Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Future Food

Video: 50 Million Plant-Based Eggs Later, Eat Just Keeps Innovating

Between massive disruptions to the supply chain and growing evidence of COVID-19’s zoonotic origins, it’s little wonder that both demand for and investment in plant-based protein choices has escalated to previously unseen heights in the last several months.

Helping lead the charge and change in the way we humans get our proteins is Eat Just, a San Francisco-based company whose plant-based egg product is on store shelves everywhere between Whole Foods and Costco. The company now has its sights set on international expansion and, more importantly, on further helping us humans understand the negative impacts of our over-reliance on animal proteins. Those impacts include (and are definitely not limited to) further harm to the planet and the likelihood that COVID-19 won’t be the last pandemic we see.  

“There’s a collision that’s happening between human beings and animals and that collision is causing a spillover that is increasing the risk profile of our food systems,” Eat Just founder and CEO Josh Tetrick explained to me over a Zoom chat recently.

Eat Just was one of the early innovators in the new generation of plant-based food and one of the only companies with plans for both plant-based and cultured protein products. Given all that, I wanted to get Tetrick’s take on the current state of the market and how things are changing as the pandemic situation plays out.

Watch the video below to see our full conversation, where we discuss:

  • The versatility of the egg and how we can replicate it using plant-based alternatives
  • How the pandemic is changing the way consumers think about not just the foods they eat but where those foods come from
  • The recent United Nations report that outlines how our increasing demand for animal protein is the number one driver of zoonotic diseases
  • How plant-based protein companies can work alongside — not replace — established CPGs and other food industry players to spark change in the way we eat

Isreali Startup MeaTech Prints Carpaccio-like Meat

Israeli bioprinting startup MeaTech 3D announced earlier this week that it successfully printed a carpaccio-like layer of meat, CTech reported. The thin, uniform layer of muscle tissue lays a foundation for the holy grail of alternative proteins: lab grown steak.

Founded in 2018, MeaTech integrated tissue engineering and 3D printing technologies to produce animal-free cuts of beef. Stem cells are taken from the umbilical cord— so no animal is harmed in the sampling process—and multiplied in a bioreactor. The stem cells are then differentiated into the needed cell types, like muscle and fat cells. These distinct cells become the cellular inks used by the 3D printer, which prints a complex structure of fat and muscle cells that can grow into an actual cut of meat. 

“3D printed tissues are at the cutting edge of cell-based meat technology,” Kate Krueger, a cell biologist and alternative proteins consultant for Helikon Consulting told me this week in an email interview. 

MeaTech’s most recent initiative, named Project Carpaccio because of the products similarity to the thinly sliced Italian meat. The printed single layer of tissue proved the team could successfully sort muscle and fat stem cells, produce the necessary cellular ink and combine the meat and fat cells in a way that causes them to coalesce into a single structure. 

MeaTech is one of a few companies exclusively aiming to produce whole muscle tissue. The majority of cultured meat to date has been ground or minced, made by manually combining lab grown cells into a sludge that can be turned into a burger, nugget or patty. While both types of cultured meat are necessary to disrupt the meat industry, growing muscle tissue is decidedly more difficult. Tissue engineers have to mimic the intricate systems that support muscle growth in an animal. 

“It’s easier to make minced meat and we understand that – but we’re not going there. We believe the real solution will come from growing large, industrial-size chunks of meat,” CEO Sharon Fima told the Jerusalem Post earlier this year.

Project Carpaccio shows proof of concept and a lot of progress in two years. But MeaTech’s 3D printed steaks have a long road ahead. Regulatory approval, affordability and scalability are still major hurdles that could take up to a decade to overcome, Fima told Haaretz in March. Their competitors, however, believe they’ll be on plates and burgers within the year.  Fellow Isreali startup, Redefine, announced in June that their printed steak will be in restaurants by the end of 2020 and in supermarkets by 2022. And SavorEats plans to test out their plant-based burgers, which are 3D printed and cooked simultaneously, in a leading fast food chain within the next twelve months.  

With Project Carpaccio finished ahead of schedule, MeaTech is on to the next challenge, printing a quarter pound (100 gram) steak. They will print the steak’s foundational structure, grow it so size in an incubator and see if it passes the taste test. 

