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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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StixFresh Can Double Your Avocado’s Shelf Life with a Sticker

Whenever I head to the grocery store I can’t leave without buying a bunch of bananas. But I find that a) they all get ripe at exactly the same time, and b) I can never eat them quickly enough.

Thankfully this leads to a lot of amazing banana bread, but product waste is a huge problem in this country (and in my house). In the U.S. between 30 and 40 percent of all our food ends up in the trash, with fruit and vegetables being some of the most likely to be wasted.

StixFresh is trying to curb our produce food waste problem with a sticker. Just pop one on a piece of fresh fruit and it’ll extend its shelf life by up to 14 days.

I was initially skeptical too. StixFresh’s CEO and co-founder Moody Soliman explained the technology to me over the phone. “Interestingly, the non-sticky side is the effective one,” he said. The sticker’s coating contains compounds that plants naturally make to protect themselves from predators. When said compounds vaporize, they travel far enough to “cloak” the fruit in a protective compound, inhibiting bacteria growth to prevent premature spoilage and over-ripening.

So far, StixFresh works with apples, pears, avocados, dragon fruits, kiwis, mangoes, and citrus, and Soliman said that they’re working to grow the list. They’re also trying to branch out into more vegetables and the holy grain of food waste: berries. Not only do they spoil quickly, it’s also unfeasible to put a sticker on every single blueberry. “We’re exploring alternative delivery methods,” explained Soliman.

StixFresh has a patent pending for the technology. The stickers are Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) by the FDA, which means they’re cleared to be used in food contact applications. They’re also made of paper, which means they’re better for the environment than all the plastic Chiquita banana stickers out there.

Then again, StixFresh’s end game is for their technology to end up on those branded stickers. “We’re envisioning that you’ll be able to apply our formulation to standard stickers,” said Soliman. “It will have Chiquita or Dole written on it, but it will have our [technology] in it as well.”

In addition to selling to distributors, StixFresh wants to make a consumer-facing option. Theoretically, people could pick up a pack of StixFresh stickers in the produce aisle and stick them on their avocados when they got home. “The simplicity of application allows it to be adapted at any point along the supply chain,” said Soliman.

This versatility is what sets StixFresh apart from Apeel, another produce-saving technology. Apeel creates an edible coating that farmers and distributors can apply to produce to extend shelf life. Which is super cool, but limiting; Apeel has also only been tested on avocados, asparagus, and some citrus fruits. The beauty of StixFresh is that it can be applied to a relatively wide variety of produce at any time, from harvest to home.

Of course, the downside is that you have to use stickers, which will eventually end up in a landfill. But that seems a small price to pay if it could significantly reduce the amount of food waste.

StixFresh recently launched an IndieGoGo campaign, which has exceeded its goal with 26 days left to go. The company is currently doing R&D out of a facility in Belgium and plans to send stickers to their early backers by August of this year. Soliman didn’t disclose pricing yet, saying it depended on how quickly they could scale production, but Early Bird backers on IndieGoGo can snag a pack of 50 stickers for $30.

As always when crowdfunding is involved, we have to have a healthy dose of skepticism about whether or not the product will actually make it to market. But StixFresh is a really good idea and (at least seemingly) pretty cheap to produce. Plus the company has a pending patent and some seed funding to back them up. If they do pull it off and I see their stickers in the grocery store someday, I’d definitely give them a try — even if that means less banana bread for me.

Frozen Plant-Based Meal Co. Alpha Foods Raises $7M

Today Alpha Foods, a plant-based meal company, announced that it has raised $7 million in funding, led by New Crop Capital and AccelFoods (h/t Fortune). The Glendale, CA-based companies makes frozen meat-free meals, like chik’n nuggets and vegan pot pies.

In a world where companies like Impossible Foods have raised over $387 million in funding and Beyond Meat is preparing to go public, a $7 million raise for a frozen plant-based meat company isn’t all that much. It just goes to show what we already know: investors are eager to get in on the exploding popularity of meatless proteins.

But Alpha Foods has an added draw — its products are frozen. Frozen foods are having a renaissance: consumers love the convenience of being able to stockpile frozen meals to heat and eat when they want, without being beholden to the expiry dates of fresh food. Frozen food offerings have also expanded, going way behind frozen pizza and microwaveable mac & cheese with higher-quality offerings and even meal kits (though I still love me some Stouffer’s).

