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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

The New CPG

MicroSalt Reformulates Salt So You Use Less of It

It’s not until you start reading food labels that you realize just how much salt is in what we eat. It’s everywhere!

MicroSalt aims to reduce the amount of salt we consume by changing up salt delivery itself, and the company is running an equity crowdfunding campaign to help expand its market presence. MicroSalt’s crowdfunding prospectus describes its product as:

…a particle coated with nano-sized salt crystals that range in size from 0.2 um (microns) to 0.6 um. The carrier (usually maltodextrin) simply acts as a vehicle molecule to deliver the small salt crystals. These salt crystals naturally attach to the carrier through electrostatic forces. When consumed, MicroSalt® dissolves almost immediately due to the extremely small size of its crystals, which is what allows for that authentic, salty flavor.

MicroSalt says that its product can deliver the same amount of flavor using 50 percent less sodium compared to table salt. MicroSalt has created its own line of potato chips using this technology called SaltMe!, but its main business is to sell its salt as an ingredient to other packaged foods companies.

The company says that MicroSalt is better than other reduced sodium products on the market because current alternatives use potassium chloride. But potassium chloride isn’t the same salt and has a different flavor. MicroSalt still uses salt, just in a different form.

MicroSalt’s approach to reducing salt use is similar to DouxMatok’s method for reducing sugar consumption. DouxMatok makes a “more efficient” sugar by binding it to silica, the result of which is better diffusion on our tongues so you can use up to 40 percent less sugar in whatever you’re making.

You can buy SaltMe chips online, where they cost roughly $20 for a six-pack of, 5 oz. bags (they are also available in 71 stores across the Northeaster U.S. and Texas). While this is a little pricier than box of Lays, SaltMe’s pricing seems to be in-line with other specialty chips on the market.

As of this writing, MicroSalt has raised more than $380,000 of its $750,000 Seed round equity crowdfunding goal. MicroSalt plans to expand into Mexico and Latin America throughout 2021, and into Asia in 2023. The company says it is already developing an 80 percent less salt version of its product.

Siggi’s Launches a ‘Palate Training Kit’ to Help Consumers Cut Sugar Intake

If you regularly partake of the standard American diet, there’s a good chance your palate is pretty desensitized to the natural flavor of a lot of foods. The more sugar we consume, the more desensitized our palates become, and you don’t need me to tell you a lot of our food is packed with added sugars.

But reseting your palate is not an overnight process. With that in mind, Siggi’s, a company best known for its Icelandic skyr cultured dairy products, has released what it’s calling a “Palate Training Kit.”

It sounds complex, but the concept is actually quite straightforward and low-tech: follow some tips, tricks, and experiments provided by the company and, over the course of a few months, you can retrain your palate to crave less refined sugar. 

Said kit is not full of food tech bells and whistles, either. Instead, it comes with a guide full of tips on how to retrain your palate, starting with simple steps like gradually reducing the amount of sugar in your food by reading more labels and making healthier choices. (For example, use cinnamon as a topper instead of sugar on your oatmeal.)

From there, users can do activities geared towards helping them fully taste their food, such as wearing an eye mask during a meal to activate your other senses to the eating process. The kit also includes a timer and a month’s supply of Siggi’s in various flavors. Users are encouraged to time themselves for 15 seconds while eating a bit of skyr in order to pay better attention to flavors, texture, color, and other elements. 

While there’s undeniably a layer of “marketing gimmick” here, there is also a decent amount of consumer education bundled into the package. Americans consume about 22 teaspoons of added sugar per day, largely because of its inclusion in packaged and processed goods. Because of that, our palates believe certain foods should be sweeter than they naturally are.

For example, at an online event this week showing off the kit, Siggi’s founder Siggi Hilmarsson suggested that yogurt in its more natural form is meant to have a tart, slightly sour taste. You wouldn’t know that from eating a can of Yoplait, though (18 grams of sugar per serving).

Hilmarsson pointed out that one of the more difficult parts of retraining the human palate is that it takes time, sometimes up to three months or more. The result, however, is that foods that once tasted normal (think fancy Starbucks drinks or boxed cereal) will start to taste way too sweet.

As is always the case with consumer education, there’s a big transition between raising awareness and enacting real behavioral change. Whether a simple kit like the one Siggi’s just released can do the trick is partly a matter of how motivated the user is in the first place. Nonetheless, it’s another piece of useful information about how we can improve our eating habits over time.  

