🐝 3D Printed Bee Hives

Hundreds of FoodTech’s bright minds have already joined us at their local FoodHack Meetup this year including in Singapore, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam and New York.

Hosted by our incredible team of Ambassadors, you’re sure to feel right at home for an evening with new and familiar faces.

Next up we’re meeting in Boston, Lisbon, