan a QR code on their bag of coffee to trace its journey and see which country it came from. They’ll also be able to access information about the farmers, general time of harvest, and when the beans were roasted at  Zoégas’s factory in Sweden. 

Photo: Eats for Business

Uber for Business to expand Eats to 20+ countries
Uber for Business, a platform which targets corporations, announced this week that it will expand its food delivery component, Eats for Business, to more than 20 countries this year (h/t Techcrunch). First up: Brazil, Canada, France and the U.K., which all launched last week. Uber started Business for Uber in 2014 to help companies better facilitate rides for their employees and clients, and in 2018 added a corporate version of its Uber Eats food delivery app. Uber Eats reportedly decided on this expansion since more employees are working from home in the wake of COVID-19 and don’t have access to catered office foods.

Photo: NotCo

Chilean plant-based food startup NotCo shutters production plant
NotCo, a Chilean startup making plant-based foods like mayonnaise, milk, and ice cream, has announced it will close its NotMayo production plant in Santiago, Chile. According to Contxto, over half of the startup’s staff has been laid off. But the company isn’t shutting down altogether — production of its vegan NotMayo product will be passed onto an unnamed third party.

Future Meat Wants to Sell DIY Cultured Meat Systems to Protein Companies

Photo: Future Meat

“We will sell you everything you need to make cell-based meat in your facility” Rom Kshuk, the CEO of Israeli cellular agriculture company Future Meat, told me over the phone this week. “At the end of the day, we’ll be a B2B company.”

That’s not the typical mindset for a cellular agriculture or aquaculture startup; the startups growing animal cells to create meat and fish outside of the animal. Many of the well-known startups in the space — Memphis Meats, BlueNalu, Wild Type, etc. — are working to create their own line of cultured animal products, which they’ll sell under their own brand or through partner food manufacturers.

But Future Meat is not a typical cell-based meat company. For one, its first product — which it plans to debut in 2021 — will be a hybrid: a blend of cultured animal tissue (likely fat) combined with plant-based protein. The startup then aims to start selling cultured meat products by 2022. Kshuk said that the hybrid product will serve to validate their technology and prove that the startup can make low-cost cultured products. (To cut costs, Future Meat has developed a more efficient nutrient media and also created a system to recycle the media for multiple uses.) The cell-based meat will prove that they can scale up a full-blown product.

Future Meat’s cell-based chicken vs. farmed chicken. (Photo: Yaakov Nahmias)

After that, the startup will turn its focus to its real mission: selling the equipment, technology, and ingredients required to grow cell-based meat to larger protein companies. Including Big Meat companies, like Tyson. (Tyson Ventures has previously invested in Future Meat.) Kshuk named 2023 as a tentative timeline for when he hoped they would reach that phase, but noted that regulatory hurdles make that date a bit dicey.

Why partner with a traditional meat company to start selling cell-based meat? Kshuk’s theory is that by launching cultured meat through an established protein brand, customers might be more apt to try the product. He pointed out that Impossible or Beyond were able to reinvent plant-based meat so quickly because they were innovating in a pre-existing market. “We aren’t,” he said.

It’s a smart strategy, and one that I think we will see more cultured meat companies adopt as they begin to grapple with the hurdles of manufacturing and scaling. These Big Meat companies have established supply chains, and can also provide facilities and retail shelf space. That will help cultured meat scale quickly to reach price parity with traditional beef, pork, and chicken. But these partnerships will also play a role in coaxing consumers to try a product that, without an endorsement by an established brand, they might have shied away from.

The question is whether or not Future Meat will actually be able to make all of these pivots, especially within such a short timeline. Thus far they have raised $16.2 million in funding including a $14 million Series A led by S2G Ventures last October — which isn’t a lot compared to some other cultured meat companies. And regulatory challenges alone might delay the first sale of cultured meat by years (which is one of the reasons Kshuk said they’re considering Singapore, which has more government support of cellular agriculture, for their launch location).

Ironically, the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t slowing Future Meat’s progress. Kshuk said that their team is small enough that they’re able to continue working in their new facility while socially distancing. In fact, he told me that the pandemic could be an opportunity for meat alternative companies, including cell-based meat startups, to explore how to stop viruses from jumping from animals to humans. “But it’s way to early for that discussion,” he said.