Mushlabs Raises $10M to Scale Up Its Mushroom-Fermentation Tech

Biotech company Mushlabs has raised $10 million in Series A funding for its mushroom-fermentation process that can provide alternatives to traditional meat. According to an exclusive report from AgFunder News, the round was co-led by Singapore’s VisVires New Protein and Switzerland’s Redalpine, and included participation from existing investors Happiness Capital and Joyance Partners. This brings Mushlabs’ total funding to date to $12.2 million. 

The company uses a fermentation process to grow mycelia — also simply known as the root of a mushroom — that can act as a meat replacement. According to the company’s website, that process involves cultivating pieces of mycelia in a controlled environment and feeding them side streams, or waste byproduct from other industrial and agricultural processes that can include sugarcane, rice husk, and spent grain. In bioreactors, the mycelial cells ferment the side streams and multiply, growing a protein-rich biomass Mushlabs then harvests and uses as the main ingredient for its products. 

As of now, the company has not disclosed exactly what materials it uses as its side stream. CEO Mazen Rizk did, however, tell AgFunder that “they could potentially include a wide range of leftovers from farming, foodservice, food processing, and other agrifood segments.” He also noted that the biomass “contains a variety of micronutrients and fibers, some of which have prebiotic properties,” which makes it potentially more attractive than other alt-protein products that contain less-than-healthy food additives to mimic the taste and texture of meat.

Mushlabs joins a growing number of companies using mushroom fermentation as a means of making alternative proteins that can be used in place of meat. In June, MycoTechnology raised $39 million for its mycelia-fermentation tech. Prime Roots uses a process akin to beer brewing to make meat replacement products, including bacon. Biotech company Ecovative is using mushroom roots to improve the texture of alternative meats. And as Spoon contributor Ashlen Weddington can attest, Emergy Foods promises its Meati brand of mycelium-based steak mimics the mouthfeel of whole cuts of meat. 

Mushlabs plans to use its Series A round to increase production and will focus first on the B2B realm. 

Daily Harvest Serves Up Free Ice Cream Through Traveling Vending Machine

During 2020, we have had our fair share of stressful and saddening news. A vending machine that dispenses free vegan ice cream while playing 90’s music is exactly the kind of thing we need to read about right now. 

Daily Harvest is a plant-based meal delivery service that offers pre-made meals such as smoothies, flatbreads, and bowls. Their most recent release, Scoops, is a vegan ice cream made from plant-based ingredients like coconut cream, fruit, black sesame, cacao, and mint, which is now available for purchase in their subscription boxes. To promote the release of Scoops, Daily Harvest recently set up their first outdoor vending machine in Newport, Rhode Island.

The vending machine is regularly sanitized and requires wearing a mask and practicing social distancing while selecting your free ice cream. “Scoops”, an original song written specifically for Daily Harvest by Boyz ll Men, plays as you choose between two flavors: Chocolate + Ooey, Gooey Midnight Fudge, and Mint + Dark, Melty Cacao Chips. The machine has a small sign that reads, “This is not a mirage” because let’s be honest, free ice cream seems too good to be true right now. 

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers want to minimize human contact and interaction when purchasing food. Less hands on your food, the better. We have seen a rise in food delivery pods, robot cooks,  unmanned convenience stores, and smart vending machines. Our food systems have to adapt in the face of a pandemic, and vending machines like Daily Harvest’s could be part of this new normal we find ourselves in. 

The vending machine popped up in Newport, RI last week for two days, and is now on the move. The Daily Harvest vending machine will pop up in Domino Park in Brooklyn, NY August 21-23rd. According to the website, they will continue to add additional locations, are running an Instagram poll to determine the next site of its vending machine. 

Meet the 13 Companies Chosen for Cohort II of Big Idea Ventures’ Alt-Protein Accelerator

Alt-protein focused food tech accelerator Big Idea Ventures announced this week it has launched the second cohort for both its New York City and Singapore programs, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

Big Idea Ventures is a hybrid venture firm that has both a VC arm and the aforementioned accelerator program. It made headlines in 2019 when it launched the New Protein Fund, which at the time was the first and largest fund for plant-based protein investments. Also last year, the firm launched its first food tech accelerator cohort. 

