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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Education & Discovery

Kalera Expands Its Vertical Farm Network to Minnesota

Vertical farming company Kalera today announced its plans to open a commercial growing facility in St. Paul, Minnesota. This is the eighth farm that is either open or in the works for Orlando, Florida-based Kalera. 

For a long time, Kalera primarily served the hospitality industry in Orlando with its HyCube vertical farming facility. The company broke ground on another and bigger location in that city in 2019. At the time, the company planned to focus mainly on the Southeastern region of the U.S.

The pandemic, of course, changed all that. With most restaurants shut down or fulfilling lower order volumes, Kalera pivoted to retail via a partnership with grocery store chain Publix in 2020. The company also started expanding beyond the Southeast U.S. and is now, in terms of geographical footprint, one of the fastest-growing commercial vertical farming companies. 

Kalera’s controlled environment farms use a mix of hydroponics, sensors, LEDs, and some automation to grow a variety of leafy greens. Besides the two facilities in Orlando, the company also operates a farm in Atlanta, which just opened. Facilities in Houston, Denver, Columbus (Ohio), Seattle, and Hawaii are currently under construction. The company says that once all of these farms plus the Minnesota facility are open, Kalera will have a total projected yield of “tens of millions of heads of lettuce per year, or the equivalent of over 1,000 acres of traditional field farms,” according to today’s press release.

Kalera’s announcement comes just days after a slew of other new developments in the controlled environment agriculture space. Last week alone, Babylon Microfarms and Grönska both announced funding rounds and Plenty expanded into new grocery retailers in California. Prior to that GoodLeaf Farms announced plans to expand across Canada and InFarm unveiled its modular commercial-scale farms.

For its part, Kalera also recently acquired Vindara, a company that develops seeds specifically bred for indoor farming environments.  

“Cell-Cultured” Is the Best Way to Describe Seafood Grown in a Lab, According to Key Industry Players

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published comments from key players in the cell-based seafood space around what to actual label the stuff when it is finally cleared for sale to consumers (h/t Food Navigator). Consensus is building around “cell-cultured” as the most effective descriptor.

The original call for comments was sent out towards the end of 2020, and yesterday was the cutoff date for responses. Among those who weighed in on the discussion were BlueNalu, Finless Foods, and Memphis Meats, all companies currently developing cell-cultured seafood or meat products. 

The comments underscore the importance of choosing the right name for a food type that still strikes many average consumers as something out of science fiction. When plant-based meat arrived in grocery stores, the labeling battle was usually less about convincing consumers and more about doing battle with Big Meat over use of certain words. Cultured meat’s big challenge, for now, is trying to concisely but effectively explain the concept of “protein grown from animal cells in bioreactors” to consumers. 

Whatever label is settled on will have to convey several things at once to consumers. It will have to make clear that the product is safe, that it is real meat (aka not vegan), but that it is different from traditional animal-based protein in terms of how it is produced (e.g., cell cultured versus wild caught). Based on the comments submitted to the FDA, labels for seafood should also factor in food transparency, adherence to food industry protocols (e.g., allergen alerts), and should not disparage traditional meat products. 

Of the companies and individuals that responded to the FDA’s call for comments, the majority back the term “cell-cultured” when it comes to labeling seafood products. Meanwhile, the majority of commenters suggested a move away from terms like “clean meat” and lab-grown meat.”

Finless Foods’ nine-pager of a comment concluded that:  

At the highest level, Finless Foods advocates for and strongly supports an accurate, non- misleading, and descriptive label that clearly outlines what the cell-cultured products are, including species and product form, and how they are made, in a way that is uniform within the cell-cultured seafood category and consistent across categories. Therefore, we recommend that FDA adopt and memorialize the use of the term “cell-cultured” through the mechanism of a CPG or a letter to industry to provide appropriate guidance.

Citing a forthcoming Halman and Halman study, the Center for Science in the Public Interest said:

Based on the results of the two Hallman and Hallman studies, CSPI finds that both “cell-cultured” and “cell-based” would inform consumers of material facts and not be misleading, as well as portray the product in a neutral fashion. FDA should closely consider these options, and other peer-reviewed studies, in addition to conducting its own studies before making a final decision on its final label phrase. 

