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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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SuperMeat Believes An Open Source Approach to Cultivated Meat Will Benefit All

Lab-grown or cultured meat is a sexy topic that fulfills the dream of healthy eating while saving the planet’s precious resources. Most of the headlines focus on the companies in the four corners of the world waiting for regulators to wave the checkered flag. The more interesting story—at least for those who enjoy looking under the hood—is in the processes, supply chain, and partnerships vital to this promising industry.

To understand the drill-down of what it takes to go from harvesting animal cells to creating consumer-facing products, it’s valuable to speak with visionaries such as Ido Savir, CEO of Israel’s SuperMeat. In addition to his knowledge of cultivated meat, Savir’s background in IT provides him with a panoramic view of the infrastructure needed to build a successful B2B company.

While it might not qualify as an awe-inspiring announcement, SuperMeat recently received a grant from the Israeli Innovation Authority to establish an open-source high-throughput screening system for optimizing cultivated meat feed ingredients. As an analogy, think of it as a system that ensures cows or chickens receive only the best quality feed to produce larger quantities of high-grade meat or chicken. But there is a significant difference.

Savir explains that animals are inefficient producers of their products. “It’s just done more efficiently (in cultivated meat),” the SuperMeat CEO told The Spoon in a recent interview. “In traditional meat production, 70% to 80% of the cost comes from the feed, and animals are just not very efficient conversion machines.” To put it into perspective, the cost of animal component-free (ACF) feed can make or break those vying to play in this space.

Rather than compete with consumer-facing brands such as Future Meat, Eat Just, and Mosa Meat (to name a few), SuperMeat is taking a B2B approach. Working with established meat and poultry providers to build production facilities where companies with existing supply chains can quickly enter the future of the alt-meat market. SuperMeat has announced deals with Germany’s PHW Group and Migros in Switzerland. The Israeli firm is in discussion with potential U.S. partners to reach the stateside market by the end of 2023.

The decision to build a platform for cultivated meat rather than build its own consumer brand directly results from Savir’s tech background, and it is also why the new feed screening system is in the open-source approach. “From my background, and I really believe in open source, and I really believe in sort of a platform approach that can help bring not just one company but the industry forward,” Savir stated.

Also, speaking to his tech background, it’s clear Savir has learned the relationship between capital expenditures and profit. It’s not about cost; it’s about having the right model.

“The way I look at this, and it doesn’t matter how much the infrastructure costs,” he said. “What matters is how efficient and the return you can get from that money. Right. And if you can get that return in a reasonable time, it makes sense, no matter what the cost is. We have our cost of goods models that demonstrate that that makes sense.”

A trip to SuperMeat’s facility in Israel will yield more than a view of lab equipment and many steel fermentation tanks. The facility includes a small restaurant-like space called “The Chicken,” where potential business partners, consumers, and others can taste the lab-grown animal protein. Savir says it’s more than just a pretty place to show off.

“We’re trying to do things a bit differently,” Savir said. “We thought it was important for us and our potential clients, which are food companies, to have that full transparency and traceability.”

See video of the makeshift eatery below:

World's First Cultivated Meat Blind Tasting Full Reel

Beyond Meat Expands Its Chicken Tenders Footprint to Get a Leg Up

California-based Beyond Meat continues its drive to satisfy plant-based consumers by expanding the presence of its chicken tenders in high-profile retailers. Beginning April 12, Beyond will add Albertsons, CVS, Sprouts, and Whole Foods Market stores nationwide to its roster. Krogers and its brands (Fry’s, Food 4 Less, QFC, Ralph’s) will add the product throughout April. Beyond’s September 2021 announcement of the new product revealed an initial slate of retail partners led by Walmart.

The plant-based chicken market is highly competitive, given the riches at stake. SPINS, a data technology company, reported that the plant-based chicken market grew from $230.7 million in May 2020 to $271.8 million one year later. Others in this crowded space include Singapore’s TiNDL; Impossible Foods; Rebellyous Foods; Nowadays; Gardein; among others.

