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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Ag Tech

Apeel Acquires ImpactVision to Fight Food Waste With Hyperspectral Imaging

Apeel officially announced today is has acquired machine learning company ImpactVision for an undisclosed amount. The plan is to integrate ImpactVision’s hyperspectral imaging technology into Apeel’s applications systems at produce packing houses and distribution centers in North America, South America, and Europe. This is Apeel’s first major acquisition, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. To date, ImpactVision has raised $2.8 million.

Apeel’s existing application systems involve coating different types of produce with what the company calls its “shelf-life extension technology” — an edible, plant-based coating that gets applied to produce after harvest. The coatings extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables by keeping moisture trapped inside the produce and oxygen out. In doing so, the rate of decay significantly slows. 

With the ImpactVision acquisition, Apeel will be able to add further analysis of the produce to its operations. ImpactVision’s tech collects and processes hyperspectral images of each individual piece of produce. Through machine learning models, the system can identify cues in the produce around its freshness, degree of maturity, and phytonutrient content.

Based on those elements, suppliers and distributors can then decide where each piece of produce should go. Those  with a shorter ripening window can ship to retailers geographically closer to the supplier, for instance, to avoid excess food spoilage. By way of example, today’s news announcement gave the following scenario: “If a produce supplier sees that one avocado will ripen tomorrow while another will ripen in 4 days, they know that one has more time to travel and should be sent to the retailer that is further away.”

Writing in a blog post today, Apeel CEO James Rogers noted that through the acquisition, “Apeel will now be able to integrate hyperspectral imaging technology into our supply chains, enabling us to provide new insights to our customers, both upstream and downstream, ranging from ripeness prediction to nutritional characteristics, even information on how the produce was grown; the very aspects that make every individual piece of fruit unique.”  

Rogers added that Apeel has already started the process of upgrading its application systems to include hyperspectral camera capabilities. The company says it has 30 supplier integrations on three continents with plans to double that number by the end of 2021.

Food Tech News: Powdered Oat Milk, Vietnamese Coffee Pour-Over Kits

Welcome to the weekend, the peak of spring, and your favorite place to catch up on food tech news. A few stories caught our eyes this week including China’s recently passed food waste law, new high-protein sesame seeds, Copper Cow Coffee’s latest funding round, and oat milk in the form of powder.

Copper Cow Coffee secures $8.5M in Series A funding round

Copper Cow Coffee produces Vietnamese coffee pour-over kits, and this week the women-owned company raised $8.5 million in funding that will be used for expanding distribution and product innovation. The round was led by Cultivian Sandbox and Arborview Capital and saw participation from Siddhi Capital, Silverton Partners, Social Starts, Montage Ventures, CRCM, and Stormbreaker Ventures. Copper Cow Coffee sources its coffee from farms in Vietnam that apply organic agricultural and processing practices. The company’s pour-over kits include condensed milk or coconut milk creamer packets and Vietnamese coffee, with flavor varieties including vanilla latte, churro, rose, and vanilla. The pour-over kits require no special equipment because the coffee bags fit over the rim of any mug or cup (as depicted above).

Photo by Diego Morales on Unsplash

High-protein sesame seeds for plant-based alternatives

Equinom, a seed-breeding technology company, has partnered with Dipasa, a sesame seed processor and exporter, to develop a high protein sesame seed for use in plant-based protein alternatives. The new sesame seed will be bred using Equinom’s AI-backed genomic optimization algorithms and distributed globally by Dipasa. Sesame seeds do not naturally have a high protein content like soy or wheat does, but the new high-protein sesame seed will contain 65 to 70 percent protein content (a normal sesame seed has a 23 percent protein content). Boosting the protein content of a sesame seed will make it a more viable option as a base for plant-based products.