Alpha Foods isn’t the only one in the frozen meat-free food space. Just last week mega frozen food company Bird’s Eye launched Green Cuisine, a new line of plant-based meats like sausages and meatballs. Freezer section standbys like Annie’s, Weight Watchers and Lean Cuisine also offer frozen vegetarian meals.

However, what sets Alpha Foods apart is the convenience factor. They make complete, ready-to-eat meals, most of which — like handheld pot pies or vegan burritos — are meant to be eaten on the go. No extra preparation or ingredients needed.

For consumers convenience is king, and Alpha Foods seems like it’s in a good place to capitalize on that as well as the plant-based eating trend.

Upcycled Flour Co. Planetarians Closes $750K Seed Round, Partners with Barilla’s BLU1877

This week Planetarians, the San Mateo-based upcycled ingredient startup, announced that it had closed a $750,000 seed round with participation from Barilla’s venture/innovation arm BLU1877, Techstars, The Yield Lab, SOSV, and a group of angel investors.

Planetarians takes defatted sunflower seeds — the hulls and fiber left behind after the seeds have been pressed for oil — and upcycles them into high-protein, high-fiber flour.

In a phone interview, Planetarians CEO and co-founder Aleh Manchuliantsau told me that for the past few months they’ve been doing tests in the Barilla facility, using their upcycled flour to make crackers, breads, biscuits, tortillas, and, of course, pasta.

The various products Planetarians has developed with Blu1877.

“With Barilla, we completed scalability tests in an industrial setting,” Manchuliantsau told me. “Next, we expect to do commercial manufacturing.” The company also just won the Most Innovative Startup Pre-Series A award at the Agfunder Agrifood Tech Innovation Awards, which it announced yesterday.

Planetarians will use its new funding to continue developing and trialing new products. They still have their upcycled chip snacks, which they developed with Techstars last year, and have been working with Italian meat-focused company Amadori to develop flexitarian meatballs cut with their defatted sunflower flour.

Upcycling —that is, turning food byproducts into new edible goods — is becoming quite the CPG food trend as of late. Regrained repurposes spent beer grain as energy bars, Renewal Mill (who just raised $2.5 million) turns leftover soy from tofu into baking flour. Even big players like Tyson Foods have gotten into the food waste game with their Yappah! crisps made of chicken breast trimmings. Clearly by investing in Planetarians, Barilla hopes to get their own piece of the upcycled pie.

Last year Manchuliantsau told me that it can be difficult to get consumers comfortable with eating upcycled food waste products, especially ones typically designated for livestock feed. But having a powerful food corporation like Barilla behind them will help Planetarians push their food to the masses  — especially if it’s in the form of pasta.

Shiok Meats is First Cultured Meat Company Accepted into Y Combinator

Famed startup accelerator Y Combinator just announced the 23 companies joining its newest YC Winer 2019 batch. Among them is Shiok Meats, a Singapore-based startup developing cell-based crab and shrimp, and the first cell-based meat company to join Y Combinator.

Though they’ll be in the Bay Area to participate in Y Combinator, co-founder Dr. Sandhya Sriram told The Spoon earlier this year that they’re planning to roll out their products in Southeast Asia, specifically Singapore, Hong Kong, and India. They expect to have their first cell-based product to market in three to five years.

Y Combinator has previously invested in plant-based meat companies like Seattle Food Tech. Last summer the accelerator even included the Good Food Institute, a non-profit promoting the growth of meat alternatives, both plant-based and cell-based.

However, by letting a cultured meat company through its hallowed doors, Y Combinator is now blessing cell-based meat as a viable investment opportunity. And a blessing from the accelerator that backed AirBnB and Dropbox, among other cash cow companies, is likely going to make clean meat even more of an investment magnet than it already is.

It’s interesting that Y Combinator chose Shiok Meats as the first cell-based meat company to join their ranks, since I’m betting they’re not the first to apply. Applications can be a crapshoot and all that, but perhaps the accelerator was convinced to accept the Singaporean startup because they were convinced, as I was, that Shiok Meat’s plan to launch in Southeast Asia means that it could have a greater global impact than cultured meat companies in the U.S. or Europe.

