Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

California

Gavin Newsom and California Legislators Allocate $5 Million for Cultivated Meat R&D

When California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the California Budget Act of 2022 into law this week, the state of California directed billions of dollars of tax funds to be allocated to everything from mental health support to gun buybacks to transportation infrastructure.

But also nestled inside the $308 billion budget is a provision of particular interest for those in the alt protein industry. Under Section 190, which allocates roughly $5 billion in budget for the University of California system, there is a small little provision that says this:

Of the funds appropriated in this item, $5,000,000 shall be available on a one-time basis for the Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Davis campuses to support research and development of plant-based and cultivated meats.

That provision – number 38 of Section 190 – marks for the first time ever that the state of California is dedicated funding directly to the research and development of cultivated meat. The funding, which will be dispersed across three colleges in UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC Davis, will give additional momentum to California universities (particularly Berkeley and Davis) that have already established names for themselves in the future of meat.

For Davis, the funding will further work done by the university’s consortium formed in 2020 headed by professor David Block. That program, which got a grant of up to $3.55 million from the National Science Foundation to run over five years, is working on developing cell lines for cultivated meat, plant-based cell-cultured growth media, and evaluating the taste and nutritional aspects of cultivated meat.

Berkeley, which established its Alt Meat lab in 2017, is at the epicenter of the Bay area’s alternative meat industry. Startups like Sundial Foods, Orbillion, and others often get their start at Berkeley and get fast-tracked into local accelerators and onto venture capitalist watchlists. This funding will likely only solidify the university’s strength in future food.

UCLA, which sits alongside Berkeley as one the most prestigious schools in the University of California system, got its start in cultivated meat research in 2018 and received its first outside financial support through grants from The Good Food Institute and New Harvest in 2019. The school received federal support through research grants from the USDA and NSF and most recently received private funding in the form of a quarter-million-dollar grant last year from the California NanoSystems Institute to start researching cell-cultivated meat.

There’s no doubt that companies who benefit from the University of California’s strength in churning out future food scientists and their innovations are excited to see the state invest in this category. One of those companies is UPSIDE Foods, which launched its new pilot production plant for cultivated meat last year just down the street from Cal Berkeley. According to a statement sent to The Spoon, UPSIDE actively advocated on behalf of the schools, inviting legislators to tour its cultivated meat production facility and discussing the importance of the funding.

“This historic investment in research and development across the University of California system will ensure that California remains a leader in food and innovation. At UPSIDE Foods, we believe strongly in the need for open access research to build a robust cultivated meat ecosystem that benefits all.“

While the US federal and state governments haven’t shown the same level of commitment we’ve seen from countries like Israel, Singapore, and China in alternative protein, this and other recent investments in research and curriculum development at our university system is a positive sign. Politicians are finally beginning to see the strategic importance of future food to the country’s economic, national security, and environmental sustainability goals. As a result, it seems they are beginning to ever-so-slowly allocate public funding into innovation areas that – up to this point at least – have been disproportionately funded by private investment dollars.

(Update: The article was edited to include information about UCLA’s research background and external funding history for cultivated meat research.)

California DMV to Allow Light-Duty Self-Driving Vehicles for Tasks like Grocery Delivery

Self-driving grocery and food delivery just got one step closer to becoming a reality in California. The Golden State announced yesterday that light-duty autonomous delivery vehicles can now be tested and put to commercial use on the state’s public roads after going through the proper permitting process with the Department of Motor Vehicles (h/t The Verge).

From the press announcement:

Under revised regulations approved Monday by the Office of Administrative Law, companies with a DMV permit can operate autonomous delivery vehicles weighing less than 10,001 pounds. The DMV can begin approving new applications in 30 days. Qualifying vehicles include autonomous passenger cars, midsized pickup trucks and cargo vans carrying goods such as pizza or groceries.

You can read the full list of requirements here.

This is good news for startups like Nuro and Robomart, both of which use pod-like low-speed vehicles for delivery, are half the size of regular cars, and do not have space for a driver. Though both companies are based in California, the bulk of their public testing has occurred out of that state. Nuro in particular has done grocery delivery in Arizona and Texas in partnership with Kroger, while Robomart announced a test with ShopRite in Boston.

