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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Announcements

Meet The Spoon Podcast Network

Here at The Spoon, we—like you—are big fans of podcasts.

What’s not to love? Whether we’re diving deep into a topic we’re passionate about, researching a story, or exploring new interests just beginning to take root, podcasts have become an indispensable resource for us. And we know many of our readers feel the same way.

Personally, I’ve been podcasting and using podcasts as part of my process of discovering and writing about food tech innovators for most of the past decade. As a journalist, podcasts play a crucial role in my reporting process. They’ve allowed me to open-source my discovery journey, bringing The Spoon community along as I learn from subject matter experts about how the world is changing and the industries they’ve mastered.

As both a consumer and a creator of media, I’ve found podcasts to be more essential than ever—especially in an era of AI-generated content. With so much AI-generated media flooding our feeds, it’s becoming harder to discern what’s authentic—whether in written, audio, or video form. That’s why embracing trusted, verifiable voices is more important than ever. Podcasts provide a space for genuine conversations with real people, and that’s something worth amplifying.

Podcasts were also at the forefront of the great decentralization of media. This technology, which started over two decades ago, gave independent voices a platform—no massive media infrastructure required. At The Spoon, we believe strongly in independent media, and we want to leverage our own platform to bring new voices to our community and beyond.

All of this brings us to an exciting announcement: We’re launching our own podcast network!

The idea for The Spoon Podcast Network (TSPN) came to life last year as we engaged with insightful voices across the food tech and future-of-food community. We realized there were so many stories to tell and perspectives to share. While we could certainly invite some of these great minds onto The Spoon Podcast, we started to wonder: What if we could do more? What if we could tap into these experts and leverage The Spoon (and our and their collective networks) to extend their insights, conversations, and discoveries to a broader audience?

In other words, could we open-source the explorations of smart people across food, nutrition, and modern life—so that more of us can learn, engage, and join the conversation?

So that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re launching a great slate of new podcast hosts, and we’re already in talks with more creators to grow the network. Here’s our debut lineup of new podcasts launching with our partners:

Food Truths

On Food Truths, Food scientist Eric Schulze—former head of Global Regulatory at UPSIDE Foods and a former FDA regulator—will bring on smart minds from the food world and beyond to bust myths, uncover surprising truths, and dive deep into the science of food. (Apple Podcasts, Spotify).

Watch What You Eat With Carolyn O’Neil

As CNN’s original health and nutrition contributor, Carolyn O’Neil has spent decades covering how technology and innovative changemakers are reshaping nutrition. On Watch What You Eat, she’ll explore the worlds of food, nutrition, and cuisine, tracking new trends and helping listeners embark on new culinary adventures.

My Food Job Rocks

We’re not just creating new shows—we’re also bringing on seasoned hosts with podcasts we’ve long admired. Adam Yee, one of the original food-industry and food-innovation podcasters, launched My Food Job Rocks nearly a decade ago. We’ve been fans of Adam’s insightful and fun conversations with industry leaders, and we’re thrilled to welcome him to the network as he re-launches his iconic show.

Maybe Food, Maybe Tech

In addition to relaunching My Food Job Rocks, Adam Yee is launching a brand-new show with co-host Kai-Hsin Wang. On Maybe Food, Maybe Tech, they’ll break down current events, explore innovative companies at the intersection of food and technology, and share personal insights on life and industry trends.

The Tomorrow Today Show

Mike Lee, author of MISE and a longtime food futurist, has a talent for deciphering early signals and identifying what’s around the corner. On The Tomorrow Today Show, he’ll tackle big questions about sustainability, technology, pleasure, and connection—viewed through the lens of food.

Women Innovators in Food and Farming

Award-winning journalist Amy Wu hosts Women Innovators in Food and Farming, where she interviews women entrepreneurs driving change in agri-food tech. From advancements in seed breeding and soil innovation to cutting-edge robotics and automation, Amy explores the stories and insights shaping the future of food and farming.

Everything But The Carbon Sink

Hosted by Eva Goulbourne—an experienced strategist in food systems transformation and climate philanthropy—Everything But the Carbon Sink examines how agriculture, food waste, and land use impact the climate crisis. Each episode highlights forward-thinking solutions, financing strategies, and the key players driving change at the intersection of food and climate.

Soul to Table

Join Chef Ryan Lacy on the Soul to Table podcast. he goes on a journey to explore our food systems from seed to table through the eyes of our guests, chefs, ranchers, food scientists, farmers & many more.

