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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

upcycling

Comet Bio Raises $22M Series C for its Upcycled Ingredients

Comet Bio, which manufactures various ingredients through upcycling, announced today that it has completed its Series C with an initial close of $22 million. The round was led by Open Prairie, the Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC), BDC Capital, as well as existing investor Sofinnova Partners.

With headquarters in London, Ontario and Schaumberg, Illinois Comet Bio takes agricultural leftovers from farms and upcycles them through a proprietary process to turn them into a number of different ingredient products including a prebiotic dietary fiber called Arrabina, sugar syrup alternatives called Sweeterra, as well as animal and bionutrition industrial products.

Upcycling is a trend we follow closely here at The Spoon, and it’s one that thankfully seems to be catching on with a number of startups. ReGrained upcycles grain from beer brewing into bread and even ice cream. Kern Tec upcycles stone fruit pits into oils and and alternative dairy products. And Rind produces upcycled dried fruit snacks.

In fact, there’s been so much momentum going into upcycled foods that the field now has its own certification label. As my colleague, Mike Wolf wrote recently:

The interest in upcycled food is also a part of a broader interest in companies up and down the food system in tackling the problem of food waste. The pandemic helped accelerate this interest as everyone saw entire crops go to waste, but the reality is rising costs of food products has made reducing food waste not only appealing to sustainability-oriented organizations, but also to the bottom-line focused types in big corporates at CPG, retail and restaurants.

In the press announcement, Comet Bio said it will use the new funds to invest in its product innovation and health claims development.

 

Upcycled Food Association Launches Open Enrollment as Upcycling Momentum Grows

This week, the Upcycled Food Association announced that it had opened the doors for anyone who wants to apply for certification.

This news marks the culmination of a year of steady progress for the organization, which is made up of a number of startups and larger companies creating products out of food waste that would have otherwise gone to the landfill.

Last May, the organization put out its official definition for the term “upcycled food:” “Upcycled foods use ingredients that otherwise would not have gone to human consumption, are procured and produced using verifiable supply chains, and have a positive impact on the environment.”

At the beginning of 2021, the group launched its certification program for upcycled foods, and this past April it showed off its new certification mark. And during the first half of this year, the group ran a pilot program with 15 members to work out the kinks for its certification process, resulting in companies like Regrained getting certification for its ingredient product.

Now, every company who wants to apply for UFA certification can do so.

For an industry that some market sizers have as big as $46.7 billion, why did it take so long to get serious about certification? While making something valuable out of discarded food outputs is a centuries-old practice, the rapidly growing interest by consumers and new companies positioning their product in recent years was a signal for the industry to get serious about creating an organization that could create a standard.

Retailers also see a bright future in upcycled food. Whole Foods named upcycling as one of the big trends for 2021, while Kroger, a supporter of the UFA, has been investing in young upcycled food brands. And, in the end, it’s this interest by the food retailers that may matter most as they will likely make compliance with UFA certification as one of the key requirements before getting into the store for any upcycled product.

The interest in upcycled food is also a part of a broader interest in companies up and down the food system in tackling the problem of food waste. The pandemic helped accelerate this interest as everyone saw entire crops go to waste, but the reality is rising costs of food products has made reducing food waste not only appealing to sustainability-oriented organizations, but also to the bottom-line focused types in big corporates at CPG, retail and restaurants.

Skål! Gotland Spirits Launches Vodka Made From Food Waste

Gotland, Sweden-based Gotland Spirits this week launched a new liquor product called SPILL, which the company says is a “premium alcoholic beverage made from food waste.” The product, a vodka, became available to folks in Sweden on Feb. 16, according to materials sent to The Spoon.

To get this “truly sustainable” spirit, the company teamed up with Coop, one of Sweden’s largest grocery retailers. Gotland “rescues” surplus food from the retailer. Among the food types mentioned are pasta, crackers, fruit, and milk powder. 

“We thought, what if instead of producing new carbs, can we recycle what’s already out there,” Johan Johansson, founder of Gotland Spirits, said in a statement sent to The Spoon. By his account, the resulting vodka is on par with Russian luxury vodkas in terms of quality and smoothness.

The company did not provide extensive details on the technical process of creating booze from food waste, but the concept is similar to what other beer, wine, and spirits companies have done in the past: rescue food that would otherwise go to the landfill and use it in the distillation or brewing process to create the beverage. Misadventure Vodka, based in Southern California, makes vodka from rescued baked goods. On the beer side of things, a company called Toast makes craft beer from surplus bread.