Memphis Meats said it supports “disclosure of the term ‘cell-cultured,’ in conjunction with the name of the conventionally-produced seafood product, in the statement of identity or name of cell-cultured seafood products.” The Berkeley, California-based company also noted in its comments that “Terms that specify the type of seafood product (e.g., ‘fillet,’ ‘steak’) should be permitted in the name or statement of identity of a cell-cultured seafood, as long as the term appropriately describes the particular product. “

The Vegetarian Resource Group brought up the issue of consumer education in its comments, stating that, “Use of a term such as ‘engineered using cultured seafood cells’ would help consumers understand that the product is based on seafood and that seafood cells are used in production. An educational program would need to be developed to inform consumers about the meaning of ‘cultured’ in this context.”

You can read the full comments here, many of which delve into some of the more subtle issues that existing in the labeling debate. For example, one anonymous commenter suggested “cell-built” seafood to factor in the use of 3D printing technology.

Interestingly, less than one year ago, Rutgers released a study that found “cell-based” to be the best descriptor for seafood products grown in a lab. “Cell-cultured” was a close runner up in that particular study, which suggests consensus has been building for some time around the evolution of “cell-cultured” seafood. 

 

UNEP: 931M Tons of Food Sold to Consumers Gets Wasted

A total of 931 million tons, or 17 percent, of food sold at consumer-facing levels was thrown out in 2019, according to a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and partner organization WRAP. This includes food sold to retail (e.g., the grocery store) and foodservice businesses, as well as consumer households.

The Food Waste Index 2021 report, released this week, examine’s the world’s progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 12.3, which aims to halve per capita global food waste at retail and consumer levels.

In its own words, the Index 2021 report “sheds new light on the magnitude of food waste, and on the prevalence of household food waste on all continents, irrespective of country income levels.”

It also notes that until now, the scale of the world’s food waste problem hasn’t been fully understood. A previous 2011 estimate from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) famously found that one-third of all the world’s food goes to waste. However, researchers acknowledged “a lack of household food waste data outside of Europe and North America at the time of their estimate. Now, the Index 2021 suggests that consumer-level food waste is “more than twice the previous FAO estimate” and that it is found “to be broadly similar across country income groups. This deviates from the oft-told narrative that consumer-level food waste mainly happens in developed nations, while food production and transportation losses are the territory of developing countries. 

Mapping 152 food waste data points across 54 countries, the report also found:

  • Of the 931 million tons of food wasted at consumer levels, 61 percent came from households, 26 percent from foodservice, and 13 percent from retail. 
  • Roughly 8–10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food not consumed.
  • A total of 690 million people worldwide were hungry in 2019, and that number is expected to rise.
  • Worldwide, 3 billion people “cannot afford a healthy diet.”

The report does more than simply highlight these rather bleak statistics. In an effort to support SDG 12.3, it also includes a methodology by which countries can measure their food waste at consumer-facing levels. “Countries using this methodology will generate strong evidence to guide a national strategy on food waste prevention, that is sufficiently sensitive to pick up changes in food waste over two- or four-year intervals, and that enables meaningful comparisons between countries globally.”

Reducing food waste can cut greenhouse gas emissions, lessen pollution, conserve land and other resources, and make food more available worldwide. The UNEP’s new analysis and methodology aims to do that by helping more countries around the world take actions driven by more and better data about food waste.

Kroger’s Zero Hunger/Zero Waste Foundation Is Taking Applications for Its Innovation Accelerator

Startups, take note. The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation (aka, the “Foundation”) is now taking applications for the second cohort of its Innovation Fund. The program, done in partnership with Village Capital, looks for companies developing new technologies, processes, and other solutions that combat food waste.

The Foundation says this could include rescuing and upcycling “imperfect” food. “Upcycled food is the next frontier in recovering and repurposing food that may otherwise go to landfills,” the Foundation said in a statement this week. In this context, upcycling could mean either using discarded food to create new foods (e.g., upcycled cookies), ingredients, or even meal kits. The program also lumps food rescue — selling surplus food to consumers — as part of the upcycling process, too.