Spoon Full of AI

In this show, The Spoon’s own Carlos Rodela dives into the cutting-edge world of artificial intelligence. We go face-to-face with industry innovators who share firsthand how AI is transforming their industry and how they are meeting the challenge by utilizing AI in their business. In each episode, we’ll also explore the latest AI tools powering big change, complete with suggestions for leveraging them in your business.

The Reimagining Restaurants Podcast

In this podcast, I talk to entrepreneurs, chefs, and industry leaders who are redefining what it means to run a modern restaurant—leveraging robotics, AI, automation, and sustainable practices to enhance customer service, optimize operations, and drive profitability.

And, of course, we’ll continue to feature The Spoon Podcast, our flagship show covering innovators across the food system. Over the next couple of months, we’ll spotlight conversations on The Spoon Podcast with all of our new hosts so you can get to know them better and hear from them about why their podcasts are must-listens.

You can check out all of our shows on The Spoon Podcast Network page, where you’ll also find links to the podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and their RSS feeds. Please subscribe!

And if you’d like to support our podcasts and independent media through sponsorship, drop us a line—we’d love to have that conversation.

Finally, a big shoutout to our hosts who believed in this vision, and to The Spoon team, including Carlos Rodela (our producer) and Tiffany McClurg, our head of operations (and new warm-read specialist!).

We can’t wait to bring these conversations to you. Stay tuned!

Announcing The Food AI Co-Lab, a New Collaboration Between The Spoon & Future Food Institute

If there was one thing we learned when we held the first-ever Food AI Summit last October, it is that pretty much every food company believes their business will fundamentally change due to artificial intelligence.

Whether it’s companies building farm equipment, managing food supply chains, launching new grocery shopping formats, or creating new quick-service restaurant chains, no one along the food value chain will remain untouched by the rapid pace of change brought on by AI. In other words, we are in a once-in-a-generational rethink of business as usual, a tectonic shift that demands company leaders continuously learn, strategize, and collaborate to make sure their companies survive and even thrive into the future.

Because of this, we realized that we wanted to find a way to bring together our community and others within the food system to talk about the different impacts AI is having across various parts of the food system more than once a year. While we loved the fact that the big ideas that were shared at the Food AI Summit have already resulted in new partnerships and collaborations, we wondered if we brought together folks more regularly – on a monthly basis or even more frequently – might have an even bigger impact.

Luckily for us, one of my favorite organizations – the Future Food Institute, led by one of the most consequential leaders in the future food space in Sara Roversi – had a similar idea. So when Sara approached me about joining forces for a collaborative new organization to do just that – I jumped at the chance.

So, alongside the FFI, I am super excited to announce today the launch of the Food AI Co-Lab!

What is the Food AI Co-Lab? It’s a collaboration that aims to be a meeting space and learning center for leaders who are building the future of food through artificial intelligence. We will explore different topics, engage with our community, and provide information such as industry surveys about what people are doing at the intersection of food and AI.

To kick things off, we will host monthly industry-focused meetings with thought leaders creating using AI across various parts of the food system. Soon, we will also announce in-person events in the US and Italy where the community can get together, network, learn together, and build their own collaborations.

If you’d like to join us on this journey, we encourage you to join our LinkedIn group and also register for our first virtual event, AI & The Future of Food, which will take place next Tuesday, March 19th. At that event, we’ll interview two thought leaders: Dr. Patrick Story, a professor of Philosophy at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, participating in a National Science Foundation-funded project analyzing the impact of automation and AI on the food system, and Kevin Brown, the CEO of Innit, a company building a platform that plugs into generative AI large language models to make them more food “fluent” and power AI-assisted food knowledge systems and services.

I hope to see you there, and I am excited to work with you to learn, collaborate, and build the future with the Food AI Co-Lab!

Smart Kitchen Summit Returns to Seattle in 2024

The Smart Kitchen Summit, the pioneering executive summit focused on the digital transformation of the consumer meal journey, is excited to announce its return in 2024. In 2024, SKS will return to its birthplace, Seattle, Washington, scheduled for June 4-5th.

“I’m thrilled that SKS is making its return to Seattle next year, where our journey began,” said Michael Wolf, SKS founder and Spoon publisher. “While we had over ten thousand of the SKS community join us for virtual events during the pandemic, there’s nothing like seeing, touching, and tasting innovation. I look forward to connecting with those helping rethink how we do things in the world of food and cooking in person.”