High Tech Plant-based Meat Startup Rebellyous Foods Raises $6M Series A, Accelerates Retail Launch

Rebellyous Foods, the startup developing next-gen technology to accelerate the plant-based meat industry, announced today that it had raised a $6 million Series A round. The funding was co-led by Clear Current Capital, Fifty Years, and Liquid 2 Ventures, with participation from Agronomics and Vulcan Capital (the investment arm of Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc). This brings the Seattle-based startup’s total funding to $8.1 million.

Founded in 2017, Rebellyous Foods, formerly Seattle Food Tech, has always had a grand vision of reinventing plant-based meat manufacturing to make it more efficient and cost-effective. But it also has its own brand of alt-meat: chicken. The startup sells its plant-based chicken nuggets B2B to large-scale foodservice operations, like hospitals and cafeterias, in the Seattle area.

With its new funding, Rebellyous will speed up its specialized equipment R&D and expand product development to broaden its plant-based portfolio to include other products, like chicken tenders.

Rebellyous is announcing funding at a time when all anyone can think, talk, or write about is the coronavirus pandemic. Their press release is no exception; in it, Rebellyous CEO and founder Christie Lagally writes:

“Bird flu, swine flu, and now COVID-19 demonstrate that keeping large numbers of animals in close contact with one another presents a tremendous risk for global health… to transition away from our heavy dependence on meat, it’s critical that we make plant-based meat affordable and widely available through innovative production technology.”

There’s some evidence that COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease, meaning it originated in animals and spread to humans. While it’s not proven that switching to a vegan diet would prevent future outbreaks of this kind, that’s certainly being argued by companies and organizations trying to push adoption of meat alternatives.

In fact, retail sales of plant-based meats are on the rise right now. But when it comes to foodservice — Rebellyous’ target market — things are much more stagnant. To expand its revenue sources the company will be expanding into retail, and soon. “Rebellyous will be pivoting to selling direct to consumers (CPG), and we expect to announce a soft launch in just a few weeks,” Lagally told the Spoon. “We had always intended to move into CPG, but the pandemic shut down allowed us to realize that goal earlier than expected.” 

It looks like Rebellyous isn’t going to keep all of its eggs in the foodservice basket.

GrapeStars Lets Celebrities Sell Booze to You Through Social Media

Have you ever wanted to buy gin endorsed by Ryan Reynolds? Or a nice bottle of sauvignon blanc curated by Sarah Jessica Parker? Now’s your chance. GrapeStars, the online marketplace for celebrity-endorsed brands of booze, is live to make sure you never have to go without a glass of wine supported by a famous person, even in the time of COVID-19.

Based in Miami, GrapeStars had its soft launch this week. Initially they’ll ship to 45 states in the U.S. The company has plans for a formal launch in mid-May 2020 with a portfolio of 1,495 products from 203 celebrities.

Here’s how it works: consumers can either purchase directly through the GrapeStars app, which currently works on iPhones or Google Play, or they can click on links embedded on celebrity’s social media profiles to be redirected to their GrapeStars store. From there they select their star-supported booze of choice, which is shipped to their door. Cost depends on weight, distance, and timing (e.g. overnight, 2 day, etc), and GrapeStars pockets 15 percent of each sale.

According to an email conversation with a GrapeStars rep, the startup recently closed a seed round, raising $3.7 million with a mix of convertible debentures and equities. The company will launch a Republic Crowdfunding Campaign to raise an additional $1 million sometime in the next few weeks.

This concept is obviously on the sillier side, but GrapeStars may actually hitting the market at an ideal time. Since everything is stressful right now and meditation apps can only do so much, sales of alcoholic beverages in the U.S. rose 55 percent in the week ending March 21, according to Nielsen data. Since bars are no longer to sell you the good stuff, people are turning to grocery stores and e-commerce to get their booze fix. Consequently, online alcohol delivery services like Drizly and Minibar are seeing a huge spike in sales. Wine subscription services, like Winc and Vivino, are also seeing rapid increases in sales and higher ticket sizes.

Plus, since everyone is turning to social media to feel connected amidst social distancing, celebrities may find themselves with a captive audience that’s bored enough to, say, order specialty booze endorsed by their favorite movie star.

