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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Future Food

With Series of Partnerships, Givaudan Positions Itself for an Alt Protein Future

Swiss flavor manufacturer Givaudan recently announced plans to open a new Cultured Food Innovation Hub by 2022. This is the latest in a flurry of new initiatives that suggest the company is positioning itself as a major player in the alternative protein industry.

Givaudan and its partners hope to support cell-cultured protein startups as they perform research and development and bring new products to market. At the Innovation Hub, startups will have access to cell-culture and bio-fermentation equipment, as well as a product development laboratory.

With many countries awaiting regulatory decisions for cell-cultured products, Givaudan appears to be anticipating a growing demand for business-to-business services in the industry. The company already partners with plant-based meat and dairy startups to develop, prototype, and test products. This foray into cultivated protein territory means they’ll stay on the cutting edge as cell-culture products make their debuts.

The facility will be built outside of Zurich, and will be owned in partnership with plant equipment manufacturer Bühler and retail food giant Migros—a partnership that’s interesting in its own right. Pooling their ranges of expertise, the companies should be able to offer comprehensive, turnkey services to would-be cell-cultured meat manufacturers. Fabio Campanile, Givaudan’s Global Head of Science and Technology, Taste & Wellbeing, commented on the partnership in a recent press release:

“Bühler contributes with industry-leading solutions that are used in the scale-up and production of thousands of food products around the world; Givaudan brings in centuries of experience and knowledge in every aspect of taste, including all kinds of meat alternatives, and deep expertise in biotechnology, to product development; Migros is known for its competence in customer interaction and market cultivation.”

Givaudan has also been keeping busy with its own research and development efforts, working on producing sustainable flavor ingredients for alternative meats and other products. Last month, The Spoon reported on Givaudan and Ginkgo Bioworks’ joint effort to develop new flavor and fragrance ingredients through bio-fermentation. More recently, the company announced another partnership with Danish biotech company Biosyntia—this one focused on transforming natural sugars into flavoring agents.

We may see more companies from outside of the alternative protein industry take an interest in cell-cultured meat. German life sciences and electronics manufacturer Merck KGaA is now offering technology solutions (from process design to growth medium formulation) for cell-cultured manufacturers. These big-name partners should help smaller startups to bring their products to market more quickly.

A Cuppa Joe Grown in a Lab? That’s Right, Cell-Cultured Coffee Is Now a Reality

Cellular agriculture has given us hope about the future of sustainable meat production, but what about coffee? After all, many of us (this author included) would happily give up that great steak or burger to make sure we get that first cup of coffee in the morning.

Well good news, caffeine addicts: A research lab in Finland announced they have made coffee using cellular agriculture techniques. According to an article today in Phys.org, the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland “is developing coffee production through plant cells in its laboratory in Finland. In the process, cell cultures floating in bioreactors filled with nutrient medium are used to produce various animal- and plant-based products.”

The process by VTT includes establishing the cell lines in the lab and then transferring the cell cultures to a bioreactor where they produce biomass. Once harvested, the biomass is roasted into something resembling the coffee we purchase from the store.

“In terms of smell and taste, our trained sensory panel and analytical examination found the profile of the brew to bear similarity to ordinary coffee,” said VTT Research Team Leader Dr. Heiko Rischer. “However, coffee making is an art and involves iterative optimization under the supervision of specialists with dedicated equipment. Our work marks the basis for such work.”

While we’ve seen a few startups such as Atomo working on building “molecular” coffee, those approaches use upcycled plant-based ingredients with similar compounds to coffee beans. VTT’s research project is the first example we’ve seen of cellular agriculture techniques used to replicate coffee bean cells in a bioreactor.

Whether it’s cell-ag coffee beans or derived using molecular magic, discovering new approaches to create coffee is urgent given the state of traditional crop farming. Mega-producers like Brazil face severe droughts due to climate change, which has resulted in big jumps in coffee bean prices.

But don’t expect coffee from a bioreactor to show up on store shelves anytime soon. First, researchers must figure out how to scale the process, and regulatory approval would be needed.

You can see the full article on Phys.org here.

David Welch on GMO Controversy and Its Lessons for the Cell-Cultured Meat Industry

The introduction of GMO crops in the 1990s was a moment of opportunity for international agriculture—yet communications with consumers went wrong.

GMO crops have been called frankenfoods, mutants, and carcinogens. According to the Pew Research Center, roughly half of U.S. adults believe that GMO foods are less healthy than GMO-free foods. The Non-GMO Project reports that its butterfly graphic is “the fastest-growing label in the natural products industry.”

Now Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder at Synthesis Capital, an investment management firm focused on food system transformation, David Welch has a researcher’s outlook on the rollout of GMO crops. He spent his undergraduate years studying plant biology at UC Berkeley. In his later experience as a research assistant, some of his work focused on genetically modified crops like barley and maize.

Last week, I got on Zoom with Welch to unpack the parallels between the launch of GMO crops and the advent of cell-cultured meats today.