Themes For 2024

SKS 2024 will focus on some of the most important themes around the innovation-driven transformation of how we shop, cook, consume, and convene around food. Some of the key themes and questions that will be explored during the two full days at SKS include:

AI’s Impact on Food: Exploring how AI is transforming every part of the food value chain, including how consumers find, purchase, and prepare food. How can food companies, appliance brands, retailers, and more harness the power of this incredible technology?

Food Waste and Sustainability: How can innovation-powered changes can we make to reduce food waste along the consumer meal journey?

Food and Nutrition Personalization: The technology and tools exist to create personalized food and nutrition plans that lead to better health outcomes. How can the food industry adapt in a world in which GLP-1-based drugs are creating a murky outlook for traditional food brands?

Automation & Cooking: Automation is becoming critical in the commercial kitchen. How will it fit in the consumer kitchen and our food lives?

On-Demand, Decentralized Food Manufacturing: The packaged-goods food ecosystem is wasteful. Can new forms of on-demand, decentralized food production technologies like 3D printing reduce the packaging and waste of traditional CPG models, and how will these systems scale in commercial and consumer settings?

Food Discovery & Meal Planning: We’re more likely nowadays to find a new recipe on TikTok than in a cookbook. As food retailers & CPGs lock into these new discovery channels to enable purchase journeys, will the consumer of the future join them?

Kitchen Electrification: Induction cooking systems are both more efficient and better for the environment, but consumers are hesitant to adopt them. When will the electrification of the consumer kitchen happen, if ever?

Startup Showcase

In addition to two full days of TED-style presentations, panels, workshops, and networking, SKS is bringing back our pioneering Startup Showcase. Launched in 2015, the SKS Startup Showcase has been instrumental in connecting startups with investors, corporate partners, and even opportunities like appearing on Shark Tank. Startups who are building the next great technology that they believe will change how we shop, cook, store, or consume food in the home are encouraged to apply today.

Location Details

SKS 2024 will be held at the beautiful Block41 event center in the heart of Seattle. Block41 has two full floors of event and exhibition space, two full kitchens, and an outdoor space for our celebration and happy hour on June 4th.

Join Us

Mark your calendars and save the date for June 4-5th in Seattle. If you are interested in speaking at SKS, submit a speaker application today. If you’d like to bring your company’s product to Seattle and share it with the SKS and Spoon community, please fill out our sponsor form. And if you’d like to purchase a ticket, you can get our Super Early Bird pricing between now and February 29th, 2024.

We look forward to welcoming you in 2024!

Want to Try AI-Powered Cheese & Sausage? Join Us on October 25th at the Food AI Summit

So, what does food designed by AI taste like?

Next week at the Food AI Summit, you’ll have a chance to find out! That’s because not only will we have sessions by founders, inventors, and executives exploring how to bring food to our plates using the latest in artificial intelligence, but we’ll also get a chance to taste it!

After a full day of sessions that includes leaders from Pepsi, Afresh, ReFED, Chefman, Innit, Mineral and more, we’ll network and sample food from Shiru and Climax Foods! The founders of both companies will be on hand to talk about the process behind developing AI-powered plant-based food, so you will definitely want to stick around and join us!

You can check out the full-day agenda and great list of speakers over at the Food AI Summit page. If you’d like to join us, use the coupon code SPOON at checkout for $100 off tickets.

We’ll see you next week!

Announcing the Food AI Summit: A Global Conference on AI’s Role in the Food System

Today the Spoon is thrilled to announce the Food AI Summit, the world’s first event focused exclusively on AI’s impact across the food ecosystem.

The conference, which will take place on October 25th in Alameda, California, will convene scientists, investors, entrepreneurs, and others who are building the future of food using AI together for a day of keynote talks, interactive sessions, product demonstrations, and networking. The event will feature experts from the worlds of agriculture, food science, retail, synthetic biology, restaurants, and consumer products discussing the implications of AI. Sessions will cover the entire spectrum of AI technologies, from machine learning and computer vision to the quickly evolving world of generative AI.

“Over the past decade, AI has had a significant impact on every aspect of the food system,” said Michael Wolf, publisher of The Spoon and the Food AI Summit’s conference chair. “But we’re only at the beginning, as AI becomes an increasingly critical accelerator to transforming a global food system under stress from unprecedented challenges.”