In any case, hopefully Y Combinator’s investment and mentorship will help Shiok Meats get cell-based shrimp dumplings on our plates even sooner. In fact, the startup already has a product ready for taste testing. Shiok Meats will be hosting a tasting of dumplings made with its cell-based shrimp later this month at the Disruption in Food and Sustainability Summit in their home country of Singapore.

Fieldcraft is an Online Marketplace Helping Companies Develop New Plant-Based Products

Say a bakery chain wants to add a vegan blueberry muffin to its menu. First, they’d have to find substitutes for butter and eggs — depending on their preferences, maybe even ones that are certified organic or locally made — and ensure that these producers could consistently keep them supplied.

Maybe they should take a look at Fieldcraft. The Austin-based startup, which just launched last month, is an online B2B marketplace for plant-based ingredients. Growers and manufacturers can list their products — everything from specialty grains to kale chips — on the site, and buyers can search the database by production method, certifications (organic, non-GMO, etc.), location, supplier production capacity, and more.

If buyers can’t find what they need, they can submit requests to Fieldcraft for new products or even contract out farmers to sow a certain crop, such as an heirloom grain. On the farmer’s side, this is also a win since it gives them a guaranteed marketplace and, by putting in demands for new/different crops, promotes biodiversity.

Though it’s just over a month old, Fieldcraft already has over 7,000 companies in its marketplace. Yesterday the company rolled out a new solutions tool to help people who might not be sure exactly what they’re looking for — which, according to Fieldcraft CEO and co-founder Michael Chapman, is about one-third of their users. “We want to give buyers the chance to find new products that they didn’t even know were out there,” he told me.

For example, the aforementioned bakery might not know what type of egg substitute would be the best fit for their new vegan blueberry muffins. In this case, they could search Fieldcraft for a list of plant-based egg alternatives, which include minute details about the properties of each ingredient (emulsifying, thickening, etc.), and then determine which one to purchase.

On the other hand, for those who know exactly what they’re looking for, Fieldcraft can get pretty granular. So instead of just searching for broad “egg alternatives,” users could track down a “clean-label, non-GMO upcycled aquafaba.”

With so many new players — both young startups and veteran food corporations — entering into the plant-based protein space, I think there’s certainly a market for Fieldcraft’s, well, market. It offers a couple obvious benefits: it cuts out the middleman and gives suppliers instant access to new audiences.

But Fieldcraft’s greatest asset is its opportunity for discovery. When I visited the JUST offices last year I was wow-ed by their high tech plant research center, where the company tests plants sourced from around the world to suss out their properties: if they foam, thicken, etc. A resource like Fieldcraft, with its wide-ranging database, could help smaller startups who don’t have the warchest or lab space of a JUST to discover new ingredients that could lead to better plant-based products.

There are certainly other wholesale ingredient supply companies out there, including major players like Sysco or U.S. Foods, which carry plant-based ingredients. However, Fieldcraft is targeting buyers who want a more direct relationship with their supplier or need hard-to-find ingredients with exacting specifications. As of now, they sell to CPG brands, meal kit makers, bakeries, brewers, and even food manufacturers.

From my conversation with Chapman, it seems like the size of growers and suppliers using Fieldcraft varies pretty widely. I’ll be curious to see if they ever run into the problem of a grower running out of an ingredient (or just having a bad harvest) which a supplier relies upon for its product. That being said, his cofounder (and wife) Kristy Chapman, CPO of Fieldcraft, has a background in data science, so maybe they’ll be able to set up a backend that can nimbly adjust based on suppliers’ yield.

Fieldcraft is free for buyers to use and costs $195/year for suppliers. The company currently has four employees (including the Chapmans) and has yet to seek any external funding.

Obviously, Fieldcraft isn’t for everyone. Big players like Tyson or even Beyond Meat clearly have their own ingredient supply chains nailed down. But for newer startups, or even medium-sized players looking to develop new animal-free products, Fieldcraft could be a valuable resource.

There also seems to be a new trend of pick-and-play plant-based ingredient companies, like Motif Ingredients, a new company that makes ingredients for vegan products from genetically engineered yeast. With the plant-based market as red-hot as it is — sales grew by 20 percent in 2018 alone — I imagine we’ll see a lot more food companies and manufacturers looking to develop their own animal-free products over the coming years. Fieldcraft seems to be entering the market at just the right time.

