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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

MeliBio

Food Tech Founders Navigate Turbulence of SVB Collapse & Subsequent Fed Intervention

If you’ve ever traveled overseas when big news happens at home, it can feel disorienting.

I felt that to a certain degree last week when The Spoon team was in Europe to attend the HIP conference in Spain and to travel to the Basque Culinary Center. Like many of you, I was trying to keep on top of the news about SVB’s collapse and wondering whether the bank’s collapse would lead to a 2008-like contagion, but all the while doing so from a different time zone and a foreign country.

But that feeling of discombobulation was no doubt minor compared to what many food tech founders felt as they tried to figure out what all this meant to their companies. Many were directly impacted by having the bulk of their funds sitting in SVB accounts, and I watched updates on Twitter, Linkedin, and other social channels as founders communicated in real-time as they navigated the impending financial crisis.

One of those companies was Omsom, a fast-growing CPG brand founded by sisters Vanessa and Kim Pham to deliver Asian flavor mixes to consumers via DTC channels. The company published an open letter via Instagram late last week to explain how they were processing the crisis and to appeal for help from their customers.

“Silicon Valley Bank collapsed yesterday in the second largest bank failure in American history — and they were our bank,” they wrote. “This is an open letter from our founders on what happens next + how you can help 🙏🏽.”

Like many founders, they were filled with trepidation about the coming week before the Fed, US Treasury, and the FDIC announced their plans for dealing with the crisis.

Shiru’s Jasmin Hume of Shiru not only felt the confusion a founder must feel when hit with this kind of news but, like me, was trying to navigate the news while traveling overseas. She documented how she was dealing with the crisis while traveling in Japan en route to Spain on her Linkedin:

The past few days have been exhausting learning and responding to SVB’s collapse while in Japan on business. The next few days won’t be any easier, and thinking about them sort of takes my breath away:

Today I’m flying to Spain where I have an 18 hour stop to pick up my 10 month old son who’s been there with family. During the stop I need to work with my team to navigate and act on anything affecting Shiru given whatever SVB updates are on Monday. Monday we’re also announcing a huge, regularly scheduled, milestone for Shiru (more on that soon!). On Tuesday I fly to SF with my son (something like 4 flights, around 30 h traveling combined over the next 2 days across 17 time zones – half of that with a baby). Then back in the office in Alameda Wednesday for 5 on site visits and tastings with investors/partners followed by a speaking engagement at Future Food-Tech Thursday and more conference stuff Friday. All this while helping a very jet-lagged baby re-adjust to his home in Oakland.

Stateside, many future food startup founders were trying to navigate the crisis while also trying to showcase their products at one of the food industry’s biggest confabs, Natural Products Expo West. One such founder was Darko Mandich of Melibio, a company that makes a honey alternative via precision fermentation. Mandich was working at the booth when he started getting a barrage of text messages from associates about the SVB crisis.

“From three different investors, I received text messages that were going around,” Mandich said in an interview with Food Dive. “‘Have you seen the news?’ ‘Are you guys exposed to SVB?’ ‘Darko, you might need to react on this.'”

“And I was like, ‘What’s happening?'” Mandich continued. “Then I checked out the news, and I was really shocked.”

Many of the founders impacted by the crisis expressed relief once the Fed, the Treasury, and the FDIC issued a joint statement on Sunday outlining how they would assure all depositor funds in SVB and another financial institution, Signature Bank, would access to all of their deposits on Monday, March 13th.

Omsom updated their Instagram message upon news of the US government’s intervention: as of 6:15p ET, a statement was released by the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and FDIC saying that all SVB depositors will have access to their accounts starting Monday 3/13! We won’t breathe easy until we have access to our funds, but this is DEFINITELY a win 😭.

But like founders across the startup world, those leading food tech companies are newly aware of institutional risk and are figuring out how to manage it going forward.

Stephen Kalb, the CEO of Seattle-based Shelf Engine, started transferring his money out of SVB on Monday, telling PBS he had learned a “very hard lesson.”

“I obviously now know banks aren’t as safe as I used to think they were,” he said.

Video: Melibio’s Darko Mandich on Making Honey Without the Bees

Honey is a$7 billion industry. While honeybees themselves are not in danger (at least today), the focus on honey production is problematic for the broader bee ecosystem since farmed honeybees compete with wild bees for food and ultimately hurt biodiversity.

All of this is why a Serbian bee industry executive named Darko Mandich became fascinated with the idea of making honey without bees. His company MeliBio uses precision fermentation, synthetic biology, and plant science that replaces bees as the honey-making medium. The result is a “honey” with the same taste, texture, and mouthfeel of natural honey without any harvesting from bees.

Since the company recently released its first plant-based honey, we thought it would be good to catch up with Darko to talk a little about his honey and how he got the inspiration to start the company.

Making Honey Without Bees With Melibio

Food Tech Show Live: Dark Kitchens, Dark Grocery

The Spoon team got together on Clubhouse on Friday to talk about the biggest stories of the week. Our special guest was Veronica Fil, the CEO of Grounded Foods.

The stories we discussed include:

If you’d like to join us for the live recording, make sure to follow The Spoon’s Food Tech Live club on Clubhouse, where you’ll find us recording our weekly news review every Friday.

As always, you can listen the most recent episode and past episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. To listen to last week’s episode, just click play below.

