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alternative protein

February 22, 2021

Blackbird Foods Secures $1.5M For High Protein Wheat-Based Meat Alternative

New York-based Blackbird Foods, which produces its own version of high-protein meat alternative seitan, announced last week its first close of a $1.5 million Seed round of funding. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the round was led by Lever VC, and Blackbird plans on using the funding to scale operations and expand into retail chains.

Emanuel Storch, Blackbird Foods CEO, told me by phone this week that the company was started by vegan chefs and restauranteurs in the New York area who were looking to create a high quality, high-protein, versatile alternative to meat they served in their own restaurants.

Seitan is a traditional ingredient used for meat alternatives, and it is cherished for its high protein and low-fat content. Sweet Earth, a company now owned by Nestlé, produces a variety of different vegan seitan-based products including deli meats, pepperoni, and seitan strips. Upton Naturals is a vegan company know for its jackfruit and seitan meat alternatives, and the company produces seitan-based hot dogs, bacon, and grounds.

Storch said that Blackbird Foods’ seitan is very different from other seitan on the market because Blackbird extracts protein directly from wheat flour, while other companies typically just use hydrated gluten powder. According to Storch, that hydrated gluten powder method can cause seitan to have a rubbery or mushy texture, whereas Blackbird Foods’ seitan more closely resembles the texture of meat.

Blackbird Foods currently has four different flavors of seitan, including original, Texas BBQ, chili lime, and rosemary garlic. Each serving of seitan contains 17g of protein. In addition to seitan, the company also produces four flavors of frozen vegan pizza (Margherita, kale-mushroom, BBQ, and supreme) which uses Violife’s vegan cheese. Storch said the company’s target market is vegans because this demographic is the “low-hanging fruit,” because vegans have already adopted seitan, but it also aims to reach flexitarians.

Blackbird Food’s seitan costs $5.99 per pack and contains three servings. The frozen pizzas cost between $7.99-$9.99, and each pizza also contains three servings. The company’s products are available for purchase on its website, and in-store at retailers such as Erewhon, Mom’s Organic Market, and many independent retailers within the New York area.

February 15, 2021

Gates-Backed Nature’s Fynd Unveils Initial Products Made From Fermented Fungi

Nature’s Fynd, which produces protein made from fermented fungi, unveiled over the weekend its first two products made from its proprietary protein: a dairy-free cream cheese and meatless breakfast patties.

Nature’s Fynd uses a member of the fungi family called Fusarium strain flavolapis for its protein, which was discovered in the geothermal hot springs of Yellowstone. The fungi are fed a combination of nutrients and as they grow, layers of fibers comparable to muscle fibers are formed. After just a few days of growth, the fungi can be harvested and used to make the company’s alternative protein products.

The company’s new dairy-free cream cheese includes Fy Protein (Nature’s Fynd fermented fungi protein), coconut oil, and sugar, and contains 1g of protein. The meatless breakfast patties use Fy Protein as the main ingredient, along with soy and fava bean protein. The serving size of two patties has 12 grams of protein.

Nature’s Fynd has raised an impressive $158 million to date, from backers including Al Gore and Bill Gates. Gates appeared on 60 Minutes this past weekend and spoke about Nature’s Fynd and the environmental benefits of using fungi as an alternative protein source. Gates and Anderson Cooper sampled the company’s dairy-free yogurt, which presumably will be rolled out soon.

Using fungi as an alternative protein source is considered a more sustainable option over animal protein because it does not require vast amounts of water, feed, and land that animals do. Other companies in the space include Meati, which uses fungi, specifically mycelium, to create plant-based steak and chicken alternatives, and AtLast, which makes a plant-based bacon. Prime Roots uses another fungus called koji to produce its plant-based beef, pork, and chicken products.

Nature’s Fynd is currently accepting pre-orders for its first products on its website. The items are for sale as a bundle for $14.99 with $10 shipping.

February 13, 2021

Food Tech News: Vegan Waygu Beef, Coca-Cola Transitions To New rPET Bottles

If you haven’t heard, The Spoon is hosting the Food Tech Job Fair. If you feel like you need to get up to date on news and information in the world of food tech before attending, the Food Tech News round-up is a great place to start. This week we have news on vegan wagyu beef, Coca-Cola’s transition to rPET bottles, a new whole cut plant-based chicken product, and an engagement program for snack startups.

