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Food Tech News: Lab Grown Chocolate, Lupin Bean Eggs, Cultured Sushi Tasting Room

The summer days are going by fast, but it feels like the rate at which news is breaking in the food tech space is even faster. In this week’s Food Tech News roundup, we have pieces on chocolate being grown in a lab, a tasting room opening in San Franciso for cultured sushi, a new Canadian egg alternative, and a Russian plant-based company’s recent funding round.

Lab-grown chocolate in Switzerland

We live in a chocolate-crazed world, but unfortunately growing cacao for the production of chocolate can cause deforestation and make use of child labor. Some chocolate companies choose to source their cocoa beans from farmers and suppliers that use ethical practices, but this is not always the case. Scientists at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland may have found another option: growing chocolate in a lab. One of the food scientists had the idea to extract cell cultures from cocoa beans to attempt to produce a compound found in chocolate called polyphenols (important for the sensory effects in chocolate). Cocoa beans are cut into quarters and then incubated in a culture medium. After about three weeks a callus grows over the surface of the bean, which can be continuously be replicated. The new material is added to shaking flasks and mixed with suspension culture, and then multiplied in a bioreactor. The cultured cells can then be used to make chocolate.

The scientist said that there is currently no plan for commercial production of lab-grown chocolate. The process is considerably more expensive than conventional chocolate, and they will be continuing to study and compare the production processes of conventional and lab-grown chocolate.

Photo from Wildtype’s Instagram page

Wildtype set to open a cultured sushi tasting room

Wildtype, a cell-ag company focused on seafood, shared that it will be opening a tasting room for cultured sushi in San Francisco. The tasting room will serve as an opportunity to educate consumers on the benefits of cell-based agriculture and provide transparency on this process. Wildtype is focused on creating cultured sushi-grade salmon, and it sources living cells from Pacific salmon. Its pilot plant will soon be capable of producing 50,000 pounds of seafood per year, with a maximum capacity of 200,000 pounds. The tasting room is expected to open in fall 2021.

Nabati launches a plant-based egg product made from lupin beans

Nabati is a Canadian-based plant-based brand, and this week it announced it is filing patents for its plant-based egg product currently being developed. The new egg product will be in liquid form, like Just Egg, and this is the first Canadian-made egg alternative product. Nabati is filing patents for the product in Canada, the United States, and Australia, with the intention to also eventually file in Europe, and China. The egg, called Nabati Plant Eggz, contains no cholesterol, 90 calories per serving, and six grams of protein. Lupin beans and pea protein are the main ingredients used, and the product is both soy and gluten-free. The new egg alternative is expected to be available for purchase sometime later this year.

Russian plant-based brand raises $1.5 million in Series A round

Welldone is a plant-based meat alternative company in Moscow, Russia, and this week it raised $1.5 million in its Series A round. The round was led by Phystech Ventures and Lever VC, and this new capital will be used to increase production and distribution, as well as bring Welldone’s products to new markets. Welldone currently produces alternative cutlets, burger patties, and minced meat made from a base of soy, coconut oil, and cellulose. Plant-based alternatives in Russia can be pricey, and Welldone has set the goal of reaching price parity with meat.

Mzansi Meat Co. is Bringing Cultured Meat to Africa

After Eat Just gained regulatory approval in Singapore for its cultured meat last year, companies from countries all over the world are racing to bring their cultured meat products to market. We’ve heard news from Asia, the United States, Europe, and Australia regarding cultured meat, but one continent that seems to be left out of this space is Africa. Mzansi Meat Co., based in South Africa, is changing this as the first cultured meat company on the continent of Africa.

This week I spoke with Brett Thompson, a co-founder and the CEO of Mzansi Meat Co., who said he realized “There is no one doing cultivated meat or cellular agriculture in the entire African continent, which is insane to think about. The opportunity was there, and that is the beginning of our story.” The co-founders formed the company in 2020, and shortly after connected with scientist and CEO of Wild Earth, Ryan Bethencourt. Bethencourt invested in Mzansi Meat Co., which enabled the co-founders to start building out a team.