But the new rules are also a boon to AutoX, which operates full-sized autonomous vehicles for food delivery as well as mobile commerce. Presumably, this would also help a company like Refraction, which has three-wheeled autonomous vehicles that are smaller than Nuro’s pods but still operate on roads, if they choose to enter the California market.

Some autonomous grocery and food delivery has already been happening in California. The aforementioned AutoX has been operating in San Jose, and online grocer Farmstead has been working with self-driving van startup Udelv for grocery delivery. In those examples, though, a human driver is on-board for safety reasons.

As we’ve covered before, advancements in delivery technology, whether it be self-driving vehicles or high-flying drones, present a challenge for local and city governments. They must balance the desire to adopt new tech while maintaining the safety of its citizens as well as recouping revenues lost from traditional systems being replaced (think: parking fees lost from autonomous ride-sharing). It’s happening quickly and in the coming year we can expect a flurry of new laws across the country as states try to adapt.

New California Law Sets Protocol for Reusable Food and Drink Containers

I love bringing my reusable mug to coffee shops. It helps cut down on disposable cup waste, occasionally gets me a discount, and always makes me feel like I’m getting approximately 10 karma points. But occasionally coffee shops will say they’re not allowed to accept reusable cups for health code reasons.

From this week on, that won’t be a problem — at least in California (h/t Nation’s Restaurant News). On July 12, the California governor signed into law the Assembly Bill 619 to establish best practices for foodservice establishments dealing with reusable food and beverage containers. Previous California law simply stated that restaurant staff could refill reusable containers if “the dispensing system includes a contamination-free transfer process,” but didn’t specify what that process would look like. The new law provides more details.

From the bill:

This bill would instead provide that clean consumer-owned containers provided or returned to the food facility for filling may be filled by either the employee or the owner of the container, and would require the food facility to isolate the consumer-owned containers from the serving surface or sanitize the serving surface after each filling. The bill would require the consumer-owned containers to be designed and constructed for reuse, as specified. The bill would require the food facility to prepare, maintain, and adhere to written procedures to prevent cross-contamination, and to make the written procedures available to the enforcement agency.

Now approved, the new law stipulates that restaurants can’t put consumers’ reusable containers down on the serving surface, or that they must sanitize the surface each time after filling a reusable container. Foodservice spots must also write a policy for the prevention of cross-contamination which they can show to inspectors. Additionally, the law allows the use of reusable containers at “temporary food facilities” like events or outdoor festivals, which were previously required to use disposables, as long as they are cleaned on-site.

Reusable containers could help significantly cut down on packaging waste. Thanks to the rise of on-demand culture, we dispose of an astounding number of single-use cups, utensils, and food containers. According to the EPA, containers and packaging alone contribute over 23 percent of landfill material in the U.S. Compostable containers, while certainly preferable to the pure evil of styrofoam, still release methane when they decompose.

On the foodservice side, establishments large and small are beginning to experiment with reusable containers. The Loop sells brand-name CPG products from Pepsi and Nestlé in reusable vessels made of metal and glass. Yum China is experimenting with reusable fried chicken baskets at KFC’s in China. Starbucks recently trialed a reusable cup program at Gatwick airport, and, on a smaller scale, Vessel Works and Cup Club also have rent-and-return programs for reusable coffee cups.

Bill 619 was just signed into law this week, so it’s too soon to tell if it will actually increase usage of reusable containers and cups. Since California already has a reputation of being pretty eco-friendly, I’m not sure if it will actually inspire much of a change in day-to-day consumer behavior.

Sure, the fact that the law requires companies to sanitize food surfaces touched by reusable containers might assuage fears of germaphobe customers. But it also helps eco-conscious consumers who can point to the bill if a restaurant or coffee shop ever refuses to take their reusable container. However, the extra sanitizing could also end up being a pain in the a$$ for foodservice workers, especially in the middle of a crazy lunch rush. In fact, the success of the bill may well come down to how well restaurants can manage the sanitation rules during busy times, especially if more and more people start bringing in reusable containers.

One thing is for sure: Bill 619 starts a conversation around ways we can cut down on the obscene numbers of single-use containers and cups thrown into oceans and landfills each year. Hopefully soon it’ll become the norm coffee shops to get told off for not bringing your reusable mug.