• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Skip to navigation
Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Events
  • Newsletter
  • Connect
    • Custom Events
    • Slack
    • RSS
    • Send us a Tip
  • Advertise
  • Consulting
  • About
The Spoon
  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Advertise
  • About

Education & Discovery

July 29, 2021

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.  

July 21, 2021

Shiok Meats Closes Bridge Funding Round, Plans R&D Facility for Cultivated Seafood

Cultured seafood company Shiok Meats has raised an undisclosed amount of investment in a bridge funding round from Woowa Brothers Asia Holdings, CJ CheilJedang Corporation, and Vietnamese-based seafood exporter Vinh Hoan Corporation. This brings Shiok Meats’ total funding to date to $30 million, according to a company press release. 

The round also included existing investors IRONGREY, Big Idea Ventures, Twynam Investments, Henry Soesanto, The Alexander Payne Living Trust, Beyond Impact Vegan Partners, Boom Capital Fund, Toyo Seikan Group Holdings, and Mindshift Capital.

While Shiok Meats did not disclose the exact amount of the bridge round, it likely clocked in around the $10 million mark, a figure based on publicly available information about the company’s financials.  

The new funds will go towards building an R&D production facility in Singapore, where the company is based. To date, Shiok Meats has developed cultivated shrimp and lobster, and aims to eventually produce those products at scale via its production facility.

Several other cultivated protein companies, including Future Meat, MeaTech 3D, and fellow cultured-seafood company Willdtype, have also announced production facilities over the last few months. BlueNalu, another seafood-focused company, announced a production facility back in 2020 that is slated to be operational towards the end of this year.

For its part, Shiok Meats says it plans to launch in Singapore by 2023 at the latest. The company received the prestigious Startup SG Tech Proof-of-Value grant, which helps companies fast-track development of their technologies/products and which could help Shiok Meats get to market faster.

In Singapore, at least, Shiok already has competition. San Francisco, California-based Eat Just nabbed the world’s first-ever regulatory approval to sell cultivated meat from Singapore and is currently selling its “chicken” at restaurants in the city-state.   

July 20, 2021

Aromyx Raises $10M for its Digital Scent and Taste Technology

Sensory data company Aromyx announced today that it has raised a $10 million Series A round of funding led by Rabo Food&Ag Innovation Fund and SOZO Ventures, with participation from existing investors Ulu Ventures, Radicle Growth, Capital Energy and Merus Capital.

Aromyx creates sensing technology that digitizes and quantifies information from the human nose and tongue receptors. The company describes its technology on its website like this:

Through our sensor products, human receptors respond to a given odor or flavor sample and then relay information about its quality—such as whether it’s pleasant, contaminated or toxic. Our algorithms measure and quantitatively represent the raw data in the form of digital signatures. These signatures are uploaded into a central scent cloud, which resembles a comprehensive library of the brain’s own smell and taste associations.

Aromyx says it has created the largest database of human receptors, ingredients/chemicals and real-world word descriptions. Companies developing new food and beverages can test their products and ingredients with these electronic receptors to understand how a person would perceive that product. So a new snack chip placed in Aromyx sensory robot (see above) would deliver results like “smokey,” or “buttery,” or “grassy,” and the product makeup could then be adjusted to achieve the desired result.

It may seem easy to equate Aromyx with other digital olfactory startups in the space such as Aryballe and Koniku, each of which make electronic “smelling” devices. But Aromyx is also akin to flavor combination and discovery platforms like Spoonshot, which breaks down flavors and labels food components to help CPG companies figure out novel ingredient combinations for new products. In its press announcement, Aromyx said that it tested more than 100 products for its customers in 2020 and will triple that number in 2021.

Aromyx said that it will use its new funding to increase its capacity and automation capabilities, improve its identification algorithms and hire out its lab and software teams.

July 14, 2021

NASA Is Growing Chile Peppers In Space

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

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

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

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

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

July 13, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 13, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 6, 2021

MeaTech Says It Will Develop Cultured Pork Products

Israel-based alt-protein company MeaTech 3D has begun research and development activities around cultivated pork, the company announced today. 

Initial activities will focus largely on developing porcine cell lines, which the company says could expand its number of potential addressable markets since pork is the most widely consumed meat in the world. The porcine cell lines will add to MeaTech’s existing cell ag efforts, including cell lines for beef and chicken.