Photo from Blue Farm’s website

Blue Farm aims to make oat milk more sustainable

Berlin-based Blue Farm has created a powdered oat milk base with the intention of making the plant-based milk sector more sustainable. Transporting liquid-filled cartons across the country, or even globally, releases transportation emissions. On top of this, many plant-based milk cartons are not recyclable. Blue Farm’s oat milk powder comes in a compact, 100% recycled plastic packaging which can be recycled again. The oat milk powder is shelf-stable, and simply must be shaken with water to create liquid oat milk.

UAE: The Next Big Food Tech Hub?

Singapore may be getting all the headlines as the latest destination for food tech, but another up-and-coming place to watch is the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The country recently launched a major new food tech hub in Dubai meant to boost internal food security while also turning UAE into a global superpower for food tech. The facility includes laboratories, research centers, and prototype agricultural systems, all situated on a single campus.

Dubbed the Food Tech Valley, the project is the first phase of a wider initiative designed to assist the UAE with meeting its National Food Security Strategy 2051 targets. Among the Strategy’s goals are increasing food production and agriculture in the country, adopting more food technologies, achieving zero hunger in the UAE, and introducing legislation that improves nutrition while reducing waste.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, launched the Food Tech Valley at the beginning of May. 

The facility, which was designed to physically resemble a head of wheat (see image above), is divided into four main areas:

  • A dedicated area for ag tech and engineering will include a vertical farm as well as projects on bioengineering, robotics, and automation.
  • A food innovation center that will function as an incubator for promising food tech startups and businesses. 
  • R&D facilities will be dedicated to a number of different topic areas that include making crops more drought-resistant, alternative protein production, 3D printing, and crop monitoring and analysis.
  • A food-storage system aims to make food storage, distribution, and transportation more efficient through the use of more technologies. 

The UAE’s Minister of State for Food Security, Mariam Al Mheiri, said the Food Tech Valley is “critical to the goal of achieving self-sufficiency and conserving essential resources.”

The UAE currently ranks 42 among 113 countries on the Global Food Security Index, which grades countries based on the affordability, availability, quality, safety. and resilience of their food systems. The Index lists “agricultural research and development” as a major challenge for the country currently. 

UAE is a bit like Singapore in that a lack of arable land makes traditional agriculture and livestock production difficult. While UAE isn’t quite as high-profile as Singapore in terms of food innovation, its entirely feasible that will change over the next several months and years. Already, vertical farming companies such as Vertical Field and AeroFarms are working in the country alongside local players. With the launch of the Food Tech Valley, many more companies, local and global, are expected to join.

BrightFarms’ New Indoor Ag Facility Will Double Its Production in 2021

BrightFarms, an indoor agriculture company growing leafy greens, announced today the official opening of its fifth greenhouse. The six-acre facility is located in Hendersonville, North Carolina and will produce about 2 million pounds of lettuce per year, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

BrightFarms already operates farms in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Virginia. The locations of its farms means the company can chop the harvest-to-shelf time for greens down to just 24 hours in some cases, as opposed to the days (or weeks) it takes to get greens shipped in from California or Arizona. 

All locations use a hydroponic system and natural sunlight supplemented by a proprietary technology called BrightOS that calculates the ideal growing temperature as well as humidity and nutrient levels. In some ways, BrightOS could be seen as the central nervous system of the company’s farming network, collecting data from each individual farm in order to inform overall best practices. Not that the farms run entirely on their own. Each farm employs a head grower along with several other staff. The company said today that the North Carolina facility will create 55 new jobs.

Notably, BrightFarms counts spinach among its leafy green crops. Because of its susceptibility to disease, spinach is notoriously difficult to grow indoors. The only other company currently attempting it on a large scale is Element Farms.

Meanwhile, there’s no shortage of tech-enabled greenhouses these days — thought not necessarily in the Southeastern U.S. AppHarvest, which went public earlier this year, grows tomatoes via controlled ag in Kentucky, and will next tackle leafy greens on a soon-to-come facility. Many farms are still concentrated in the Northeast and West, though that is changing.

BrightFarms said in today’s press release that it will double in size and production in 2021, and be in more than 3,500 stores across the U.S. Besides the new North Carolina farm, BrightFarms plans to open another facility in New England later this year. 