Plant-based waygu beef to be trialed throughout US

Canadian-based Top Tier Foods, a manufacturer of plant-based sushi items, announced that it will be trialing vegan waygu throughout the US. The company has partnered with Advanced Fresh Concepts for the rollout, which owns over 4,000 sushi locations in the US. The vegan waygu will be trialed at only certain locations owned by Advanced Fresh Concepts (locations were not disclosed), as well as inside of Rouse supermarkets located in Louisiana. The wagyu will be soy protein-based, and seasoned in a teriyaki marinade.

LIVEKINDLY Collective partners with Rival Foods to create whole cuts of plant-based chicken

LIVEKINDLY Collective, a collection of plant-based start-ups, and Rival Foods, a plant-based meat alternative producer, announced at the beginning of this week that they will partner to create plant-based chicken. Rival Foods has the technology and capabilities to produce whole cuts of different meat analogues, so the new product will be a whole cut of plant-based chicken. It was undisclosed what the plant-based chicken will be made from, or when it will be available.

Samples of the new rPET bottles

Coca-Cola and brands begin transition to r-PET bottles

Coca-Cola announced this week that it will begin the transition to using rPET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate) bottles starting in February. Initially, 13.2 oz Coca-Cola and Sprite bottles will be available in California, Florida, and the Northeastern US. Coca-Cola sent me samples of three bottles with the new rPET packaging, and I honestly could say I would not have been able to tell the difference between the rPET packaging and virgin plastic. The corporation aims to make 50% of its packaging from recycled materials by 2030.

Photo from Unsplash

Mondelez launches program to support snack start-ups

Mondelez’s International innovation and venture lab, called SnackFutures, just launched an engagement program for early-stage snack start-ups. The program is called CoLab, and it will support snack start-up brands targeting the well-being sector. Up to ten snack food start-ups will be selected for the 12 week program. Start-ups accepted into the program will receive a $20,000 grant, and receive customized support and a curriculum. Applications are open now.

February 12, 2021

Legendary Vish Rebrands to Revo Foods, Plans to Host Tasting for 3D Printed Salmon Soon

When I last spoke to Robin Simsa, the CEO of Legendary Vish, the company was working on a prototype of a 3D printed plant-based salmon fillet. Now, the company has rebranded to Revo Foods, plans on launching three new products, and will host a tasting in March.

To hear about the details of Revo Foods’ recent news, I hopped on a Zoom call with Simsa this week. Simsa said the company rebranded to Revo Foods so they were not tied down to just producing fish alternative products. The company has now decided to prioritize other plant-based salmon products and one tuna product. Revo Foods wanted to focus first on products that could be consumed cold with no prep, but will still be working on the salmon fillet on the side.

The two products that will be launched by the company are plant-based smoked salmon strips and a smoked salmon spread. The main ingredients in these products include pea protein, citrus fiber, and algae oil, and 3D printing will not be used to create these products. Revo Foods will apply 3D printing techniques for the creation of its salmon sashimi, which uses similar ingredients to the previously mentioned products. The company has plans to work on a tuna product as well, but details are not made available yet.

As far as we know, Revo foods is the only company combining plant-based ingredients and 3D printing to produce alternative salmon products. US-based Sophie’s Kitchen produces smoked salmon lox using konjac as the main ingredient. Hooked, a Swedish start-up produces a shredded plant-based tuna. Other plant-based seafood companies like Good Catch and New Wave are focused on providing alternatives for other seafood species, like tuna and shrimp.

The plant-based salmon products from Revo Foods will be ready to launch around the summer of this year, and the company has partnered with several restaurants throughout Vienna, Austria for the launch. Revo Foods will be hosting a tasting of its plant-based salmon products on March 6 in Vienna.

February 12, 2021

VeggieVictory Closes Pre-Seed Round, Aims to Bring More Plant-Based Meats to Nigeria and Africa

VeggieVictory, Nigeria’s first plant-based protein startup, has completed an undisclosed pre-seed round for its plant-based meat products. Green Queen was first to break the news. The round included participation from Sustainable Food Ventures (SFV), Capital V, Kale United, and Thrive Worldwide.

Lagos, Nigeria-based VeggieVictory will use the new funds to expand its roster of plant-based meat products, which right now includes a number of different soy-based products. The company’s flagship product, Vchunks, is a plant-based meat analogue the company says mimics the mouthfeel of beef or chicken and can be used in a variety of dishes.

Currently, Vchunks is sold in 12 different states across Nigeria. With its new funding, Veggie Victory plans to increase its presence in those markets and elsewhere in Nigeria, and eventually expand to other African countries, the U.S., and Europe. As far as new products go, VeggieVictory will next release a vegan beef jerky called Killshi. 