Avoiding a communication breakdown

Around the time when GM crops were first introduced to the public, the scientific community was still debating the safety implications of modified foods. Welch believes that some of that early discourse sowed the seeds of public uncertainty about the safety of GMO foods. Even once the scientific community had reached a consensus, it was difficult to clear up the confusion that had already been created.

“I’m not suggesting that you should stop negative discussions from taking place, and I think it’s fine to have some dissenting views,” says Welch. Yet the lack of clear communication regarding the underlying science of GMOs likely had an impact on public acceptance, an important lesson for the cell-cultured meat industry: “There’s an opportunity for the industry to work closely together to make sure that the science is communicated in a non-confusing way.”

Welch hopes to see companies, governments, and academics work together to develop a common language for describing cell cultivation concepts. That language could help to smooth out issues in the regulation and labeling arena, which has already proven to be a contentious zone for plant-based products.

Importantly, that common language would also help to standardize communications with the public—“so that you don’t have 20 companies talking about the science in 20 different ways, which then creates confusion,” says Welch.

Regulation and mistrust

Even in the U.S., where some GM ingredients have been widely adopted, the regulation of modified crops is notoriously arduous.

“It’s a very expensive and multi-year process to get a GMO crop approved in basically any country,” says Welch. “And I think there’s some evidence through consumer research that that leads to distrust in the technology. People think, if they have to regulate this so stringently, then it must be dangerous.”

Here, he says, lies a potential parallel between GM and cell-cultured meat technologies. In the U.S. and most other countries, the alternative meat industry is still awaiting a regulatory framework. That framework could ultimately affect consumers’ views of cell-cultured meats.

“I’m not suggesting that we should have no regulation,” says Welch. “I think that the regulatory authorities and the companies need to work together to create a regulatory pathway that is safe, but not so onerous that the public perceives the technology as very risky because there’s so much regulation attached to it.”

The future of food work

“One of the other tensions that existed with GM crops was how they were rolled out into the market and the impact that had on some farming communities,” says Welch. From the beginning, seeds for GMO commodity crops were controlled by a few large companies, a trend that has only intensified since the technology was first introduced. “Those companies ended up with a lot of control over the farmers, and I think that’s had negative effects on some farmers.”

There’s another lesson there for cell-cultured meat companies: Many consumers’ perceptions of alternative meat products could well be affected by the industry’s impact on their own communities.

“I think it’s important for the entire food industry to start talking about this,” says Welch. “I believe there’s going to be a future where there are far more alternative meats than conventional meats on the market. And we need to think about what that means for all of the people who are employed through the conventional meat and seafood industries, and what the future looks like for them in terms of new jobs.”

As cell-cultured meat makes its first forays into the U.S. market, producers are sure to face communications challenges. However, Welch notes that there are also opportunities to build trust with consumers by being transparent about the cell cultivation process.

“The way we currently produce meat and seafood, there’s that hidden step between the field—if the animal ever lived on a field—and the point where it gets to your plate,” he says. “I think it’s really exciting that consumers will be able to see how their meat is being made much more openly in the future.”

Are Squares the Future of Food? SquarEat Thinks So

When you hear the phrase “future food”, your mind might go to cell-based meat or meals cooked and served by robots. You may consider a more dystopian direction and remember the square-shaped wafers in the film Soylent Green (set in 2022), or the company called Soylent (which took inspiration from the movie’s title) with its meal replacement shakes intended to replace food altogether. Although we don’t know what exactly our food will look like in the next 25-50 years, we do know we need creative solutions to feed a population that is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050.

A Miami-based company called SquarEat has joined this “future food” category with its full meals that come in the form of multiple 50g squares. The start-up aims to simplify nutrition for those who have a busy lifestyle or struggle to consume enough calories and proper nutrients.

It operates as a meal plan service that delivers to your house on a weekly basis, but unlike other similar services, all of the food arrives pre-cooked, vacuum-sealed, and in the shape of a square. Currently, 15 different squares are listed on SquarEat’s website, ranging from chocolate pancakes, sea bass, basmati rice, vegan burger, and asparagus.

The company is gearing up for its upcoming launch and is accepting investors through its WeFunder campaign. I recently interviewed Maria Laura Vacaflores, the CMO of SquarEat, to discuss the inspiration behind the company, the sustainability of the squares, and the upcoming launch.

This transcript has been lightly edited for the sake of clarity:

Ashlen: Do you want to start by discussing the inspiration behind launching SquarEat? 

Maria: Of course. So the idea behind SquarEat comes from one of the most common issues, people who often struggle to deal with a busy lifestyle, trying to keep up with a healthy and proper diet. So we have experienced firsthand the inefficiencies of the tradition of meal plan services. And we have seen a clear possibility of disruption by bringing a complete transformation to the sector that is growing tremendously fast, introducing a brand new concept, that is 100% natural food. The only thing is the shape, the square shape, is simply the result of the cooking process needed to achieve our goals, or ensure convenience and guarantee taste. And you know those are really practical. Our goal is to make people’s lives easier without sacrificing taste. 

Ashlen: How are the ingredients cooked to form a square?