Is GrapeStars going to solve any of the very significant challenges that COVID-19 is imposing on the food system? Absolutely not. But is it fun, entertaining, and a relevant service in our new Netflix-fueled normal? You bet.

Applegate to Launch New Blended Meat and Vegetable Burgers in Retail This Month

Hormel-owned Applegate will begin selling Well Carved, its frozen line of blended meat and vegetable products, in grocery stores this month, according to IngredientsNetwork. Well Carved includes hybrid beef and turkey burgers mixed with beans and vegetables, as well as blended meatballs. The new offerings feature a garden-full of plants lentils, cauliflower, spinach, parsley, and kale.

The Well Carved line was meant to debut at the Natural Products Expo West in March, but like every other event, it was postponed in response to COVID-19. Applegate decided to push the launch back to April and do it with retailers — though it hasn’t yet specified which ones, how many, or in which areas.

Applegate was actually the first Big Meat brand to venture into blended products. It launched The Great Organic Blend Burger, made from a mixture of beef and mushrooms, a year ago. That puts it well ahead of Tyson, which debuted its Raised & Rooted line of blended beef burgers and plant-based chicken nuggets in June. Soon after, chicken giant Perdue also released a line of hybrid chicken nuggets, made with plant-based protein from Better Meat Co.

Pricing may be a hurdle for Applegate. A four-pack of Well Carved burgers goes for $9.99, which is almost twice the price of a four-pack of organic beef burgers at some supermarkets. In fact, it’s almost on par with the price of Beyond Beef burgers. I’m wondering if people looking to cut their meat consumption will actually purchase a blended burger when, for roughly the same cost, they can just buy a delicious plant-based substitute?

Two things could work in Hormel’s favor, though. One, the Well Carved burgers are frozen. And in a time when people are stocking up on frozen food like nobody’s business to avoid grocery runs, that’s a good thing. Well Carved burgers also position themselves as clean label and wholesome — that is, they contain only vegetables and meat. Some critics don’t like that plant-based meat like Beyond and Impossible contains a litany of ingredients and is processed. That could spur flexitarian consumers looking to cut their meat consumption to give Well Carved a try.

It’s a prime time to drop a new alt-meat product in retail. With COVID-19 spurring sharp increases in grocery sales for both meat and plant-based meat, this is a prime time to experiment and see if blended burgers can actually make it in the market.

COVID-19 Summit: Coronavirus Could Actually Help us Reduce Food Waste (in Some Areas)

Unpopped popcorn kernels from movie theaters. Pre-wrapped cheese plates for airline passengers. These are just a few of the unexpected food resources that, due to social distancing recommendations, are going to waste during the coronavirus pandemic.

True, reducing food waste might not be one of the top-of-mind priorities right now for many of us, including airlines and movie theaters. But as Dana Gunders, Executive Director of ReFed, pointed out during yesterday’s COVID-19 Virtual Strategy Summit, as the coronavirus shakes up the food system from top to bottom, our food waste patterns are shifting too. “There’s enormous volatility in the system right now,” she said.

As we shutter restaurants, Gunders explained that we’ve cut off the supply chain to half of the food system. With that outlet closed, farms, processors, and distributors that typically work with foodservice are eyeing the grocery market and trying to establish new sales channels. Gunders walked us through how each sector of the food ecosystem is experiencing change — and what that means for food waste.

Farms
Farms, many of which rely on restaurant partners to sell their goods, are trying to pivot to find new retail channels. “But it’s not that instant,” Gunders said. She explained that instead, millions of pounds of green beans, tomatoes, and cabbage are getting tilled under because farmers can’t find outlets for them. So until farmers are able to forge new partnerships for e-commerce and D2C delivery, farm waste will increase. 

Processors and Manufacturers
With retail shopping on the rise, Gunders said that processors and manufacturers, such as CPG brands, are seeing up to triple the typical demand. But they’re also trying to navigate social distancing regulations and employee illnesses, which negatively affects their production capacity. This is bad news for upcyclers — companies that make goods out of traditional waste products, like spent grain from breweries — who are suddenly having difficulty sourcing their raw materials. 