In May of this year, the company announced plans for a pilot production facility that will first be used to increase the production of its cultured fat product and then go on to produce entire cuts of cultivated meat using the company’s 3D bioprinting technology. 

Cell lines are a crucial step in the process of making cultivated meat, since cells are the starting inputs for any eventual product. However, creating new cell lines is an expensive and time-consuming process, and researchers are still figuring out which types of cells are best suited for the kind of large-scale manufacturing most cultured meat companies are aspiring to eventually do.

Most of those companies so far have stuck to developing cultured beef or chicken products, not pork. Despite the latter being the world’s most most popular meat, a very small handful of companies is actually focused on that particular protein right now. Future Meat Technologies, also based in Israel, says its newly opened production facility is producing cultured pork. Dutch startup Meatable, New Age Meats, and Higher Steaks have also done pork prototypes during the last few years. 

MeaTech’s specific focus on cell line development will further set it apart from the masses as more companies announce plans to explore cultured pork products in the future.

July 6, 2021

How AppHarvest Is Investing in the First Generation of High-Tech Farmers

Agriculture may have been slower to digitize than other parts of the food sector, but these days a lot of folks would agree artificial intelligence, automation, and other technologies have a role to play in the future of farming. The presence of such things means farming will soon require lots of new skills, which in turn means training a whole new generation on a whole new set of tools. It means, in the words of AppHarvest’s founder and CEO Jonathan Webb (pictured above), “getting young people to really visualize what agriculture is” in a way they haven’t before.

Standing under a tent in the middle of a downpour outside Elliott County High School in Sandy Hook, Kentucky recently, Webb explained to me how his company is training the next generation of farmers while simultaneously investing in the company’s own future as a high-tech agricultural powerhouse.

We, along with with students, parents, teachers, and Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, were at the launch for the latest unit of AppHarvest’s high-tech educational container farm program, which teaches high-tech farming to Eastern Kentucky high-school students. Launched back in 2018, the program retrofits old shipping containers to house controlled-environment vertical farms that grow leafy greens. Farms at each school serve as hands-on agricultural classrooms where students can learn not just horticulture but also how to use the technologies powering the next wave of farming innovations around automation, connectivity, and data.

“What we’re doing here is trying to plant the seeds of what it means to be in an exciting industry and get that groundswell early,” Webb told me. 

He was talking specifically about the container farm program but might as well have been referring to the entire company’s MO. AppHarvest, itself a product of Eastern Kentucky, is both a Public Benefit Corporation and a Certified B Corporation, which means the company has to strike a balance between profit and less measurable purposes like environmental impact, transparency, and social good. 

The company’s main business is headquartered about an hour away from Elliott County High School, in Morehead, Kentucky, where AppHarvest operates a 60-acre high-tech greenhouse that grows different varieties of tomatoes. Two additional farms, one for leafy greens and another for tomatoes, are under construction, and the company just broke ground on a couple more last month. All of these farms provide or will provide produce for restaurants and grocery retailers within a day’s drive. They will also provide jobs for a local community that’s seen unemployment rise as the coal industry declines.

The high school container farms are altogether smaller and somewhat different in terms setup and technical specs, but the idea is the same: grow crops in a controlled environment and use technology to improve plant yield, quality, and nutrition profile. In doing so, people from the community get an opportunity to learn the kinds of skills that will be relevant as agriculture gets more and more digitized.

“We’ve tried to say at AppHarvest we’re not building facilities, we’re building an ecosystem,” said Webb. “Obviously our large production facility is the core critical center piece of that, but us investing in a high school education, we’re truly trying to create an ecosystem that includes facilities and the brainpower to be able to operate the facilities.”

This isn’t just feel-good talk, either. Technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, sensors, and analytics are coming to agriculture in response to multiple problems looming in the near future for the global food system. As McKinsey notes, “Demand for food is growing at the same time the supply side faces constraints in land and farming inputs.” With a population expected to grow to 9.7 billion by 2050, the planet needs to produce around 70 percent more available calories. At the same time, inputs like water supply and arable land are shrinking, raising costs for farming and negatively impacting an already burdened planet.

