AgTech Nexus’ Post

Even though I'm working here in a bomb shelter, I’m still reminded of my privilege. Outside, agriculturalist friends and family risk their lives daily to harvest produce and care for their farm animals with missiles whistling above. Much of the ag land in Israel is located along the borders of conflict areas; a lot of the non-arable land has also been dedicated to cow grazing due to the landmines in these areas (causing an occasional exploding cow). I'd rather be eating from an indoor vertical farm or bioreactor vs. sharing this space with a cow and chickens. In the Netherlands, gov restrictions have currently halted all housing and agricultural expansion due to severe nitrogen pollution. 2 years ago, I had friends begging me to ship baby formula to them in the US, as the leading formula factories were shut down due to contamination. Even in the 1st world, we need more resilient, decentralized solutions to buffer against increasing geopolitical, climatic, and contamination food challenges: CM production can be one of the ways to get there. Let's not kill this new industry with bad PR before it's given the same subsidies, R&D, supply chain ecosystem, marketing, and corporate support as the current food paradigms have been given. 

I wish Upside have crafted a response that is not just for Bloomberg and the scientific communities that may understand (to some extent) some of the technical terms that are used to describe their product. Unfortunately, some of these terms were even difficult for me to wrap my head around and I imagine the struggle of an average consumer who has never been to a cell culture lab to understand these key phrases. Without trying to court any controversy, I would love to have experts in the field help explain/define these terms from the article: suspension product, delicious blended cultivated meat products, suspension chicken, cultivated chicken (made from our small scale tissue process), and delicious suspension products. In a world, where we all go to the store to buy "chicken", would there be a time when we start saying "hey, get me some suspension chicken from Walmart". This category needs a better messaging strategy.

UPSIDE Foods responds to the recent Bloomberg article (https://lnkd.in/gtszKEFy)... "The most glaring omission from the article is the tremendous progress we have made towards commercial scale, including the critical role of large-scale “suspension” products in our strategy. "The article concludes that the industry, and UPSIDE specifically, does not have a path to scale its product and has “little to show for itself.” This is inaccurate and is a dated snapshot of our progress from several years ago. Bloomberg ignored our repeated requests stating that our tissue product is not slated for scaling near-term and that we are instead focused on first commercializing our suspension product, which produces delicious blended cultivated meat products. "This suspension product was the basis for our Series C fundraise, has been proven out through dozens of successful runs in our 2kL cultivators at EPIC, and is the design basis for our commercial scale processes. "We told Bloomberg we produced enough cells in a single cultivator in the last month to produce the equivalent of over 2,000 pounds of delicious finished chicken products. They did not print that and instead focused on the small quantities of the chicken we currently have on the market (our “tissue” product)." #foodtech #cultivatedmeat #cellularagriculture

Last week’s top food innovation news 📰🛒 Foxtrot files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, closing all 33 locations without warning. Moolec Science gains USDA approval for bioengineered pork proteins grown in soybeans. Solar Foods opens the world's first commercial-scale facility for air protein production. Meatable hosts EU's first public tasting for cultivated meat after safety panel approval. UN accused of distorting data to underestimate meat industry emissions in COP28 study. Nutrient decline in vegetables prompts discussion on reversing it through biofortification. Plant-based food sales dip to $8.1 billion due to consumer demand for lower prices and higher quality. #foodtech #foodstartups #foodbiz  #agrifoodtech  #foxtrot #cultivatedmeat #moolec #airprotein

Check our this moorvelous article about NewMoo

🐔🇬🇧 VITAL MEAT SEEKS UK APPROVAL FOR 2025 CULTIVATED CHICKEN LAUNCH France’s VITAL MEAT, which makes cultivated chicken as a B2B ingredient for hybrid meats, has applied for regulatory approval in the UK, making it one of only a handful of companies to do so. The startup has submitted a novel food dossier to the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland, whose scientists and experts will now assess the application in a process expected to last 18 months to two years. The development comes six months after the cultivated chicken player filed for approval in Singapore too, with the green light from its regulator thought to be imminent. “We can’t wait to start commercialisation in Great Britain; chicken is one of the most consumed meat over there,” said Vital Meat co-founder and CEO Etienne Duthoit. “We are now preparing our launch in 2025 and looking for food partners.” Vital Meat, which uses pharmaceutical technology to transform cells from fertilised chicken eggs into cultivated meat, expects to receive regulatory clearance in Singapore by the end of the year. “We are going through the questions and answers process with scientific experts from SFA and so far, the discussion is very smooth and is going well,” said Claude Rescan, the startup’s regulatory expert. The company partnered with cell culture media producer Biowest last year, whose customised serum-free media for Vital Meat allows the latter to manufacture its cultivated chicken in 250-litre bioreactors, capable of producing several kgs of product at a time. The collaboration has allowed the French startup to reduce costs too, which is a crucial entry barrier for cultivated meat. #GreenQueen #altprorein #futurefoods #foodtech #sustainability #foodsystems #climateaction 