Like last year’s pick of companies, the 2020 cohort is split between New York City and Singapore and almost solely comprised of alt-protein companies — either those making actual products that will eventually go to consumers or those developing ingredients needed to make consumer-facing products. 

Chosen participants receive a $125,000 investment and, over the course of five months, work with mentors, advisors, and potential investors.

Cohort II’s chosen companies are as follows:

New York City:

  • Novel Farms, Inc.: A cell-based meat company currently working on an alt version of Jamon Ibérico
  • Wild For: Healthy snacks made from ancient grain teff
  • Evo: Working on a plant-based egg product
  • Orbillion: A cell-based meat company developing bison jerky
  • MeliBio: Growing clean honey through microbiology
  • Actual Veggies: Veggie burgers made entirely from plants
  • Biftek.co: Clean meat media meant to replace the controversial fetal bovine serum (FBS)
  • Yoconut: Dairy-free yogurt made from coconuts

Singapore: 

  • Zhenmeat: A plant-based meat brand from China
  • WTH Foods: Plant-based meat company in the Philippines
  • Gaia: Singapore’s first cell-based meat company
  • Peace of Meat: A B2B supplier of cultured animal fat and liver produced without harming the animal
  • Fenn Foods: Australian plant-based foods company

For those interested, BIV is already taking applications for Cohort III, which will also be split between NYC and Singapore. Applications are open until September 4, 2020.

Plant-Based Meat Company THIS Has Surpassed Its £2M Crowdfunding Goal — With Time to Spare

Plant-based meat company THIS has more than surpassed its £2 million (~$2.6 million USD) target goal on crowdfunding platform Seedrs. So far, the London, U.K.-based company has raised over £3 million — and has 40 days left to go on its campaign (h/t Plant Based News). 

THIS, which raised £4.7 in March of this year, calls itself a plant-based meat company for meat lovers. It only launched in 2019, but already has its plant-based chicken nugget and bacon products in stores at 2,000 retailers across the U.K., including those of Tesco, Waitros, and Ocado. The company has some presence in restaurants, too. Its products are made from soy bean protein, water, and pea protein. The inclusion of other ingredients, such as vegetable extracts, food additive Maltodextrin, and potato starch, varies from one product to the next. 

With the money it’s raising via its Seedr campaign, THIS hopes to expand further into supermarkets and across more restaurant chains, though the campaign does not list specific names. The company noted that it is also “building a formidable innovation engine within the company” to develop more plant-based meat products. 

THIS says it’s on a mission to make “hyper-realistic plant-based food that mimics meat in taste, texture, and appearance.” But while the company may have picked a good time to launch their campaign, it’s also a highly competitive year for plant-based protein. Thanks in no small part to the pandemic, investment in plant-based proteins is up: $1.1 billion up, according to investor network FAIRR’s recent report. Over $907 million of that figure has been invested in plant-based protein alternatives so far in 2020.

And where the alt-protein space was once the territory of mostly burgers, more and more companies have lately come to market with other meat substitute products. Simulate, which raised $4.1 million in July, also makes chicken nuggets. In the bacon realm, THIS will compete with Hooray Foods and Prime Roots, and possibly Beyond, if rumors are to be believed. 

THIS’s fundraising campaign on Seedr is still in private phase and will go public in the coming days.

DouxMatok To Bring Its More-Efficient Sugar to North American Food Products

Israeli food tech company DouxMatok has entered into a deal with a North American sugar refiner to manufacture commercial quantities of its “more efficient” sugar, according to Food Navigator. The first products containing this sugar are expected to hit the market early in 2021. 

DouxMatok’s Sugar Reduction Solution uses the food additive silica to carry sugar molecules and make a food taste sweeter than it would using a comparable amount of plain sugar. Using this method, food companies could use less sugar in their products, since the sugar-infused silica diffuses the sweet taste more efficiently. DouxMatox says food companies can typically use about 40 percent less sugar in their products and still get the same sweet taste.