Maria: We use all-natural ingredients. For example, our chicken square is called 95% chicken breast, and then you have a little bit of rosemary, and salt and pepper. We just use normal, natural food, and the way that we cook it is low, you know, at a low temperature. We put it on the blast cooler that is thermal shocking, and that’s the way we make the form, we get the square shape. 

Ashlen: Okay, okay, that makes sense. It sounds like it’s all-natural and simple ingredients, everything you can pronounce easily. Are there any preservatives in there?

Maria: The way that we make our product last longer, is because we vacuum seal everything individually. So there’s no oxygen in the squares, like you know, completely sealed, and you can have it for up to two weeks in your own fridge. That’s also really good because you know all the foods right now, like a normal traditional meal plan, if you’re okay I’m gonna describe it. On Monday, they deliver it to you, and you have to eat it then or by Wednesday because it’s not going to be good. Sometimes they put sauces on the top or they mix it up, and it looks awfully bad. I’m telling you this because I’ve done these meal plans before. 

I know people need to eat healthily, that’s why you’re doing a meal plan, right? You can cook but you also want to be healthy and you want your food to taste good. So we came up with this idea. If you can’t eat your food by Wednesday, like I said, right so you don’t need to worry with a square. You can eat it Friday, Saturday, etc. you just, decide you don’t want the chicken, just the vegetables, and that’s okay. You have this flexibility that no other company allows you to have.

Ashlen: And so you said, it can store up to two weeks in the fridge. Can it be put in the freezer, and thawed out and eaten at another time or do you recommend that people eat the squares fresh?

Maria: Yeah, if you want you can, but you don’t need to because they’re going to be completely fresh. If you want to put food in the freezer because you want to eat it like a month later, you know, that’s up to you but I recommend always to leave the squares in the fridge. Two weeks that’s perfect timing, but it’s gonna be fresh, you’re gonna feel it. It’s gonna be fresh, like the first day you receive it. 

Ashlen: So has it been a challenge to convince people to eat food in the form of a square?

Maria: We’ve gone through some resistance. A lot of haters. However, we got a lot of love from the ones that are excited about our idea, as the squares are highly digestible and practical. For example, they are intended for people who suffer from autism who might have a sort of aversion to food. I’ve had a lot of friends, for example, they suffer because they can’t gain weight. They can’t eat the protein they need, or the calories they need, because they can’t eat that much. They’re really skinny, or they have this problem with the food. So my friend called me the next day, like, Oh, my God, this is a solution in my life. Finally, I can get my food properly, I can get my calories, I can eat healthily, I can, you know, have a healthy body. And I mean, it’s the food that you need, that your body needs, but it comes, you know, in a more digestible, practical way. And you just eat it like, like a little snack. 

Ashlen: I’ve often heard for people who are struggling to get enough calories, a nutritionist often recommends eating protein bars, but those can be kind of gross.

Maria: Yes, those are. Those are meal replacements, not ours. Yeah, for example, I can tell you that it fills my heart with joy, knowing that people with more specific needs may have found a solution that can improve their lives, you know? We are compared to the SnowPiercer and Soylent Green movies, you know, where they do the square shape of the food. The shape of the food is often associated with this dystopian future, where people are oppressed and forced to eat disgusting things. But we’re not going to force anyone to use squares. You know, we are only proposing a solution. A tasty meal for children, adults, women, men, any age, we’re seeking a healthy lifestyle. Imagine all the children who don’t want to eat their veggies. And the moms are like, Oh my god, you know, they want to do everything for the kids. You know, to eat the vegetables, they need vegetables. You need those vegetables when you’re a kid. So imagine you’re given something like the food they wouldn’t eat doesn’t look like broccoli. You know, and you’re like, my kid is now eating broccoli.

Ashlen: Yeah, that’s really interesting. Okay, yeah, I didn’t even think about using that for children. Because you’re so right. If a kid sees something that looks like food they have an aversion to they’re not going to eat it. But you know, in a different form, it might be convincing. 

Maria: That was me. Because my mom, many times, said to me, I couldn’t eat fish. I would always say it is fish, and she lied about it to me. And now you can get them to eat right, to eat healthily and all the nutrients they need.

Ashlen: So kind of going off of, I guess, the dystopian future you mentioned, do you see what SquareEat is doing kind of as the future of food? Do you see more companies doing this? I guess, processing food in the way you do and making it more convenient and simple? Or what do you see?

Maria: First of all, I strongly believe that there is an attractive and futuristic shape that communicates exactly the soul of our project, we want to revolutionize the ready-to-eat meal plan delivery service industry by giving our customers something that they never had, that they haven’t tried before. But you know, think about portion control, already seasoned and portable, long-lasting, tasty, with all the nutrients being preserved. So I think people are gonna copy these in the future, I’m telling you, and we have to re-envision a future where people don’t necessarily have to cook, where houses are built with, you know, with different comforts. And what a full kitchen may not be necessarily a future that everyone can afford. That’s what we want, not like the movies you know. We want everyone to have a better life than they can afford.