Meat consumption is on the rise in Africa as more people enter the middle class and have more access to meat and dairy products. At the same time, the continent’s population is growing rapidly. By 2100, five of the world’s 10 largest countries by population are projected to be in Africa, according to data from the United Nations. Nigeria tops the list after India and China. 

Those factors present a huge market opportunity for companies making plant-based proteins, though few exist yet. Infinite Foods, a subsidiary of Botswana-based Accite Holdings, distributes well-known international plant-based brands, including Beyond Meat, throughout Africa. Elsewhere, the market is open for new startups, and as such, Veggie Victory has an opportunity to be a leader in this space.

This week’s round follows VeggieVictory’s undisclosed Angel investment from August 2020. 

February 9, 2021

Aleph Farms Makes a Cultivated 3D-Bioprinted Ribeye Steak

Israel-based startup Aleph Farms and its research partner, the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Israel Institute of Technology, said today that they have developed a cultivated 3D-bioprinted ribeye steak. The steak contains muscle, fat, and structure identical to what would be found in a steak from a cow, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

To create the cultivated ribeye steak, a technique called 3D bioprinting was used. This is different from 3D printing because living cells, which have been extracted from living animals, are actually printed. Once the living cells are printed, they are incubated to grow and interact to form tissues and structures identical to those found in a steak from an animal. Other companies that use 3D printing to produce meat alternatives, like NovaMeat and Redefine Meat, print plant-based proteins and fats.

In 2018, Aleph Farms unveiled a cultivated thin-cut steak. At the time, the steak was not produced using 3D bioprinting, and Aleph Farms was limited to making its first product just a few inches long and a few centimeters thick. At the end of last year, the company shared that it had created a platform for the commercial production of its cultured meat, called BioFarm, which the company hopes to have fully operational by 2022.

It is still early into 2021, and in addition to Aleph Farms’ news, there has already been a plethora of cultured meat news. At the end of January, NovaMeat announced that it had created the world’s largest piece of 3D-printed cultivated meat. Mirai Foods raised $2.7 million a few weeks ago to accelerate the commercialization of its cultured meat. Eat Just made headlines at the end of last year with its first commercial sale of cultured meat.

Aleph Farms says now that it has successfully created an entire steak it can essentially create any shape and type of steak. In the press release, the company shared that it will continue to expand its portfolio of cultivated meat products.

February 9, 2021

Hoxton Farms Raises £2.7M For Production of Animal-Free Fat

UK-based startup Hoxton Farms announced today that it has raised a £2.7 million (~$3.7 million USD) seed round for its animal-free fat. The round was led by Founders Fund with participation from Backed, Presight Capital, CPT Capital, and Sustainable Food Ventures (hat tip: TechCrunch).

Hoxton Farms is currently in its R&D phase and will use this funding to grow its research team. The company recently built a new lab in London in which it will develop a prototype of its cultured fat. The company aims to have a scalable prototype within 12 to 18 months.

Plant-based meat alternatives often do not contain the fattiness of animal meat. A black bean burger doesn’t sizzle in its own fat while cooking, and a seitan steak doesn’t boast marbled fatty deposits like a ribeye steak. Companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods use canola oil, sunflower oil, and coconut oil to achieve a certain degree of fattiness in their products, but it is still not the same as animal fat.

Like other cultured meat companies, Hoxton Farms extracts cells from a living animal without harming or slaughtering the animal. Cultured meat companies extract muscle cells, while Hoxton Farms extracts fat cells. These cells are then grown in a bioreactor to create fat that is identical to animal-fat. The company did not disclose if it will be selling its cultured fat to cultured meat or plant-based alternative companies once it is able to bring production up to a commercial scale.

There are certainly competitors in the cultured meat space, but there are fewer companies solely focused on developing cultured fat like Hoxton Farms. Barcelona-based Cubiq Foods also produces cultured fat, and last year raised $18.4 million USD to scale-up production. Meat-Tech, a start-up based in Israel, announced near the end of last year that it had successfully created a 3D-printed cultured beef fat structure.

If Hoxton Farms is successful in its R&D development, its animal-free cultured fat may be the ingredient that unlocks a new level of plant-based meat alternatives.

February 9, 2021

Is a Major Starbucks-Eat Just Partnership in the Works?