Givaudan Partners with Israeli Food Tech Incubator The Kitchen

Flavor and fragrance company Givaudan just announced a new partnership with The Kitchen, an Israeli food tech incubator.

Founded by the Strauss Group, the largest food & bev manufacturer in Israel, The Kitchen is a hub for emerging startups (many from Israel) looking to reinvent different parts of the food system. The program’s 12 current participants from cell-based meat company Aleph Farms to personalized recipe service MyFavorEats to food safety detector Inspecto.

According to an Givaudan announcement, The Kitchen’s partnership with Switzerland-based Givaudan will enable the latter to “expand its innovation ecosystem further by connecting with Israel-based food entrepreneurs who are contributing to the creation of healthier and sustainable products and solutions.” As details in the announcement were pretty scant, we’re still waiting to find out exactly what that means. We’ve reached out to Givaudan and will update this post if we hear back.

But it’s not too difficult to guess what the flavor and fragrance company will be getting out of the partnership: a direct line into the cutting-edge Israeli food tech ecosystem and a source for potential new company acquisitions. Working with an incubator like The Kitchen is also a great way for Givaudan to refresh their brand image as a company that’s hip with what’s new and not stuck in the past.

In fact, Givaudan has been slowly amassing partnerships with food tech innovation hubs around the world. In addition to The Kitchen, the company also works with Bits x Bites in China and EIT Food in Europe. Last December, Givaudan teamed up with Danone, Mars, and Ingredion to launch MISTA, a platform to help businesses solve problems in the food system, in San Francisco. And earlier this month, the company co-founded the Future Food Initiative, a joint venture with Swiss universities, Nestlé and food production company Bühler to encourage nutrition research in its native Switzerland.

Lately we’ve seen quite a few Big Food companies partnering with/creating their own accelerators to tap into emerging food trends. It seems like Givaudan is really taking the whole invest-in-innovation thing to heart — and I’m betting the company has more incubator partnerships in the pipeline.

Journey Foods Leverages A.I. to Make Healthy Gummies (Huzzah!)

One of the hard parts of being an adult — and there are many — is that gummies are no longer considered an acceptable afternoon snack. But today Journey Foods is unveiling a sort of reimagination of the fruit snack; one which is packed with nutrients and also promotes biodiversity.

The Chicago-based startup launched about 18 months ago, though the inspiration goes back much further. Founder and CEO Riana Lynn, who had previously started a food traceability company and served as an entrepreneur in residence at Google, got the idea for Journey Foods after she spent a stint traveling around the world. Inspired by the widespread biodiversity she saw (and tasted), Lynn decided to bring some of her most nutrient-rich findings — like baobab and seaweed — back to the U.S. and transform them into healthy snacks. 

The first product is the aforementioned fruit snacks, which Lynn calls “Micro-Foods.” Not only does that sound more legit than “gummy candy,” the name also communicates the caliber of nutrition research and technology that goes into Journey Foods’ products. “We are more of a hybrid biotech/CPG company,” Lynn told me over the phone. “I guess you could just call it food tech.”

Tech indeed. The company has three patents pending on the nutrition biotech that powers their products. They’re also testing out different sugar technologies, so people with dietary restrictions can still eat the Micro Foods.

The fruit chews, which come in Strawberry Chia Seed and Mango and Cayenne Spice, cost less than $1.50 per single-serve pack, which is slightly more expensive than many natural fruit snacks — but not much. “We’re really focused on accessibility,” Lynn told me. Journey Foods will make the bulk of their money from B2B sales and custom product creation for big CPG companies.

As of now, the Micro-Foods are available on Amazon and the Journey Foods website, and are being tested in 80 retail locations around the country. They’re also in a variety of corporate offices, and Lynn told me they’ll debut the Micro-Foods in select hospitals later this year.

Journey Foods also has a B2B product development tool called JourneyAI. It’s essentially an AI-powered database that helps the startup identify and catalog ingredients which could be used to make nutrient-dense foods, speeding up the trial and error of product R&D with their third-party CPG partners.

Journey Foods’ chews take advantage of a few food trends in one fell swoop. First of all, they’re capitalizing off of growing consumer demand for healthier foods, specifically snack foods. The global healthy snacks market was valued at more than $23 billion in 2018, according to Grand View Research, and doesn’t show any signs of slowing. Consumers are also getting more adventurous in their snacking, looking for new, exotic flavors. Finally, adding the buzzword “biodiversity” to their marketing, legit as it is, could help Journey Foods capture more ethically-motived consumers.