And it has to be optional but like I’m telling you, there are so many people right now who don’t like to cook and they don’t have to. So this is the present, imagine the future, how it’s gonna be. I believe that yes, it’s is gonna be like this. Yeah, I’m not, I’m not telling you that I don’t like steak sometimes. Like a nice dinner, a nice barbecue, but you know, in my everyday routine, something healthy and you know, I want something ready. That’s fine.

Ashlen: Yeah, I feel like everyone kind of has like maybe one or even two meals a day we’re just rushing around and we don’t have time to cook or we don’t want to stop and pick up food so I definitely see room for the squares in a very busy lifestyle. But I have a personal question for you actually. How often do you eat the squares yourself?

Maria: Well, well it’s gonna be a year that I’m eating the squares because the project has been developing for more than a year of trying and cooking and discovering new flavors, new things that we can add. I am the person that taste tests and I eat like every day. I will say I eat from Monday to Saturday, for lunch, breakfast I eat the squares. I can cook something maybe myself perhaps sometimes that is not the squares again. But you know what I do, I put them in the air fryer, maybe I do some chicken nuggets with my square. For the vegetable squares, cut them up like in tiny pieces. I do like tacos, I put my meat squares in them because it’s already cooked and I just need to warm it up the way I want it and give it a little flavor, extra fuel that I wanted. So if I want to eat super healthy, okay, then just the squares. I can put them just straight in the microwave. Maybe a little bit of oil. And that’s it, you know, although my mood and my daily routine, but I’ve been eating like every day for a year.

Ashlen: Very cool. Okay, thank you for answering that. So on The Spoon, we like to cover food waste as well. And I believe I read something on your website that was just a brief statement on food waste. So how are do the squares help reduce food waste?

Maria: Okay, our product, our production chain runs on minimal waste in food and energetic resources. We are eco-sustainable from the production stages to deliveries, we don’t use any gas or any other dangerous things that can be combusted into the preparation process. And thanks to our innovative techniques, we are also able to use almost 100% of the food we need to obtain this worse. That’s something unique compared to the availability of alternatives on the market. And they there’s also a significant reduction in terms of waste, both from us and the customer point of view. Because if you can see there that vacuum sealing are squares naturally extends our product shelf life, for up to two weeks. Our sealing bags are BPA-free. And it’s food-safe, and microwavable, and you can also boil them if you want safely. They are 100% recyclable. And as a food manufacturer, we are simply asking our customers to do their part when it comes to taking care of the environment as much as we do.

Ashlen: Great. Yeah, I was thinking about other like meal prep companies and such. And I was just thinking there are things like broccoli stems and peels, even that gets tossed out. So I would imagine that in a square, you could kind of combine all of that, which is also more nutritionally dense incorporating those bits and pieces. So that’s good to know. And then you could have answered this already. But to clarify, the squares, are they a direct meal replacement? And can you replace all three meals with squares?

Maria: Oh, that’s great. It’s not an alternative food. The only difference is our preparation methods and the unique shape that it has. Think of, for example, mozzarella or pasta, yogurt. They’re from soy, milk, or grains, but that doesn’t mean that they lose their natural properties during the transformation process. They are often proof. Our squares are made of 100% natural ingredients, and they are not I meal replacement like I said sorry. And I mentioned the chicken right, and chicken squares have the addition of natural spices. And our innovative production processes allow our products to have a longer shelf life, better preservation of nutrients, and consumption flexibility. So you can definitely have three meal boxes a day. And this is exactly what SquarEat is designed for.

Ashlen: One last question: When did the company launch its first products?

Maria: So hopefully, we’re gonna be ready within a few weeks. We are expecting that because we are finishing the last details for the big opening. And we were expecting that it will be like at the end of September, hopefully, if not at the first week of October, but we’re gonna keep you updated for sure.

Ashlen: Sounds great. For some reason, I thought you had already launched but that’s great that I’m talking with you before the launch. 

Maria: Yes, yes. Perfect. We’re right now running our crowdfunding campaign. When it’s closer to the end of this campaign, we’re gonna launch if that makes sense.

SquarEat’s WeFunder campaign is still active, and has so far raised a total of $165,905.

IndieBio Cofounder Ron Shigeta Launches Virtual Accelerator

Longtime food and biotech investor and entrepreneur Ron Shigeta is rolling out a new virtual accelerator called iAccelerate.tech.

Shigeta established himself as a food tech pioneer as a cofounder of one of the very first future food and ag accelerators in IndieBio, where he helped some of today’s biggest names in future food such as Geltor and Upside Foods (then Memphis Meats) get off the ground. Since that time, Shigeta helped launch plant-based pet food company Wild Earth and more recently has been acting as an independent investor and advisor to various biotech and food tech startups.

From Shigeta’s Linkedin post announcing the move:

It’s a big day! I’m rolling out my advisory work as a virtual accelerator and I’d like to invite my network and their friends to join us!

Building at IndieBio has created a $4B+ portfolio. in the past 2 years TurtleTree, Inner Cosmos, SolarBioTech, Orbillion Bio (YC W21) , BloodQ, Inc, Juicy Marbles, Finless Foods (and some who are not out in public yet) has taken things to a new level for me and the #BioTech Startup world.

With iAccelerate, Shigeta is essentially taking his consultancy and investing work and formalizing it.