Mzansi Meat Co. is developing cell lines by extracting cells from animal donors, which are not harmed in the process. After the cells are extracted, they are grown in a bioreactor and then are differentiated into muscle and fat cells. Cultured meat companies have traditionally used FBS (fetal bovine serum) as a growth medium, but Mzansi is in discussion with companies that create growth factors from non-animal derived sources. The company will first focus on beef, using the biomass end product as an ingredient for ground meat. Eventually, the company will work on producing cultured whole cuts.

Representing the food and farming culture of Africa is important to Mzansi Meat Co., and the company will be extracting cells from indigenous cattle breeds. Recently, the start-up asked South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa if they could extract cells from his prize-winning Ankole cattle herd to produce sought-after beef cuts without any slaughter.

“Braai” means to barbeque or grill food over an open fire, and this type of social gathering is a huge part of African culture. More urbanized countries and areas in Africa, like South Africa, tend to gravitate towards eating more Western styles of meat analogs for braais, like sausages and burgers patties. Mzansi Meat Co. will first start out with these analogs, and then begin producing more traditionally African cuts of meat.

As the first cultured meat company in Africa, Mzansi Meat Co. does not seem to face local competition in this space. However, Thompson said that there are possibly one or two other cultured meat start-ups in South Africa (this is currently all the information we have). With Mzansi, we are starting to see more activity with alternative proteins in Africa. VeggieVictory is the first plant-based meat company in Nigeria, and earlier this year it raised an undisclosed pre-seed round (Bethencourt also invested in this company).

Mzansi Meat Co. is currently in its pilot production phase, and hopes to have its first products available to sample by the end of this year. By the second half of next year, the company aims to have its products on retail shelves.

UPDATE: This article originally stated that Mzansi Meat does not face competition in South Africa; according to Thompson there are one or two other cultured meat start-ups in the country.

Afresh CEO Matt Schwartz Explains How AI Can Help Grocery Retailers Place “the Perfect” Order

For grocery stores, measuring demand and managing orders for fresh foods can be a maddeningly difficult task that more often than not ends in lots of unused food getting thrown out. After all, bananas have a much shorter shelf life than, say, a bag of rice, and a lot of existing supply-chain technologies and processes were designed with the latter in mind.

“Existing tools don’t work for fresh food,” says Matt Schwartz CEO and cofounder of a San Francisco, California-based tech company called Afresh.

Afresh often gets labeled a “food waste” company and listed among other efforts to curb the problem of food waste at consumer-facing outlets like grocery stores. While Afresh’s store-level ordering platform can certainly help grocery retailers cut down on food waste, that’s not necessarily the main driving force behind the company. 

Over a call recently, Schwartz told The Spoon he thinks of Afresh as more of a “fresh food company” than food waste company. The system uses AI to analyze store-level data around customer demand, shipments of fresh food, sales of it, pricing and other factors. Gathering all that disparate data together, the system then makes ordering recommendations for grocers to help them create what Schwartz calls “the perfect order.” That is, “an amount that keeps you in stock for the shopper but also doesn’t cause you to drive waste from having it sit there.”

By way of example, he says it’s the difference between 14 cases of blueberries and 18: “Those four cases make all the difference when it comes to billions of pounds of waste.” 

Getting that perfect number can be complicated. Continuing with the blueberry example, Schwartz says there are a few major things grocery retailers have to consider, the first of them being customer demand. In other words, How many blueberries will shoppers want over the next few days? Retailers also have to consider existing store inventory, which can be tricky to calculate for something like berries. 

Reconciling these two things — how much a retailer has versus how much they think they will sell, also requires other types of data. That includes how many cases the shelf can hold, the shelf life of the blueberries, and the frequency of shipments, to name a few. The Afresh system connects to grocery retailers’ existing systems, then compiles the above data into a single place that a retailer making an order can view from an iPad.  

“In the long term our systems will drive decisions around inventory, forecasting, etc.,” said Schwartz.  