Both areas are becoming more popular in the U.S., with companies like Imperfect Foods, Misfits Market, Renewal Mill, and Goodfish leading the way. Imperfect was actually a part of the first cohort for the Innovation Fund, along with Food Forest, mobius, Replate, and others. About 400 startups applied for the first cohort, so we can expect as many if not more vying for a spot in this next installment of the program.

The six-month-long Kroger program includes one week of virtual programming followed by monthly cohort sessions. The entire program runs from late May through November 2021.

A total of 10 startups will be selected from the applicant pool. Selected companies each receive $100,000 in upfront seed grant funding, with the chance for an additional $100,000 grant based on “achievement of identified program milestones.” Virtual workshops that cover investment readiness and technical skill development, and also provides networking opportunities with mentors and potential investors.

Two startups of the chosen 10 will be picked at the end of six months to receive an additional $250,000 in funding.

Applications are open until April 1, 2021.

Driscoll’s is Using Consumer Physics Technology to Bring Sweeter Berries to Market

Driscoll’s announced last week that it will be using Consumer Physics‘ SCiO technology to improve the sweetness of the berries it sells.

Before we get into the technology, it’s good to understand how Driscoll’s works. As Brie Reiter Smith, Driscoll’s Director of Quality Systems Design, explained to me by phone this week, Driscoll’s has roughly 1,000 berry growers in its network. The quality of the berries it receives though, can very greatly — even from growers in the same region.

A decade or so ago, this disparity wasn’t a huge deal, but as Reiter Smith explained, that has changed. “Over the years, the breeding programs and supply chains have improved,” Reiter Smith said. “Consumers are more aware of how flavorful fruit can be.”

In other words, consumers know what they want, and they want sweeter berries. To incentivize growers to produce sweeter berries, Driscoll’s began analyzing berry sugar content, which is measured on the Brix scale. Traditionally, Driscoll’s had done this Brix measurement by hand by selecting sample berries, crushing them and using a refractomer to analyze the juice. But this process is time consuming and destructive. On the scale that Driscoll’s operates, that’s a lot of product that goes to testing instead of store shelves to be sold.

This is where Consumer Physics and its SCiO comes in. We covered the company before, back in 2017, when its handheld near infrared spectrometry scanner was being used by Cargill to measure dry matter in cattle forage, and then again in 2019 when it was used to measure moisture in cacao beans.

Since then, Consumer Physics has developed the larger SCiO Cup, which, in the case of Driscoll’s, allows an entire clamshell of strawberries to be scanned at one time. Berries are scanned using the near infrared spectrometry, a cloud-based system that analyzes the findings and provides the Brix measurement via mobile app. This automated bulk approach is faster because berries don’t need to be hand selected and crushed. Since the berries aren’t destroyed, they can be returned to be sold.

We’re seeing more of this type of high-tech, automated scanning enter the food supply chain. AgShift and Intello Labs both use computer vision and AI to assess the quality of food and establish fair market prices. AgShift’s bulk scanner, Hydra, was actually being used by Driscoll’s back in 2019.

Driscoll’s has a reward system for growers that produce higher-value berries. With the results of the Brix analysis, farmers can adjust their berry growing and harvesting to achieve that higher sugar content. That, in turn, means sweeter berries at your local store.

According to last week’s press announcement, Driscoll’s will start integrating SCiO measurement this month in the U.S. Mexico and Canada. By the end of the year, the company will rely exclusively on SCiO for Brix measurement in the roughly 2 million quality inspections it conducts annually in North America.

Revol Greens Launches Its Own Plant-Based Nutrient Source for Greenhouses

Greenhouse lettuce grower Revol Greens today unveiled a proprietary plant-based nutrient source with which it can feed the plants in its indoor farms. Dubbed Plant Fed, the product is currently patent pending, and its existence on Revol’s farms means leafy greens will be fed entirely by plants and not with animal ingredients, as is often the case with fertilizer.