Over the weekend, I wrote about Starbucks testing a 100 percent plant-based menu at a location in Seattle, a move company CEO Kevin Johnson said was a direct response to consumer demand. But it seems that’s not the only move the coffee giant has made recently when it comes to building a more plant-forward menu. From the looks of it, Starbucks could be pushing for a major partnership with plant-based egg-maker Eat Just, too.

As one does on the internet, I stumbled across a piece of Starbucks news from the end of January that at the time went largely unnoticed. The Dallas Observer reported that Starbucks has expanded the test market for a vegan breakfast sandwich the company quietly piloted in Washington state in October 2020. 

This is apparently not the same breakfast sandwich as the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich Starbucks launched in 2020, which features Impossible’s sausage patty but also uses regular ol’ eggs and cheese. The new iteration is 100 percent vegan and, according to the Observer, is made up of an Impossible patty, an Eat Just folded egg, and a plant-based cheese from an unnamed company. The sandwich is now testing in the Dallas and Forth Worth metro area and available for a limited time.

Further investigation pulled up this Starbucks menu item called “plant-based breakfast sandwich” that looks identical. Though Impossible is the only company named for now, the menu item includes “a plant-based egg patty” that looks suspiciously like Eat Just’s folded egg product.

Eat Just was not available to comment for this story. But nothing about a major Starbucks-Eat Just alliance would surprise. The latter’s folded egg product is an obvious candidate for the QSR realm, given that it requires little prep (heat it up and serve) and has no real competitor right now when it comes to frozen egg products made from plants. It also closely resembles the omelette-like patty found on traditional breakfast sandwiches everywhere, including Starbucks, Dunkin’, McDonald’s, and the independently owned coffeeshop down the street.

Starbucks is also well known at this point for the sous-vide egg bites it sells at most U.S. locations. As it happens, Eat Just recently released its own line of sous-vide bites which for the moment are only in grocery stores but could be customized to fit on a plant-based Starbucks menu.

Starbucks’ Johnson said on a recent earnings call that breakfast drove the high performance of food during the company’s first quarter. Given that plus the fact that a 100 percent vegan breakfast sandwich has been seen and tasted in the real world, it seems only a matter of time before we hear wind of a much more widespread partnership between the two companies.

February 6, 2021

Food Tech News: Artificial Pollination for Almond Orchards, Brave Robot Available Nationwide

If you’re anything like me, the days blur together easily after months of stay-at-home orders, and you probably have to look at a calendar to determine what day it is. However, our Food Tech News is out today, which means it’s a Saturday! This week, we have stories on artificial pollination in almond orchards, Brave Robot’s nationwide expansion, Keurig’s phone app, and a fully plant-based Starbucks location.

Edete to use artificial pollination for Australian almond orchard

Edete Precision Technologies for Agriculture, an ag tech startup based in Israel, recently signed a contract with one of Australia’s largest almond orchards. This August, when the almonds trees begin to bloom, Edete will apply its artificial pollination technology to the almond trees. The company’s machines collect flowers and then separate out the pollen. The collected pollen can be stored for up to a year, and when trees are ready to be pollinated, the machines dispense the optimal amount of pollen per flower. Due to the decline of pollinators and issues like bee colony collapse disorder, crops that require insect pollination (around 75% of all crops) are at risk for severe yield declines, so Edete’s technology may become crucial in the upcoming years. The company also plans to work with almond growers in California.

Brave Robot’s animal free ice cream made in partnership with fermentation company Perfect Day Source: Perfect Day

Brave Robot is now available in 5,000 stores across US

Brave Robot, a brand of The Urgent Company, shared that its animal-free flora-based ice cream is now available in 5,000 locations across the US. The ice cream comes in eight flavors, and uses Perfect Day’s proprietary animal-free whey. Although the ice cream does not require the use of cows for milk, it does contain dairy because the whey protein is essentially an exact replica of whey protein from cows. Brave Robot ice cream is available in stores like Kroger, Sprouts, Safeway, Lassen’s, and Ralph’s throughout the US.

Keurig Commercial Remote Brew App

Keurig announces new phone controlled and touchless brewing feature

Keurig Commercial announced a new touchless feature available for its commercial coffee makers intended for workplaces. Users can download the Keurig Remote Brew App, and through the app select which coffee or specialty beverage they would like to brew. Developed with the existing Bluetooth Kit, the Remote Brew App can be used with Eccellenza Touch and Eccellenza Momentum models. This new feature was created to make coffee in a COVID-19 safe manner for those employees who may be returning to the workplace.

