Category: Education & Discovery
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Alt-protein food tech accelerator Big Idea Ventures (BIV) announced this week that it is now taking applications for its fourth cohort. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the five-month-long program will take place in three locations this time: New York, Singapore, and Paris. For these accelerators, Big Idea Ventures looks for companies…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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