Both the U.S. and the EU are similar in terms of where the most food gets wasted along the supply chain: at consumer-facing levels, including grocery stores. Food waste per capita in these regions totals to about 95-115 kg/year, compared to 6-11 kg/year in Subsaharan Africa and Southeast Asia. The EU specifically wastes around 88 million tons of food annually, or upwards of €143 billion, according to the European Commission.

Gotland Spirits is a relatively small distillery, so for now, at least, SPIL is only available in Sweden.

Goodfish Raises $4M for Upcycled Salmon Snacks

Goodfish, a company that upcycles salmon skin by turning it into snack foods, announced today it has closed a $4 million Series A investment round. The round was led by AF Ventures and Siddhi Capital. In a press release sent to The Spoon, the company said it will use the new funds to “support the surging demand for its products, deepen R&D capability and accelerate product innovation.”

Goodfish was started by the founders of beverage company Harmless Harvest, and products became available for online purchase this year. The snacks resemble crunchy chips in texture and are made from the reclaimed skins of Wild Alaskan Sockeye that would normally go to waste. The idea is to create a chip-like snack with far more health benefits (clean protein and marine collagen among them) and far fewer calories. The skins are sourced from well-regulated fisheries in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Cofounder Justin Guilbert, said in today’s press release that Goodfish’s online-only distribution strategy “paid off well above expectations” and led to an earlier fundraised than expected. Hence the close of the Series A round today. 

Given that folks have been snacking their way through this pandemic, it’s no surprise companies offering healthier alternatives are getting noticed (and receiving funding). Others include Renewal Mill, which uses upcycled okara flour to make cookies, plant-based pork rind-maker Pig Out, and jerky made from jackfruit by a company called Jack and Tom.

Goodfish did not say whether it plans to eventually expand to brick-and-mortar stores for distribution. For now, products are available via the company’s own direct-to-consumer website. 

NapiFeryn’s Technology Upcycles Post-Processed Rapeseed Into Usable Protein Powder

Rapeseed, also known as canola, is one of the largest sources of vegetable oil in the world.

The seeds are pressed to get the oil, which becomes the final consumer product. Let behind is a byproduct referred to as rapeseed “cake”, chunky greenish clumps that are sometimes used in animal feed.

Beyond that, however, rapeseed cake has had little functional use as a human food product, but thanks to technology by Polish startup NapiFeryn, rapeseed processors can now upcycle the leftover rapeseed cake into a human-consumable protein powder.

The process developed by NapiFeryn to convert the leftover cake into a usable protein involves several steps and is currently in the scale up phase. Once converted into human-consumable protein powder, the neutral flavor and odor profile of rapeseed protein powder means it can be used in a variety of foods types such as bread, protein bars or as a meat or egg substitute.

This move to create higher-value outputs from agricultural byproducts is just another example of the momentum around upcycling. The market, which now has its own industry association and is sized at $47 billion, has startups creating products from inputs ranging from from cacao pulp to spent beer grains.

And now, thanks to NapiFeryn, rapeseed cake.

You can learn more about NapiFeryn’s technology via the nifty 360 degree video produced by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)’s food innovation initiative (EIT Food) for its Food Unfolded digital content platform.

Rapeseed Protein | A Sustainable Source Of Plant Protein (360 Video)

Kaffe Bueno Raises $1.3M to Turn Upcycled Coffee Product Into Functional Food

Denmark-based biotech startup Kaffe Bueno announced this week it has raised €1.1 million (~$1.3 million USD) in seed funding from Paulig Group Venture Capital, Vækstfonden, The Yield Lab, and an undisclosed angel investor. According to a company blog post, Kaffe Bueno will use the new funds to scale up production of existing products and launch new ones in addition to growing its team and securing intellectual property protection for its technology.

Kaffe Bueno bills itself as an ingredients company that uses upcycled coffee byproducts, such as grounds, to make cosmetics, nutraceuticals, and functional food and beverage products. The company, which was founded in 2016 by three Colombian entrepreneurs, currently has three products made from coffee byproduct: a lipid used in personal care and food products, a functional flour, and an exfoliant for cosmetics.

“Growing up in Colombia, coffee is much more than a beverage, we use it for everything: wounds, skincare, desserts, you name it,” cofounder and CEO Juan Medina said in today’s blog post.

Kaffe Bueno also noted that less than 1 percent of coffee’s “health-beneficial compounds” actually wind up in a brewed cup of joe. The rest of them go to the landfill, where they emit methane, which is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Upcycling coffee byproduct for use in other products is a way to make greater use of coffee’s existing health benefits for consumers while simultaneously cutting down on waste and emissions. 