Precision AI Raises $20M Seed Round for Drone-Powered Surgical Herbicide Application

Precision AI, an automated precision agriculture startup, announced today that it has raised a $20 million in Seed round of equity and grant funding. The round was co-led by At One Ventures and the Industrial Innovation Venture Fund of BDC Capital, with participation from Fulcrum Global Capital and Golden Opportunities, as well as non-dilutive co-investment from Sustainable Development Technology Canada and Protein Industries Canada.

Based in Regina, Canada, Precision AI uses a combination of drones and computer vision to conduct precise application of herbicides and pesticides on weeds. Precision AI’s system deploys swarms of drones that fly over farm fields. The drones can carry a 25 lbs. payload and have a 55 minute flight time. Equipped with both cameras and a sprayer, the drones’ system automatically identifies weeds and sprays them with specific dose of pesticide or herbicide.

The goal is to reduce the waste and cost that comes from indiscriminate, broad application of chemicals to tackle weeds. Additionally, Precision AI’s approach only sprays the weeds, not the crops themselves, so there are fewer chemicals applied to the food we consumer. Precision AI says its drone approach to weed control on large acreage crops is much cheaper than traditional large farming machinery and could reduce the amount of pesticide use by up to 95 percent while maintaining crop yield and saving farmers $52 per acre per growing season.

Precision AI sits at the Nexus of a few trends happening in agriculture. The first, fittingly, is bringing precision control to farms. Sensors and IoT allow the monitoring of things like soil moisture, plant temperature, and fertilization on a more granular level. To get these levels of precision, we’re also seeing automation coming to farms in the form of robots that do everything from carrying gear to zapping weeds with electricity to harvesting crops. Drones are also being employed more monitor farm conditions and plant growth and even pick fruit.

Automation on the farm is actually a topic we’ll be tackling at our upcoming ArticulATE food robotics and automation virtual summit on May 18th. We’ll have speakers from Future Acres, AgShift and AgFunder discussing the opportunities that lie ahead for automated precision agriculture. Get your ticket today!

Environmental Engineers Use Corn Waste to Treat and Filter Water

America is the top producer of corn in the world, and approximately 90 million acres of land here are used to grow this grain. Most of the corn in the U.S. is used for animal feed and unfortunately, a lot of the corn plant is not nutrient-dense and goes to waste. This month, engineers at the University of Riverside found a way to incorporate the waste from corn production and use it to filter and treat water.

This leftover biomass from corn production is called corn stover can be used as emergency livestock feed, left in the fields to replenish soil, or converted to biofuel. A lab at UC Riverside focuses on upcycling waste products like biomass back into the economy and decided to focus on additional applications for corn stover. The UC Riverside lab found that corn stover could be turned into activated carob, also known as activated charcoal, by charring it. Activated carbon is commonly used to filter and treat water because it contains millions of microscopic pores that can absorb water and filter out toxins.

The lab experimented with multiple ways of processing the corn stover into activated charcoal, and through hydrothermal carbonization, the biochar had a high surface area and large pores capable of filtering high amounts of pollutants. To test the upcycled corn stover, the lab added vanillin, a water pollutant produced by the vanilla industry, to water, and filtered it through the corn stover activated carbon. It was found that activated carbon was able to absorb 98 percent of vanillin from the water.

Upcycling food waste is all the rage right now, and last year Whole Foods predicted upcycled food to be a major trend in 2021. Some food waste is used to make new food products, while other food waste (like corn stover) is used to make commercial products. Agraloop uses sugar cane bark, pineapple leaves, and hemp stalks to create natural fibers for textile production. Researchers at the University of Toronto Scarborough discovered that they could turn waste oil sourced from McDonald’s fryers into a high-resolution, biodegradable 3D printing resin.

Approximately 366 million metric tons of corn is grown in the U.S. each year, and this results in a lot of leftover corn stover. UC Riverside lab’s discovery is a viable and useful option for unproductive biomass, but the lab did not say if it has plans for a commercial application of this discovery.