The kit includes a “flavor desensitization reversal guide,” an eyemask, a timer, a journal, a spoon, and 30 days’ worth of Siggi’s yogurt in various flavors (including plain). The package is available for $30 directly from Siggi’s.

Goodfish Raises $4M for Upcycled Salmon Snacks

Goodfish, a company that upcycles salmon skin by turning it into snack foods, announced today it has closed a $4 million Series A investment round. The round was led by AF Ventures and Siddhi Capital. In a press release sent to The Spoon, the company said it will use the new funds to “support the surging demand for its products, deepen R&D capability and accelerate product innovation.”

Goodfish was started by the founders of beverage company Harmless Harvest, and products became available for online purchase this year. The snacks resemble crunchy chips in texture and are made from the reclaimed skins of Wild Alaskan Sockeye that would normally go to waste. The idea is to create a chip-like snack with far more health benefits (clean protein and marine collagen among them) and far fewer calories. The skins are sourced from well-regulated fisheries in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Cofounder Justin Guilbert, said in today’s press release that Goodfish’s online-only distribution strategy “paid off well above expectations” and led to an earlier fundraised than expected. Hence the close of the Series A round today. 

Given that folks have been snacking their way through this pandemic, it’s no surprise companies offering healthier alternatives are getting noticed (and receiving funding). Others include Renewal Mill, which uses upcycled okara flour to make cookies, plant-based pork rind-maker Pig Out, and jerky made from jackfruit by a company called Jack and Tom.

Goodfish did not say whether it plans to eventually expand to brick-and-mortar stores for distribution. For now, products are available via the company’s own direct-to-consumer website. 

Alt-Meat, Fancy Wines, and Chili’s: Black Friday/Cyber Monday Direct-to-Consumer Deals

So far, 2020 has been the year of the direct-to-consumer boom when it comes to food and beverage products, with major CPGs, restaurants, plant-based meat companies, and others setting up their own e-commerce sites to better serve homebound customers.

It follows, then, that this year’s enormous crop of Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals is chock full of offers from these companies’ sites, along with deals for meals, booze, and even groceries. And since we’re all stuck at home this year and going out to shop on Friday seems like a terrible idea as far as the pandemic is concerned, here’s a rundown of some of our favorite e-commerce food and bev deals happening over the next few days.

All Beyond Meat products on the company’s newly launched direct-to-consumer e-commerce store will be 20 percent off from 6 a.m. EST to 11:59 p.m. PST on Cyber Monday, Nov. 30. Bonus: if you’re one of the first 500 orders, you get a free Beyond Meat apron.

DoorDash just launched a gifting feature on its app that lets users send a food gift to another person. From now through Black Friday, Nov. 27, every customer that gives a gift of $20 or more gets $10 off their next order on DoorDash or Caviar.

Meat subscription service Crowd Cow is offering 20 percent off on a variety of meats and fish you can order via the Crowd Cow website. At the moment, there’s a healthy variety of shrimp, crap, steak, ground beef, cod, halibut and more available, and the company is adding new items to the sale every day. 

If you’re curious about testing out a meal kit, now might be the time to do so. A number of services are offering Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals this year. A couple notables are HelloFresh, which will give you $90 off your first five boxes, and Hungryroot, which will will offer 30 percent off your first delivery of $99 and throw in a free pack of almond chickpea cookie dough.

For all you winos, plenty of online retailers and subscription services are offering deals on vino. First-time buyers on Winc get 50 percent off their first order. Usual wines has a 21 percent discount going on orders of 12 bottles or more. Vinebox, meanwhile, is offering a 20 percent discount off its 12 Nights of Wine package through Nov. 30.

BonBowl, which makes an induction cooktop and accompanying bowl, is running a $50 off sale on Black Friday for orders placed via the BonBowl website. If you need further convincing this is a good purchase, check my full review of the device.

Finally, restaurants, especially chains, are always offering deals, and Black Friday/Cyber Monday is no exception. The folks at Delish have a solid rundown of these deals, which include chains like Peet’s Coffee, McAlister’s Deli, and, of course, Chili’s. Because it’s not a holiday if Chili’s isn’t somehow involved.

PepsiCo Is Taking Applications for Its Fifth Annual Greenhouse Accelerator Program

PepsiCo is now taking applications for the fifth installment of its Greenhouse Accelerator Program, which looks for young startups reinventing in the food and beverage industry. One major focus for this year’s cohort will be on food innovations and technologies that “improve the aging process through wellness and health management,” according to a press release sent to The Spoon. 