Beyond the supermarket shelf, food service in fast-food joints and restaurants has become a crucial channel to market for plant-based chicken. Beyond Meat’s poultry is in regional players such as Flyrite, Next Level Clucker; Plow Burger; Panda Express; and KFC (fried chicken). Globally, Beyond Meat products, including the Beyond Burger, Beyond Beef, and Beyond Sausage, are available at approximately 130,000 retail and foodservice outlets in more than 90 countries.

“Building on the positive momentum of our recent chicken launches, we’re excited to significantly expand the availability of our Beyond Chicken Tenders by showing up in more places for our consumers – from their favorite supermarket or drugstore to large warehouse clubs – making delicious, nutritious and sustainable plant-based meat more accessible than ever before,” said Deanna Jurgens, Chief Growth Officer, Beyond Meat in a company release.

Beyond Meat’s chicken nuggets are made primarily from faba (fava) beans with breading comprised of wheat and rice flour. They also contain pea protein, wheat gluten, spices, oil, and a mix of natural flavors. They are soy-free (although the label says they may contain soy from shared manufacturing facilities).

The plant-based chicken market has the potential to be a giant, ticking time bomb. While all matters of faux poultry hit grocery store shelves and eateries, not far off in the distance are a host of cultured products that will rival—and possibly outperform—their plant-based predecessors (provided the newer alternatives can scale). With governmental approval possible by the end of the year, companies such as Eat Just’s GOOD Meats division will be able to sell their cultivated chicken products in the U.S. The San Francisco-based company received approval from Singapore to sell its new product in Singapore, one of two countries where cultured or lab-grown meat is legal. The Netherlands recently allowed samples of this futuristic form of meat to be distributed.

As far as Beyond’s entry into the lab-grown or cultivated meat and poultry market, the company says its current commitment is to plant-based food. “We remain focused on our mission to create products that address the four growing global issues of climate change, human health, the constraint on natural resources, and animal welfare,” a company spokesperson told The Spoon. “We are incredibly proud of our approach to building meat from plants as an accessible and delicious way for consumers to make a positive impact on these areas.”

How Alphabet’s AI-Powered Leap in Protein Structure Prediction Could Accelerate New Food Development

This past week Alphabet, the parent company of Google, announced that its DeepMind group has solved a long-standing grand challenge in the scientific community around protein structure prediction.

In 1972, scientist Christian Anfinsen predicted that a protein’s structure could be determined by its amino acid sequence. However, figuring out that sequence is immensely difficult since there are near-infinite ways in which a protein can fold. This led Cyrus Levinthal to postulate that calculating all the known configurations would take longer than the age of the known universe if our only way there was brute force calculation (a problem often referred to as Levinthal’s Paradox).

Thankfully, now we won’t have to wait forever (literally) since DeepMind’s DeepFold AI can predict protein structure to the width of an atom within days. My former Gigaom colleague, Darrell Etherington, explained the feat in a post on Techcrunch:

The test that AlphaFold passed essentially shows that the AI can correctly figure out, to a very high degree of accuracy (accurate to within the width of an atom, in fact), the structure of proteins in just days — a very complex task that is crucial to figuring out how diseases can be best treated, as well as solving other big problems like working out how best to break down ecologically dangerous material like toxic waste.

As many in the world of future food development know, AI is becoming an increasingly important tool to accelerate the development of new proteins and other food-building blocks. Companies like Climax Foods are embracing machine learning to help them develop new approaches to making food like plant-based cheese. And now, with DeepMind’s advances in protein folding prediction paths, we can expect AI to become an even more important tool in new food development.

To get a feel for what the impact of this milestone might be, I asked Sudeep Agarwala, a synthetic microbiologist for Gingko, what he thought DeepMind’s work could possibly mean for food:

“There’s so much that can happen with this,” Agarwala told me. “Think about different textures or mouth feels with food proteins that the AI can design. Or even different amino acid contents for the proteins. And that’s just for the end proteins (if you want the protein as the end product).”

“If we’re engineering proteins inside the cell to produce a small molecule (a flavor, a fragrance, a fat) we can think about making completely new enzymes with multiple functionalities. So something like a 5-step process might be condensed. This has the potential to simplify so much of the metabolic engineering we do to produce these products.”