Functional ingredients and healthier cosmetics are a couple ways to make use of coffee byproduct. A growing number of other examples exist, including a McDonald’s/Ford initiative to turn coffee byproduct into car parts and Berlin-based Kaffeeform, which makes coffee cups from leftover grounds. Meanwhile, a company called Grounded will mail you a kit with which you can grow gourmet mushrooms from spent coffee grounds. 

For its part, Kaffe Bueno will launch “new food, nutraceutical, and cosmetic ingredients into the European market throughout the rest of 2020 and into 2021.

The Wonderful Company Wants New Innovations for Its 50,000 Tons of Pomegranate Husks

The Wonderful Company, best known for its pomegranate juices, is ready to infuse some cash into creative reuses of its pomegranate biomass.  

Today, the company launched its Wonderful Innovation Challenge. The competition will offer “up to $1 million” in funding and development resources to those with “pilot ready solutions for the 50,000 tons of pomegranate husks generated each year by juicing POM Wonderful pomegranates,” according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Food waste nonprofit ReFed will serve as a strategic advisor and managing partner for the competition. 

The pomegranate husk, also known as pomace, consists of the fruit’s pulpy remains after it has been crushed and its juice extracted. On the competition’s website, The Wonderful Company says the pomace is usually sold as dairy feed but “recent shifts in the market have prompted the exploration of new, alternative outlets.”

To find those alternative outlets, Wonderful’s new competition is looking for companies with ideas that are ready to pilot and backed by “a data-driven business model.” The tools, technologies, and processes companies can use is fairly open-ended: the competition only notes that concepts should demonstrate potential for positive environmental or social impact. 

Chosen winners get funding from a $1 million reward pool, as well as assistance in developing their concepts. Applicants should request the amount they will need to develop their pilots when they submit their ideas.

Wonderful is the latest company to join the movement for upcycling the inedible parts of food items, and in the last several months, we’ve seen many creative ideas come out of this movement. It joins companies like Renewal Mill, who is currently making cookies from upcycled okara flour and Harmless Harvest, a company turning leftover salmon skin into snacks. Major corporations are also getting involved. For example, researchers at the University of Toronto Scarborough turning McDonald’s deep-fryer oil into 3D-printing resin.

Innovations in upcycling increase as the conversation around the world’s food waste problem gets louder. As we discussed in a recent Spoon Plus report, solutions for fighting food waste now come in all different shapes and sizes. While Wonderful’s new competition specifically focuses on food scraps that can’t be eaten, it joins other companies and organizations in the urgent fight to keep food out of landfills.

Tech has a potentially big role to play in the process of upcycling inedible food scraps, and we’ll doubtless see some of it surface in Wonderful’s competition. 

The application process is open now and runs to Dec. 7, 2020.

Renewal Mill Launches Equity Crowdfunding Campaign to Raise $1M

Renewal Mill, a startup that makes baking products out of upcycled ingredients, launched an equity crowdfunding campaign today in an effort to raise $1 million.

Founded in 2016, Renewal Mill takes manufacturing byproducts that typically go to waste and turns them into upcycled ingredients that can be used for baking. For instance it turns the soybean pulp leftover from a company making tofu into gluten-free, high-fiber okara flour.

Renewal Mill has previously raised $1.7 million in Seed funding, and has been a participant in the Techstars Farm to Fork accelerator as well as Barilla’s Good Food Makers program and the Systems 6 accelerator. Renewal Mill products have been used by companies like Pulp Pantry, Humphry Slocombe and Tia Lupita Foods, and the company sells its own product line directly through its website and retailers like Good Eggs and Whole Foods.

Through this crowdfunding effort, Renewal Mill is looking to commercialize its second ingredient product, “oat oakara,” which is made from the oat pulp leftover when oatmilk is made. The company also wants to expand its upcycled baking mixes.

Today’s news puts Renewal Mill at the center of a couple trends happening in food tech. First, the company is one of a handful of companies upcycling everything from salmon skins to banana peels to imperfect apples and pears into new products. Not only does this upcycling result in new and unique foods, it also helps eliminate food waste.

But Renewal Mill is also joining in the trend of food tech startups turning to equity crowdfunding to raise fresh capital. Kiwibot, Piestro, and Winc have all launched equity crowdfunding campaigns this year. Equity crowdfunding is a way for startups to grow without the pressure to scale that comes with traditional VC backing. But it also comes without the valuable institutional knowledge and relationships that a traditional VC can bring.

In an email sent to The Spoon, Renewal Mill Co-Founder and COO Caroline Cotto said that the company had the option of getting additional money as part of its initial Seed round, but decided against it to retain ownership of the company. Cotto said that they went the equity crowdfunding route to diversify the cap table and use it as a marketing opportunity as they work to expand their retail presence nationally.