At the Food AI Summit, attendees will hear from some of the most visionary leaders at the intersection of food and AI, including NotCo’s Matias Muchnick, Shiru’s Jasmin Hume, and Inevitable Tech’s David Lee. More speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.

The Food AI Summit is produced by The Spoon, a leading news and events company focused on food technology. The Spoon’s first event, the Smart Kitchen Summit, launched in 2015 and helped catalyze the conversation about the digital transformation of the consumer meal journey and today The Spoon has events in Europe, Asia, and North America.

Early bird tickets for the Food AI Summit can be purchased at www.foodsummit.ai. Those interested in sponsoring the Food AI Summit can find out more information here.

Incredo Sugar: Redefining Sweetness, Delighting Taste Buds, and Nurturing Health

The intake of excess sugar in our diets is an epidemic that has no season or one that lies stealthily in refrigerators or airplane tray tables. Healthy Food America notes that the United States leads the world in the consumption of added sugars and ranks third in the world in sales of sugary drinks. All this sugar has consequences – the U.S. has one of the highest overall obesity rates in the world and the highest rate of childhood obesity, not to mention heart disease and diabetes.

Several attempts to replace sugar with artificial sweeteners such as Aspartame and Saccharin have been mildly effective, asking consumers to give up taste to unsweetened diets. Natural options such as agave, monk fruit, and Stevia round out this list focusing on substitution rather than the complex approach of manipulating a sugar molecule. Enter Incredo (formerly DouxMatok), an Israeli company with an idea that maximizes the properties of sugar but limits its impact on the body.

Born out of necessity in World War II, the story is a part of history led by Prof. Avraham Baniel, a renowned chemist in Israel. The best retelling of the journey from concept to realization can be found in an episode of the Netflix series “Explained” (Season Three, Episode 1). In short, Prof. Beniel discovered that by adding starch to sugar crystals, consumers could use less sugar with the same taste. Fast forward to 2001 and then to 2013 and 2014, and Baniel brought his earlier discovery back to life with a significant improvement. Using a small “carrier” with the active ingredient (sugar) as part of the refinery process results in a cluster of sugars rather than a new molecule. These clusters will then linger on the tongue, optimizing flavor delivery.

Incredo CEO Ari Melamud

The Israeli food tech startup recently announced the close of its latest (and most significant) fundraising round to date, coinciding with the unveiling of a new company name, Incredo LTD, based on the company’s signature product Incredo® Sugar. In an interview with The Spoon, company CEO Ari Melamud discussed how Incredo is poised to create a healthier sugary experience.

Using a chocolate bar with 13 grams of sugar as an example, Melamud said Incredo could reduce the sugar content by 30 percent to 50%, which could be great news for those with diabetes and other related conditions.

“It changes from one application to another and even from one recipe to another because every recipe is very different depending on the other ingredients inside,” Melamud said. “So, on average, we can say we can drop 40%. And again, our technology is not a diabetes solution. But we’re a mass market solution to help everybody prevent becoming diabetic in many ways. Because if you look at the numbers and statistics on a global average, we’re consuming about three or four times more sugar than recommended. If we can drop it by 50%, 40 to 50%, that’s a big difference for a lot of people preventing people from becoming diabetic actually. This is our main mission and our main tasks.”

Even in its earliest stage, DouxMatok has developed significant commercial partnerships with Better Nutritionals, a supplement manufacturer; Batory Foods, a specialty ingredient company; and Blommer Chocolate Company, North America’s largest cocoa processor and ingredient chocolate supplier.

If the company’s Incredo Sugar has one Achilles heel, it will not work with liquid (preventing use in beverages) because it quickly dissolves, bypassing the product’s lingering taste experience. After hearing DouxMatok’s story, the issues with liquid are small hurdles that could be rapidly overcome.

Breadwinner Launches Presale for Its Sensor-Powered Sourdough Starter Monitoring Tool

If you thought sourdough mania ended when the pandemic wound down, it’s worth scanning social media to realize nothing is further from the truth. The groups and rosters of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram overflow with topics as diverse as “Sourdough Starters – Sourdough Support Group,” “Sourdough Geeks,” and “Sourdough Bread Bakers India.”

Sourdough is about community; no one knows that better than Fred Benenson, the man behind Breadwinner, a sensor-driven tool that helps home bakers manage their sourdough starters. Breadwinner, a high-tech jar lid, launches its crowdfunding campaign today, hoping to hit $35,000 in pledges. This new entry to the crowd-funding arena is a data drive device that uses battery-powered sensors to measure a starter’s height and temperature; Breadwinner and its companion app seamlessly sync with the cloud to record the starter’s behavior over 36 hours. The crowdfunding campaign even includes an option for an add-on where Benenson and company will send you Benenson’s own Breadberry starter.