Agarwala also believes that using technology like that of DeepMind’s will also be way more effecient in terms of resources and have a much smaller ecological footprint:

“Even if the proteins aren’t ultimately going to be consumed, being able to rationally design enzymes that are involved in producing small molecules (think fats, fragrances, or flavors) is really exciting to think about,” said Agarwala. “This isn’t small potatoes: think about how much energy and resources goes into making vanilla or saffron, for example. Being able to do this more efficiently will provide a less ecologically expensive way to produce these materials.”

Just as disease and virology experts are buzzing about what this new milestone could mean for their work, it’s clear food scientists like Agarwala are equally as excited.

“It’s such an exciting time to be a biologist!” said Agarwala.

Yes, it is.

We Tried the Plant-based Chicken Nuggets from High Tech Startup Rebellyous

Even though I technically have more time to cook during quarantine, there are some days when my motivation to scrounge up a meal is exactly zero. On those days, I turn to my freezer — frozen burritos, pre-made meals, and ravioli are always ready to go when I need them. Now I have a new staple to add to my freezer: plant-based chicken nuggets from Rebellyous Foods.

If you’re not familiar, Rebellyous is a plant-based meat company that’s reinventing manufacturing technology to make meat alternatives more scalable. After launching in 2017, the Seattle-based startup began selling its first product, a plant-based chicken nugget, to hospital and office cafeterias.

But with COVID-19 essentially closing down their marketplace, Rebellyous quickly pivoted to begin offering its nuggets on retail shelves. Last week the vegan nuggets hit the freezer sections of several small retailers in the Seattle area. A pack of 30 nuggets costs $5.99. The plant-based nuggets have a protein content comparable to regular chicken nuggets and are meant to be just as easy to prepare — whether in a corporate dining hall or a home kitchen.

A bag of Rebellyous plant-based nuggets. [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

This week I was able to put that assertion to the test when I received a sample of Rebellyous’ frozen nuggets. I reached for the nuggets when I was feeling especially hangry, hoping that they wouldn’t take forever to cook. The package suggests three cooking methods: Bake, Pan Fry, or Deep Fry. It explicitly notes not to consume the nuggets raw or microwave them, which I assume would be bad for their texture.

I decided to bake my nuggets. I preheated the oven to 425°F, shook out a some nuggets onto a bare baking sheet, and popped them into the oven. Eight minutes and one flip later, and the nuggets were ready. They did stick to the baking sheet a little bit, so next time I would line the pan with parchment paper.

I’ve tasted Rebellyous’ nuggets before, so I knew what to expect. But in the past they’ve always been prepared by an air fryer; I was skeptical that my oven would provide the same crunchy exterior.

Happily I was wrong. The nuggets had a crisp, crunchy coating and a juicy interior that almost exactly mimics the nuggets I grew up eating in my elementary school cafeteria. It’s almost uncanny. The nuggets were tasty enough that I didn’t even feel the need to use a dipping sauce, though a side of barbecue would have been delicious.

Rebellyous’ nuggets post-bake. [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

I just enjoyed one serving, which is six Rebellyous nuggets. One serving has 160 calories, 7 grams of fat and 14 grams of protein (Rebellyous uses wheat protein). The serving didn’t look like a whole lot on my plate, but they actually filled me up quite nicely. Since they have a relatively low calorie and fat count, you could double the serving size or just eat them as a snack.

Rebellyous is certainly heading to retail at an opportune time. Sales of plant-based meats have increased dramatically during the pandemic, as meat prices spike and people search for healthier foods. A handful of plant-based companies have also raised funding over the past few weeks, including Rebellyous itself.

Rebellyous is actually cashing in on three food trends right now: plant-based meat, comfort food, and frozen food. Consumers are looking for food that keeps well, prepares easily, and satisfies. Rebellyous ticks all of those boxes, and has the bonus that it’s kid-friendly (a boon for parents working from home).

I may not be a kid, but after trying them I’m a fan of Rebellyous’ nuggets. The fact that they cook in ten minutes, require no prep, taste satisfying and provide a hearty serving of protein means that they’ve definitely earned a spot in my freezer rotation.