The Spoon does not provide any investment advice and, as with any investing, there is always risk. Those interested in investing in Renewal Mill can do so for as little as $50 at Republic.co through November 30, 2020.

This Alternative Sweetener Is Made From Upcycled Apples and Pears

Overconsumption of sugar is responsible for illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and some cancers, a problem that’s hard to avoid because American food is full of the stuff. Many people and companies lean on alternatives to avoid sugar, but while research has proven that consumption of aspartame, sucralose and others is safe, many people have concerns about them. Stevia is another sugar alternative that’s made from leaves, but its odd aftertaste disqualifies it for use in many products.

This conundrum in the multi-billion-dollar sweetener industry presents an opportunity for Fooditive, which hopes to provide another option that is not only natural, but also reduces food waste. The Netherlands-based startup’s sweetener is made through a fermentation process that extracts fructose from apples and pears sourced from Dutch farmers that have brown spots or off colors and can’t be sold in stores, Fast Company reports. The company, founded by food scientist Moayad Abushokhedim, has also developed carrot waste into a preserving agent for soups, sauces and bakery items, as well as thickening agents made from banana skins and emulsifiers from potato extracts.

The company is following a B2B model and will distribute the sweetener to food and beverage companies across the Netherlands. There’s no word on when it will go on sale to the general public, although the company’s website says online ordering will be coming soon. Fooditive said it has plans to expand to Sweden, the U.K. and Abushokhedim’s native Jordan. 

While Fooditive’s sweetener is novel, using food and food scraps that would otherwise be discarded is part of a growing trend of so-called upcycled foods. Other companies with this model include Barnana, which turns misshapen and over ripened bananas into snacks, ReGrained, a maker of bars made from spent grain leftover from brewing beer, and Sir Kensington, a vegan mayo maker that uses chickpea liquid.

Aside from introducing alternatives, companies are also introducing ways to “improve” sugar so we don’t need to consume too much of it. There’s DouxMatok, which aims to make the sugar we already consume hit our tongues more efficiently, and Nutrition Innovation, a technology company using near-infrared scanning to better refine sugar.

Startups are approaching the issue of humanity’s dangerous sugar addiction from multiple angles, so thankfully there are plenty of sweet solutions emerging.

McDonald’s and Ford Are Turning Coffee Beans Into Car Parts

The concept of upcycling food waste has brought us things like snacks, beers, and flour, and now it’s about to make fuel more efficient in cars.

At least, that’s what McDonald’s and Ford Motors are aiming for with their new partnership. Today, Ford announced it is working with the mega-QSR to turn coffee bean chaff into headlamp parts for its luxury Lincoln cars. 

Chaff is the dried skin of a coffee bean that comes off naturally during the roasting process. According to a press release from Ford, the two companies have been working together for more than a year, and during that time discovered that chaff can be converted into durable material to reinforce certain car parts. In the case of the Lincoln headlamps, it replaces talc and, thanks to its higher heat performance and it being a lighter material, makes the vehicle more fuel efficient. 

From the press release:

“The chaff composite meets the quality specifications for parts like headlamp housings and other interior and under hood components. The resulting components will be about 20 percent lighter and require up to 25 percent less energy during the molding process.”

The partnership will use coffee chaff from Canadian company Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee Inc., who supplies coffee to McDonald’s in North America. McDonald’s told Nation’s Restaurant News that “a significant portion of its coffee chaff in North America” will be used for the car parts.

Upcycling food waste is common enough for things like snacks. As the McDonald’s-Ford news highlights, companies are now looking beyond edible goods to give food leftovers a second life. For example, a company called Agraloop turns crop food waste (think sugarcane bark) into natural fibers for clothing and is developing partnerships with retailers like H&M and Levi’s. In the UK, Chip[s] Board is making sustainable plastic for eyeglasses out of discarded potato peels. These are but two of the many ways in which we’ll see manufacturers putting unused food parts to good use in the coming years.

Ford says this is the first time it has used coffee bean skins for vehicle parts. The company said in the press release that it plans to continue its partnership with McDonald’s, where the two companies will explore further ways to use coffee chaff and other food waste for car parts. 

 

HomeBiogas’ Backyard System Turns Home Food Waste into Green Cooking Fuel

I started composting when I moved to Seattle last year. I felt very virtuous depositing my banana peels and coffee grounds into a special organic waste bin at the back of my house, but I didn’t get to reap any benefits. Besides, you know, helping the planet.