Revol raised a $68 million funding round in September 2020 to build out its network of greenhouses. Currently, the company operates a 10-acre greenhouse in its hometown of Owatonna, Minnesota. Two more facilities, one in California and one in Texas, are slated to open in 2021.

The Revol process relies on as much automation as possible, though not necessarily of the robotics variety. Machines automatically sow the seeds in grow trays, which are then moved from the germination room to the greenhouse via a water flume and placed in a massive pools of water with their roots exposed. Human hands pick up the trays to move them from sowing machine to flume then out of the water pools, but people never touch the actual plants.

Meanwhile, much of the farm’s water source comes from UV-sterilized rainwater and snowmelt collected from the roof of the facility. This is an improvement over traditional farming, where produce often shares a water source with nearby animals, thus upping the risk of contamination to the plants. 

Like other hydroponic-based operations, Revol’s method grows plants without any soil. Instead, the new Plant Fed nutrient source will be pumped into the water that is circulated into the pools in which plant roots are exposed.

“The plant-based natural fertilizer developed by our research and development team is an extension of our goal to provide the healthiest, most natural leafy greens to our customers,” Revol’s CEO Mark Schulze said in today’s press release. 

Revol is certainly not alone in that goal, with recent activity in the high-tech greenhouse space underscoring the sector’s possibilities when it comes to future farming. Gotham Greens raised $87 million for its own greenhouse network at the end of 2020, and of course there was the news of AppHarvest going public earlier this year. 

Revol’s Plant Fed nutrient is only feeding the greens in the company’s own facility for now. Whether the company ever decides to sell its product to other controlled ag operations remains to be seen.

A Designer From Spain Has Turned Food Waste Into a Skincare Line

Redistributing cosmetically imperfect produce via grocery and restaurant services is one way to keep food out of landfills. Turning those cosmetically imperfect fruits and veggies into actual cosmetics is another method, and one Spanish designer Júlia Roca Vera is taking with her Lleig skincare line.

Dezeen, a website covering all things design, profiled the process Vera used to make four different skincare products from a single piece of fruit, in this case an orange that was discarded because it was cosmetically unacceptable by supermarket standards. From that orange, Vera, who is currently a design and engineering student, created moisturizer, a soap, a potpourri, and a juice for drinking.

Lleig (Catalan for “ugly”) is as much a conceptual design project as it is a skincare line, with products coming in reusable clay containers and the suggestion to complete certain rituals during the skincare process. Vera worked with Espigoladors, a social enterprise that “rescues” cosmetically imperfect produce, to source the food used for the project. While she focused on an orange, she told Dezeen that her process would also work will apples, bananas, carrots, and other fruits and vegetables.

There’s no way to purchase Lleig right now, as it’s more design statement than scalable product at the moment. The larger point of the project is to raise awareness about why we throw certain foods away as well as what can be done with those items instead of tossing them in the landfill. Vera told Dezeen that she “hopes to encourage a holistic approach to beauty that prioritises health and wellbeing over external appearance.” That goes for humans and produce items alike. 

In the U.S., rescuing cosmetically “unfit” produce is still a fairly new area of the food industry, with its main players companies like Misfits Market and Imperfect Foods that sell this rescued food as discounted groceries. Whether skincare made from food waste every becomes a scalable notion remains to be seen. However, the idea does give us one more reason to keep food out of the landfill.

Video: Genopalate’s Sherry Zhang on the Past, Present, and Future of DNA-based Nutrition

If the first wave of precision nutrition was all about wearable devices tracking information like weight and exercise regime, the second wave relies on far more granular information about the individual. Companies can now (with a user’s permission, of course) pull and analyze information from our own DNA sequences and gut microbes to make food, health, and lifestyle recommendations based on actual biology, not third-party data. 

Genopalate is one such company helping this second wave of precision nutrition to rise. By analyzing a person’s genetic markers, Genopalate’s technology can understand how an individual’s body digests and processes foods as well as whether a person is predisposed to certain diseases.