The program selects 10 companies to participate in the six-month-long program. Each startup gets a $20,000 grant and the opportunity to work with mentors, who will advise on product and brand development, supply chain management, customer acquisition, and other areas of running a food business. One company will be rewarded a $100,000 grant at the end of the program. 

Companies worldwide are eligible for the program. They must have a product or service currently available in the market, and have more than $1 million.

This year, PepsiCo’s program is looking for companies addressing issues around health, wellness, and aging. According to the Greenhouse Accelerator website, some focus areas include products that assist with tracking and managing wellness, functional ingredients, wearables that promote health awareness, and other innovations that encourage healthy diets and lifestyles.

The focus makes sense, given the ongoing global health crisis that has disrupted the way people both shop and eat for food. Snacking may be on the rise, but so too is a need for healthier food choices. Making health and wellness more accessible is in turn becoming a priority for many companies in the food industry.

PepsiCo will select the 10 companies for this cohort in January 2021. The application process is open until December 9.

Correction: An earlier version of this post stated that the Greenhouse Accelerator Program was only open to companies in the U.S. and Canada.

NotCo’s Milk Alternative Launches in the U.S. Today

Chile-based food tech company NotCo, best known for its alt-protein products, announced today it is launching its plant-based milk alternative in Whole Foods stores across the U.S. These alt-milk products will be available in Whole and Reduced Fat varieties at stores as of today, according to a press release from NotCo sent to The Spoon.

The launch follows an $85 million Series C funding round from September, an investment the company said would help NotCo expand internationally through both retail and restaurant partnerships. Previously, NotCo raised $30 million in 2019 from a pool of investors that included Amazon head honcho Jeff Bezos. The company’s total funding to date is $115 million.

All that funding and expansion aside, the company has undergone some changes in the last year, including having to restructure its business and do layoffs. NotCo also shut down its Santiago-based production plant for its NotMayo product, passing production of that item on to an unnamed third party. Currently, the NotCo website only lists the milk alternative under its products. A spokesperson for the company told The Spoon that the milk products are currently for sale across Latin America.

Like other milk alternatives out there, NotMilk is comprised of a number of plant sources, pea protein being the main one. Pineapple juice concentrate, cabbage juice concentrate, and chicory root fiber are others. NotCo claims that, with these ingredients as well as AI and machine-learning algorithms, it is able to recreate the taste, texture, and mouthfeel of regular ol’ milk. As of today, U.S. consumers can see how it stacks up in terms of those elements to other choices already in grocery stores.

On that note, NotCo joins the likes of Oatly, Take Two, and others that already have plant-based milk alternatives in the U.S. market. Further down the line, all these companies may have to compete with Impossible, which is developing its own milk alternative. Whether other alt-protein heavyweights like Perfect Day and Eat Just ever come to market with milk alternatives remains to be seen. Regardless, NotCo faces more than a little healthy competition when it comes to retail shelves in the U.S.  

Coca-Cola Unveils a Prototype for Paper Bottles

Beverage giant Coca-Cola recently unveiled a prototype for its first-ever paper bottle, the first step in the company’s goal to create a bottle that can be recycled like any other type of paper product (h/t Food Navigator).

This first-generation prototype, for which Coca-Cola partnered with paper bottle company Paboco, still contains some plastic. Coca-Cola explained in a blog post that the prototype is made up of a paper shell with a plastic closure and plastic liner. Though the liner and closure are made from “100% recycled plastic that can be recycled again after use,” the company says its next step is to create a bottle that does not need the plastic liner.

The world’s plastic problem is now considered one of the biggest environmental threats out there, with an estimated 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the oceans alone. Big Food (and Bev) is under pressure to come up with more sustainable packaging options for their products.

Even so, any bottle containing a CPG beverage has to adhere to certain standards around safety and storage capabilities of packaging, hence the reason Coca-Cola can’t immediately switch to using just any paper bottle. The company says it is currently “putting the bottle through comprehensive testing in the lab to see how it performs in the refrigerator, how strong it is, and how well it protects the drink inside.”

The paper bottles won’t be available on grocery store shelves any time soon, but Coca-Cola’s prototype is another step in that direction. It follows efforts from Coke competitor PepsiCo and spirits brand Diageo, both companies that plan to release paper bottles in 2021.