Those who want to get more bang for their food scraps could consider investing in a HomeBiogas (Ed note: Roommates, I promise I’ll ask you before I buy one.) HomeBiogas LTD just launched a new version of its eponymous closed-loop system which turns kitchen leftovers into cooking fuel and fertilizer. The company started a Kickstarter yesterday, which reached its $50,000 goal in less than two hours. At the time of this writing, the project has raised roughly $170,000.

The HomeBiogas is about the size of a large doghouse and resembles a black bouncy castle. Only instead of letting kids crawl in to play, you fill up the system’s chute with waste materials like food scraps, animal manure, and even, um, human waste, if you’re feeling especially hardcore. Bacteria digest the organic matter to create biogas, which can be used to cook on the countertop biogas stove which comes with each purchase. Two kilograms (or 1.5 gallons) of food waste makes enough fuel for two hours of cooking, with the added byproduct of liquid fertilizer.

According to the Kickstarter page, the new HomeBiogas is easier to put together, fully recyclable, and 30 percent taller than the previous version.

Interested backers can nab a HomeBiogas for the Super Early Bird price of $399. Normally with crowdfunded physical products, we have to issue a warning that hardware is hard, and not all projects make it through the manufacturing process in the estimated time, or at all. However, since HomeBiogas has already shipped over 5,000 of its last-gen systems, it seems pretty safe to assume they’ll be able to deliver on this upgrade.

The question is whether or not you’d actually want to have a sizeable inflatable bacteria factory in your backyard. Admittedly, the HomeBiogas is a pretty extreme solution for the average environmentally-conscious Joe. It’s big, expensive and requires you to be willing to adapt our cooking to a small countertop stove. If you’re looking for a way to turn your food scraps into compost, there are a number of easier, cheaper options out there. HomeBiogas is pretty self-aware, however; its promo video notes that it’s suitable homesteaders and off-the-gridders.

Nonetheless, the HomeBiogas is an inventive way to upcycle home food waste into something of added value. Plenty of companies are upcycling discarded food ingredients into new products, edible or otherwise, but very few are targeting the home. Though it might not be for everybody, especially space-strapped urban consumers, HomeBiogas shows that when it comes from cutting down on food waste, sometimes it pays to think outside the (compost) box.

Chip[s] Board Makes Sustainable Plastic for Eyeglasses and More from Discarded Potato Peels

Odds are, when you’re eating a handful sour cream & onion chips or french fries, you aren’t thinking about the mountain of potato peels that went to waste to produce those snacks. However, the landfill doesn’t have to be the final destination for these ‘tater peels, thanks to companies like Chip[s] Board. The London, UK-based startup is giving discarded potato peels a second life by turning them into a sustainable plastic material which can be used in a variety of fashion applications, from buttons to eyeglasses.

Chip[s] Board was born in 2017 when co-founders Rowan Minkley and Robert Nicoll became frustrated by the amount of material waste they saw in their work doing design and fabrication projects. Speaking on the phone earlier this week, Nicoll told me that oftentimes when it comes to materials design, the longevity of the materials themselves doesn’t usually come into consideration.

Inspired by the plastic made in the Toaster Project, in which a man decided to make a toaster from scratch (which took him one year), the co-founders developed a material made from potato starch. Their first product was an alternative to chipboard, which they ended up shelving because it wasn’t cost competitive enough.

Chip[s] Board’s Parblex

Their next product, called Parblex, is a plastic made from upcycled potato peelings mixed with other upcycled agricultural waste products, like olive wood flour. Chip[s] Board (the name is a nod to both their original product and chips, aka what the Brits call french fries) plans to sell the Parblex to a variety of partners, most of whom are in the fashion industry. They’re planning a soft launch of the Parblex next month. Initial partners include Cubitt’s eyewear, which uses the Parblex to make glasses frames.

Chip[s] Board is working with McCain Foods, a British frozen food company, to source its potato waste. Unlike the chipboard, Nicoll said that the Parblex is competitively priced with typical plastic.

Next up, Nicolls said Chip[s] Board’s team of five will look into the waste stream to find new materials to upcycle and diversify their product lineup. He also told me that the London startup raised a seed round last year, but wouldn’t disclose exact numbers.

While many companies are upcycling food waste products to make brand new foods — like beer made from stale bread or flour made from defatted sunflower seeds — there are also several notables startups turning food products into non-edible finished products. Agraloop transforms crop waste, like pineapple leaves and sugar cane bark, into sustainable fabrics. Aeropowder upcycles poultry feathers into eco-friendly insulated packaging, and Biobean turns used coffee grounds into fuel for fireplaces and industrial heating.

Like Chip[s] Board, these last two startups are based in London. Maybe the U.S. should take a page from their book and ramp up its efforts to find innovative ways to upcycle food waste to make both edible and inedible final products.