The decision to target B2B partners is also a smart play, specifically in hospitals and tech company offices. At the former, the Micro-Foods could help patients, specifically kids, get the nutrients they need. And at tech offices, which are renowned for their gigantic snack walls, Journey Foods can offer a healthier alternative to, say, gummy bears.

Lynn told me that next, Journey Foods will add new flavors to its lineup of Micro Foods products, incorporating ingredients like marine greens, probiotics, and vegetables. Down the road, the company will launch new nutrient-dense products outside the gummy realm. Journey Foods is currently in the midst of a fundraising round, with participation from Backstage Capital and other VC firms. The startup was also the first chosen to join the Soylent Innovation Lab earlier this month and was awarded a $15,000 grant and office space in L.A. Hopefully that translates into a lot more gummy chews that we don’t have to feel guilty about.

Sophie’s Kitchen’s “Toona” Poised to Feed Untapped Plant-Based Seafood Market

If you’re on the hunt for a plant-based burger or chicken strip, there’s no lack of options. Looking for some fish-free salmon, or a vegan shrimp? That’s a lot harder to catch (sorry, I had to).

That may not be so tough in the future. Sebastopol, California-based Sophie’s Kitchen is bringing plant-based seafood to the grocery aisle. Founder and CEO Eugene Wang first got the idea for the company when his daughter Sophie had a severe allergic reaction to seafood.

Wang also knew firsthand about the problem of overfishing: he grew up in Taiwan and noticed how fishermen there were struggling more and more to find a daily catch. “I could see that the seafood stock is really dwindling,” he said. He’s not wrong: according to the U.N., around 90 percent of the world’s stocks are currently depleted or overfished, though demand for fish continues to rise steadily.

In 2010 Wang decided to make an alterna-seafood product to serve people with allergies and also help relieve the overfished oceans in the process. After spending almost two years developing the product, Sophie’s Kitchen launched their first product — plant-based shrimp — in retail in early 2012. They soon rolled out fish filets, crab cakes, and smoked salmon, and currently offer eight products, with four more coming out soon.

To copy the complex texture of fish, shrimp, and more, the company uses an ingredient called konjac, a Japanese yam root. When combined with pea protein and put through Wang’s patent-pending manufacturing process, the root can imitate the “rubbery” texture of shellfish.

Sophie’s Kitchen’s smoked “salmon.”

Sophie’s Kitchen’s plant-based seafood is sold exclusively in grocery stores, including Safeway, HEB and Whole Foods. As of now, the company’s most popular product is vegan tinned tuna (“toona”), which supermarkets hope will help them capitalize off of plant-based food trends and attract more millennials to the canned food aisles.

While it may appeal to eco-conscious consumers, the “toona” falls behind traditional canned tuna in a few ways. First of all, it’s a lot pricier — roughly two to three times more expensive as the bargain brands (as are all of Sophie’s Kitchen’s products). It also has less protein than regular tuna and doesn’t contain any of those heart-healthy Omega-3 fatty acids, though Wang said he’s exploring ways to synthesize them from plants.

Like the entire plant-based seafood space, Sophie’s Kitchen has a lot of growing and development to do. It has already come a long way: according to Wang, when they started in 2010, the concept of plant-based edibles was “not a thing” — for seafood or meat. But now they’re far from alone. New Wave Foods makes shrimp alternatives out of algae. Good Catch Foods has developed seafood-free crab cakes, shredded tuna (not canned), and fish patties.

I can’t speak to the taste of their products, but when it comes to reach, Sophie’s Kitchen is pretty far ahead of the curve. New Wave Foods is only in three stores, and Good Catch won’t be on shelves until February 2019. Sophie’s Kitchen is available in over 2,000 stores nationwide and also sells in China, Israel, and France.

Sophie’s Kitchen is self-funded and has three employees. The company won a prize of 200,000 SGD (~$146,000) at the Slingshot Startup Pitching Competition in Singapore in 2017. It will also join the inaugural class of PepsiCo’s North American Nutritional Greenhouse Program.