Over a video session recently, Dr. Sherry Zhang, Genopalate’s founder and CEO, explained how these diet-gene interactions have shaped the whole of human biology and how we can leverage the information they provide to live healthier lives overall.

View the video below to catch our full conversation, in which we cover, among other things:

  • The role of diet-gene interactions throughout human history and biological evolution
  • How our DNA can determine our susceptibility to different chronic diseases (e.g., obesity, autoimmune disorders)
  • The kinds of data precision nutrition tools and services must analyze in order to understand biological needs at the individual level
  • How we can put that data to better use in order to help individuals change their health habits

As well, the goal of precision nutrition is in part to help the average person analyze the way they shop for, cook, and eat food. Our conversation below digs into how Dr. Zhang, Genopalate, and other companies working in the precision nutrition space are now making this level of personalization possible for our everyday diets.

The Spoon Conversation with Genopalate’s Sherry Zhang from The Spoon on Vimeo.

SOSV to Retire the Food-X Food Tech Accelerator

Venture fund SOSV announced today it is retiring its Food-X accelerator program, which the company founded back in 2015. Moving forward, startups that apply with SOSV will be funneled into either its IndieBio or the HAX programs.

In a blog post on Medium, SOSV’s Shawn Broderick wrote that since starting Food-X, his company has seen “a clear pattern” for food startups emerge: “Those promising the most radical innovation landed at our ‘hard tech’ oriented accelerators, notably IndieBio but also HAX, where they benefited from the deep technical resources those programs offer.”

The IndieBio accelerator, in particular, has fostered some of the food tech world’s most notable startups over the years, including Memphis Meats, Perfect Day, and NotCo. Broderick’s Medium posts suggests accelerators like this are the best places to cultivate major innovation in the food industry. “Our decision to retire the Food-X accelerator is a recognition that IndieBio has emerged as our best setting for disruptive food startups,” he wrote.

Over a phone call today, Food-X Partner and Managing Director Peter Bodenheimer told me the massive successes of some of those cellular ag-related companies ultimately shifted SOSV’s focus more towards those areas.

Going forward, founders in the SOSV family working on biology and sustainable engineering challenges will go to IndieBio, while those working in production, automation, and consumer devices will go to HAX. SOSV will still run its Chinaccelerator and MOX programs.

Food-X was one of the first food tech accelerator programs in the U.S. and grew to become one of the country’s largest. It wasn’t unusual for the program to receive 500-plus applicants for each cohort. Over the years, the program was home to 11 cohorts and over 100 startups.

Bodenheimer said that in that time, he and his team built a strong community and network of mentors around the food space in New York, where Food-X was headquartered. The hope is that the community continues to grow and thrive even after Food-X has closed its doors for good. 

 

TurtleTree Scientific and Dyadic to Develop Affordable Growth Factors for Cell-Based Proteins at Scale

TurtleTree Scientific, the recently launched B2B unit of TurtleTree Labs that develops growth factors for cellular ag, today announced a “fully funded” collaboration with biotech company Dyadic International. Through this partnership, the two will develop recombinant food-grade growth factors for proteins that can be grown in high yields at lower costs in bioreactors. This could allow TurtleTree, which makes cell-cultured products (including human breastmilk) to scale up and get to market faster, paving the way for cultured meat and dairy companies to do the same.

Dyadic is known for its its C1 gene expression based on the Thermothelomyces heterothallica fungus. Via this platform, Dyadic can produce recombinant proteins at an industrial scale of up to 500,000 liters, with lower capital and operating expenditures than what cultured meat companies would normally find. The company’s tech has been used by some of the world’s most well-known biotech companies, including DuPont and BASF.

In a statement, TurtleTree cofounder and Chief Strategist Max Rye said that manufacturing human growth factors both at scale and at an affordable cost has been a major challenge, and that the partnership with Dyadic will help the company “overcome this hurdle” safely and efficiently.

Growth factors account for the bulk of the cost in cell-based protein production — 55 to 95 percent, by some accounts. Part of the reason for this, TurtleTree explained last month, is that cell culture media components have been developed for non-food areas like research and theraputics, which do not have the same scale requirements and cost constraints as food and agriculture production.