“I worked to find what I thought would be a next-generation accelerator structure,” Shigeta told me over Linkedin. “It’s a very small operation – 5-10 companies a year with lots of attention to detail.”

According to Shigeta, his new accelerator will take in 1-2% in equity for each company, a significantly smaller share than a traditional accelerator like TechStars that typically takes roughly 5% of a company.

As part of the launch of iAccelerate, Shigeta is also launching an investor syndicate.

“My latest stage in the evolution is to offer some investments on AngelList,” said Shigeta. “The Syndicate just lets investors elect to take the deals they like and offers the terms that the VC sees.”

While Shigeta has made a name for himself helping biotech-focused startups get up and running, his new accelerator shows he will look beyond the future food space. One of the first companies in the accelerator is Bite Ninja, a startup from Memphis that helps staff quick service drive-thrus with remote workers via telepresence.

“I really like to work with companies who are are just wrestling with an outrageous idea and we work together sometimes for months just to get it together to present and show MVP,” said Shigeta.

Food Tech News: Future Food Tour in Dubai and Beer-Infused Spices

Welcome to this week’s Food Tech News round-up! For this round, we’ve gathered news from CHEQ, a multi-sensory futuristic food tour, and new spices that make your food taste like beer.

If you didn’t sign up already, The Spoon’s virtual Restaurant Tech Summit will be next week on August 17, starting at 8:00 am PT. Tickets are still available on the event page.

Future Food Tour at Expo 2020 Dubai

The “Novacene” is a new era hypothesized by scientist James Lovelock where humans have made large-scale changes to our environment and robots and artificial intelligence rule the world. “The Future of Food: Epochal Banquet” has taken inspiration from this idea for its planned food exhibit at Expo 2020 Dubai.

The culinary tour is two hours long and it will specifically focus on how humans using artificial intelligence can find solutions for food waste, feed a growing population, and improve nutrition content. The immersive experience will be orchestrated by Bombas & Parr, a multi-sensory experience design studio in the UK. Based in the year 2320, the tour will feature food history from caveman to spaceman, replications of extinct foods, and 1,000 different flavors. The dining portion will include three courses paired with drinks. Edible concoctions that will be served include flavor-changing desserts, glow-in-the-dark food, rare ingredients, unique plants, and delicacies created from the technique that NASA uses to collect comet dust.

CHEQ and Miami Marlins announce a multi-year partnership

CHEQ, a restaurant tech platform, announced in a press release sent to The Spoon that it has partnered with the baseball team Miami Marlins. The mobile payment app developed by CHEQ will be implemented at the Marlin’s home stadium, LoanDepot Park. The app will allow fans at the ballpark to order food and drinks from concession stands on their mobile devices from their seats. After this 2021 season, fans will have the ability to order from their seats and then have the food delivered to certain areas of the ballpark.

Infuse your food with beer flavor through Spiceologies’s blends

A chef-operated spice company call Spiceology shared with The Spoon in an email this week that it had launched a new line of beer-infused spices to encapsulate the unique flavors that different beers can contribute to the cooking process. The company has partnered with Derek Wolf and New Belgium Brewing to develop two beer spice products lines. The Derek Wolf line includes flavors like Imperial Coffee Stout, Honey Mustard IPA, and Hickory Peach Porter. The New Belgium line incorporates some of the brewery’s popular beers like the Voodoo Ranger Hazy IPA in the Citrus Ginger seasoning, while the Sweet & Sour uses the Sour IPA. A “six-pack” of the Derek Wolf blends cost $69.99 while a “four-pack” of the New Belgium blends cost $52.

Shiok Meats Acquires Gaia Foods, Will Add Beef to Its Cultured Meat Lineup

Shiok Meats, a company best known for its developments in cultured seafood, has acquired a 90 percent steak in Gaia Foods, according to Tech in Asia, which broke the news. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Through the deal, Singapore’s Shiok Meats will add “a variety of red meat products” to its roster, since the company will be able to draw on Gaia Foods expertise in developing cultured beef. Gaia, also based in Singapore is also developing cultured pork and mutton.

Both companies are targeting markets in Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Japan, Taiwan, India, and South Korea. Shiok Meats hopes to blend cultured beef and shrimp in order to create a product that can be used in a variety of dishes, from dumplings and noodles to spring rolls.

Shiok raised an undisclosed round of bridge funding last month that will go towards building out a production facility in Singapore. The company said at the time of the funding that it plans to launch commercially in that market by 2023 at the latest. Speaking to Tech in Asia today, company CEO Sandhya Sriram said Shiok Meats is ready to “power through to commercialization.”

Singapore is currently the only country in the world that has granted regulatory approval to sell cultured meat, and to just one company, Eat Just. Gaining its own approval — in Singapore and elsewhere — will be a major next step for Shiok on its path to commercialization. 

Beyond regulatory approval, Shiok Meats and every other company developing cultivated meat has a host of challenges to contend with before consumers can buy their products en masse at restaurants and grocery stores. Those challenges span everything from making cell lines more available to finding cheaper, less ethically hazy growth mediums, and educating the average consumer about what cultured meat actually is and why we need to consider it as a protein source in the first place.  