Meet HECTAR, an Open-Source Project for At-Home Vertical Farming

When it comes to at-home vertical farming, who will be first to grow a watermelon?

That’s a question posed by HECTAR Hydroponics, a project that wants to open-source the at-home vertical farm concept. Rather than mass-producing a whole farm and selling it to consumers, the project’s creators have instead made a manual and documentation available for free download, so that any DIY enthusiast can build their very own HECTAR.

Felix Wieberneit of the Royal College of Art and the Imperial College of London conceptualized HECTAR, which eventually became part of Imperial College’s Venture Catalyst accelerator program, a competition for entrepreneurs sponsored by Huawei. The HECTAR vertical farm is the size of a regular bookshelf and can grow up to 128 plants, according to the project’s website. So far, users have grown kale, spinach, and other leafy greens, as well as green beans.

According to the publication Springwise, HECTAR was partly inspired by what Wieberneit saw as a need for more affordability and versatility with at-home vertical farming: “Wieberneit wants to change the market for hydroponic systems from ‘overpriced smart planters and costly seed subscriptions’, to systems that people design to meet their own needs, which use local materials.” 

Thus far, most large-scale vertical farming companies use either proprietary tech developed in-house or a proprietary mix of off-the-shelf technologies. Information on what works and what doesn’t in terms of the technology is few and far between right now, a situation that also applies to at-home versions of vertical farms.

Hence, Hectar. The plans, released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, include a step-by-step guide, an instructional video, and a list of materials, all of which can be purchased from the average hardware store.

A few questions come to mind when thinking of HECTAR in the larger context of at-home vertical farming. For instance, how much does it cost? Do all the materials listed add up to something cheaper than, say, a complete farm from Rise Gardens ($549+) or Gardyn? ($899 for a starter kit). What will the quality of the produce be like compared to those or even compared to what you could buy at the store? 

Those questions will no doubt be answered in time on the project’s community forum, where growers can share tips and advice as well as any improvements and/or changes made to the design. No one’s reported any watermelons yet, but open-sourcing the vertical farming concept might just be the way to get there.

The CEA Food Safety Coalition Launches a Food-Safety Standard for Indoor Ag

The CEA Food Safety Coalition announced today what it says is the first-ever food safety certification program designed for leafy greens grown in controlled environment agriculture (CEA) settings. As of today, members of the Coalition can opt to have their crops assessed by the new Leafy Greens Module, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Upon passing inspection via the module, those growers can then include a “CEA food-safe” seal on their packaging. 

Founded in 2019, the goal of the Coalition is to provide science-based food-safety certification for those growing leafy greens indoors. The Coalition is not a government entity. Rather, it’s a group of leaders in the CEA space that pay membership dues and work together to provide guidance for the entire industry. The Leafy Green Module is meant to be an add-on to existing compliance standards from the Global Food Safety Initiative.  

Founding members include AeroFarms, Bowery Farming, BrightFarms, Little Leaf Farms, Plenty, Revol Greens, Superior Fresh and Vertical Field. The Coalition is also led by Executive Director Marni Karlin, the former head of government affairs and general counsel for the Organic Trade Association. 

“Current food safety standards were written for the field, and many do not address the unique attributes of controlled, indoor environments,” Karlin noted in today’s press release. “This new certification process and the accompanying on-pack seal helps to unify CEA growers while also differentiating them from traditional field agriculture.”

For example, controlled-environment farms that generally rely heavily on technology also favor circulating water systems via hydroponics. On the flip, there are elements CEA farms do not usually have to factor in, such as contamination from animal byproducts.

