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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

AB InBev

Food Tech Show Live: AB InBev Enters Alt-Protein Game

The usual Spoon gang got together this week to talk food tech with special guest Riana Lynn, longtime food tech entrepreneur and CEO of Journey Foods.

This stories we discuss on this week’s show include:

You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also just click play below:

Clara Foods Teams Up With AB InBev to Make Animal Protein at Scale

Alt-protein maker Clara Foods announced this week a partnership with ZX Ventures, the innovation arm of beer brewer AB InBev, to “brew” animal-free protein at a large scale via fermentation, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

Clara Foods, which was founded out of the IndieBio accelerator, has been using precision fermentation for years to develop animal-free protein, including an animal-free egg white. But a major challenge is producing such proteins at scale — that is, in large enough amounts to realistically compete with the traditional animal protein industry. 

AB InBev, of course, is no stranger to fermentation at scale, it being the largest beer brewer in the world. The partnership with Clara Foods will combine AB InBev’s “centuries of expertise in scaled, food-grade fermentation and downstream processing gained from large-scale brewing processes” with Clara’s technology to develop more sustainable protein at scale. 

Speaking in the press release, Patrick O’Riordan, founder and CEO at BioBrew, a technology platform venture in ZX Ventures, pointed out that meeting the future food demands of the planet will require cross-industry collaboration that marries the old with the new. In this case, fermentation, a centuries-old process, will get combined with novel technologies from Clara. 

Scalability is key to the advancement of any alternative-protein right now. For Clara Foods and ZX Ventures’ BioBrew team, the goal is to produce alt protein — in this case egg whites — at a similar scale to beer brewing. Since brewing beer and fermenting protein aren’t quite the same thing, O’Riordan noted, in an interview with Food Navigator, that the technology for egg proteins will “probably be an adaptation of existing technology” currently used in beer-making.  

CEO Arturo Elizondo told The Spoon earlier this year that the company hopes to go beyond egg white replacements. “We wanted to have a real kick ass platform that is not just a chicken egg plant protein platform, or an egg protein platform, but a true animal protein production platform, so that we can flex in and out of different products,” he said. 

So far, the company has launched an animal-free pepsin. Other future products include an egg protein for beverages and the aforementioned egg white replacement.  

Meanwhile, the Clara Foods partnership is AB InBev’s first-ever with a food company, though it’s not likely to be the last.

AB InBev & Keurig Team Up to Create Home System For Beer & Cocktails

While companies such as Picobrew and Whirlpool’s Vessi were showcasing their high-tech methods for brewing beer at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, two giants of the beverage industry confirmed a partnership that could shake up the market for home-based brewers. AB InBev, the world’s largest beer brewer, and JAB Holdings, the corporate parent behind the Keurig pod-based drink system, announced they are teaming up to create a home-brewing system that can deliver beer and spirits to consumers.

The deal should come as no surprise given that JAB Chief Executive Olivier Goudet is also the chairman of AB InBev.

The announcement leads to more questions than answers, but the partnership is likely to take advantage of the technology behind Keurig’s Kold machine which offered single-serve sodas. Considered a bust, Kold was discontinued in the summer of 2016 when customers who owned the product were given refunds. Some of the Kold features, such as “Party Mode,” which allowed a user to crank out more than 30 drinks in a row, will be useful for the new unit.

The new appliance will be able to serve beer, spirits, cocktails and mixers. Given that those beverages require vastly different brewing methods, In-Bev and JAB might be looking at two machines. Beer requires a lengthy fermentation process which would be challenging to distil into an on-demand dispenser. For beer lovers, the two companies could develop a popularly priced home-fermentation machine along the lines of Whirlpool’s Group W Indiegogo project, Vessi. Such a machine might carry the branding of AB InBev’s popular Budweiser or Stella Artois, targeting the fan bases of those already popular brands.

The AB InBev/JAB Holdings partnership will have little impact on the higher-end home beer brewing market. Entrepreneurs looking to build DIY systems are focused on experienced hobbyists who want to create highly customized brews. Home brew masters are rarely novices and are more likely to want machines that allow them to focus more on the art of brewing rather than the mechanical process. The brewing appliance created by the new partnership will target those wanting to up their home entertaining game rather than sophisticated drinkers.

The Keurig for the cocktail set is an easier play for the two companies, with a retooled and improved version of the Kold (a 2.0) ready to tackle that segment. The robotic bartender market is already well established with such companies as Barbotics, Blend Bow and Bartesian already creating interest with early adopters.  Bartesian is making cocktails in second utilizing a proprietary cocktail capsule. Neither InBev nor JAB owns any companies in the spirits business, but plenty of brand names in that space would be eager to partner with someone able to crack the mass market with an adult beverage Keurig machine.

On the surface, building a market for home beer making could appear to be a conflict for In Bev. In actual practice, companies such as Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and even JAB’s Peet’s Coffee did not lose branded-store customers when they expanded their reach to include retail channels and Keurig K-Cups. In fact, by allowing beer drinkers to enjoy a fresh Bud or Stella from their home taps could extend customer brand loyalty to bars and restaurants. The challenge for the two companies will be to create an easy-to-use set of ingredients and recipe to replicate the branded brews while allowing the advanced home brewer the opportunity to put his or her signature touch on the final product.

One thing is certain—anything proprietary that results from AB InBev/JAB alliance will be more closely guarded than Keurig’s original K-Cup design. The patent for Keurig’s single-serve pods expired in 2012 because of the ambiguous wording of its original claim. Failure to protect its IP cost the company billions as competitors lined up to create pods for the popular machine.