In a recent post for The Spoon, food tech investors Seana Day and Brita Rosenheim noted that “increased workflow and data automation solutions in the food supply chain holds significant power to help the food supply chain leapfrog into digitalization.” That includes grocery retailers, and Afresh is among several companies trying to enable this leapfrog movement. Seattle, Washington-based ShelfEngine offers a similar fresh food inventory management platform, as does a company called Crisp. Rising consumer demand for both fresh food and a more reliable supply chain (hello, panic shopping) mean we can expect a lot more software in this area in the near future.

For its part, Afresh is currently live in hundreds of stores, says Schwartz. He declined to name specific stores or chains, but said his company’s biggest partner does about $10 billion in sales every year. 

The company has raised a total of $32.8 million to date, with its most recent round being a Series A fundraise towards the end of 2020.

Wicked Kitchen, UK Plant-Based Food Brand, Raises $14M Series A Round

Wicked Kitchen, a UK-based plant-based food and prepared meal brand, announced this week that has closed a Series A round of $14M. This is the company’s first public round and it was led by Unovis Asset Management and NRF Nove Foods.

Following this funding, Wicked Kitchen will soon expand into the U.S. with its plant-based offerings, and will build out its teams in London, Austin, and Minneapolis. Its current product lines are extensive, featuring everything from vegan desserts to alternative protein analogs. For the U.S. consumer, Wicked Kitchen will bring plant-based prepared frozen meals, ready-to-eat lunch and breakfast options, sauces, mayo, pesto, and meals kits to select retailers.

The founders of Wicked Kitchen are Chad and Derek Sarno, who are also chefs and co-founders of Good Catch, a plant-based seafood brand in the U.S. In 2018, the Sarnos collaborated with Tesco in the U.K. to launch Wicked Kitchen as a new plant-based range. Wicked Kitchen products are sold exclusively in Tesco, and has yet to be announced which retailers will carry the company’s products in the U.S.

In 2020, $2.1 billion was invested into plant-based companies, and they have continued to score a lot of funding this year. Large funding rounds like Wicked Kitchen’s recent round has allowed plant-based companies to expand into additional markets throughout the world. Singapore-based Next Gen Foods announced yesterday that it will be bringing its plant-based chicken brand TiNDLE to the U.S. following a $20 million extension of its seed round. Cultivated meat producer Aleph Farms raised $105 million earlier this month and shared it will use this funding to grow its operations internationally. Eat Just also shared that it plans to use its $200 million funding round that was closed this past March to expanding internationally.

Wicked Kitchen’s products are expected to roll out by the end of summer in the U.S., with a total of 20 products launching initially.

NASA Is Growing Chile Peppers In Space

Astronauts onboard the International Space Station are aiming to grow the first-ever peppers in space via the Plant Habitat-04 (PH-04) experiment. PH-04 will grow “Espanola Improved” New Mexico Hatch Green Chiles. These are a medium-heat chile peppers NASA says have been suitable for use in controlled growing environments.

The pepper seeds were planted in April of this year and sent to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s 22nd Commercial Refueling Services (CRS-22) mission. Astronauts will grow the plants for four months in the Space Station’s “advanced plant habitat” (APH), which contains more than 180 sensors and can regulate temperature, moisture levels, carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. NASA says the growth habitat is “mostly autonomous” and that it sends data from the sensors to scientists on the ground at Kennedy Space Center.

The PH-04 experiment is meant to help NASA in enabling long-duration deep-space exploration, for which adequate food supply is needed. Peppers are a good source of nutrients and could be used supplement astronauts’ packaged food, according to NASA. PH-04 will also monitor whether elements like texture and flavor change when the peppers are grown in space. NASA notes that the whole experiment may also be able to inform the processes for growing peppers via traditional outdoor agriculture as well as through indoor farming.

Another goal of the project is to create an indoor grow system that needs little input from the astronauts themselves, since they would not have the time to devote to growing plants that those of us on Earth would.

There’s a growing interest from multiple different countries to develop new novel concepts for feeding people in space. The PH-04 joins a growing list initiatives, including 3D-printed pizzas, tomatoes, and cell-based steaks, that have been researched or tested. 