Part of the promise of controlled environment agriculture formats like high-tech greenhouses and container vertical farms is that they can grow more food faster, at a higher quality, and closer to the buying public. Many of these facilities operate via hydroponics systems that recirculate water, saving on that resource. (AppHarvest’s greenhouse runs off rainwater collected from the facility’s roof.) In the case of vertical farming, less land is required because plants are stacked. AppHarvest’s container farms, for example, can pack three to five acres of leafy greens into a forty-foot-long shipping container. Other large-scale vertical farms a la Kalera or Plenty are growing pounds of greens that number in the millions and also exploring additional crops such as berries.

Most individuals in this industry I’ve spoken to agree that indoor farming isn’t “the savior” that will wholly replace traditional agriculture. Nor was it never meant to be. Rather, greenhouse growers, vertical farm companies, and those operating container farms believe we need all of these formats working together and alongside traditional agriculture practices to try and resolve the above issues.

One of the many things needed to make that a reality is a new generation of young people interested in farming as a career and able to navigate the technical as well as horticultural aspects of agriculture. 

Right now, that’s a challenge. “We don’t have our brightest young people inspired to go into agriculture,” said Webb, adding that the issue is, “How do we inspire them early to get into agriculture and the technology sphere of agriculture?”

AppHarvest started investing in its education program before its main facility was ever complete, spending $200,000 of its initial $1 million investment on the program. “I’m not sure if there’s ever been a venture-backed company that’s taken 20 percent of their raised proceeds early and invested in education,” said Webb.

In 2021, AppHarvest has five different container farm programs operating at Eastern Kentucky high schools, all of them operating independently but also networked together, just as AppHarvest’s larger farms will eventually be networked. 

Students learn a huge range of skills working on these farms, from horticultural-related ones like seeding and harvesting to technology management across multiple farms to food safety, data entry, marketing, packaging, and creating a budget. Via a screen inside the farm, students can learn to track the pH levels of plants, carbon dioxide levels, temperature, humidity, and all the other variables present in a farm. And since farms from every high school are networked together, students can view one another’s activity. Elliott County High can see data from Shelby Valley High School in Pike County and vice versa, for example.

Webb says the farms are also an opportunity for schools and students to collaborate using different skillsets, whether technological, horticultural, or otherwise. “Some students might have more of a background or interest in horticulture. Some students might have more of a background or interest in craftsmanship. All we’re trying to do now is say, ‘Here, it’s your thing, bring it to life, and openly share information.’”

And while there’s no pressure, the hope is that some of these students eventually bring their skillsets to AppHarvest’s main operations and help improve them, along with indoor ag, over the coming years. “Hopefully in four years we have students that might end up at MIT. And then they’re telling us what to do,” said Webb, adding that the ROI here isn’t quick. The true impacts of the company’s investment in school programs probably won’t be seen for another five of six years, which is a few lifetimes when we’re talking about tech. 

“We get judged on quarterly earning calls, [but] that’s not the way I think,” he said. “I want us to think, first decade, second decade, third decade, and these are very long-term investments.”

He hopes to see more tech companies investing in high schools, and AppHarvest isn’t quite the lone wolf when it comes to this. Freight Farms, which deals exclusively in container farms, has a partnership with Sodexo to bring its units to K-12 schools and universities in the U.S. AeroFarms, also a Certified B Corp., has partnerships with various schools and community centers, too.

For AppHarvest, the educational program is is an integral part of the operation, and one tied to the company’s long-term success. “It’s not a ‘nice to have,'” Webb told me. “It’s something we truly believe is going to give our company a competitive advantage medium to long term.” 

July 5, 2021

AeroFarms Talks R&D in the UAE for Vertical Farming

One place that gets a lot of attention these days when it comes to food tech initiatives is the United Arab Emirates. Like Singapore, the country is aggressively pursuing food and ag tech initiatives as a way to improve food security and quality within its own borders and in doing so become a more self-sufficient food producer.

The UAE got another big agrifood boost recently when New Jersey-based vertical farming company AeroFarms announced that its UAE-based subsidiary AeroFarms AgX LTD had started construction on an R&D facility in Abu Dhabi. The center will focus on new developments for indoor ag and controlled environment farming, and is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2022.

“The region aligns very well with our value proposition,” Aerofarms cofounder and CEO David Rosenberg explained to The Spoon recently. “The UAE imports 90 percent of their crops, so there’s a food security issue. They also have relatively cheap energy.” He added that a facility for R&D in the country gives Aerofarms a “strong regional presence” from which it can expand to other areas in the Middle East and beyond. 