Once your starter hits its peak fermentation, Breadwinner lets you know it’s time to start making your dough and gives you a precise measurement of how long it took (e.g., “Your starter took 9 hours and 32 minutes to reach its peak.”)

Benenson’s interest in sourdough blossomed when he happened upon a cooking class where the guy teaching it “has a Ph.D. in yeast biology.” It became a learning experience for the tech veteran starting around 2010 when his journey began into the finer aspects of working with a starter. After immersing himself in his work at Kickstarter, Benenson took a break around 2018 and 2019 and dug into the social media sourdough world. Tickled when he learned that people named their starter cultures, Benenson was ready to make an impact in the space.

“It was really a little bit of a mystery when it behaved well and when it didn’t,” Benenson told The Spoon in a recent interview. “I knew if I kept on it, (the starter) would get into shape.” Deploying his refined data skills, he made a spreadsheet to help him track his starter’s behavior and learn its optimal time for baking.

Success with an early prototype of Breadwinner led to some positive feedback which encouraged Benenson to enlist the help of some hardware experts and build the product he brings to market on Kickstarter.

“I thought, okay, if I could make (the initial version) work, and people would spend $150 on it, there’s a market here,” Benenson said. “I thought I would sell a dozen, which would’ve been a successful beta. But we ended up selling three or four dozen of them, got some nice writeups, and got on people’s radar. And I was like, oh, okay. This is, there’s enough of a market for me to take it to the next phase.”

While other products manage or facilitate manipulation of sourdough starters, Benenson knew building a community around his Breadwinner would give it an edge. The role of community with Breadwinner is for users to share recipes, provide each other tips and tricks, and even if need be, offer tech support.

“There’s a couple of reasons I’ve decided to start with a community,” he explained. “First is it’s kind of just my intuition, and I spent a lot of time in that kind of open source and Wikipedia and Creative Commons world before I worked at Kickstarter. And when I worked at Kickstarter, I think one of the defining features of running Kickstarter projects was that you get a really great community at the end of it. And those people follow you, and if you treat them well and you’re honest and straightforward with them, they’re fans for life.”

You can check out the Breadwinner crowdfunding campaign here.

Introducing Breadwinner

New School Foods Swims Against the Current In Its Approach to Alternative Proteins

In business, the daring entrepreneurs zig when others zag. In the world of plant-based alternative proteins, Chris Bryson, CEO and founder of New School Foods, decided to zig his way into a new approach, introducing a new patented freezing process to create whole cuts of salmon.

New School Foods, based in Toronto, comes out of stealth mode with a strong ambition fueled by research, investment capital, and a mission. As Bryson told The Spoon in a recent interview, companies in the plant-based protein space have primarily focused on small cuts such as nuggets and burgers using a process that uses heat in the extrusion, which precooks the food.

Bryson described how New School differs on both counts.

“We always intended to be a company that focuses on what we call whole cuts, he said. “We see that as sort of the next frontier of alternative protein. “Burgers and nuggets are great, but there’s a much bigger opportunity, and I wanted to work on that. With alternative proteins, if you can create the equivalent of a Tesla for food, it becomes exciting for people to switch and feel like there’s no compromise, and we can create real impact.”

Bryson said that before diving into the company’s approach to alternative proteins, he funded a lot of research, much of which yielded inconclusive results. One, however, hit the jackpot. “One of those projects came up with this complete alternative to extrusion. And it doesn’t use heat to create texture, and it uses cold or freezing to create texture.” And it is with freezing that New School can more easily produce whole cuts and offer healthy fats.

High moisture extrusion, Bryson said, is used in products such as Beyond Burger. As such, the food is precooked and often “uses color tricks” to make the transition more closely resemble an aminal product such as a hamburger.

Another differentiator for New School is its scaffolding.

“We create a mold with empty slots– thousands of these small vertical channels that we fill up, and we turn those vertical channels into protein fibers because it’s a mold. It gives us the flexibility to work with different proteins. And based on the animal that we’re trying to emulate, we can pick proteins that transition or cook at the same temperature that the animal protein does”.

Bryson goes on to say that the company’s focus is to create a salmon that looks and tastes like the fish that swims against the current and provides the “right mouth feel.”