Rebellyous’ nuggets are only available in the Seattle area for now. If you buy a pack, please leave us a comment and let us know what you thought!

Barcelona’s Cubiq Foods Raises €5M to Produce Better-for-You Cultured Fat

Cubiq Foods, a Barcelona-based startup making cultured fats for food products, announced today that it had raised €5 million ($5.4 million) from Blue Horizon Ventures and Moira Capital Partners (h/t Tech.eu). This bumps the company’s total amount of funding up to €17 million ($18.4 million).

Founded in 2018, Cubiq Foods cultivates fats and fat/water emulsions for use in industrial food products. The process is very similar to what companies are doing with cultured meat, only they’re doing it with fat. Specifically, Cubiq Foods makes oils that are rich in omega-3s, which have a laundry list of health benefits.

With its new funding, Cubiq Foods will scale up the production of its fats to industrial levels. It aims to make its cell-based fats commercially available to companies around the world by the end of 2020.

In addition to its omega-3 fat, Cubiq also converts liquid oils — like olive oil — into solids, which are intended as replacements for vegan fats like coconut oil. This could have real benefits in plant-based meat, specifically. Many options on the market right now, like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, use coconut oil to give their ground “beef” a juicy richness. Coconut oil is high in saturated fat, which can raise cholesterol levels. Adding Cubiq Foods’ new fats to their products could help plant-based meat companies make their foods more healthy and better fight critiques around health they’ve struggled against over the past year.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, plant-based meat has been getting more attention than ever — and attracting a boatload of funding, to boot. In this climate, I doubt that Cubiq Foods will have difficulty finding alternative protein companies to partner up with.

Hargol FoodTech Raises $3M to Launch First Grasshopper Protein Product

Hargol FoodTech, a company that produces commercial grasshopper protein, announced today that it had raised $3 million from existing shareholders Sirius Venture Capital and SLF Investment Partners. This brings the company’s total funding to $5 million.

With its new funding Hargol plans to expand its production capacity to launch its first insect protein product line, which will be called Biblical Protein.

Based in Israel, Hargol is a portfolio company of The Trendlines Group and has been commercially farming grasshoppers for human consumption since 2014. This will be its first product release. Back in 2018, the company stated that it had already received $5 million in requests for orders of its grasshopper protein from companies like Ikea and Pepsico. Almost exactly two years later it seems like it’s finally prepared to start fulfilling said orders.

Hargol is far from the only company out there in the bug biz. Aspire makes B2B insect protein and acquired consumer-facing cricket bar brand Exo in 2018. Entomo Farms makes roasted crickets and cricket powder, and Orchestra Provisions is trying to entice consumers to eat insects by turning them into spice mixes.

There’s no question that we should be eating bugs — they’re high in protein and amino acids, incredibly sustainable, and easy to produce. But what is unsure is whether or not we’ll ever want to eat bugs. Western consumers may never get over the “ick” factor around eating creepy crawlies, regardless of how high in protein or easy on the environment they are.

Hargol has an advantage in that its grasshoppers are blended up into a powder, so they’re unrecognizable as bugs and can be easily added into other foods, like smoothies or cookies. Still, I’m not sure how ready Western consumers will be to “hop” up and buy a bag of grasshopper powder.

On the flip side, the coronavirus pandemic is making us all take a long, hard look at our food systems and security. Insects have the advantage of being incredibly easy to produce with limited natural resources and space, so maybe COVID-19 will actually help nudge consumers to open their minds to eating bugs.

Sustainable Bioproducts Rebrands, Raises $80M for Protein Fermentation Tech

Biotech company Sustainable Bioproducts announced this morning that it has rebranded as Nature’s Fynd and raised $80 million in fresh funding. The Series B round was co-led by Generation Investment Management LLP and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, with participation from 1955 Capital, Mousse Partners, ADM Ventures, and Danone Manifesto Ventures. This brings the total amount of funding for Nature’s Fynd so far to $113 million.

Chicago-based Nature’s Fynd grew out of NASA-supported research in 2016. The company creates complete proteins by fermenting extremophile microbes based off of those that live in the scalding-hot geothermal springs in Yellowstone National Parks. The resulting protein contains all nine essential amino acids. Eventually Nature’s Fynd plans to use said protein to create its own food and beverage product lines.