Photo from Starbuck’s website

Starbucks to pilot fully plant-based location

An existing Starbucks location near Seattle, Washington will be piloted for offering only plant-based menu items. This was announced by Starbucks CEO in the recent Q1 earnings call, but it is unclear when the plant-based transition will occur, or which exact location it will be. On the Starbucks website, an article was released in January 2021 that shared that plant-based items will continue to be added at Starbucks locations globally as part of the company’s sustainability initiatives. New plant-based items being trialed in the U.S. include an Impossible breakfast sandwich, vegan bagels, oat milk, and a variety of almond milk-based beverages.

February 2, 2021

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.

February 2, 2021

McDonald’s Starts Testing McPlant Burger in Europe

McDonald’s plant-based burger, co-developed with Beyond Meat, is officially on the chain’s menus in Denmark and Sweden, according to a company press release (h/t LIVEKINDLY).

As with other Beyond products, the primary protein ingredient in the McPlant is pea protein, with rice protein a secondary ingredient. The product is for sale as a burger topped with lettuce, cheese, tomato, pickle, onion, mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup. 

Staunch vegans beware, though: according to Bloomberg, the patty is cooked on the same grill as McDonald’s regular beef burgers. For those trying to avoid any kind of animal-based protein, this will likely be a major turnoff, though customers buying plant based patties for more environmental reasons may not find the situation as problematic. Burger King faced a similar issue with the Impossible Whopper, and customers can now request their plant-based order be cooked on a different grill. It is unclear if McDonald’s will offer a similar choice.

McDonald’s is one of the last of the major QSRs to offer a plant-based option on its menu, outside of a test the chain did with Beyond in Canada in 2019. When McDonald’s made the initial announcement around this new burger back in November, it was unclear that Beyond was even involved as the supplier. While that issue has been clarified for now, it’s equally unclear whether Beyond will continue supplying the plant-based patties for a wider McPlant rollout, or if/when said patties will be coming to the U.S.

The McPlant trial is currently taking place until March 15 in Sweden (in Linköping and Helsingborg) and April 12 in Denmark. Few details have been offered as to whether Beyond will continue to be the supplier as McDonald’s releases plant-based menu items to a wider audience.  

February 1, 2021

Future Meat’s CEO on Price Parity, Cultured Chicken in the U.S. and Raising $26.75M

Future Meat Technologies announced today it has brought the production cost of its cultured chicken breast product to under $10. The company has also raised an additional $26.75 million in capital to scale up production and get its product into market in the next 12 to 18 months.

Reaching cost parity with traditional meat is a vital step in the process of bringing cultured meat to the wider public. Speaking via a video chat today, Future Meat CEO Rom Kshuk said that getting to price parity with traditional meat has been part of his company’s mission statement from the start. Future Meat, he said has been able to “decrease cost by 1,000 times over the last three years.” As of now, a quarter-pound serving of its cultured chicken breast costs just $7.50 to produce.

Future Meat differs from many alt-protein companies in that it uses a blend of cultured and plant-based ingredients for its products, rather than choosing one or the other, as most companies do. This, Kshuk explained, is something of a “low-hanging fruit” approach since companies can typically get to market faster with a blended product as opposed to developing one that is 100 percent cultured. Kshuk said that right now, Future Meat will “use the best of both worlds” where these two approaches are concerned, though that balance will skew more towards exclusively cultured meat products in future.

For plant-based proteins, the company uses a mixture of the leading products on the market (soy, pea, fungi). Plant-based protein tends to provide a better texture and nutritional profile to food items than cultured protein, which is one advantage to using the former. However, the plant-based approach comes up lacking in terms of what Kshuk calls “the sensory experience” of the meat: flavor, aroma, etc. Those are elements cultured meat is better able to provide, for now at least.

At the moment, Future Meat is focused on scaling up its production, planning its approach to market, and trying to get a team on the ground in the U.S. It plans to launch in the U.S. by 2022. Initially, that will likely happen through two channels: restaurants and direct-to-consumer sales. The latter could be an especially lucrative format, given the rise in D2C commerce brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.  

The recent fundraise will bolster all of these efforts. The $26.75 million funding round is a convertible note with participation from new investors that include German dairy producer Müller Group, ADM Capital, and CPG Rich Products Corp. Existing investors Tyson Foods, Archer Daniels Midland, S2G Ventures, Manta Ray Investors, Emerald Technology Ventures, and Bits x Bites participated, too. 

Future meat expects its pilot facility to start production in the first half of 2021 and is also seeking regulatory approval in multiple territories. 

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