“We spent countless months, if not years, focusing on how we recreate that no feel. And that comes down to recreating muscle fibers. So, our technology allows us to tune the width of the muscle fiber, the length of the muscle fiber, and the resistance of the muscle fiber,” he said. It also provides a platform that can be used for other types of fish, seafood, and alternative proteins in general.

New School aims to have a product commercially ready in 2024, first for restaurants and then for consumers. Armed with $13 million in funding from Lever VC, Hatch, Good Startup, Blue Horizon Ventures, Clear Current Capital, Alwyn Capital, Basecamp Ventures, and Climate Capital, Bryson said the funds would be used to build out a pilot facility in the Toronto area.

Better Meat Co. Serves Legal Foie Gras To Hungry Silicon Valley Workers

No trip to Silicon Valley would be complete without a visit to one of the sumptuous dining experiences at companies such as Yahoo, Google, Adobe, and LinkedIn. We’re not talking private dining rooms with white table clothes; employees and guests (especially employees) are treated to five-star dining every day, at no charge. And, if someone is hungry between scheduled meals—no worry; there are more snacks on hand than you would find at your neighborhood grocery store.

Thanks to its relationship with Bon Appétit Management Company, a Palo Alto-based café and catering service, Better Meat Co. is pulling a sleight of hand by offering foie gras to the employees at LinkedIn’s Sunnyvale officer cafeteria. The trick here is that foie gras is illegal in California, so Better Meat substitutes fungi for duck or goose liver. For good measure, Better Meat is showcasing its deli turkey slices, also made from mycelium called Rhiza. Rhiza (the Greek word for root) is a whole food, complete protein that’s allergen-free, neutral in taste, and has the texture of animal meat.

Showcasing is the keyword here. At this point in its lifecycle, Better Meat Co. is more of a supplier than a producer, offering its mycoprotein to partners such as Hormel for inclusion in its existing and new products.  As CEO Paul Shapiro explains, Better Meat Co. is focused on what it does best—“Our real expertise is in the fermentation and creating this extremely meat-like and versatile ingredient,” he told The Spoon, “But every once in a while, we like to showcase what the ingredients can do and the fact that it can make things as diverse as a turkey slice and foie gras really showed that. And so, in California, it’s illegal to sell foie gras, but now there is an option to enjoy that same delectable experience.”

Better Meat Co. walks a tightrope like others in the plant-based protein and cultured meat sector. Once a viable product has been developed, they face the option of taking their creations directly to the market (B2C) or taking the safer B2B route where a company offers its product to food manufacturers for their use in existing or new products. Shapiro, known throughout his industry as a visionary, realizes his company can take both paths to success.

In October 2021, Better Meat Co. and Hormel’s venture division entered an exclusive partnership to bring new mycoprotein and plant-based protein products to the marketplace. “Companies like Hormel have dramatically larger product development teams than we do,” Shapiro said. “Once our ingredients are in the hands of experts at companies like Hormel Foods, we are confident that the next generation of alternative meats will be more convincing and economical than ever.”

Perdue is another partner of Better Meat Co. In June 2019, the Sacramento-based company launched a national partnership with Perdue Farms – a leading chicken producer in the U.S. The company will provide Perdue with plant-based blends mixed with Perdue chicken to create the Chicken Plus product line.

While relationships with Hormel and Perdue make sense in the short run, neither, at his point, shows the breadth of Better Meat’s possibilities. In-house products developed by its food scientists and chefs range from Rhiza-based beef to fish to pork and may lead to the company—at some point—going directly to consumers.  “I think you can expect to see that,” Shapiro said of such future plans. “We want to be able to bring our micro protein to as many people as possible, and we want to make it humane, easy to eat and affordable for everyone.”

According to Crunchbase, Better Meat has raised $9.6 million, the bulk of which came in a July 2020 round of $8.1 million. The new funding is led by Greenlight Capital and Green Circle Foodtech Ventures, and Johnsonville, the maker of Johnsonville Sausages. Another financing round would be expected for Better Meat Co to scale enough to bring its branded crabcakes and deli slices to hungry, healthy consumers.

Israeli Startup Mermade Gets Seed Funding for Its Lab-Grown Scallops

Mermade is more than just another food tech startup with a laboratory-oriented process to manufacture an alternative protein. The Jerusalem-based company’s method of using algae to create scallops has set it apart and attracted significant early-stage investment.