The company told Food Navigator this week that it is currently working on a second-generation version of its product that will use a more “clean label” fiber than silica (which passes through the body once the sugar is metabolized). While he couldn’t name specifics, DouxMatok founder Eran Baniel said this new carrier for the sugar molecules is definitely a fiber and that it is “slightly more effective than silica in certain applications.”

Nor did Baniel say which North American sugar refiner his company has teamed up with to get its first products in the market. The company struck a deal with Südzucker in Europe in 2018. The North American partner will be announced in October.

While it doesn’t exactly take science to understand the harmful effects of sugar on the human body, many companies are leveraging science to create alternatives. Joywell Foods uses protein found in the “miracle berry” to create an alternative sweetener. Alluose is another sugar alternative, and one Magic Spoon uses to sweeten its kids-cereal-for-adults product.

DouxMatok’s silica product currently works with baked goods, confections, chocolates, and a few other products. According to Food Navigator, the company hopes to find a similar sugar-reduction method and technology for “high-water activity products” like sodas and juices.

Mission Barns to Run Curbside Taste Tests for Its Cell-Based Bacon

Bacon lovers, take note. Berkeley, CA-based Mission Barns plans to run curbside taste tests of its cell-based bacon product outside San Francisco and Oakland restaurants in August (h/t Food Navigator).

Mission Barns gets its product by combining cell-cultured pork fat grown in bioreactors with plant-based protein. To do that, the company isolates cells from the animal, in this case the pig, and puts them in a warm cultivator where they grow just as they would inside the animal. Cells are then fattened and the tissue is harvested to create the “meat” portion of Mission Barns products.

On its website, Mission Barns says its process for creating “meat” is more sustainable than conventional livestock farming in terms of land and water use as well as greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also more humane, since the animal doesn’t actually have to be slaughtered to get the cells. 

As with all meat alternatives, though, taste is what will ultimately convert many consumers. To that end, Mission Barns is looking for “bacon lovers, experts, and aficionados” for this upcoming taste test, which is the first ever from the company. Potential “tasting consultants” must fill out an application. Once accepted, participants can sample the bacon in exchange for providing feedback to Mission Barns.

The company also told Food Navigator that it is testing new products with other food companies, including “one of the largest pork producers in the world.” 

Mission Barns has competition in the bacon realm from Higher Steaks, a UK-based startup that recently announced its lab-grown prototypes for bacon and pork belly. 

Overall, cell-based meat companies have received quite a bit of funding since the pandemic started surfacing some of the uglier realities of the conventional meat industry. New Age Meats recently raised an additional $2 million for its plant-based pork, while Integriculture nabbed $7.4 million in May and BlueNalu garnered $20 million in February.

This investment activity isn’t likely to slow. For the entire alternative protein category, investment has already surpassed the $1 billion mark, with more than $290 million of that going towards cell-based meat, according to a recent report from FAIRR.

Price parity still being an issue, it will be a while yet before consumers start actually bringing home the cell-based bacon. Mission Barns upcoming taste test should tell us more about how devoted bacon fans will react to cell-based versions of their favorite meat. 

New Age Meats Raises Another $2M for Cell-Based Pork

Cultivated meat startup New Age Meats (NAM) announced today it has raised a $2 million seed extension round led by TechU Ventures. The round follows the NAM’s $2.7 million seed round from earlier this year and brings the company’s total funding to $5 million.

The Berkeley, CA company is currently developing a cell-based pork sausage and says the new funds will go towards this development. In particular, that includes bringing the price point of its product down. 

NAM will also use the funds to further build out its Food Science department, which it says is focused on getting the key attributes — taste, smell, texture, etc. — of its cell-based pork as close to the real thing as possible. On that note, the company held a taste test for its pork back in 2018 and received largely positive reviews. 

Another key element to NAM’s methods is its use of automation to optimize bioreactors and essentially grow its meat faster. Part of the new funding will go towards implementing more of this automation, as well as robotics, to speed up both the research and development processes. 

Investment in cell-based meat has already reached over $1 billion in 2020 so far, which is almost double what it was for all of 2019. Cell-based meat makes up a small-but-significant portion of that investment, and NAM’s seed extension follows funding news from BlueNalu, Integriculture, and others. 