Gaia founders Vinayaka Srinivas and Hung Nguyen will lead the Shiok Meats technical team’s development process for cultured red meat products for the company moving forward. Meanwhile, Sriram told Tech in Asia that deals like this one will become “priorities” in the near-term future for the company.

NovoNutrients Raises $4.7M to Complete Its Pilot Program for Alt-Protein Made from CO2 Inputs

NovoNutrients, a company that creates protein from CO2 inputs, today announced a $4.7 million fundraise to complete its industrial pilot program that will capture CO2 emissions from from oil, gas, and cement-related plants.

The round was led by Happiness Capital, a Hong Kong-based venture firm that has previously invested in Redefine Meat, Ynsect, and Beyond Meat. E2JDJ and Marinya Capital also joined the round, which included re-ups from SOSV’s IndieBio and the Grantham Environmental Trust. Other investors include Stanford Graduate School of Business Impact Fund, Purple Orange Ventures, and Joyance Partners.

NovoNutrients feeds the CO2 inputs it collects to naturally occurring microbes via a fermentation process. The resulting proteins have a variety of uses, including as ingredients in meat analogues as well as animal feeds. NovoNutrients says its protein can improve the amino acid profile of food products.

That nutrition element will work in NovoNutrients favor as it continues to develop its air protein and looks to scale production. At the recent IFT FIRST event, panelists suggested that while a lot of the focus in meat analogues right now is on taste and texture, the nutritional profile of proteins will become more important to consumers moving forward.  

Actually getting a product to consumers is still a ways off for NovoNutrients, however. For the time being, the company is focused on showing its fermentation tech can work at scale. The company will co-locate its bioreactors (aka fermentation tanks) at industrial sites that produce high levels of greenhouse gases. 

The pilot project is focused on a 1,000-liter bioreactor. NovoNutrients says it will stand up a 20,000-liter industrial demo in the near future. 

NovoNutrients is one of a few companies now developing novel protein from CO2, hydrogen, and other air inputs. Others include Air Protein, Solar Foods, and Deep Branch. Last year, the European Space Agency started working with Solar Foods to develop the technology for use in space to feed astronauts.

NovoNutrients said today that its pilot project will allow the company to start raising Series A funding later this year.  

Forget Plants. Alt-Meat Needs More Mycoprotein

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Of the three pillars of alternative protein, plant-based is getting the most mainstream attention and cultivated meat is the currernt darling of VC investors. But fermentation may be the most practical in terms of both cost and scalability, and one area of that segment turning heads of late is mycoprotein. 

From an affordability and nutritional point of view, mycoprotein has a boatload of advantages over other forms of alternative protein — a point underscored this week when The Spoon’s Chris Albrecht profiled a company called Kernel Mycofoods. In their own words, the folks behind the Buenos Aires, Argentina-based company are currently on a mission to “make a product that [is] comparable without a price that will exclude the emerging markets.”

But Kernel isn’t the only company hoping to bring mycoprotein to the forefront, which makes now a good time to take a closer look into what this segment of fermentation is and why it matters to alternative protein.

Mycoprotein is a single-cell protein made from a naturally occurring filamentous fungus called fusarium venenatum. To get mycoprotein, fungi spores are fermented alongside glucose in fermentation tanks in a process similar to that of brewing beer. The entire operation produces a pasty, doughy texture that resembles a chicken breast. 

Up to now, the most well-known application of mycoprotein is as the main ingredient of Quorn’s meat analogues. But as noted above, several other companies are now getting recognition for their use of mycoprotein as an alternative to traditional meat. That list includes Kernel Mycofoods as well as Better Meat Co., which opened its production facility last month, and food giant Unilever. The latter is producing a mycoprotein called Abunda through a partnership with Scottish company Enough. 

Experts say mycoprotein is high in fiber, low in sodium, has an inherently meaty texture, and is rich in amino acids. Kernel, for example, says its mycoprotein has a higher protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score than beef, soy, or wheat gluten.

Mycoprotein falls into the “biomass fermentation” category, as opposed to traditional or precision fermentation (though the lines between all three can be blurred). Because of this, its biggest advantage compared to other forms of alt-protein is its ability to scale at a lower price point. The Good Food Institute noted in its 2020 State of the Industry report on fermentation that biomass fermentation offers “well-established examples of scalability and cost reduction suitable for alternative protein applications.” 

Mycoprotein specifically has a number of other advantages. 

Versatility is a big one. Mycoprotein can be used on its own, as Quorn does with it, or it can be blended with traditional meat to enhance the latter’s flavor and nutritional profile. For example, it could reduce the amount of cholesterol found in a traditional burger patty.

Mycoprotein also already has an established track record, having been approved for use in food products in the early 1980s. That point alone suggests companies won’t face the same types of regulatory hurdles they do with, say, cultured meat. 

And as an alternative to plant-based meat analogues like those of Beyond and Impossible, mycoprotein is a potentially much more eco-friendly operation since it doesn’t require land to grow plants or significant amounts of downstream processing to get the meaty texture consumers want.