Ronen Tchelet, PhD, Dyadic’s Vice President of Research and Business Development, said in today’s press release that the company will engineer “hyper-productive” C1 cel lines to develop high bioactivity and yields suitable for commercial-scale productions. This will not only accelerate the timeline for TurtleTree’s business, it could also, according to Rye, “make cellular agriculture a reality for all” by enabling food-grade growth factors at an affordable price point to the wider cellular ag industry.

ReFED: Food Waste has ‘Leveled Off’ Since 2016, But More Must Be Done

The total amount of food wasted in the U.S. has leveled off since 2016, while food waste per capita has decreased 2 percent over the last three years, according to ReFED’s newly launched data hub, the Insights Engine. But more must be done to meet the country’s goal of cutting food waste by 50 percent by 2030.

First announced last year, the Insights Engine is an online hub for data and analysis related to the global food waste problem. Among the other findings ReFED released today:

  • In 2019, 35 percent of food went uneaten or unsold. That’s the equivalent of throwing away $408 billion or 1.9 percent of U.S. GDP.
  • More than 50 percent of waste at the farm level is from food that does not get harvested but is perfectly edible.
  • Seventy percent of food waste at restaurants and foodservice businesses comes from customers not finishing their meals.
  • At-home food waste remains the largest generator of food waste in the U.S.

ReFED estimates that an annual investment of $14 billion will be needed to implement the kinds of solutions that will reduce food waste by 45 million tons annually. The Insights Engine reviews over 40 of these solutions, analyzing them based on things like net economic benefit, greenhouse gas emissions reduced, jobs created, and meals recovered. The Engine also provides a directory of organizations helping fight food waste, a tool that tracks current and upcoming food waste policies, and an “impact calculator” that puts into numbers the impact of food waste on the climate, economy, and population.

Roughly 1.3 billion tons of edible food worldwide goes to waste each year, and experts predict this number will jump to 2.1 billion by 2030. Solutions to this problem span everything from food rescue companies to technologies for preservation, cold storage, harvest and post harvest, and many other ideas, tools, and processes.

As a companion to the Insights Engine, ReFED also released its “Roadmap to 2030” framework today, which will help the organization implement the solutions found in the Insights Engine. It outlines seven “key action areas” for fighting food waste over the next 10 years, and also includes a financial analysis of where investments (public, private, philanthropic, and capital) should be directed.

Russia Gets Its First Alt-Protein Food Tech Accelerator

A newly formed nonprofit called the Association of Alternative Food Producers (AAFP) has joined forces with food awareness organization ProVeg to launch Russia’s first-ever incubator program dedicated to animal-free protein. The program will support a range of startups in the alt-meat arena, from those working on cultured and plant-based products to those developing related technologies, such as scaffolds and 3D bioprinting.

AAFP was founded by Tim Ponomarev and Julia Marsel, two graduates of Berlin-based ProVeg’s incubator and the founders of plant-based meat company Greenwise (not to be confused with the Publix-owned organic brand of the same name). Their goal is to contribute to the growth of alternative proteins in Russia and Russian-speaking countries through supporting food companies and entrepreneurs. 

Those accepted to AAFP’s program, which is based in Moscow and the Kaluga region, will participate in four different modules. Modules will provide guidance in marketing, fundraising, legal and regulatory matters, technological areas, and business development, among others. Participants receive mentorship and other consultations, the chance to take part in special events and conferences, access to buyers, materials suppliers, and other professionals, and the chance to pitch to potential investors.

Applicants should either be based in the Russian and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) market or have plans to concentrate their activities to that region. Excepting companies developing cell-based meat, applicants should already have a product or products being sold in the market.

A food tech accelerator in Russia that’s devoted to animal-free meat is a major milestone for alt-protein’s growth in the country. Currently, only about 1 percent of all Russians say they are vegetarian, and that not eating meat is still considered by many to be dangerous. Attitudes, however, are changing, and while the market for alt-protein is still very young, it is growing.

The AAFP incubator will open in 2021 (an exact date has not yet been provided). Those interested in joining can apply here.