MeliBio Raises a Sweet $850,000 Pre-Seed Round for Bee-Less Honey

MeliBio, a startup that makes real honey without the need for bees, announced today that it has raised an $850,000 pre-seed round of funding. Investors in the round include Big Idea Ventures, Joyance Partners, 18.ventures, Sparklabs Cultiv8, Sustainable Food Ventures, Capital V, angel investor Courtney Reum and two mission-driven family offices.

Founded in 2020, the Berkeley, California-based MeliBio uses precision fermentation, synthetic biology and plant science that replaces bees as the medium for making honey. The result is a “honey” that has the same taste, texture and mouthfeel of real honey without any harvesting from bees.

MeliBio is among a number of startups using precision fermentation to recreate familiar foods. Change Foods is making cheese from fermented microbes. Perfect Day is re-creating dairy proteins for foods like ice cream through precision fermentation. And Mushlabs is using fermentation to turn mycelia into a meat alternative.

The reason for all of this activity is to tackle the needs of feeding a growing global population while reducing the environmental impact that can come from traditional agriculture. Additionally, these new fermentation techniques could cut down the production time it takes to make these foods because you aren’t relying on traditional animal or crop growing cycles. MeliBio says its approach can help save 20,000 wild and native bee species that are essential to Earth’s flora and fauna.

According to the press announcement, MeliBio says it will supply food service companies with its plant-based honey as an ingredient. The first such product will be soft launched by the end of this year to its first customers. The company expects to expand its commercial product rollout in the first half of 2022.

To learn more about MeliBio, check out the recent podcast we did with MeliBio CEO, Darko Mandich at the end of last year.

Making Honey Without The Bee: A Conversation With Darko Mandich

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that bee colonies are collapsing around the world due to a number of persistent threats such as global warming, pesticides and yes, murder hornets.

And while that may present a challenge to the $7 billion honey industry, the focus on honey production is itself problematic for the broader bee ecosystem, since farmed honeybees compete with wild bees for food and ultimately can hurt biodiversity.

All of which is why a Serbian bee industry executive by the name of Darko Mandich became fascinated with the idea of making honey without the bees. If this sounds crazy to you, don’t worry: Darko’s soon-to-be cofounder, Aaron Schaller, initially thought it was crazy too when they first discussed the idea.

But eventually, Schaller (a molecular scientist from the University of Cal Berkeley) saw the potential in bee-less honey and soon after, MeliBio was born. From there, the nascent startup pitched their concept to Big Idea Ventures and was accepted into the future food accelerator.

Now the company is busy developing its technology to create a honey that replicates the taste, texture and mouthful of real honey, all without bees. As Darko tells me on this podcast, MeliBio is using fermentation to essentially recreate the process through which bees convert nectar to honey. The startup hopes to have its first product on the market by late 2021.

You can listen to the full conversation with Darko Mandich by clicking play below or by subscribing to the Food Tech Show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (and leave a review if you like the show). You can also download the episode directly to your computer by clicking here. And, as always, you can always find more food tech news and podcasts at The Spoon.

Food Tech News: Bee-Free Honey, Menu Items With Low Carbon Footprints

It was an exciting week in food tech with the annual SKS Summit happening earlier this week (if you missed it, check out the highlights of day one, day two, and day three). Outside of this week’s virtual event, a few other stories stood out to us, including bee-free honey, low carbon footprint menu items at Panera, Minnow partnering with two restaurants, and anti-stress nutrition bars.

Melibio is creating bee-free honey

Melibio is using microbial fermentation and synthetic biology to create honey without the use of bees. The process will mimic the process a bee would take to create honey and will use real flower nectar. Honey is often touted for its health benefits, and Melibio’s honey will contain small amounts of the amino acids, minerals, and enzymes found in real honey. The company plans on launching a product for food and beverage companies by late 2021.

Panera Bread releases climate-friendly labels on menu

Starting this week, Panera Bread’s menu will include “cool food” badges that signify which of its menu items have a lower carbon footprint. Around 55 percent of the chain’s existing menu items will have a cool food meal badge. Ingredients that are considered to have a low carbon footprint include vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes. Medium carbon impact ingredients include fish, eggs, cheese, nuts, and poultry, and beef has the highest carbon footprint. Last month, Just Salad also released a Climatarian menu that shows menu items with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions.

Minnow launches pilot program in fast-casual restaurants

Minnow, the recent winner of the SKS Startup Showcase, launched a pilot program for its contact-free delivery and pick-up solution. The Minnow Pickup Pods will be located at Crisp Salads in Portland, Oregon, and bNatural Kitchen in New Haven, Connecticut. Similar to the design of an Amazon locker, the pods disrupt the use of expensive third-party delivery services like Doordash or Postmates. Additionally, the pods have a touchless interface for pick-up, and the cubbies are insulated to keep food fresh.

myAir releases stress-reducing nutrition bars

Tel-Aviv-based startup myAir makes nutrition bars infused with different herbal compounds to manage stress. The personalized nutrition company offers a short three-minute quiz on its website to determine a customer’s level of stress, and then the customer’s heart rate, sleep quality, physical activity is tracked through smartwatches. This data is then used to determine what combination of bars would be most beneficial for the customer. The gluten-free and vegan bars cost $3 each, and are available in flavors like Calm Green (infused with lemon balm extract) and Sleepy Gray (infused with hops).