Of all these things, though, nutrition might just be the main driver behind mycoprotein. Citing panelists at the recent IFT FIRST event, Food Navigator recently reported that “consumers increasingly want products that are nutritionally comparable to or better for them than animal protein – something the current industry is not fully delivering.” The “current industry” in this case are plant-based analogues from the likes of Beyond and Impossible, companies that talk at length about elements like texture and mouthfeel but very little about their products nutritional profiles. Nutrition will, according to IFT FIRST panelists, be the “disrupting” factor in the near term when it comes to alternative proteins.

All of those factors mean mycoprotein could well become the breakout star of the alt-protein sector by the end of the year.

More Headlines

Plant-Based Cheese Company Nobell Foods Raises $75M – The company will use the new funds to commercialize its first plant-based cheese products, including mozzarella, which the company makes from soybeans that are genetically edited to produce casein. 

Bezos-Backed NotCo Raises $235M for Plant-Based Alternatives – This new capital will allow NotCo to expand into new product categories in North America and scale its proprietary A.I. platform. 

Redefine Meat Launches 5 “New Meat” Plant-Based Proteins in Israel – Plant-based meat company Redefine Meat announced five new products are now available at select Israeli restaurants and hotels. 

 

 

Food Tech News: Online Food Bank, Upcycled Cacao Fruit Bites, and $10M for Gluten-Free Snack Brand

If you feel like you’ve fallen behind in the fast-paced world of food tech, you’ve come to the right place. In this week’s Food Tech News roundup, we have stories on Feeding America’s new online platform, Costco’s partnership with Uber, a snack brand’s $10 million funding round, and one of the first companies to receive the Upcycled Food Certification.

Food bank launches online grocery ordering for those facing food insecurity

Feeding America is one of the largest food banks in the country, and this week the non-profit began offering online ordering. Called Order Ahead, food is ordered through a Feeding America network food bank or partner food on a smartphone, tablet, or computer. The order can then be picked up at schools, libraries, or a drive-thru distribution center. Certain markets will also be offering home delivery. Those requiring food assistance unfortunately might feel embarrassed or stigmatized, so offering an online platform allows for the option of being more discreet.

CaPao is one of the first companies to receive the Upcycled Food Certification

CaPao has created a snack product that is made from upcycled cacao fruit. The brand was developed in Mondelēz International’s SnackFuture innovation and venture hub, and this week announced that it is one of the first companies to receive the recently launch Upcycled Food Certification. After cacao beans have been extracted from the cacao pod, there is about 70 percent of the pod remaining goes to waste, and this remaining fruit is used in the snack product. CaPao sources this potential food waste from Cabosse Naturals, a food and beverage company that uses cacao pods to make various ingredients. Using the upcycled cacao fruit, CaPao produces three flavors of snack bites: mango cashew coconut, golden berry apricot chia, and cherry almond cocoa. The products are available for purchase on the company’s website and retailers in Southern California.

Photo by Henry & Co. on Unsplash

Costco partners with Uber to trial same-day delivery

Costco is currently trialing same-day grocery delivery with Uber at 25 Texas locations in Dallas, Houston, and Austin. Uber has announced that its drivers will be able to deliver groceries in minutes to a few hours. To use the service trial in Texas, customers must order at least $35 worth of Costco groceries and products. Costo currently also works with Instacart to offer same-day delivery.

Gluten-free snack maker raises $10 million

Quinn produces various gluten-free snacks, and this week the company secured $10 million in its Series B funding round. NewRoad Capital Partners led the round, and Echo Capital, Boulder Food Group, and Sunil Thakor also participated. The capital will be used for product innovation, company growth, and be put towards Quinn’s mission of supporting regenerative agriculture. Quinn uses gluten-free ingredients like sorghum, cassava, and corn for its pretzels sticks and chips, stuffed pretzels, and flavored popcorn. The company provides a map of where its ingredients are sourced and a list of farmers (who are taking steps to reduce their environmental impact) it buys from to provide transparency to consumers. Quinn’s products are available for purchase in approximately 10,000 retailers nationwide.

Why Plant-Based Nuggets are Gold

When I think of chicken nuggets, I think of my young son. More specifically, I remember how at one point I surreptitiously replaced his animal-based chicken nuggets and tenders with plant-based ones… and he didn’t notice (or didn’t care). That small bit of deception is why I think the plant-based chicken nugget market could be a very big deal.

Plant-based chicken nuggets are nothing new. Companies like Quorn, Morningstar and Gardein have been selling them in the frozen aisles of grocery stores for years now. But things really heated up this month when both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods jumped into the faux poultry ring. Beyond, which had previously piloted plant-based chicken with KFC, announced a couple weeks back that its new tenders are available at 400 restaurants across the country. That announcement was quickly followed by the news that Impossible was unveiling its nuggets to potential restaurant customers this week for a fall rollout.

While both of their plant-based chicken products will debut at restaurants, it’s a no-brainer that their nuggets will eventually make it to store shelves. Both Beyond and Impossible spent a great deal of time last year vastly expanding their national retail sales footprint, all the heavy lifting of getting into stores in done, they now just need to roll out their nuggets.

