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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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GoodLeaf Farms Raises $65M, Plans Vertical Farm Expansion Across Canada

GoodLeaf Farms announced this week it has raised more than $65 million from food manufacturer McCain Foods and is set to embark on “an aggressive growth and expansion plan” for its network of vertical farms, according to an email sent to The Spoon.

Based in Ontario, Canada, GoodLeaf grows leafy greens inside a controlled-environment vertical farm via hydroponics and its own proprietary tech setup that controls light, temperature, and humidity levels, as well as other elements on the farm. The company opened its first farm in 2019 in Guelph, Ontario. According to this week’s press release, two more farms are slated to open in Canada 2021: one in the Eastern side of the country and one out west. Exact locations will be announced soon.

“It is our intention to build farms that support the Canadian grocery store network, food service industry and consumers,” GoodLeaf CEO Barry Murchie said in a statement sent to The Spoon. Currently, the company provides greens to a number of brick-and-mortar as well as grocery stores servicing Ontario, including Fortinos, Whole Foods, and Bondi Produce.

One of GoodLeaf’s goal with its farms is to produce greens closer to where Canadian consumers actually shop for food, rather than these consumers having to buy produce shipped from the U.S. and Mexico. It’s a goal echoed by other Canadian control ag companies, including Lufa Farms, which is growing greens on Montreal rooftops, and Elevate Farms, which is bringing vertical farming to food-insecure areas in the country. Bringing production closer to consumers also means fewer miles to transport the food, which is better for the environment.

With its forthcoming farms, GoodLeaf will serve more grocery outlets as well as foodservice businesses beyond Ontario and across Canada.

Perfect Day Expands to Develop Animal-Free Milk Fat

Today Perfect Day announced that it’s building a team to develop animal-free fats through genetically engineered microbes. The Berkeley, California-based startup has already developed a fermentation-like process to create key milk molecules which can be used to make animal-free dairy.

A blog post from Perfect Day’s co-founders Perumal Gandhi and Ryan Pandya made clear that these efforts are still super early stage. They indicated that there probably wouldn’t be prototypes of products featuring the flora-based fats for a while since they’ll be laser focused on scaling up their milk proteins in 2020. They also didn’t indicate which products they would develop with their fat, but in an email to The Spoon their team told us that “animal-free dairy is the obvious fit.”

The startup has been going at full force recently. Last year the company partnered with ADM to increase production capacity and raised a $34.8 million Series B in early 2019. As I mentioned above, it also launched its first product — ice cream made with their flora-based milk — in July of this year. 

This expansion shows that Perfect Day’s scope is far wider than just protein. In the post, Gandhi and Panda write that they want their flora platform “to be as broad and powerful” as possible to make “the full dairy experience animal-free.”

Perfect Day’s announcement also goes to show that when it comes to developing sustainable alternatives to animal products, protein is only part of the puzzle. All of the ingredients — from fats to flavorings — have to be environmentally friendly as well.

Right now, that’s not necessarily the case. Many plant-based products rely on palm or coconut oil for richness, since these two fats are saturated (just like butter or beef fat). However, coconut oil and especially palm oil can be exploitative to laborers and the environment, clearing tropical rainforests.

In short, just because a food is animal-free doesn’t mean it’s necessarily sustainable. Perfect Day’s initiative to revamp every aspect of animal alternatives is a good blueprint for other alternative protein companies to consider, if they’re not doing so already.

I Tried the JUST Egg Frittata at Le Pain Quotidien. It’s Another Win for Plant-Based Foods.

Quick service and fast food restaurants, from Burger King to Dunkin’, are clamoring to add plant-based options to their menus. You can now count Le Pain Quotidien among them, which teamed up with JUST for a chicken egg-free frittata that is now available at U.S. locations as of Wednesday.

The “Plant-Based ‘Egg’ Frittata” is made of the mung-bean derived egg substitute, roasted butternut squash, broccoli, caramelized onions and almond milk. Le Pain Quotidien feels so strongly about the plant-based version that it will replace its previous frittata.

I had the chance to try the JUST Egg frittata a week before it launched, and it’s clear why Le Pain put it on the menu: it’s delicious, and if I wasn’t told it was egg free, I wouldn’t have known. The way my fork slid into it felt natural, and nothing about the look and texture of the frittata would tell you that it was made with an egg substitute. It’s amazing how mundane, and I mean that in a good way, plant-based foods have become.

Many of other people who got a preview, which included nutritionists and influencers, came away with the same impression.

JUST says in a press release that the liquid version of its egg “has nearly as much protein as conventional chicken eggs, is free of cholesterol, saturated fat and artificial flavoring and its ingredients require considerably less water and emit fewer carbon emissions than chicken eggs.”

The company, which is also working on cultivated meat, has seen other restaurant partnerships hatch: restaurant chain Silver Diner and burger chain Bareburger (where you can also order an Impossible or Beyond Burger) will include JUST Egg on their menus. The company also announced that the liquid egg replacement will be available at Walmart and Kroger stores.

It’s been an impressive run for a product that only launched last year.