There’s certainly enough opportunity for indoor agriculture in this part of the world. Because of the desert climate, the UAE and other countries in the Middle East deal with a lack of arable land as well as water scarcity. Vertical farming operations like those of AeroFarms or another player, Vertical Field, claim to use significantly less water than traditional outdoor agriculture. And because of the vertical nature of the grow systems (plant trays are literally stacked inside a giant warehouse-like setting), companies can pack more plants into less space than would be possible on a horizontal field.

According to Rosenberg, the R&D center isn’t really to figure out how to grow food in the desert (“We could grow anywhere in the world”) so much as it is about growing plants specific to Middle Eastern eating habits in general. He cites mint and parsley, two popular foods in the region, as examples. Having an R&D center that focused on optimizing the grow cycle for these plants could increase quality, yield, and nutritional profile. 

The other goal of the forthcoming new center will be to apply the learnings discovered there to other parts of the region in the future. That includes research in areas like plant science, vertical farming and automation, accelerating innovation cycles and commercializing products.

Rosenberg says that versus a greenhouse, his company’s vertical farms can grow plants faster, producing around 26 harvests per year instead of 12 to 16. Right now, Aerofarms is best known for leafy greens, but the company has its sights set on other crops, too. In April of this year it announced a deal with Chile-based berry producer and distributor Hortifrut to research and develop blueberry and caneberry production. 

“Today we’re most known for leafy greens, but behind the scenes, we’re working with some of the biggest ag tech companies in the world to improve their genetics,” says Rosenberg. He adds that AeroFarms has grown 70 different varieties of berries, and that of the 550 different plants the company has grown, “probably 350 of them are in the leafy greens category.” He declined to elaborate on other crops, but suggested that information might surface soon to the public.

Last year, the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) invested $150 million in a few ag tech companies, AeroFarms being one of them. The forthcoming R&D facility will be one tangible result of that investment. 

AeroFarms announced in March its intention to go public via SPAC with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. 

June 30, 2021

Wageningen University Launches the Third Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge

Netherlands-based Wageningen University is holding the third edition of its Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge, where international teams compete to grow crops in greenhouses using AI and automation. 

A first and second edition of the challenge grew cucumbers and tomatoes, respectively. For both of those crops, a level of autonomy was involved, though human intervention was still required during the grow process. The third edition, where teams will grow lettuce, differs in that participants must figure out how to grow their crops from seed using a fully automated algorithm.

Wageningen said in a post that the first and second editions of the challenge have shown “that artificial intelligence can potentially be superior to human intelligence, hence can potentially control indoor farming in the future. The goal of the third challenge will be fully automated control.”

Wageningen is one of Europe’s most well-known innovation centers when it comes to food, food tech, and food innovation. Scientists and researchers from here work on everything from alternative proteins to biodiversity initiatives to gene-editing technologies and, of course, greenhouse innovation.

One of the goals of the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge is to “connect the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and food production, create more knowledge, make this knowledge publicly available and thus contribute to the worldwide efforts of making our food systems more sustainable.”

Part 1 of the competition is an online challenge meant to test participants’ machine learning and computer vision skills, as well as attract talent from the realm of AI into the horticulture space. Part 1 is currently underway and will wrap on July 14 when a winner is chosen. Following that will be a 24-hour hackathon, which anyone can join, even if they did not participate in Part 1. Five teams will be selected from this session to go on to compete in Part 3, the actual greenhouse challenge.  

For the latter, each participating team will be assigned one compartment inside Wageningen’s high-tech greenhouse facility. All compartments are identical and have different actuators that control the grow conditions inside: heating and shading systems, lighting, water input, etc. Compartments are also equipped with sensors to measure temperature, CO2 levels, PAR light, pH and the electrical conductivity of fertigation water. Data from these sensors can be used to inform the algorithms to decide on the compartment’s control settings.  

Teams will be allowed to do a test cycle with a first crop before they must transition to growing the lettuce using fully autonomous algorithms “make choices with respect to the control settings, to remotely control crop growth.” 

Even without automation in play, lettuce is typically a more “hands off” crop than tomatoes or other vegetables. The competition seems not so much about automating indoor farm labor as it is about showing the public the benefits automation can bring in terms of growing plants faster and at higher yields without sacrificing quality. It will also produce more data, which experts have long agreed indoor farming needs more of. 

