Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

XPRIZE

XPRIZE Announces Finalists For $15M Competition to Develop More Sustainable Protein

XPRIZE, an organization that hosts competitions to seek out solutions to global challenges, announced the six finalists of its $15 million XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion (FTNB) competition. The contest, kicked off in 2020, seeks to stimulate the development of more sustainable and accessible chicken breast and fish filet alternatives that can satisfy the rising demand for meat products amid a growing global population.

According to the release, the six finalists have developed “multiple consistent cuts of a meat alternative that replicate the look, taste, smell, feel, cooking behavior and nutritional properties of a structured filet of fish or chicken breast.” The finalists were selected by a judging panel of “diverse experts in international sustainability, agricultural and biological engineering, the food industry, and experts working at the highest levels of academia and research.” 

The finalists, which were selected from a semi-finalist group of 28 companies (later expanded to 31), include a mix of cell-cultured, fermentation, and plant-based platforms. The mix between chicken and fish is 50/50, with three for each:

  • CellX: Cell-based chicken team from China
  • Eternal: Fermentation-derived chicken team from Argentina
  • The PlantEat: Plant-based chicken team from South Korea
  • ProFillet: Plant-based fish team from Canada
  • Revo Foods: Plant-based fish team from Austria
  • TFTAK: Plant-based fish team from Estonia

What’s just as interesting as which companies were named finalists are which ones didn’t make it to the final round. The list of semi-finalists included some of the biggest names in alternative protein across cell-cultured (UPSIDE, Good Meat, Blue Nalu to name a few), mycelium-based (Atlast/MyForest, Good Meat Company) and gas fermentation (Air Protein) based products, and none of these companies made the finalist round.

Also surprising is that none of the companies chosen were based in the United States, the country which has seen the biggest overall amount of venture capital go into alternative protein. Two of the finalists are from Asia, two from Europe, one from Latin America, and one from Canada.

One reason some of the bigger names didn’t end up on the finalist list is no doubt due in part due to the withdrawal by up to about 11 companies earlier this year due to a revision to the contest’s rule changes last year that said Aspire, one of the co-sponsors of the event, would have a right of first refusal on investment in the finalists. The rules were revised slightly in September, but the restrictions still proved too much for many finalists such as Eat Just, Wild Type and Better Meat Company.

The FTNB competition was modeled after XPRIZE conducted an analysis of global food system challenges in which it identified 12 breakthroughs that could establish a more food-secure and environmentally sustainable world by 2050. From these 12, the group chose the need for alternative proteins at-scale as a critical impact area that requires significant technological advances, decreased price points, and notable shifts in consumers’ preferences.

From here, the finalists will head to the next round of tastings. The semifinalist round was hosted in Abu Dhabi, which is the home to Aspire, which cosponsored this XPRIZE competition alongside the Tony Robbins Foundation. According to XPRIZE, the winning team, which will be selected in 2024, will develop multiple consistent cuts of chicken breast or fish filet alternatives (115 grams / 4 ounces) that can replicate the sensory properties, structure, versatility, and nutritional profile of conventional chicken or fish, while having a lower comparable environmental footprint than animal-agriculture derived products.  

Air Protein, GOOD Meat, IntegriCulture Among the Semifinalists for XPRIZE’s Alt-Protein Competition

Nonprofit XPRIZE has announced 28 semifinalists teams that will move forward in the Feed the Next Billion competition. The multi-year competition will support companies developing compelling chicken and fish alternatives that replicate or outperform the real thing in terms of nutrition, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, and taste and texture. 

The competition, first announced at the end of 2020, is being conducted in partnership with ASPIRE, the project management arm of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC). Grand-prize winners will not be chosen until 2024. when multiple winners will collectively receive $15 million.

For now, the 28 finalists chosen to continue the competition will have the next year to work with the competition, ASPIRE, and The Tony Robbins Foundation to develop the first iterations of their products. Up to 10 finalist teams will be chosen towards the end of 2022 and will split a “milestone award” of $2.5 million. 

Those 10 finalists will have one last round of competition where they will need to create “at least twenty-five cuts of structured chicken breast or fish fillet analogs of 115 gram or four ounce that replicate the sensory properties, versatility, and nutritional profile of conventional chicken or fish.” One grand prize winner will receive $7 million, with second- and third-place winners getting $2 million and $1 million, respectively.

The 28 finalists chosen this week represent all three pillars of alternative protein: plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation. Some of these companies are better known than others. Eat Just’s GOOD Meat, for example, is the only company in the world that has regulatory approval to sell cultivated meat (in Singapore). MeatOurFuture, on the other hand, is a public-private partnership that is known primarily in South Africa at this point. Others, including plant-based seafood company Brew51 from India, Japan’s IntegriCulture, and Air Protein, are all at various stages of development in terms of their products.

You can read the full list of companies, which span 14 different countries, here.

XPRIZE’s Feed the Next Billion competition was developed in response to the organization’s Future of Food Impact Roadmap, where the organization pinpointed 12 “breakthrough opportunities” that could help build a better food system. Alt-protein is a major area.

No one company developing alternative proteins has yet proven their technology and/or ingredients can feed the next billion. There remain many, many questions around the nutrition of products, the cost of making them, and, for some, whether or not they can ever really be produced at that scale. XPRIZE’s competition will no doubt go some ways towards answering those questions over the next few years.  

XPRIZE Launches a Four-Year-Long Competition to Improve Alt-Meat

Non-profit XPRIZE today launched a four-year-long competition to transform the global meat industry. Done in partnership with ASPIRE, the project management pillar of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), the XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion competition will foster technological breakthroughs for a more secure food system as we inch towards 2050 and a larger population. Registration is open now, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

The competition was developed in response to XPRIZE’s recently released Future of Food Impact Roadmap, where the organization pinpointed 12 “breakthrough opportunities” that could help build a better food system. Alt-protein is one of those areas. XPRIZE noted today that “the need for alternative proteins at-scale was identified as a critical impact area that requires significant technological advances, decreased price points, and notable shifts in consumers’ preferences – all while maintaining positive health and environmental benefits as compared to animal-based proteins.”

In keeping with that, the Feed the Next Billion Competition will incentivize teams to produce chicken breast and fish fillet alternatives that “replicate or outperform” the real thing in terms of nutrition, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, and taste and texture, according to the competition’s site.

Participants will need to develop multiple consistent cuts of meat alternatives that look, taste, and feel like traditional animal-based meat. All teams will also need to demonstrate the ability to scale production for global distribution. 

The competition comes at a time when the meat and dairy industry account for about 14.5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases and concerns about how to feed a growing world population abound. Alternative proteins, whether plant-based or cultured, have emerged in recent years as a key tool in fighting off the environmental and humanitarian consequences of traditional meat production. There are many routes to alt-protein out there, from Meat-Tech’s 3D-printed cultured beef to the growing list of companies in the $10 million plant-based egg industry. Especially noteworthy recent developments include Eat Just getting the world’s first regulatory approval for cultured meat and Israel’s newly stated goal to develop a national plan for alternative proteins. 

Companies from around the world are invited to register for XPRIZE’s four-year-long competition. Registration will run through April 28, 2021. A total of $15 million will be given to multiple grand prize winners (a specific number of winners was not named) in the first quarter of 2024.