FreshRealm Raises $32M for Fresh, Prepared Meals

FreshRealm, a prepared fresh meals company based in Ventura, California, announced this week that it has raised $32 million. The institutional investors were not disclosed, and this brings the company’s total funding to $46.6 million.

This most recent round of funding will be used to expand FreshRealm’s production facilities, with the goal of opening additional facilities throughout the country for increased distribution. The company plans to focus on product innovation and developing proprietary ingredients for its meals. FreshRealm has plans to accelerate its growth strategy for its upcoming nationwide rollout in grocery retailers.

FreshRealm claims to be the only fresh meal company with a nationwide reach. Its prepared meals are not frozen, and the company applies “just-in-time” logistics to ensure all ingredients are fresh. The capital will also be used to develop different products, including ready-to-heat meals, ready-to-cook meals, and meal kit offerings.

Quite a few direct-to-consumer prepared meal companies already exist, including Freshly, Daily Harvest, HungryRoot. Companies like Blue Apron and HelloFresh ship meal kit boxes filled with various ingredients to the consumer with directions on how to assemble the meal at home. Sunbasket and Purple Carrot are now a hybrid service offering both prepared meals and meal kits. FreshRealm is taking a slightly different approach by offering fresh, not frozen, prepared meals that will be offered in grocery stores and retailers rather than shipped directly to the consumer’s home.

FreshRealm has not announced which exact retailers it will partner with but did say its meals are currently available in a few select retailers. The company has plans for a national rollout in Fall 2021.

Air Protein, GOOD Meat, IntegriCulture Among the Semifinalists for XPRIZE’s Alt-Protein Competition

Nonprofit XPRIZE has announced 28 semifinalists teams that will move forward in the Feed the Next Billion competition. The multi-year competition will support companies developing compelling chicken and fish alternatives that replicate or outperform the real thing in terms of nutrition, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, and taste and texture. 

The competition, first announced at the end of 2020, is being conducted in partnership with ASPIRE, the project management arm of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC). Grand-prize winners will not be chosen until 2024. when multiple winners will collectively receive $15 million.

For now, the 28 finalists chosen to continue the competition will have the next year to work with the competition, ASPIRE, and The Tony Robbins Foundation to develop the first iterations of their products. Up to 10 finalist teams will be chosen towards the end of 2022 and will split a “milestone award” of $2.5 million. 

Those 10 finalists will have one last round of competition where they will need to create “at least twenty-five cuts of structured chicken breast or fish fillet analogs of 115 gram or four ounce that replicate the sensory properties, versatility, and nutritional profile of conventional chicken or fish.” One grand prize winner will receive $7 million, with second- and third-place winners getting $2 million and $1 million, respectively.

The 28 finalists chosen this week represent all three pillars of alternative protein: plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation. Some of these companies are better known than others. Eat Just’s GOOD Meat, for example, is the only company in the world that has regulatory approval to sell cultivated meat (in Singapore). MeatOurFuture, on the other hand, is a public-private partnership that is known primarily in South Africa at this point. Others, including plant-based seafood company Brew51 from India, Japan’s IntegriCulture, and Air Protein, are all at various stages of development in terms of their products.

You can read the full list of companies, which span 14 different countries, here.

XPRIZE’s Feed the Next Billion competition was developed in response to the organization’s Future of Food Impact Roadmap, where the organization pinpointed 12 “breakthrough opportunities” that could help build a better food system. Alt-protein is a major area.

No one company developing alternative proteins has yet proven their technology and/or ingredients can feed the next billion. There remain many, many questions around the nutrition of products, the cost of making them, and, for some, whether or not they can ever really be produced at that scale. XPRIZE’s competition will no doubt go some ways towards answering those questions over the next few years.  

Netled and Oh My Greens Sign €15M Contract to Bring More Vertical Farming to Sweden

Finland’s Netled has signed a three-year investment agreement with herb grower Oh My Greens, the two companies announced today. The agreement is worth €15 million (~$17 million USD) over three years and will provide Sweden-based Oh My Greens with Netled’s turnkey vertical farm called Vera.