In the case of Wageningen’s challenge, the public will be able to follow crops’ growth along in real time via a website, and the datasets will eventually be released to the public. The winner of the competition will be the team with “the highest net profit in the end,” according to the challenge rules. 

 

June 29, 2021

Google Launches a Tool to Help Americans Struggling With Food Security

Google launched its new Find Food Support website today, which aims to connect people struggling with food insecurity to resources like food banks, school lunch programs, and food pantries. Google said in a blog post that it worked with No Kid Hungry, FoodFinder, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to capture data on food assistance programs around the country.

Google pointed out in its post today that the COVID-19 pandemic made the problems of hunger and food insecurity worse for many Americans. The number of people without access to “a sufficient quantity of affordable food” rose to 45 million in 2020, a nearly 30 percent increase from 2019.

The company also said that over the last year, Google searches for “food bank near me,” “food stamps application,” “school lunch pick up,” and other similar phrases reached “record highs.” And while anyone could type these terms into a search bar on their own, the Find Food Support tool centralizes all this information and can offer more precise results.

The tool includes a Google Map locator with which a user can find their nearest food bank, school lunch program, or other assistance program. There are currently 90,000 locations across all 50 U.S. states included, with more locations on the way. To find a nearby location, users simply type their address into the search bar and pull up relevant results. 

In addition to the locator, users can also view SNAP benefits in their area, find support for seniors, see state benefit sites, and access assistance hotlines and text lines, among other things. Those that want to donate food, time, and money can also find relevant information via the tool.

The Find Food Support tool follows other efforts in the food industry to connect food insecure individuals with resources. In April of this year, Instacart expanded its EBT SNAP payment integration to three new grocery retailers (though the SNAP payments can only be used for food, not Instacart’s delivery fees). Also in April, the USDA said it is expanding its P-EBT program to cover kids meals for summer months. 

June 22, 2021

S2G Ventures Unveils the First Five Investments for Its Oceans & Seafood Fund

S2G Ventures has invested in five different companies as part of the inaugural investments for its $100 million Oceans & Seafood fund. The point of the new fund is to support companies and entrepreneurs building new systems, solutions, and processes geared towards the “blue economy.”

The World Bank defines the blue economy as “the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystems.” In other words, it calls for a more sustainable approach to doing business when it comes to our oceans and the life within them. Multiple areas are touched by the blue economy, including maritime transport, renewable energy, fisheries, and waste management strategies. Even tourism could play a role.

Via a statement, S2G Managing Director Kate Danaher called sustainably managed ocean ecosystems “a pillar of global environmental recovery, a driver of economic growth, and a foundation for food security and human health.” The firm says its Oceans & Seafood fund is the largest in North America. It will invest in companies helping to “build marine ecosystem resilience, de-risk the ocean supply chain, maximize the value of natural resources and support animal and human health.”

Thus far, companies in S2G’s group of inaugural investments are:

ReelData. Based in Canada, the company makes software it says can increase land-based aquaculture’s profitability, sustainability, and scalability. Initial products include AI-informed feeding systems, biomass estimation and health/stress analytics.

ViAqua Therapeutics. The Israel-based biotech producer makes orally administered RNA-based treatments for shrimp to improve their resistance to disease. S2G says the company has the potential to apply its technology across “all aquaculture species and platforms where cost-effective RNA production and novel delivery systems (such as nano and micro encapsulation) are needed.”

Moleaer. U.S.-based Moleaer has nanobubble tech that can treat water systems, including removing harmful pathogens and increasing recoveries of natural resources. 

Additionally, S2G has invested in two undisclosed companies. One is an “ocean surveillance company” that will track dark vessels and illegal maritime activity. The other is a “fishmeal and oil technology company” based in the U.S. that holds proprietary zero-waste fishmeal technology that could be applied to other parts of protein production in fisheries.

The focus of the overall fund will be divided into three areas: ecosystem resillience, resource optimization, and consumer centricity. S2G said it believes focusing on these areas will improve ocean health while still “generating above average financial returns.”

Previous
Next

Primary Sidebar

Footer

  • About
  • Sponsor the Spoon
  • The Spoon Events
  • Spoon Plus

© 2016–2025 The Spoon. All rights reserved.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
 

Loading Comments...