Though the company didn’t provide a timeframe, NAM said today it plans to eventually build out a pilot facility, scale product development and production, and bring its first products to market.

As Cell-Based Protein Becomes a Reality, What to Call it Gets Increasingly Important

Last week we briefly covered news about a Rutgers study that found “cell-based” the best descriptor for lab-grown seafood products. Further thought and reading on the matter leads me to believe the study’s findings have implications for labeling across all of the cell-based protein space, not just seafood.

Here’s a quick recap: A new study by Rutgers in the Journal of Food Science recommends “Companies seeking to commercialize seafood products made from the cells of fish or shellfish should use the term ‘cell-based’ on product labels.”

The study, commissioned by cell-based seafood company BlueNalu, claims to be the first of its kind evaluating how to label alternative seafood products in a way that both appeals to consumers and meets regulatory requirements around product naming. The study was done by William Hallman, a professor who chairs the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers-New Brunswick’s School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. He noted this week that participants in the study were able to tell the label “cell-based” apart from ones like “wild caught” or “farm raised,” and that those participants still believed the cell-based products were as nutritious as the others. 

Other names tested in the study were “cell-cultured seafood” and “cultivated seafood,” as well as phrases like “cultivated from the cells of ____” and “grown directly from the cells of ____.”

It’s not hard to understand why “cell-based seafood” resonates the most with consumers. The above phrases lack the kind of concise description needed for food products, and terms like “cultivated seafood” are rather muddy in terms of describing what goes into making the product. 

This question of labeling is only going to get bigger as cell-based proteins move further from concept and into a culinary reality for average consumers. We’ve already seen this play out to some degree with plant-based proteins. About a year ago, large meat corporations were pushing hard to ban their plant-based counterparts from using words like “burgers” and “sausages” on packaging. As we wrote previously, “Big Meat trying to quash alterna-meats’ popularity by telling companies how they can or can’t label themselves feels protectionist and ineffective, not to mention desperate, at this point.” 

And that was before the pandemic. Since COVID-19 hit and shed an uncomfortably bright light on issues in traditional meat production, demand for alternative proteins has been through the roof. Just this week, investment network FAIRR released a report stating investment in alt-protein for the first half of 2020 is nearly double the amount for all of 2019. That includes cell-based protein.

Whether Big Seafood pushes back on labeling now that more cell-based seafood is coming to market remains to be seen. It will certainly have a lot of opponents if it does. BlueNalu just announced a new facility designed for commercial production of its alt-seafood products. Wild Type raised a $12.5 million Series A round last year for its cultured salmon, and Shiok Meats just partnered with Integriculture to scale up production of lab-grown shrimp. And those are only the seafood-focused players in the cell-cultured protein space.

Big Seafood aside, effective labeling of all these products — and all cell-based protein products, really — will be key to appealing to new consumers who may not have previously known about cell-based meat and dairy, and that it’s just as nutritious as the real deal. When it comes to finding a name for these alt-protein items, that could be the most difficult and most rewarding challenge companies face.  

FAIRR: Investment in Alternative Protein Has Already Reached $1.1B in 2020

Investment in alternative protein for the first half of 2020 is almost double what it was for the whole of 2019, according to a new report by investor network FAIRR. Between January and the beginning of July of 2020, over $907 million was invested into plant-based foods, compared to $457 for the whole of 2019. More than $290 million has been invested into cell-based meat so far in 2020. The entire market for alternative protein is expected to grow to $17.9 billion by 2025.

The U.S. is still the largest market for alt-protein, reaching almost $5 billion in sales in 2019, $1 billion of those for meat alternatives. China’s is also a huge market for alternative proteins, particularly when it comes to meat replacements. 

We’ve noted this growth frequently over the last few months, and FAIRR’s report lays out some of the main drivers behind consumers’ insatiable appetites for non-animal protein. There’s the aforementioned uptick in investment, a point supported by a recent slew of news announcements. In the last week alone, Better Meat Co. raised $1 million, Joywell Foods raised $6.9 million, and plant-based cheese company Grounded raised $1.74 million.