 

The DFA CoLab Accelerator Is Now Taking Applications for All Things Dairy Tech

Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) announced this week that applications are open for its 2021 accelerator program, newly renamed the DFA CoLab Accelerator. Any early-stage food product company working in some portion of the dairy supply chain is welcome to apply, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

The DFA, a decades-old cooperative of U.S. dairy farms, has run the accelerator program for the last five years, using it as a way for startups to get a foothold in agtech and for the dairy industry to keep an ear to the ground when it comes to new technologies and processes. The solutions that come out of this program showcase just how much milage the food industry could actually get out of dairy products. The 2020 cohort, unveiled last May, included, among others, a company that makes sustainable fashion from excess milk and one brewing up premium alcoholic spirits from whey.

“On the food front, the sky is really the limit as long as one of the main ingredients is dairy,” Doug Dresslaer, director of innovation at DFA, said in this week’s press release. 

To that end, the 2021 program is looking for early-stage companies that are “dairy-focused or dairy-based” and using “applications or technologies related to any portion of the dairy value chain.” Some areas include supply chain optimization, traceability, data management, herd health management, and sustainability. 

The 90-day program will be a mix of virtual and onsite training that takes place from April through June, 2021. Participants get mentorship opportunities with DFA executives as well as training around business development, finance, product development, brand building, supply chain logistics, and several other areas of running a business. 

Applications are open through December 29, 2020.

Startup CPG’s Free Databases Help Emerging Brands with 3PL, Logistics and Donations

The phrase “The Passion Economy” refers to the increasing ability for people to build real businesses around whatever they are, well, passionate about (it’s also an excellent book).

And while there are a ton of fledgling founders passionate about food and launching a ton of upstart CPG brands, those same founders probably don’t hold the same zeal for things like logistics or inventory management.

That’s where a trio of free online databases from Startup CPG can help. Startup CPG is a volunteer organization of various experts and founders that provide knowledge, networking and community to small brands. Startup CPG membership is free, and includes access to an ongoing Slack Channel as well as events where members can learn more about things like venture capital, product law and marketing (full disclosure that I have volunteered and spoken at a Startup CPG event).

Earlier this year, Startup CPG created three free databases for its members that serve as national and regional directories for direct to consumer third-party logistics companies, e-commerce retailers where goods can be sold, and places where food about to expire can be donated instead of being destroyed. Last week, the list was migrated to a Google spreadsheet to make it more accessible, and its available to any brand that provides their email address to Startup CPG.

The database was created by Startup CPG volunteers crowdsourcing information and searching the web to include the name of relevant companies/services, as well as things like what regions they serve, the types of food accepted and the appropriate contact to reach out to.

In other words, these databases can help answer a lot of the business type questions a new brand just starting out might have. And with at least some of those questions answered, founders can continue to focus on what they are most passionate about.

Sustainable Food Ventures, a Rolling Fund for Alt-Protein, Launches on AngelList

Impact investor and Wild Earth CEO Ryan Bethencourt and Finless Foods’ former head of science Mariliis Holm unveiled this week a new fund for early-stage founders working in the alternative protein space. Sustainable Food Ventures (SFV) is the first rolling fund on the AngelList platform and will work with cell-based, plant-based, and recombinant companies. The Plant CEO podcast was first to break the news.

The fund specifically looks for young CPG companies working in the cell, plant, and recombinant spaces to make food products more sustainable and better for the planet. SFV clearly states on its website that it does not invest in companies involved with animal agriculture.

As Bethencourt and Holm discussed on the Plant CEO podcast, SFV is a rolling fund, where investments are are made each quarter of the year rather than as a single lump sum. Bethencourt said this approach is “democratizing access to earlier stage investments” because it allows individual investors to contribute smaller amounts of money to a company (e.g., $10,000). Previously, there was “no vehicle” in which to contribute these small amounts.

“I think it’s going to be a huge game-changer for founders who would like to do more to help their fellow founders,” he said. For example, Dr. Sandhya Sriram, cofounder and CEO of Shiok Meats, is already committed to the fund.

The fund will also look for what Bethencourt and Holm call “under-appreciated founders”—that is, women, minorities, and those who don’t fit the age range or geographic location of the average tech startup founder. SFV itself is based in North Carolina, not the typical location for a tech startup.

So far, SFV’s fund has over $1.5 million committed for this quarter and aims to reach a total fund size between $6 million and $10 million over the next year. The fund will invest between $50,000 and $150,000 into each company. 