It’s a good time to be in the plant-based seafood industry. Plant-based foods are growing in popularity and are projected to heat up significantly 2019 — and seafood is no exception. With cultured seafood likely years away from reaching retail shelves, products from Sophie’s Kitchen and others are poised to experience some serious demand. Hopefully they’ll be able to ramp up production and keep their hooks in the emerging market.

IKEA’s Next Bootcamp Could Be Ideal for Grocery Startups Looking to Grow

IKEA is currently taking applications for the second iteration of its startup program, IKEA Bootcamp, which it holds in partnership with global entrepreneur community Rainmaking.

The Bootcamp works with companies tackling current issues around improving quality of life, whether that’s through sustainability, or making goods more affordable and accessible. While it’s not exclusively geared towards food businesses, startups in that area had a significant presence at the 2017 program. Participants included an Israeli startup Flying Spark, who’s created a protein source from fruit fly larvae, and goodbag, who makes smart shopping bags.

For the 2019 program, IKEA is looking for growth-stage companies and will run “a pilot-focused program,” according to a press announcement. Additionally, the company has increased the total number of companies who’ll participate to twenty.

This program will also add retail as a focus area, with participation from IKEA franchisee Ingka Group. (The IKEA Range & Supply business unit will also be involved for companies looking at product and supply chain development.)

With the application pool still open, there’s no word yet on what kinds of food businesses will be involved this year. But the new retail component suggests the possibility of a grocery-focused startup participating. That opens things up immensely: startups working on anything from more efficient ways of delivering food to smarter shopping to sustainable packaging could now theoretically join the Bootcamp.

IKEA isn’t specific about what kinds of food businesses should apply, so long as they’re ones that are trying to tackle significant global issues. Or as IKEA Bootcamp manager Per Krokstäde noted in the statement, “this is not a powerpoint exercise, this is about solving real problems in a way we can act on.”

The year may be winding down, but there are several other startup accelerators and incubators still taking applications for their next cohorts. Food-X, one of the biggest names in the world of food accelerators, is currently taking applications for its Spring 2019 program. FS6’s next cohort starts in February 2019, so those vying for a spot in that specific timeframe should apply soon. Techstars’ agtech-focused Farm to Fork Accelerator, meanwhile, will open its application pool on January 7, 2019.

The IKEA program will take place over three months, from March through June. It will be semi-remote, with startups spending some time in IKEA’s homebase: Älmhult, Sweden.

Applications are open until December 31, 2018.

Pulp Addiction: Pulp Pantry Upcycles Juicing Remnants into Sweet and Savory Snacks

If you’ve ever tried your hand at home juicing — or watched a local spot make you juice to order — you probably noticed that a lot of pulp gets left behind. Some larger juiceries have partners that can take the pulp to use for animal feed or compost, but many smaller juiceries end up just throwing it away since they don’t have the resources to get it to farmers.

One company is trying to give juicing “waste” a second life. Founded in 2015, Pulp Pantry turns fiber-rich pulp into grain-free granola bites in flavors like Cinnamon Toast and Cacao Crunch. Each bag is 50% juicing pulp, which the company dries and grinds to a powder before making it into their snacks. A 5-ounce bag retails for $8.99 and is available on their website and Amazon, as well as in 40 brick-and-mortar retailers.

Based in L.A., Pulp Pantry launched their granola bites in May of this year as a sort of an entry point into the upcycled snack market. Their next product, however, is the one they’re most excited about: a savory chip-like product made of vegetable pulp from celery and greens, set to launch in January of 2019.

According to Pulp Pantry founder Kaitlin Mogentale, they’re hoping the so-called Veggie Thins will actually have a higher reach than the granola. “Savory products are more of a mainstream play for us,” she explained. “Eating vegetables in granola is harder to wrap your head around than eating them in chips, which consumers are familiar with.” Think: the bags of beet, sweet potato, and kale chips you’ve probably seen in the snack aisle.

While their granola bites focused on online sales channels, Mogentale said they’re planning to launch the chips with a designated retail partner. This makes sense, given that spur-of-the-moment snacking decisions happen in the grocery aisle. Consumers are far more likely to impulsively grab a bag of veggie chips on the way to the register than to order them online. As far as pricing goes, Pulp Pantry’s new product will be competitive with other baked vegetable chips: most likely retailing below $5 for a larger bag and below $2 for a single-serving one.