Netled’s Vera system comes as a few different forms, the smallest iteration being a cabinet-sized farm that lives in the produce section of a grocery store. Netled also offers a larger in-store model, a larger “compact” model (8 meters by 6 meters), and an industrial-scale version that is modular and can be added to as product demand increases. 

It’s this larger industrial version of Vera that Netled will provide to Oh My Greens, which is owned by Swedish-American investment, management consultancy, and social impact firm Applied Value Group. Oh My Greens sells its potted herbs in Sweden and hopes to gain more share of the market in Sweden through the Netled partnership. Speaking in today’s press release, CEO Moses Isik said his company considered 17 different vertical farming technology providers before deciding on Netled and its Vera system.

The indoor farming system includes LED lighting, a dynamic spacing system, HVAC, a nutrition system, automation software, and production management and horticulture intelligence software. The idea is to provide clients with a plug-and-play vertical farming system that grows more plants faster and saves companies on CAPEX and OPEX costs. 

The deal with Oh My Greens means Netled can build up more of a presence in Sweden, where companies like Urban Oasis and Grönska already operate vertical farms.

Moving forward, Netled will provide technical and consultancy services for its technology while Oh My Greens works on producing and supplying produce to Stockholm retailers. For now, that’ll largely be the usual vertical farming fare of leafy greens and herbs.

Report: Nestlé Is Getting Into Cultivated Meat Through Deal With Israel’s Future Meat

CPG giant Nestlé intends to enter the cultured meat market via a partnership with Israel-based alt-protein company Future Meat, according to a report from Bloomberg. 

Unnamed sources familiar with the matter said Nestlé is working on various products that mix its own plant-based proteins with cultivated meat from Future Meat. 

More granular details on the deal, such as specific products are not available at this time. Future Meat recently opened what it says is the world’s first production facility for cultured meat. The plant, located in Future Meat’s hometown of Rehovot, Israel, can produce 500 kilograms of cultured meat per day, or the equivalent to about 5,000 hamburgers, according to the company. The new facility is currently processing cultured chicken, pork, and lamb. Beef production is also in the works.

Future Meat’s end products will be a combination of cultivated and plant-based protein, which is exactly what Nestlé is aiming for in its deal with the company. Future Meat told the Spoon recently that its products are currently 45 to 75 percent cultured meat, with an edible scaffold made of plant protein.

Earlier this year, Future Meat told The Spoon it has been able to decrease the cost of cultured meat production by 1,000x over the last three years. At last check, the company had brought the cost of its cultured chicken breast down to $7.50 USD per quarter-pound serving. It followed that up with news that the production price could drop to $2 within the next 12 to 18 months.

Actual product launches for both Future Meat and Nestlé are contingent on the companies getting regulatory approvals. Currently, Future Meat is working to get regulatory approval here in the U.S., with the goal of selling its products in foodservice venues next year. A partnership with a major CPG like Nestlé may boost the company’s ambitions in this area.

ChickP Develops Plant-Based Mayo with its Proprietary Chickpea Isolate

Israel-based ChickP announced today that it has utilized its chickpea isolate to formulate a plant-based mayonnaise product. The company partnered with food companies to develop several egg-free recipes, including mayonnaise and several salad dressings. The pilot for the mayo product was a success, and a large-scale pilot production of the product is now taking place.

Currently, ChickP is commercializing its two chickpea isolate products, ChickP G910 and ChickP S930. Both have a neutral taste, and ChickP 910 has gelling and emulsifying abilities while ChickP S930 has the capacity to foam and emulsify. The company’s chickpea isolates boast a protein content of 90 percent, and will function as a direct replacement for egg yolk in the mayo product.

An ingredient called aquafaba, which is the liquid leftover from cooked chickpeas, has gained popularity in the plant-based space to act as an egg white replacement and for its ability to foam and act as an emulsifier. Besides this ingredient, vegan products often make use of starches, stabilizers, and hydrocolloids to replace eggs. A company called Vor Foods in the United States has commercialized a powdered aquafaba product.