Photo: ReFed

Distributors
When foodservice entities are forced to shut down and cancel their orders, distributors are the ones stuck with extra product. Distributors are seeking new retail channels to find an outlet for these leftover foods — but Gunders pointed out that the food is not often packaged for retail sales (e.g. the aforementioned popcorn kernels and cheese trays). 

Grocery and Retail
If you read The Spoon on the reg, or have gone shopping for toilet paper over the last month, you know that grocery stores and retailers have been experiencing a huge boom. At the same time, grocery stores are having difficulty forecasting how much to stock, since demand is so volatile right now. And as Gunders pointed out, volatility leads to challenges in purchasing, which could actually lead to more food waste on the grocery level. 

Restaurants and Foodservice
As we know, restaurants and foodservice establishments have been one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus epidemic. Forced closures over the past few weeks led to an initial spike in donations to food banks as restaurants tried to avoid throwing away food — the donations were too much for the system to handle in some cases, said Gunders. But as restaurants stay closed, these donations are now dropping off. There are also challenges around logistics; transporting food donations the last mile can be tricky when restaurants have laid off employees and volunteerism is down.

Consumer
One of Gunders’ biggest takeaways from the summit is that COVID-19 is forcing us all to be a lot more conscious about what food we’re buying and how we’re using it. When going to the grocery store means standing in line for an hour, you’re forced to be more strategic about how to use up food you already have at home — and that means less food waste. At the same time, Gunders pointed out that hoarding behavior at the grocery store can lead to more food waste when people discover they didn’t actually need that 6-pack of brie cheese wheels.

As more people cook at home, we’re also gaining kitchen skills. These could serve us going forward; consumers will learn how to freeze, preserve, and make use of their food, instead of just throwing it away. Gunders also said that people might begin to eat food that’s past its “sell by” date, which is notorious for being confusing and overly conservative. It’s also an opportunity for the adoption of smart kitchen tech which helps use up food, like IoT-connected containers or meal planning resources.

The majority of food waste right now happens within the home. If we start being more conscious about our food, and how we consume and preserve it, the COVID-19 outbreak could actually be a significant opportunity to cut food waste. But only if we all do our part.

You can watch the full session with Dana Gunders below or check it out on Crowdcast.

The Spoon COVID-19 Summit: Dana Gunders on COVID-19's Impact on Food Waste.

COVID-19 Summit: For Struggling Restaurants, the Key Terms are “Shapeshift” and “Break Even”

“It’s really f***ed up right now,” That’s how Robert Egger, founder of DC Central Kitchen, summed up the current restaurant situation on our COVID-19 Virtual Strategy Summit. “I’m sorry dudes, but there’s no other way to put it.”

There’s no doubt that the coronavirus epidemic is wreaking havoc on the hospitality industry, decimating restaurant sales and forcing massive layoffs. So how can restaurants, bars, and catering services innovate to make it to the other side of the pandemic?

We tackled that question during today’s socially-distanced summit. In one of the first panels of the day, Mark Brand, a chef, B-corp owner, brewery manager, and professor (okay, overachiever), spoke with Egger to The Spoon’s Michael Wolf about how restaurants can innovate to stay afloat during the coronavirus pandemic. Here are a few takeaways for restaurants that came about from the conversation:

Prepare for an uphill battle
Surviving as a restaurant, even in better times, is damn hard. Brand said that — in the very best of times — restauranteurs are making a maximum of 15 percent revenue on each transaction. “Folks think we have more money than we do as restauranteurs,” he joked. Therefore the vast majority of foodservice organizations don’t have a lot of padding to fall back on when their main revenue source, like in-house dining, suddenly goes away.

To survive, you must adapt
One of the biggest challenges facing restaurants is that there’s no blueprint to go off of. “A lot of people are making this up as we go,” Egger told the summit audience. That said, Egger and Brand had a few tips to help foodservice businesses survive the crisis. “The words of the day are ‘shapeshift’ and ‘break even,'” Egger said.

In short: restaurant operations will have to pivot to stay afloat, perhaps branching into new sales channels. Some foodservice spots are also offering purchase incentives, like a 1-to-1 donation where for each meal you purchase, one is donated to someone in need or a healthcare worker fighting COVID-19.