The company has announced an oversubscribed $3.3M seed round as it showcases a circular cellular agriculture technology for producing cultivated scallops. In doing so, Mermade attacks two problems at once: bringing sustainable, good-tasting scallops to the public at a below current market price. Most cultured meat companies struggle with the economics of meeting or beating the cost of beef, chicken, or conventional seafood.

In an interview with The Spoon, company Co-Founder and CEO Daniel Einhorn explained the differences in his company’s business and technology approach. “We thought is why not pick some meat product that eliminates as much as possible of that food engineering challenge and just focus on those huge biological challenges,” Einhorn said. “Scallops, they have a fairly similar size, and each unit is a fairly similar size and shape. And texture taste is the same all throughout the cuts. Those are huge unfair advantages compared to our direct competition– other startups trying to replicate the more complex meat products.”

Mermade says it is the first company in the world to produce scallops using cellular agriculture. The company intends to develop a product and reach laboratory-scale production by 2023, reaching consumers and restaurants after that. Mermade will use the funds to employ more stem cell and algae researchers, accelerating the company towards this goal. The scallop is the first product the company will develop out of a diverse seafood portfolio that will gradually arrive on the market.

The use of algae to recycle the cells’ growth substrate is a clear distinction for Mermade. This cellular interpretation of traditional aquaponics was termed by the company Cytoponics, and the company has filed several patent applications related to this circular production method.

Related to the cost issue, Einhorn states, “It’s a big market segment and one that it has a very high price point, which is important because the main challenge right now is driving costs down. We’re trying to integrate all parts of our design into this prototype to bring cost even close to market parity.”

“In the next few years, consumers worldwide will be able to buy cultivated scallops (Coquilles Saint Jacques) made by Mermade in a supermarket or restaurant, at an affordable price and with the same quality and taste as the original food. Using Cytoponics as our production platform, we could also produce a variety of other cultivated seafood products such as calamari, shrimp, crab meat, and more.”

The company was founded in July 2021 by Daniel Einhorn (CEO), Dr. Rotem Kadir (CTO), and Dr. Tomer Halevy (COO). Investors in the seed round include the investment platform OurCrowd, Israel’s most active venture firm; Fall Line, an American VC fund specializing in AgTech; and prominent Dutch investor Sake Bosch.

Alternative seafood—both plant-based and cell-cultured—is a hot area. As The Spoon reported in April, Good Food Institue’s report, which looks at the entire alternative seafood category across plant-based, cell-cultured, and fermentation-based products, said 2021 investment brought the total invested in the category to $313 million from 2013 through 2021. Cultivated seafood startups commanded two-thirds of all investment in alt-seafood last year at $115 million, compared with $58 million invested in plant-based seafood startups and $2 million in fermentation-based seafood.

Among the companies active in this space are Wildtype, UPSIDE Foods, Gathered Foods, and Finless Foods. With all the activity in this forward-looking space, the United States—in the form of the USDA and FDA—has yet to give the green light for sales of these lab-grown alternative proteins. Only Singapore, Qatar, and to some degree, The Netherlands have given their stamp of approval.

The Spoon Breaks Ground on New HQ in the Metaverse in Partnership With OneRare

Here at The Spoon, we are excited to announce we are breaking ground on a new company headquarters.

In the metaverse, that is.

That’s right, we’re building a new (virtual) HQ in partnership with OneRare. OneRare, an India-based startup building a food-centric metaverse, is busy laying pixels and helping us create a our new outpost in Web3, a multi-use gathering spot for all things Spoon. The Spoon HQ will include a virtual event space, a watering hole, and a desk or two where we can tap on our virtual typewriters to document the stories of innovators building new things in the world of food tech.

The idea for the new Spoon HQ first surfaced after talking with OneRare cofounder Supreet Raju in preparation for SimulATE, the Spoon’s Web3xfood summit. Supreet suggested that OneRare could help The Spoon build a virtual space in the metaverse and, not being one to pass up becoming a virtual land/media mogul, I decided to take her up on it. I mean, who doesn’t dream of having their own HQ in a virtual world?

We started the process by looking for specific building designs in the real world that could approximate what our new HQ in the metaverse could look like. Being partial to mid-century American architecture – and with a fondness for Seattle landmarks – I figured what better inspiration to model The Spoon HQ than the old Seattle Post-Intelligencer building?

Above: The Seattle P-I Building on July 14, 1956.