In addition to ChickP’s mayo product, several other food producers are working with the company to develop egg-free and plant-based products such as vegan sauces, dressings, and creams. By the end of the year, ChickP hopes to have the mayo commercially available.

86 Repairs Nabs $7.3M in Funding for Restaurant Maintenance Tech

Restaurant tech company 86 Repairs has raised an additional $5.3 million, bringing its total funding for its seed round to $7.3 million, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Investors in this latest raise include TDF Ventures, Gordon Food Service, MATH Venture Partners, Revolution, and Cleveland Avenue. To date, 86 Repairs has raised $8.8 million.

Chicago-based 86 Repairs says the new funds will help the company build out more products for its maintenance and repairs management platform for restaurants.

The 86 Repairs system manages repair and maintenance processes for restaurants by digitizing information about all a restaurant’s equipment, and then handling the bulk of the work when there is an issue. For example, if a walk-in cooler breaks down, the restaurant calls or texts 86 Repairs, who handles things like troubleshooting, warranty checks, and setting up an appointment with a preferred technician. The company says it takes care of all communication, scheduling, and dispatching with a restaurant’s preferred equipment vendors.

The 86 Repairs platform also includes a “data insights” portion that displays things like incident history and overall spend on maintenance repair. The idea is to give restaurants one central location at which to view all data about all maintenance, even for large, multi-unit chains. To that end, a number of different chains already use the platform, including McDonald’s, Jimmy John’s, Sonic, and Famous Dave’s.

As predicted, both interest and investment in restaurant back-of-house technologies has increased since the start of the year. Though U.S. restaurants are for the most part reopened at full capacity, the need for cost-cutting and cost-saving measures is more important than ever.

ResQ, which just raised $7.5 million, is the other notable restaurant tech right now focused on repairs and maintenance.

Software that can digitize the maintenance management process makes sense for larger chains like McDonald’s. For smaller, independent restaurants — the benefits may be a bigger question mark. Spending money on another software subscription may or may not be justifiable, depending on how much a restaurant is able to save in overall maintenance and repair costs.

Equilibrium Capital Closes a $1.02B Fund for Indoor Ag

Equilibrium Capital has closed its second fund dedicated to indoor agriculture. The Controlled Environment Foods Fund II (CEFF II) raised a total of $1.02 billion, exceeding its original goal of $500 million. 

Speaking in a company blog post, Equilibrium CEO David Chen said that the fundraising for CEFF II reflects a broader shift where larger institutional investors are concerned. “Investors and retailers are increasingly looking for more sustainable and less volatile ways to invest in and scale agriculture. The fund is reflecting the magnitude of the opportunity and the growing importance of CEA in our food system,” he said. 

CEFF II will invest between $10 million and $125 million per deal, mostly in high-tech greenhouses and indoor farms as well as “other CEA segments of alternative proteins and aquaculture.” The fund is focused largely on North America: the United States, Mexico, and Canada. 

Equilibrium’s current assets are mostly in lettuce and tomatoes, which are two of the most popular produce types when it comes to indoor ag. However, Chang name-dropped berries in blog post, saying that Equilibrium will be “dramatically expanding” its presence in the berry family in the future. The statement reflects the larger development for indoor ag where more companies are either currently growing or planning to grow berries. Chang also mentioned peppers, cucumbers, mushrooms, and herbs.

The new fund follows the original CEFF, which closed at $336 million in April 2019 and includes well-known CEA companies like AppHarvest, Revol Greens, and Little Leaf Farms. All of those companies focus on raising crops in high-tech greenhouses, as opposed to the massive vertical farm setups a la AeroFarms or Plenty. Whether CEFF II will invest in more vertical farms remains to be seen. Chang said there were “niche applications” for the technology, though he was not specific about what those applications are. Currently, most vertical farming operations only grow leafy greens and herbs at the kinds of volumes that can supply grocery stores and restaurants. Debate persists as to whether this particular indoor ag format can produce more crops in an environmentally and economically sustainable way.