But no matter how many initiatives or pivots restaurants make, all they can really hope to do, Egger says, is break even. Hopefully that will be enough to help them make it to the other side of the coronavirus pandemic.

Another thing to look out for? A smaller menu. “I think there’s a lot of money to be made in a modest menu,” he said. Not only in terms of selection, but also pricing and serving size.

An opportunity for change
The panel wasn’t all doom and gloom. In fact, both Brand and Egger agreed that this crisis could actually help us transform our relationship with food for the better. “There’s a tremendous opportunity to reevaluate the restaurant structure,” Brand said.

Egger agreed, noting that COVID-19 could catalyze us as a society to prioritize our food more highly. “We can make sure that our food is sourced locally, workers are paid, and we can put together a healthy meal,” he said. “We’ll have a great sense of respect for food again.” 

Here’s the full video below.

COVID-19 Summit From The Spoon: Mark Brand and Robert Egger

Restaurants Can Now Sell Impossible Foods’ “Beef” Directly to Customers

There’s a new silver lining to the coronavirus pandemic: more of us can now get our hands on Impossible Foods’ plant-based beef. The startup announced today on Linkedin that the FDA will now allow all of Impossible’s restaurant partners to sell the Impossible Burger directly to customers in 5 lb. bricks, 1/4 lb. patties, and 1/3 lb. patties.

In order to sell the burgers, the restaurants must give customers a printed out copy of a PDF outlining the ingredients and allergens in the Impossible Burger. Pricing is at the discretion of the restaurant itself.

Admittedly, this initiative is probably not going to radically alter the course of any foodservice establishments. Restaurants are struggling to stay afloat after COVID-19 has forced the vast majority to shutter their dining rooms and pivot to takeout and delivery only. The numbers are sobering: over 3 percent of restaurants are already permanently closed, and NPD reports that restaurant customer transactions declined by 42 percent in the last week of March, compared to the same time period the year before.

Depending on how they price the uncooked Impossible Burger, restaurants are still likely able to make more money selling a finished Impossible product (i.e., a cheeseburger) than the raw material. But if they can’t sell enough of those, selling the raw product is a good way to get rid of inventory — especially if the restaurant is preparing to shut its doors, either temporarily or permanently.

In the end, this move might be more of a boon for consumers. According to NPR, sales of plant-based meat were up roughly 280 percent over the first two weeks of March. However, Impossible Foods’ ground “meat” is only available in select grocery stores in California and mid-Atlantic states. At the same time, over 15,000 restaurants sell Impossible Foods. If they do choose to sell to customers, that will dramatically increase the number of people who can buy uncooked Impossible “meat” to cook at home.

In Seattle, I have been sadly unable to get my hands on the plant-based “bleeding” burgers (outside of restaurants). Impossible’s new initiative will give folks like me, who love Impossible burgers and want to find ways to support their local restaurants, another opportunity to do so. It may be a relatively small silver lining, but in times like these we’ll take what we can get.

You can search for nearby restaurants that sell Impossible Burgers here. Give them a ring to see if they’re selling the raw plant-based burgers, and how much it’ll cost you to get your heme fix.

Yemoja Unveils New Scalable System To Grow Microalgae for Food

Yemoja, an Israel-based startup making marine ingredients for B2B use, unveiled its new algae production platform today. The company uses something called “fast-track photobioreactor technology” to create specific algaes meant to be used as ingredients as a food supplement or in cosmetic products.

Founded in 2017, Yemoja grows large amounts of microalgae tailored to fit each startup partners’ needs. To do so they’ve developed a closed cultivation system that can maintain a specific temperature, pH balance, and light distribution. It’s also designed to be able to cultivate several species of algae at the same time. Thus far Yemoja has raised $4 million in seed funding and investments from the Israel Innovation Authority.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, Yemoja distinguishes itself with its emphasis on scalability and versatility. With its modular grow system, which looks like racks filled with tall, cylindrical containers filled with lights, Yemoja can at least theoretically add almost countless units to fulfill customer needs. Since each system is self-contained, they can also cultivate multiple species of algae simultaneously — one for a plant-based meat company, another for face masks, for example.