FAIRR also calls out the rise of plant-based seafood products and a decrease in production costs for manufacturers as market drivers, along with an increase in companies using alt-protein to diversify their product lines. Last year saw a number of major milestones that brought these issues further into the light and helped alt-protein go mainstream. For instance, Nestlé opened its own production facility for plant-based meat in May of this year. UK grocer Sainsbury’s launched its own line of plant-based products in early 2020. Meanwhile, Starbucks, KFC, and a host of other QSRs have rushed to add plant-based offerings to their menus.

Then, of course, we have the pandemic to thank for this massive uptick in demand for alternative protein. “Consumers worldwide are rethinking how they eat and what they eat amidst supply chain disruptions and public concern over the link between meat production and viral diseases,” the report states.

Across the board, investment in food tech is up since the start of the pandemic, having reached $4.8 billion in the first half of 2020 according to a report from Finistere. This too is in response to the current global health crisis.

But FAIRR also calls COVID-19 “only the latest straw on the camel’s back” when it comes to alt-proteins. Pre-pandemic, our heavy reliance on animal-based proteins was already under scrutiny because of animal supply chains’ negative impact on the environment, not to mention human health. Throw a zoonotic pathogen in there (which COVID-19 is widely believed to be), and it’s easy to see why the pandemic has accelerated the demand for animal-free protein sources.

What’s next? Cell-based protein, probably. While that sector has made up a much smaller portion of investments in the first half of 2020, those dollars are nonetheless pouring in. As the pandemic wrecks more havoc on our food system and sheds light on the importance of finding new sources of protein, expect the interest in cell-based proteins to continue its acceleration.

Finistere: Food Tech Investment Reached $4.8B in the First Half of 2020

An unusually high volume of food tech investment news has kept us on our toes all summer, and we’re not the only ones to notice. Food tech VC firm Finistere Ventures said today that 2020 so far as been an “extraordinary” investment time for both food tech and agtech, with much of that investment happening smack dab in the middle of the pandemic. More importantly and according to the firm’s latest findings, much of the capital is actually a direct reaction to the pandemic. Finistere, whose investment portfolio includes Memphis Meats, CropX, and Good Eggs, released the findings today in collaboration with PitchBook Data, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

For the first two quarters of 2020, total agtech investment reached $2.2 billion compared to the $2.7 billion raised for the entirety of 2019. While slightly lower, food tech investment reached $4.8 billion during the first two quarters of 2020 compared to $7 billion for all of 2019, and that number will continue to rise rapidly (see below). 

Large investments, what Finistere calls “mega rounds” of more than $100 million have continued and encompassed all of the top 10 food tech investments and 50 percent of the top agtech investments. 

Other notable points, as quoted directly from the report, include:

  • Investors are helping startups push their funding needs outside the “Covid zone” and build more evidence of their value as future growth investors will be looking for signals of scalability.
  • Rounds led by new investors have been a lesser part of the 2020 total, which is likely to continue while capital managers take stock of the market conditions.
  • While early-stage Agtech has seen a decrease in pre-money valuations, valuations for late-stage financings continued to increase in 2020 despite the current pandemic. Valuations will be under pressure looking forward and will likely require a year or more for the true impact of Covid to manifest in this metric.

Food tech, in particular, has a promising outlook right now, thanks in no small part to consumers’ collective behavioral shift to eating more at home. “It is our view that there will be lasting and persistent changes to consumer behavior in at-home consumption, and interesting to note this is the first year since 1994 that restaurant share of food consumption dropped versus in-home,” the report stated.

Other activity around the food tech sector supports this idea. Online grocery sales have experienced record highs since the start of the pandemic. Many companies, from plant-based meat producers to snack brands, have launched direct-to-consumer channels in response to this shift away from public spaces and into the consumer home. And with the state of the restaurant industry still very much in flux, these behaviors aren’t likely to change anytime soon.

Finistere noted that for food tech, retaining customers and growing margins will be important to future funding rounds.

Agtech will have a bit more of an uphill climb. The report states that agtech companies “are likely to face a turbulent outlook for 2021,” citing farming margins, labor costs, trade conflicts, and pressure to develop more sustainable farming methods as factors. The industry should expect much consolidation in the future.