Co-founder Mogentale in the Pulp Pantry kitchen.

Pulp Pantry currently works with five difference juiceries around California to source their pulp, and is in conversations with larger national suppliers. They have a test kitchen space in Kitchen United and work with a copacker in south L.A. to manufacture and package all of their upcycled snacks.

The startup isn’t the only company upcycling food waste into healthy snacks — or even the only company repurposing juicing pulp. Earlier this year protein behemoth Tyson Foods launched a crowdfunding campaign (and then another) for ¡Yappah!, their crisps made of poultry breast scraps, juicing purée, and spent brewing barley. Regrained turns spent grain from breweries into energy bars, and U.K.-based Snact transforms surplus produce into bars and fruit jerky.

Pulp Pantry has 3 full-time team members, two food science for R&D, and pastry chef. They’re currently bootstrapped but are in the midst of fundraising, and pitched at FoodBytes! NYC earlier this week.

According to Wintergreen Research, the U.S. juicing market is expected to reach $8.1 billion by 2024, nearly doubling from $4.3 billion in 2017. More juice means more pulp — and, thanks to Pulp Pantry and others — more snacks. Now if they could just make a plant-filled version of my personal snack guilty pleasure (hi, Dorito’s!), that would be much appreciated.

If you want to sample Pulp Pantry’s new savory chips, you can sign up to be a taste tester here. 

One Year Later: We Check in with Verdical, Winner of the SKS2017 Startup Showcase

Last year indoor grow system Verdical beat our 14 other food innovation companies and took home the trophy at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) Startup Showcase. CEO Andrew Deitz pitched onstage about how Verdical’s indoor platform for hydroponic gardening would allow restaurants, hotels, cafeterias, and more to grow greens and herbs in their own kitchen, making fresh produce more accessible year-round while reducing food travel and waste.

When we left them last year, Verdical had just won a $10,000 cash prize and was gearing up to “revolutionize kitchens across the nation.” This week I checked in with Deitz to see where the startup is, one year on.

A Verdical grow system inside Jardiniere.

Customers
Verdical now has four customers, all in the Bay Area: Michelin-starred restaurant Jardiniere, 25-store pizza chain Pizza My Heart, the Marin Country Day School, and Berkeley dining spot Saha. All in all, there are 17 Verdical units currently in the field (so to speak).

Though he wouldn’t give details, Deitz also said that Verdical would soon be expanding outside the Bay Area with national — and even global — customers.

Like most other indoor grow systems on the market, Verdical currently offers just herbs and microgreens. This certainly limits what they can provide, but they’re experimenting within the boundaries. For example, at Jardiniere Verdical isn’t just growing garden-variety (ha) basil. Instead, they developed seed pods for things like gem marigold, wasabi mustard, and blue Ethiopian mustard. “We’re providing unique, highly-differentiated stuff that they couldn’t get other places, but can grow right here,” said Deitz.

Starting at $200 per month, customers get the Verdical hardware unit, all the plants they can grow, and access to the Verdical App that controls the growing platform, manages inventory, and provides education about new ingredients. According to Deitz, the price is cost neutral to the current herb and microgreen spend of their customers. Since Verdical works with everyone from a school to a Michelin-starred restaurant, I would imagine their monthly spend on microgreens and herbs varies pretty wildly, but Deitz said it’s actually surprisingly consistent.

Funding
This year Tabard VC, a food and agtech venture capital firm, invested an undisclosed amount in Verdical. Several angel investors have also funded the startup, though Deitz wouldn’t disclose details.

Partners
Verdical has teamed up with TE Connectivity, using the tech company’s sensors to monitor humidity, moisture, external temperature, water level, and water quality in their grow units. The two connected at the SKS last year and have been building a partnership together ever since. Verdical started using TE sensors in their early prototypes six months ago. “We helped them figure out how to better partner with startups,” said Deitz. “And they’re helping us figure out how to connect from the field all the way into somebody’s stomach.”

Verdical CEO Andrew Dietz with the TE Connectivity team at SKS 2018.

Competition

Since last year’s Smart Kitchen Summit, quite a few companies have made strides to bring indoor grow systems to restaurants. Farmery also installs indoor hydroponic grow units in restaurants. Farmshelf recently put one of their hydroponic mini-farms in a New York Oath Pizza location. On a slightly larger scale, but Freight Farms installs and manages indoor farms in shipping containers for use in corporate cafeterias and more. And that’s not even taking into account companies working on residential or large-scale indoor farms.