For now, though, Nature’s Fynd has yet to start actually producing this fermented protein at a large scale. Today the company announced it will begin production at its 35,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Chicago later this month. Nature’s Fynd CMO Karuna Rawal told me via email that they plan to start selling branded products to retailers in 12 to 15 months.

Food made with Nature’s Fynd’s protein. [Photo: Charles Cherney Photography]

The fact that Nature’s Fynd was able to attract such a hefty amount of capital suggests that investors believe in the potential of protein fermentation. It’s especially notable that the venture arms of Big Food companies ADM and Danone both contributed to Nature’s Fynd’s latest fundraise (both groups also participated in the Series A round). Perhaps those companies are hoping that down the road, they could incorporate alt-protein from Nature’s Fynd into their own animal-free products as an alternative to, say, pea or soy.

Nature’s Fynd is not the only company developing fermentation tech to create protein. Perfect Day and New Culture both use genetically-engineered microbes to ferment the building blocks of dairy. This is a cousin to so-called gas fermentation, in which microbes transform carbon dioxide into edible protein. And Motif Foodworks provides bespoke fermented protein to CPG companies making animal-free products.

“Our innovative technology was developed by studying nature’s own solutions for adapting — and ultimately thriving — in environments with limited resources,” Thomas Jonas, the CEO and co-founder of Nature’s Fynd, stated in an email to The Spoon. Considering that the future of our food production is a bit perilous right now, it’s a smart move to invest in novel ways to create dietary staples. Protein included.

World’s Largest Meat Processor to Launch Line of Plant-based Burgers, Meatballs

Colorado-based Planterra Foods announced a new plant-based brand today. Called OZO, the brand will include a line of meatless burgers, grounds, and meatballs. And here’s the kicker: Planterra Foods is owned by the U.S. branch of JBS, the Brazilian corporation that processes the largest amount of meat in the world.

OZO’s offerings are made of a mix of pea and rice protein fermented with shiitake mushrooms, which, according to a press release from Planterra, makes the products more “easily digestible.” OZO’s products will be priced from $5.99 to $7.99, which puts them in line with competitors like Beyond Meat.

The plant-based products will launch in grocery stores across the U.S. in April, after which the company will begin rolling them out through foodservice partners. Well, that’s the plan, anyway. The OZO line was meant to make its debut at Expo West this week, but the trade show was postponed a day before its start due to the coronavirus. It’s unclear if the outbreak will affect the April retail release timeline.

Interestingly, the press release announcing OZO’s launch doesn’t mention JBS until the very last sentence of the last paragraph, effectively burying it at the end. Maybe they’re worried that the information will turn off vegetarians and vegans who don’t want to eat plant-based food associated with a giant meat processor.

Despite Planterra Foods’ seeming reticence around it, the JBS affiliation is what will give the company a fighting chance to stand out in a plant-based meat aisle that’s extremely crowded — and getting more so by the day. OZO can leverage JBS’ existing supply chain to easily source its plant-based ingredients, and can also tap into its retail partnerships to elbow out some shelf space.

However, JBS isn’t the only Big Meat company hoping to leverage its retail connections to carve out a space for its plant-based branch. Tyson, Hormel, and Smithfield Foods have released their own meat alternatives over the past year as well. And just last week Cargill, another food and agriculture giant, announced its own plant-based burger, which will also be hitting retail shelves in April.

All this goes to show that the alterna-meat boom has finally made it all the way up to the largest players — even those specialize in meat. And with demand for plant-based food growing 11 percent year-over-year, it’s likely that JBS won’t be the last Big Food company we see trying to get in on the alternative meat action.

Equinom Raises $10M to Develop Smarter Seeds to Feed the Protein Craze

Israeli seed breeding startup Equinom announced today that it has closed a $10 million Series B round of funding led by BASF Venture Capital with participation from Roquette, Trendlines Group, and Equinom’s current investor, Fortissimo Capital. This brings the total funding raised by Equinom to $17.6 million.