Both Bethencourt and Holm have a long history in the food tech world. Outside of Wild Earth, Bethencourt has backed  numerous early-stage startups including Shiok Meats, The NotCo, Geltor, and Memphis Meats. Holmes co-founded alt-protein company Nonfood before her work at Finless Foods.

Tastewise Launches Its AI-Powered Food Prediction in the UK

Tastewise, which uses AI to predict consumer food trends, announced today it has launched its platform in the UK and added more localized data to help restaurants and food producers in that region better anticipate consumer eating habits. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, Tastewise has integrated data from 183,000 restaurants and delivery menus, over 2.8 billion social interactions, and 1.2 million online recipes from the UK into its platform.

The Tastewise platform, which launched in February of 2019, helps CPG companies better predict food trends through artificial intelligence (AI). It analyzes consumer touchpoints (think Instagram photos and online recipes) to find not just what foods consumers are eating right now but also their deeper motivations for choosing those foods. When we spoke about a year ago, Tastewise CEO Alon Chen used the example of sauerkraut to illustrate the point: 

“Right now, according to [Chen], it’s a popular food, but the trend is less about raw cabbage and more about the process behind it, which is fermentation . . . Food companies analyzing data via the Tastewise platform can see such data and consider how they might implement fermentation into their offerings.”

Tastewise counts Nestlé, PepsiCo, General Mills, Dole, and other major CPGs among its customers. With today’s launch, UK-based food businesses will also be able to utilize the platform to get more real-time insights into consumer food behavior, which is a must in these pandemic-stricken days, according to Tastewise: “The pandemic has made it clear that it’s imperative to have your finger on today’s pulse each time a decision is made,” Chen said in today’s press release.

Speaking of which: along with the news of its UK launch, Tastewise also released a new report on UK consumer food trends during the pandemic so far. Among them:

  • Sustainable foods are rising 52 percent in popularity year over year, though health and fitness are motivating this trend, not environmental concerns.
  • UK demand for meal kits is up 200 percent.
  • CBD is fading in popularity.

Tastewise is not a sensory platform a la Spoonshot or Climax Foods. However, it is similar in that it leverages AI to help companies bring in-demand products faster by sinking less money into traditional R&D. And given the upheaval the pandemic has caused across the food system, both CPGs and foodservice companies will be leveraging more AI in the future to keep costs down by offering their customers the most relevant items possible. 

Chile’s NotCo Raises $85M to Bring Its Plant-based Proteins to the U.S.

NotCo, a Chilean food tech company known for its alternative protein products, announced today it has closed an $85 million Series C round. The round was led by Future Positive, L Catterton Partners, and General Catalyst. Existing investors include Kaszek Ventures, The Craftory, Bezos Expedition, Endeavor Catalyst, Indie Bio, Humbolt Capital and Maya Capital.

The new funds come as NotCo plans to scale its operations and expand internationally, starting with a move into the U.S. The company said in today’s press release that it is evaluating both retail and restaurant partnerships in the States.

Rather than focus on a single food category, NotCo is developing meat, dairy, and egg alternatives at the same time. The company currently has its NotMilk, NotBurger, NotIceCream, and NotMay in stores around Chile, Brazil, Argentina. It also has deals with Burger King and Papa John’s in Chile. 

To make its plant-based protein products, NotCo uses artificial intelligence to match animal proteins with their ideal plant replacement, pulling from a library of thousands of plant profiles the company has stored up. The idea is to make combinations of plants that will most closely mimc not just the taste of meat or dairy but also the texture, smell, and mouthfeel, among other factors.

This approach has made NotCo one of the biggest players in plant-based protein in Latin America. However, an expansion to the U.S. means NotCo will have to compete with some serious competition in an already crowded alternative protein space that includes some of the industry’s biggest names: Beyond and Impossible in the plant-based meat sector, Eat JUST for eggs, and Perfect Day for dairy. 

International expansion, whether to the U.S. or from it, is a major development in the alternative protein space of late. Beyond, Impossible, and Eat JUST have all announced plans to move into other markets, including Canada and China. Those expansions make sense, given the amount of cash flowing into the sector. The entire alternative protein category has seen an enormous amount of investment in 2020: over $1.1 billion so far, with more than $907 million of that going to plant-based protein.

For its own expansion, NotCo co-founders, Matias Muchnick (CEO) and Karim Pichara (CTO), will be based in the U.S. The company said in a recent interview that it wants to be a $300 million company by 2024, with 70 percent of that business in the U.S.