While he wasn’t sure about the growing mechanics of other indoor farming systems, Deitz was confident that Verdical would distinguish itself from the pack with its agtech. “We’re innovative because we’re growing with a soil-based medium,” he explained. By harnessing the water purifying and nutrient delivery powers of soil, he claims they can grow produce more efficiently. He also told me that using soil is a safer bet than going with hydro or aquaponics: that way, even if there’s a power outage, the plants can still get what they need to survive.

Deitz, however, doesn’t think that on-site indoor farming is zero-sum game. “The market is so big, it’ll take us a while to bump into each other,” he said, referring to Verdical’s competitors.

What’s next?
According to Deitz, Verdical will soon be announcing new customers and expanded partnerships (we’ll keep you updated). But as they grow, the company will continue to focus on its original goal: connecting people to their food source. “That’s where you can see a shift in consciousness,” he said. Until then, if you’re in the Bay Area, drop in on one of Verdical’s restaurant customers and taste fresh-picked some exotic microgreens.

Eat Your Veggies: Frecious Spreads into U.S. with Squeezable Plant-based Purées

Food companies are always looking for new ways to make healthy things taste as good as non-healthy things: pasta made of chickpeas, coffee full of vitamins, meat made out of lentils.

That’s exactly what Noemie Delfassy hopes to do with Frecious, the Swiss startup that turns vegetables into creamy whipped spreads. She got the idea for the company when she was an overworked young professional looking for nutritious, freshly-made food that took little-to-no time to make.

“I wanted to make something that got its luscious, creamy texture from veggies and nuts, not animal fat,” she told me over the phone. So she blitzed together fresh produce with sprouted nuts to make an airy spread, and Frecious was born.

In 2014 she started sharing her creation in her home of Geneva, Switzerland and soon had chefs calling her to ask for her tarragon cream or whipped zucchini. “It’s amazing how fast news travels when you have a unique product,” she said.

Delfassy’s first big break was when Poilane, the lauded French bread company, purchased her vegetable creams to spread on their open-faced sandwiches. Soon she was selling to hospitals, schools, cafeterias, and fast-casual establishments throughout Europe.

Now, Delfassy is preparing to launch Frecious in the U.S. “There’s more of an ecosystem for food innovation here,” she said. “Consumers are much more hungry and open to new foods, as opposed to Europe where they’re more traditional.”

Frecious will move both its office and production facilities to the U.S., though Delfassy said they would continue production and sales in Europe. She plans to launch the company by Q1 of 2019 out of Los Angeles, selling Frecious spreads in single-serve packs which can either be used for meal prep or eaten on their own.

Delfassy is currently exploring retail channels for her product, but told me that it could be available everywhere from restaurant wholesale to grocery retailers to grab-and-go spots in coffee shops, gyms, and offices. She didn’t reveal pricing information, but said that each single-serving pack would cost something between a candy bar and a fresh smoothie.

An array of Frecious puréesi

As of now, the Frecious team is just Delfassy, a couple freelancers doing marketing, and a small production crew. The company has raised some funding from European investors, though Delfassy wouldn’t disclose how much.

Frecious participated in the first edition of the European PepsiCo Nutrition Greenhouse accelerator last year. Big Food companies are seeking out smaller startups with trendy products to add to their CPG lineup.

Though Delfassy didn’t indicate that she has any plans to sell Frecious, it seems like it would be a great fit for PepsiCo’s portfolio. The spreads are healthy, snackable, and plant-based, rolling together three growing consumer trends. I could see them being a big hit with time-squeezed millennials, especially ones who are health-conscious and looking to eat more vegetables.

Delfassy’s choice to start in L.A. is also smart. The city is known for its penchant for wellness and its slavish obsession with trends, and Frecious ticks both of those boxes.

Several companies are also trying to create easier, tasty ways for consumers to eat their vegetables. Supermarket shelves offer chips made of sweet potatoes and kale, or pizza with a cauliflower crust. Kencko makes powdered produce that people can mix with water in order to drink their fruits and vegetables.

It’s too soon to tell if Frecious will whip up excitement for their creamy vegan spreads in the U.S. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they were successful in helping people eat their veggies.