Founded in 2012, Equinom uses cross-breeding technology to create seeds and legumes that grow faster, produce better yields, and have higher protein levels. Instead of relying on GMO’s or gene editing technology like CRISPR to produce their seeds, Equinom’s scientists use predictive algorithms to precisely breed plants to produce their ideal traits. The startup claims that their technology can produce new seeds in half the time as traditional breeding.

According to a press release from the company, Equinom currently supplies its specially bred sesame seeds to food producers across the globe. Equinom will start selling its next product — a high protein pea varietal — in 2021. With its new funding, the startup plans to expand its seed distribution globally and build out its team.

As the world’s population grows, so too does the need for highly-nutrition food that can be grown without totally depleting our planet. Paired with the burgeoning demand globally for plant-based protein, it’s no wonder that seed companies are trying to find the most efficient ways to grow high-protein plants like legumes and beans — the key ingredient in alternative meat and dairy products.

Many organizations turn to high-tech solutions like gene editing (including CRISPR) or GMO‘s to create their ideal seeds. Interestingly, Equinom is eschewing these in favor of more traditional breeding, albeit breeding augmented with data and algorithms to make it more efficient. Considering the serious challenges we’ll face feeding the world sustainably, this multi-pronged approach will hopefully pay off.

Plantible is Turning Aquatic Plants into Next-Gen Plant-based Protein

Look at an ingredient list for plant-based meat or dairy products, and right up top you’ll probably see pea, soy, wheat, or maybe even mung bean. But San Diego-based startup Plantible is introducing a brand new player to the alternative protein landscape: lemna (commonly known as duckweed).

Plantible’s co-founders, Tony Martens and Maurits van de Ven, stumbled upon lemna as they were searching for a plant-based protein superior to what was already out there in the market. Martens explained that many alternative proteins require stabilizers to accurately mimic the texture of animal products, especially ones that “gel” when cooked, like egg whites or cheese. Stabilizers not only add to the ingredient list, they also make product development more expensive and time-consuming. 

Martens and van de Ven wanted to find a protein that could copy the nutrition and texture of animal products, and was also more sustainable to produce than industry leaders pea and soy. They believe they’ve found it in lemna, a free-floating aquatic plant commonly known as “duckweed” (though van de Ven said, understandably, they’re pushing away from the term, because who wants to eat something called duckweed?). Plantible’s scientists developed a proprietary process to extract the grassy flavor from lemna, leaving a protein that’s on par with pea or soy nutrition-wise, but is completely colorless, odorless, and flavorless. The perfect blank canvas for a variety of animal alternative products. 

Lemna is also meant to be more sustainable than other plant-based proteins out there. The plant is grown in indoor aquatic farms, so it doesn’t require land or irrigation (though it no doubt requires a lot of water on which to grow). The aquatic plant also doubles its mass every 48 hours, so it can be harvested daily as opposed to once or twice a year.

Plantible’s aquatic lemna farms. [Photo: Plantible]

For now, we have to take Plantible’s word for that. The startup began validating its lemna through CPG partners five months ago — who have used the protein as a building block for everything from plant-based burgers to ice cream. In 2020, Plantible plans to start selling its lemna to CPG partners and also launch its own consumer product featuring the protein. Martens told me that the lemna will cost about the same as pea protein.

Founded in the Netherlands, Plantible quickly relocated to the U.S. because, according to Martens, the harsher regulatory restrictions means it takes much longer to launch a new product in Europe than the U.S. Thus far the startup has raised more than $1 million, though the founders wouldn’t give me exact numbers.

Plantible may be trying to next “it” alternative protein, but if it were up to the company’s founders, we wouldn’t be using the term “alternative” at all. They prefer to call their product “next-generation” protein instead. “These ingredients are not alternative,” Martens explained. “They’re just the new standard of how we produce food.”

Considering how the plant-based food market has ballooned in 2019, that’s not too lofty an exaggeration. That said, Plantible’s lemna is still extremely green compared to behemoths like pea and soy. But with companies hungry to develop more and more plant-based products, I expect there will be plenty of demand for a new alternative — er, next-gen — protein.