PETA is urging major U.S. meat companies to "stop peddling animals’ body parts." But will they? 👀 Just a few weeks ago, one of Italy's oldest meat producers, Gruppo Tonazzo, made the unexpected decision to discontinue its meat business at the end of this year. Instead, they will focus solely on plant proteins and the expansion of their plant-based brand, Kioene. How cool is that? This might be the first time we've even seen a meat-to-plants transition of this magnitude. This has undoubtedly prompted PETA's decision to send letters to the CEOs of five major US meat companies—Hormel Foods, Cargill, Smithfield Foods, Tyson Foods, and OSCAR MAYER FOODS, urging them to follow suit, or risk becoming irrelevant (similar to how tobacco farmers who resisted crop diversification ultimately struggled to stay relevant) Tyson, in particular, has already faced challenges, with many of its executives leaving to join alternative protein companies in the last few years. The company also recently closed 4 large facilities, reducing its chicken slaughter capacity by 10% after a drop in chicken sales. All five companies already offer plant-based product lines or have partnerships in alternative protein, so PETA argues the transition should be straightforward, since they don't need to start from scratch. I’m curious to hear your thoughts: Do you think more companies will decide to shift their focus from their meat businesses to plant-based/alt protein? Will the industry continue to adapt, or will we likely see further resistance? Read more in my article below: #foodindustry #futureoffood #plantbased #veganbusiness #altprotein

The most used plant protein ingredients in plant-based meats, in Australia and globally, in descending order, are soy, wheat and pea, with various other pulse proteins also increasing in popularity. Agriculture is an important contributor to plant-based meats and Food Frontier’s latest state of the industry report reveals manufacturers are keen to source locally grown plant proteins.  The report suggests that increased availability of Australian protein at competitive prices could expand market opportunities for growers and lower end prices for consumers. Interestingly, locally made plant-based meats are 15% cheaper than imported products. In the fiscal year of 2023, the indirect economic contribution of plant-based meat manufacturing in Australia amounted to $36.1m, with agriculture being the primary contributor at $7.6m. Find out more about the agricultural opportunities of plant-based meat in the 2023 State of the Industry report which also offers recommendations and future forecasting. https://lnkd.in/gY8PTqeQ

Good news. The plant based market is evolving rapidly. Big players are putting their marketing and sales power to work. This will effect the whole global marketplace. Smaller business that are not well funded will go out of business. Bigger volumes through more and bigger manufacturing plants will make plant based foods much cheaper than animal based foods for consumers. Change is coming in a big way. #degrowth #plantbasedfoods #organicfoods #regenerativefarming #fruitsandvegetables Plant Based Foodie Forever

🌱🧫🥩 Hybrid meat might be coming to your plate sooner than you think. SCiFi Foods, which makes beef from a mix of cultivated and plant proteins, has completed its first commercial-scale production of its cell-cultured beef in a 500-litre bioreactor. The company achieved this feat in its recently opened 16,000 sq ft pilot facility in San Leandro, California. It’s the same scale that SciFi Foods will be commercialising out once it receives the regulatory green light from the FDA and USDA. SciFi Foods uses a 90/10 blend of vegan and cell-cultured ingredients. The 90% plant-based composition is derived mainly from soy, and helps the company solve a major bottleneck of cultivated meat: scalability. Scaling up is, as the startup puts it, “a major risk factor” for commercialising these proteins. To overcome that, the company has developed beef cell lines that grow in a 100% serum-free process, using a defined media that doesn’t include any animal-derived ingredients. SciFi Foods hopes to get the go-ahead from the USDA and FDA by early next year, and is already in the consultation process with the latter. Then, it plans to launch into foodservice straight after. “We’re also exploring a number of B2B conversations,” co-founder and CEO Joshua March says. “We think that partnering with major food companies is a great way to scale up faster and to get into retail.” #GreenQueen #altprotein #futurefood #innovation #foodtech #sustainability #foodsystems