The Coalition’s entire certification process looks at four main areas:

  • Hazard analysis, which is the use of water, nutrients, growing media, seeds, inputs, site control and other relevant factors
  • Water that comes into contact with all plant and with food contact surfaces. “The use of recirculating water will require a continuing hazard analysis. Will also require zone-based environmental monitoring based on company-specific risk assessment.”
  • Site control, infrastructure, and system design, including all food contact surfaces and adjacent food contact surfaces, such as plant containers. This area also assesses potential physical hazards from lighting, robotics, sensors, equipment and utensils.
  • Pesticide Use and Testing, or the use of pesticides or herbicides during the plant life cycle. Generally speaking, though, CEA farms don’t use pesticides.

The new certification comes at time when both investment and consumer interest in CEA is on the rise. Leafy greens are still the most prominent crop to be grown in these farms, hence the Coalition’s focus on that produce type in this initial certification. However, other plants, including and especially strawberries, are becoming more popular with indoor vertical growers. No doubt indoor-specific safety certification for that crop is not far away.

Iron Ox Breaks Ground on a New Robotic Farm in Texas

Iron Ox, a company best known for its robotic greenhouses, announced this week it had broken ground on a new facility, a 535,000 square-foot indoor farm in Lockhart, Texas. This is the third farm from Iron Ox, which is based in California and operates two other farms in that state. 

All Iron Ox farms are equipped with hydroponic grow systems as well as robotics, the latter being a mobile transport system that can move trays of produce as well as tend and harvest plants via a robotic grasper. Farms are semi-autonomous, with humans still needed to inspect plants and prune them.

The company says the forthcoming Lockhart farm will grow leafy greens, herbs, berries, and vine crops, and anticipates delivering its first harvest by the close of 2021. Select chefs and food retailers in Texas will be the first recipients of that harvest. The company says the new farm will serve several cities in the state thanks to its proximity to Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. The new farm will also create roughly 100 new jobs in the region. 

Constructions of high-tech greenhouses are happening all over the country right now, with Element Farms, AppHarvest, Little Leaf Farms, and others building or planning to build new facilities. Unlike vertical farms, these greenhouses still rely on sunlight (usually supplemented by some LEDs) as their primary source of lighting. And there’s plenty of sunlight to be had in Texas.

Technology like data-collecting sensors as well as AI systems are increasingly a part of these greenhouse operations, though robotic arms for harvesting crops are a little less common right now. However, AppHarvest recently acquired Root, which makes a crop-harvesting robot, suggesting a future for greenhouses that includes much more in the way of robotics. For its part, Iron Ox has said before that it would like its farms to one day be fully autonomous.

As with other high-tech greenhouse setups, automation in the Iron Ox farms helps to ensure consistency in the crops, better quality plants, and ultimately tasty veggies for consumers. 

Liberty Produce Gets Grant to Further Develop CEA in Singapore

A team led by UK-based vertical farming company Liberty Produce has won £420,000 (~$588,000 USD) from the Innovate UK fund to help advance controlled-environment farming in Singapore, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

Liberty Produce and Singapore-based LivFresh will jointly lead the Hybrid Advanced Research Vertical Farming Environment Systems and Technology (HARVEST) consortium, which will also include research partners Republic Polytechnic Singapore and the James Hutton Institute.

Liberty Produce will install its Liberator farming system, developed in the UK, at the LivFresh hydroponic farm in Singapore, where it will be integrated with existing greenhouse technology. The HARVEST team will then run trials of this combined system, with the goal being to eventually release a turn-key product for Singapore food growers to use domestically. 

Because of limited land, Singapore currently imports about 90 percent of its food. This dependence on outside sources, however, has proven itself problematic at certain times — like during a pandemic, when the global food supply chain gets disrupted. 

The Singaporean government’s 30×30 initiative aims to get 30 percent of the city-state’s food produced domestically by 2030. Controlled-environment farming, such as greenhouses and vertical farms, is a major part of that plan.  

Liberty Produce develops vertical farms that are modular and can therefore be customized to a specific farming operation’s needs. They are also smaller than the massive “plant factories” a la Plenty or AeroFarms. For instance, the Liberator 5000 is roughly the size of a shipping container, according to the company, while two other models are even smaller. This smaller geographic footprint is well-suited to a place like Singapore, which is mostly urban and, as mentioned above, is already dealing with very limited land.

