Food+Tech Connect’s Post

Here’s what you can find in this week's edition of the Better Bioeconomy newsletter: BIO BUZZ: 🇮🇱 Israel’s Aleph Farms receives world's first regulatory approval for cultivated beef | Didier Toubia 🇬🇧 Multus opens the “world's first” commercial-scale facility for affordable, serum-free growth media for the cultivated meat industry | Cai Linton 🍫 Solar Foods partners with Fazer Group to launch chocolate snack bar made with air protein in Singapore | Heli Anttila, Pasi Vainikka 🇳🇿 Daisy Lab has successfully produced animal-identical whey proteins in 10 L fermenters | 🌱 Irina Miller 🥛 Imagindairy acquires an industrial-scale production plant, boosting its production capacity to 100,000 L of animal-free dairy proteins | Eyal Afergan, Ph.D 🇨🇭🇯🇵 planetary partners with KONICA MINOLTA, INC. to reduce the production costs of fermented proteins | David Brandes, Ryutaro Mori 🤝 IFF partners with Unilever, Wageningen University & Research to improve the flavour of plant-based meat alternatives 📈🌱 Despite media reports suggesting a decline in veganism, some companies in the UK and Europe report an increase in plant-based sales 🍔 Europe continues to be Beyond Meat’s strongest market MACRO STUFF: 🇨🇭 Over half of Swiss consumers are now 'substitarians', consuming plant-based alternatives to meat, dairy, and seafood | Coop 🇯🇵 Japan is shifting its approach to novel foods, including cultivated meat, by redistributing responsibilities | Megumi Avigail Yoshitomi 💪🏾 Established food giants are expected to dominate the US plant-based meat market, outperforming exclusively plant-based brands 📉 Republicans in Arizona have proposed two new bills prohibiting the “misbranding” of meat alternatives and banning cultivated meat entirely 🥩🌱 Blended meat, combining plant-based and animal meat, could face challenges due to consumer preferences and quality perception BIO BUCKS: 🇺🇬 FiberFoods & PrimeJack receives funding from FoodSparks by PeakBridge and EIT Food | Inez van Oord, Ineke Aquarius 🇮🇱 The Mediterranean Food Lab (MFL) secures $17M series A funding to advance its AI-powered solid-state fermentation technology | Yair Yosefi, Omer Ben-Gal 🇦🇺 v2food acquires the plant-based ready meal brand Soulara, aiming to expand into D2C sales | Tim York 🧃 Better Juice secures series A funding to transform sugars in fruit juice into dietary fibers and non-digestible sugars | Eran Blachinsky, Gali Yarom SOCIAL FEAST: 🧠 Good Judgement: Angel investor shares the #1 trait he looks for in a founder | Ryan Grant Little 💰 Consumer spending drives 70% of the US economy, but investing in food CPG is tough. Here is what investors need to know | Daniel Gluck 🍴 Eating meat for the first time in over 10 years, CEO of Cellular Agriculture Australia shares his experience trying cultivated meat | Sam Perkins #bioeconomy #foodtech

𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 & 𝐇𝐲𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐝 𝐌𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 🇺🇸🌱🥩 CEO and co-founder of Californian hybrid meat company SCiFi Foods Joshua March on alt meat price parity, why he's all in on combining plant proteins with cultivated meat instead of conventional, and consumers' disregard for industry terms. "SCiFi Foods is not the future we fear. It’s the future we dream of." 💬🌿 That’s the message on the homepage of SCiFi Foods, an alt-protein company from California. The future it’s referring to is cultivated meat, but just not in the way you've imagined it. SCiFi Foods is taking the best of two worlds – the superior taste credentials of cultured proteins and the cost-effectiveness and scalability of plant-based ingredients – to create a hybrid beef product. UPSIDE Foods Eat Just, Inc. McKinsey & Company 📖 Uncover the innovation behind SCiFi Foods. Tap below for the story. 👇 #GreenQueen #altprotein #foodtech #sustainability #climateaction #innovation

Advancing secure practices in modern food production (Quotes from MEAT+POULTRY, April 8, 2024) The marketplace is witnessing an expansion in hybrid offerings. Such products integrate animal meat with elements like plant-based proteins, whole grains, and a variety of vegetables. Concurrently, there's a burgeoning category of proteins devoid of animal products, which includes a range from fungi and mycelium to proteins that are cultivated. These alternatives mirror traditional meat but are produced through precision fermentation techniques, eliminating the need for animals. ** https://lnkd.in/dcdMk_AW **

Advancing secure practices in modern food production (Quotes from MEAT+POULTRY, April 8, 2024) The marketplace is witnessing an expansion in hybrid offerings. Such products integrate animal meat with elements like plant-based proteins, whole grains, and a variety of vegetables. Concurrently, there's a burgeoning category of proteins devoid of animal products, which includes a range from fungi and mycelium to proteins that are cultivated. These alternatives mirror traditional meat but are produced through precision fermentation techniques, eliminating the need for animals. ** https://lnkd.in/dDqNXw8n **