Plant-based Ingredient Supplier Nutriati Nets $12.7M Series C

This week Manna Tree Partners announced it had led a $12.7 million Series C investment round in Nutriati, a supplier of plant-based base ingredients like beans and grains. Private equity firm Open Prairie also participated. Based in Virginia, Nutriari sells B2B ingredients meant to go into alternative proteins, like meat and eggs, as well as a gluten-free flour replacement out of chickpeas.

Pulses — like lentils, chickpeas, and beans — may not sound all that revolutionary on their own. However, they’re the key ingredients adding protein to buzzed-about plant-based foods like Beyond Meat burgers and JUST Egg. As rising numbers of flexitarian diners have spurred an increase in alternative meats (and eggs, and milk), and finding consistent, good-tasting base ingredients is critical for plant-based food companies.

There are plenty of other plant protein players cashing in on the flexitarian revolution. Cargill has invested $100 million in pea protein company PURIS. Ingredient company Ingredion recently amped up internal investment in plant-based protein. And last year Innovopro raised $4.25 million for its chickpea protein. On the more bespoke side, Motif FoodWorks has raised almost $120 million to ferment tailored ingredients for alternative meat, eggs, milk, etc.

Considering how the popularity of plant-based foods is growing by leaps and bounds, there’s room for all of these players and more. Especially as both Big Food and new startups start creating new products in the space. Going forward, ingredient suppliers would be smart to get into the alt-protein game — if they’re not already.

In Finland, EntoCube Aims to Make Insect Farming Cheaper By Taking It Deep Underground

In an old mine deep underground in Finland, something is stirring. It may sound like the intro to a monster movie, but it’s actually the location of Finnish startup EntoCube’s latest edible insect farm.

For the last year, EntoCube has been growing insects for human consumption in underground farms located in old mines. The mines are roughly 1,400 meters deep, with a temperature that hovers at around 28 °C (~82 °F), thanks to natural geothermal heat. EntoCube’s farming project, which cost €250,000 (~$277,000 USD) to build according to Sifted, is done in partnership with Callio Pyhäjärvi, which runs Europe’s deepest metal mine.

Founded in 2014, EntoCube builds and sells farming tech for edible insects geared towards everyone from home experimenters up to those looking to start their own insect enterprise. The startup also sells its own line of insect foodstuffs through its website, including cricket granola and powder.

According to the Sifted article, EntoCube founder Robert Nemlander took the farm underground to capitalize on the natural climate of the mines. Their temperature and humidity level is not only ideal for growing crickets, it also makes the whole endeavor cheaper since the company doesn’t have to pay for heating — one of the most expensive parts of insect farming.

Surprisingly, insect farming is costlier than, say, cattle farming. Bugs may require only minimal land, food, and water, but the technology to farm them is so new that, for now, it costs more to buy a pound of crickets than a pound of beef. Nemlander is hoping to change all of that by creating more efficient production methods and also thinking outside the traditional farm formula — or, more accurately, under it.

The startup’s latest underground location may be unique, but it’s not the only one betting on insects as the next big sustainable protein source — and not just for humans. Israeli startup Flying Spark has partnered with Thai Union, one of the world’s largest seafood companies, to make insect-based animal feed. In France, Ÿnsect raised a whopping €110 million (~$124M USD) to build the world’s biggest insect farm, where bugs will be grown for fish and pet food. Here in the U.S., Chips makes chips and protein powder from crickets, while Aspire acquired cricket protein bar Exo last year.

There’s no question that the edible insect market has a lot of potential. Bugs are quick to grow, don’t require many resources, and take a much smaller toll on the environment than meat. Since demand for protein doesn’t seem like it’ll slow anytime soon, insects could provide a much-needed ethical and sustainable source.

That is, if people can get over the “ick” factor. More than a quarter of the world’s population already chows down on bugs, but Western consumers are hesitant to embrace creepy crawlies on their plates. Companies are hoping to get consumers over their aversion to bugs to blending them into products like protein bars and spices and serving them as a crispy snack at baseball stadiums. Even celebrities are taking up the cause.

EntoCube’s underground farm is certainly an interesting strategy to reduce cricket cost. Now we’ll just have to wait and see if people actually want to eat them.