Liberty Produce systems are 100 percent controlled, from the amount of water and nutrients fed to crops to humidity levels to the “recipes” of LED lights. The system can grow standard leafy greens but has also grown more challenging crops, like blueberries.

The project with LivFresh will last two years and support Singapore’s national strategy around the 30×30 goal.

High-End Strawberry Grower Oishii to Launch ‘Everyday Berry’ via Vertical Farming

Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) company Oishii is best known at this point for its high-end, vertically grown strawberries that cost a cool $50 for an eight-pack. That makes the New Jersey-based company’s wares pretty inaccessible for many consumers — until now. Oishii explained this week that it will be launching an “everyday berry” in the future.

Strawberries are by many accounts the next “it” crop for CEA. As Oishii explained to Vertical Farm Daily, one of the issues with traditional strawberry production is that about 90 percent of all strawberries grown in the U.S. have to be shipped from California. To ensure safer transportation, the fruits are engineered to be resilient at the expense of quality and taste. 

Oishii’s Omakase Berry, which the company grows in its vertical farm facility in New Jersey, is in many ways the antithesis of the traditionally grown strawberry. Omakase Berries typically only grow for a short part of the year in a very specific region of Japan, and they are known for their sweetness and strong aromas. They are also, as noted above, a very premium produce item and, in the case of Oishii, a very expensive one.

But now, Oishii is using its recently raised $50 million funding round to expand R&D and commercialize an everyday berry, with the goal of becoming one of the largest strawberry growers in the world. Oishii will apply the learnings and proprietary technology used to grow its Omakase Berry towards other strawberries as well as other crops, such as tomatoes and peppers.

Strawberries are one of the dirtier crops when it comes to pesticides, and more than one CEA company is now attempting to grow the fruit indoors at scale. Plenty announced a partnership with berry grower Driscoll’s last year. Meanwhile, a Singapore-based company called SinGrow is growing strawberries indoors to make the fruit more widely available in the city state without relying on imports.

Oishii said this week it will focus for now on local markets in northern New Jersey and New York, but also plans to build more farms in other cities and even countries. 

Les Nouvelles Fermes Raises €2M to Expand Its Aquaponics Farms

Bordeaux, France-based indoor farming company Les Nouvelles Fermes announced today it has raised €2 million (~$2.4 million USD) to build what it’s calling the largest aquaponic farm in Europe. EU Startups was first to write about the news. The round included participation from IRDI, the Banque des Territoires, Crédit Agricole Aquitaine and the CIC. This is Les Nouvelles Fermes first round of funding.

The new farm, dubbed “Odette,” will launch at the end of 2021 in the Bordeaux Metropolitan area. Like Les Nouvelles Fermes’ current farm, also in Bordeaux, Odette will use a closed-circuit aquaponics system to grow both vegetables and fish. 

Aquaponics combines raising fish in tanks with growing produce via hydroponics. Nutrient-rich discharge from the fish is fed to the plants, which then can clean the water that goes back to the fish, creating an entirely closed-loop system. 

“Pauline,” Les Nouvelles Fermes’ current farm, grows a mixture of leafy greens, fruits, and vegetables, in addition to raising rainbow trout. The forthcoming Odette will do the same. EU Startups noted that the company’s object in opening a new farm is to “to validate an operating model and then reproduce it in the immediate vicinity of the major urban centres in France and Europe, with the possibility to restore abandoned land, while creating agricultural occupations.”

Closed-loop systems like Pauline and Odette aren’t yet widespread in the indoor farming community yet. However, given the many sustainability issues around both fishing and farming, that may change as technologies get cheaper and a little more standardized. Upward Farms, based in Brooklyn, New York, is another company producing fish and leafy greens via a closed-loop system.

Along those lines, Les Nousvelles Fermes plans to duplicate its model and technology on a much larger scale in future. The company has already signed a partnership with the company Orange to further develop its technological solution.