🍳 The Big Story: $40M To Launch Precision Fermentation Egg Protein In The US - that and more inside Green Queen Media's #FutureFoodWeekly 🇫🇮 Onego Bio Poaches $40M Series A to Launch Precision-Fermented Egg Protein in North America 🇬🇧 SHICKEN Foods Secures Additional £4M Funding from Veg Capital to Scale Up Asian Alt-Meat Portfolio 🇵🇭 Dare to Be Limeatless: Green Rebel Foods Enters Philippines with NutriAsia Partnership 🥓 ‘It’s Not A Joke’: Pizza Hut France Adds LA VIE™ Plant-Based Ham on All Menu Items for the Same Price 🧀 Molecular Farming Startup Finally Foods Ltd Emerges From Stealth with Pre-Seed Funding to Develop Casein Proteins 🇮🇱 SuperAA: PoLoPo’s Molecular Farming Platform Turns Potatoes Into Egg Protein Factories 📈 56% of Americans Open to Trying Novel Protein Ingredients, With Some Willing to Pay Four Times More for Them 🌱 University of California, Berkeley Researchers Earmark Koji Mould as Game-Changer for Meat Alternatives 🇰🇷 CJ CheilJedang Now Sells Bibigo Plant-Based Dumplings in US Military Bases 👨🌾 Why PrimeJack & FiberFoods is Championing Dehydrated Jackfruit as A Solution for Plant-Based & Blended Meat 🍎 Beyond Meat Reformulates Beef Crumbles with New Flavour and Heart-Check Certification 👨🍳 Dutch Brands Agree to Make Half of the Recipes on Food Packaging Meatless 🚫 As Kentucky Mulls Over Ag-Gag Bill, Footage Shows Animal Cruelty at KFC Supplier Pilgrim’s Poultry Farm Read the full version here: https://lnkd.in/euMpMcbY #GreenQueen #altprotein #futurefoods #cultivatedmeat #innovation #sustainability #climatechange -------- Want to see more posts like this? Hit the 🔔 button on our profile so you don't miss any updates. Or subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest in alt protein and sustainability: https://lnkd.in/eMJ7WwXC

Hot off the press: EU Fermented Foods Consumer Report 🖨 Across 7,800 EU consumers in eight EU Countries and Switzerland. 🌍 What are some surprises and key takeaways? 1. Consumers trust precision #fermentation more than biomass or traditional 🎯 This is a confusing outcome, as precision fermentation is the most closely related topic to GMOs, which are controversial to consumers and often misunderstood. Perhaps the word 'precision' elicits trust. 2. Taste is still No. 1, followed by health & animal welfare 😝 Usually it's Taste, price, convenience (the latter two are not in focus). 3. Consumers prefer fermented meats at price parity, not cheaper vs. animal 💲 Prevailing thought is usually that lower = better; however, it seems that lower prices communicate a perceived lesser value to consumers 4. Yeasty was the least desirable product attribute 🍞 Despite yeast being a big part of our diets in other areas, consumers do not want its aftertaste overpowering products. Next to that, "bitter, sour and beany" were strongly undesirable off-notes. 5. Product color, evenness and shape are "paramount" in chicken & yogurt research 🥣 For yogurt, the most desirable property was a consistent white color, whereas light brown and yellow tones were highly off-putting 🍗 For chicken, "even brown color" was the most important visual attribute, with "saltiness" winning the taste component Link in comments below for download and more insights. #foodtech #consumer #fermentation #altprotein

Lab-grown meat and fish are still considered futuristic. However, serious steps are being taken by the food industry. Projections assume a two-digit CAGR and a $1B market beyond 2023. In the meantime, we'll keep working on FEASTS, an initiative to deliver a comprehensive, unbiased knowledge base about cultured meat and seafood and their place in the food system. "Will lab-grown meat ever make it onto supermarket shelves?" wondered The Economist. We'll see. CNTA #FutureOfFood #CulturedMeat #FoodInnovation #SustainableEating #FoodTech #LabGrownMeat #SeafoodRevolution #FoodIndustry #Sustainability #TechInFood #FutureFoods #CleanMeat #AlternativeProtein #FoodScience #GreenTech https://lnkd.in/dMui8TCg

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

🐔🇬🇧 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 

In the quest to replicate meat, the Plant-based sector has rediscovered the critical importance of fat. Fat IS good after all. When reading this article, 3 thoughts came to mind : 1) Will the alt-fat sector be obsessed with replicating the meat mouthful, or will/can it focus on coming up with a great tasting experience unrelated to duplicating that of meat, 2) can animal fat be integrated into plant based foods to create the best sensations, 3) most of the fat makers are trademarking their fat. 3) Should the plant-based start-ups follow the Intel Inside playbook? https://lnkd.in/gHYJ8j7u