The Seattle P-I was one of Seattle’s two major print newspapers for over a century. The paper got its start in 1863 as the Seattle Gazette (it was renamed the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1867), and though it ceased its print edition in 2009 (the P-I is still available online), the classic P-I is still a fondly-remembered and storied part of Seattle’s media history.

As for the P-I’s famed circling globe, it’s still there, only a few blocks closer to the Seattle waterfront. The paper relocated to a new location in 1986 and moved the globe along with it, where it remains one of Seattle’s most recognizable landmarks, second only to perhaps the Space Needle.

And now, The Spoon will have its own globe-topped HQ in the metaverse. The building, which you can see at the top of the page in an early rendering, will also have two bar areas (we figured one isn’t enough for thirsty Spoon event attendees), the event space, and a TV where we can stream Spoon videos and content.

We’re excited. We’ve become pretty good here at The Spoon at hosting virtual events, trade shows, and meetups, and we look forward to throwing the doors open at our new HQ to welcome our community to connect in new and exciting ways. Once the art team has finished with the design renderings, the OneRare coding team will get to work, and we are hoping to have the space ready to visit in October.

We’ll keep you updated and hope to welcome you soon to The Spoon HQ in the metaverse!

Germany-Based Mushlabs Scores An Infrastructure Partnership with Bitburger Brewery Group

Hamburg-based biotech startup Mushlabs may have created the perfect storm in its approach to creating a clean, nutrient-rich plant-based meat alternative. The company can hit the ground running without worrying about costly infrastructure and potential distribution partners by applying its proven technology and a sound business approach.

Mushlabs has announced a relationship with Bitburger Brewery Group, a large private brewery in Germany. Bitburger will provide capacity and sidestream byproducts from its beer production as raw materials. Mushlabs intends to enhance and use these local byproducts to cultivate edible mushroom mycelium in a precision fermentation process. The mycelium will be used to produce nutrient-rich, minimally processed foods.

“(Bitburger) has a valuable sidestream that would otherwise get burned to produce energy or go to cattle, but is also not necessarily super stable,” Thibault Godard, Chief Science Officer at Mushlabs, told The Spoon in an interview. “So we are offering them a solution to upcycle in a way that is also better for the planet.”

Godard boils the complex process down to a simple example: “I like the example of coffee. For instance, coffee has 80 to 90% of waste from the crop to the cup. And this is also something where you have valuable nutrients there that you can recycle and produce food. So we are basically taking the leftovers and injecting them into the food system.”

The approach—that is, using mycelium, which has a property that acts as a natural decomposing agent in precision fermentation to create a healthy plant-based protein is what Mushlabs called fulfilling the goal of a “circular economy.”

“In natural ecosystems, fungi recycle nutrients through a specific fermentation process that digests their surrounding biomass,” the company explained in a blog post. “At Mushlabs, we harness this process to produce food from agro- and food industries’ side streams (i.e., spent coffee grounds, fruit peels, and sugarcane bagasse). This is a unique form of food production with many potential applications for the circular economy, yielding tasty meat-alternative products.”

And then there’s the smart business angle. While other companies in similar adjacencies struggle to raise large sums of capital to scale out their facilities with large fermentation tanks, Mushlabs’ partnership with Bitburger will accelerate its growth. Using often underutilized brewing tanks, Mushlabs avoids the cost of new infrastructure. CEO and founder Mazen Rizk acknowledges collocating with Bitburger gives his company a giant boost.

“And not only saving the cost, but it’s also saving the time. Because if we now decide we want to build the facility, I think ordering steel would take you probably a year and a half because there are delays in even ordering steel. Then building a facility is very costly and takes time,” Rizk says.

“When you’re talking about food products. It would be best if you did it in the most economically viable way possible so we can find a sidestream that the mushroom can grow on,” Rizk says. “So part of it is understanding what kind of product you can do, what kind of taste, what kind of nutrition they provide. The other side is understanding which one is economically feasible. How can you produce it at a high yield and low cost to ensure that you have a food product that can go into the market at a price that people can afford?”

In June, the company also boasts a huge financial acknowledgment from the EU’s prestigious EIC Accelerator Program. More than 1,000 startups and small businesses from Europe applied to receive a share of €382 million in total capital. Seventh-four companies each will get funding of up to 17.5 million Euros, with Mushlabs receiving an eight-digit figure. Through the EIC Accelerator program, the EU aims to support technology startups that address societal challenges and drive breakthrough European innovations.