And it’s on the store shelves where things get interesting, as there will be ton of competition. Not only are the stalwarts like Quorn, Morningstar and Gardein already there, but giants like Tyson has its Raised & Rooted plant-based nuggets, and Target has its own Good & Gather brand. Not to mention there is also a new crop of plant-based nugget startups like Rebellyous, SIMULATE, Nowadays, and Daring Foods competing for your dollar.

Competing for your top dollar, that is. Right now, you have to pay extra for plant-based chicken. A quick look at Safeway shows that an 8-ounce package of Raised and Rooted nuggets is $4.99, compared with a 32-ounce package of traditional animal based nuggets for $7.79. That’s almost four times as much food for a few dollars more.

But this is where Beyond and Impossible can help. While both of their burger products are still more expensive than traditional meat, consumer prices for Beyond and Impossible have steadily come down over the past couple of years. It’s a safe bet that the same will happen for their chicken products. With the brand recognition both Beyond and Impossible have, they should be able to quickly gain market share at retail and exert price pressure on other players in the space.

Another big opportunity for plant-based chicken nuggets and tenders is in schools cafeterias, where nuggets are menu staple. The USDA reports that schools served 5 billion lunches in fiscal year 2019, so it’s no surprise that schools were actually one of Rebellyous’ primary markets before the pandemic shut everything down last year. Also consider that this past May, Impossible received the Child Nutrition (CN) Label authorized by the USDA, which will make it easier for schools to purchase the Impossible Burger. With Impossible running pilots programs with a number of school districts across the U.S., it’s a safe bet the company will get the same regulatory approval for its nuggets.

But the big reason plant-based chicken nuggets and tenders will be huge goes back to my son. Nuggets and tenders are really more of a kids’ food (though, who doesn’t love a good nugget?), and if you can create a reasonable facsimile, they aren’t going to care. It’s not like trying to replicate a filet mignon at a fine dining establishment. Creating a plant-based filet requires “muscle” and fat structures. Plus, consumers have a heightened expectation around what a filet is and should be, so the uncanny valley is much greater. Nuggets, on the other hand, are junk food. (I say that with love) There doesn’t need to be a ton of complexity to make a good nugget. Bread it, flavor it, make sure it looks enough like meat on the inside and there you go. Kids will knock ’em back no fuss no muss.

Until now, burgers have been the star of the plant-based meat world, but don’t be surprised if next year plant-based chicken nuggets take center stage.

Photo from Nature’s Fynd website

More Headlines

Nature’s Fynd Raises $350M Series C for its Microbial Protein – The protein originates from a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park.

Gathered Foods is Bringing Plant-Based Options to Long John Silver’s – Five locations in California and Georgia now serve Good Catch’s Crab-Free Cakes and Fish-Free Fillets

Multus Media Raises $2.2M for Cultured Meat Serum Replacement – The company says its growth media lasts twice as long as existing serum.

Mzansi Meat Co. is Bringing Cultured Meat to Africa – 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.

Nature’s Fynd Raises $350M Series C for its Microbial Protein

Nature’s Fynd, which makes protein from microbes that originated in geothermal springs of Yellowstone National Park, announced today that it has raised a $350 million Series C round of funding. The round was led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, with participcation from new investors including Blackstone Strategic Partners, Balyasny Asset Management, Hillhouse Investment, EDBI, SK Inc. and Hongkou, as well as other existing investors. This brings the total amount raised by Nature’s Fynd to more than $500 million.

The company’s protein is called Fy, and it’s a fermented fungi protein derived from the Fusar­i­um strain flavolapis microbe. Because Fy is grown through fermentation, the cultivation of the protein requires less land, water and energy than traditional agriculture. Fy is a complete protein with 9 essential amino acids, and it can be used to make alternative meat and dairy products. In February of this year, Nature’s Fynd announced its first two Fy-based products: a dairy-free cream cheese and a meatless breakfast patty. The company also makes a dairy-free yogurt that was eaten on camera by Bill Gates (a Nature’s Fynd investor) and Anderson Cooper during a segment on 60 Minutes earlier this year.

Fermentation has been dubbed the third pillar of alternative protein, alongside cell-based and plant-based protein. We have seen a wave of startups using fermentation technology to bring variety of animal-free products to market. Perfect Day and Remilk use fermentation to create dairy proteins. Nourish Ingredients ferments yeast to make plant-based fats. SuperBrewed ferments microbes to create a vegan protein powder than can be used in plant-based cheese and milks. And Better Meat Co. recently launched its own fermentation production facility to create its mycoprotein-based Rhiza ingredient.

All of this activity has also helped attract plenty of funding over the past year and a half. According to data from the Good Food Institute and Pitchbook, fermentation startups received $590 million in funding in 2020. In addition to Nature’s Fynd’s haul announced today, last month Motif Foodworks, which uses microbial engineering and precision fermentation to create novel food ingredients, raised $226 million.

Nature’s Fynd said it will use its new funding to expand its production capacity, add new products to its lineup, and set the stage for its international growth.