Photo: Yemoja’s grow units

This seems like a pretty obvious way to grow microalgae, so it’s possible that other companies out there are also growing organisms in a similar manner — or will soon start to. Especially since algae is becoming a popular health add-in to a range of food products, including plant-based proteins. That’s especially the case with seafood, as microalgae imparts a marine flavor to alternatives like shrimp and canned tuna.

However, Yemoja seems to be focusing not purely on quanitity of algae, but also bespoke, specialty products. Eyal Shalmon, the CEO of Yemoja, said in the aforementioned press release that only a dozen or so species of microalgae are commercially available right now. If they concentrate on building out a larger range of algae strains, Yemoja could help stand out in a sea of producers.

Food Tech News: Grubmarket Acquires Boston Organics, Surplus Food App Karma Pivots to Delivery

Here are some things that have been making us feel good lately: pancakes on weekdays, video calls with family, and foodtech news.

We can’t help you with the first two, but we’ve got the latest lineup of foodtech-y stories ready to go. This week we rounded up stories about grocery e-commerce acquisitions, food waste service pivots, and curbside grocery pickup.

Grubmarket acquires Boston Organics
Grocery delivery service Grubmarket announced its acquisition of Boston Organics, an online farm-to-table delivery service, earlier this week. Boston Organics is the first east coast foothold for Grubmarket, which is based in San Francisco. According to a press release this acquisition is part of Grubmarket’s plans to expand nationwide. Over the past year alone, Grubmarket has acquired other artisanal grocery delivery services Doorganics and Eating with the Seasons.

Weis Market and Hannaford restart curbside grocery pickup
East coast grocery chains Weis Markets and Hannaford have restarted their curbside pickup services (via GroceryDive). Both retailers hit pause on curbside pickup in March as COVID-19 started spreading rapidly, but are resuming the service to cater to customers who want to avoid crowds in grocery stores. To minimize contact, cstomers are asked to remain in their vehicles during the pickup and store employees will not accept cash or paper coupons. Both grocers have stated that some items might not be available due to high demand.

Photo: Karma.

Surplus food resale platform Karma pivots to delivery + food boxes
Before COVID-19, Sweden-based startup Karma’s platform partnered with restaurants to sell their surplus food for pickup at a discount. Now, with many foodservice establishments struggling or closing down altogether, Verdict reports that Karma has pivoted to delivery. The service provides its own drivers to deliver cooked restaurant meals, priced at half off, to customers who place an order on the app. Deliveries are available on weekdays up until 7pm, within a 3km radius of the restaurant. Karma is also launching Karma Box, a fruit and vegetable box sourced from their foodservice partners.

Swedish Plant-based Investment Fund Kale United Scores €350K

Plant-based holding company Kale United announced today that its latest funding round, which launched on the crowdfunding site FundedByMe, is fully subscribed and has raised €350,000 ($380,000). The holding group currently has over 100 public and private investors.

Based in Sweden, Kale United has invested in 30 startups making plant-based meat, dairy, and more. Its portfolio currently includes Hooray Foods (meatless bacon), Noquo Foods (vegan cheese), Ocean Hugger Foods (plant-based fish for sushi), and LiveKindly (vegan media platform). According to a press release on their site Kale United’s most successful investment thus far is Astrid Och Aporna, a range of plant-based meat sold in Swedish retailers. The fund will use its fresh capital to expand its portfolio with new early-stage plant-based companies.

$380,000 seems like a pretty modest sum when compared with other plant-based venture firms, like Big Idea Ventures or Agfunder, whose funds are up in the tens of millions. However, it’s intriguing to see that Kale United has turned to a crowdfunding site to raise its sum, meaning that regular folks like you or me could get in on the investment action. Other venture funds require people to be an established investor or pay high entry fees to participate.

This pairs well with the recent trend we’ve been seeing in equity crowdfunding, which is when companies let people buy a stake of the company itself. Kale United isn’t doing exactly the same thing — rather it’s opening its doors to allow people to participate in their fund, which the company will then allocate to startups — but it is democratizing the investment process in a similar way.

It might be an opportune time for people to invest more heavily in animal-free products, despite the circumstances (you know, the global pandemic). Coronavirus is disrupting almost every corner of the food world, but it’s actually spurring sales of plant-based foods, specifically milk and meat. If that trend continues more investment in the space there will be more opportunity for new startups — and for the funds backing them.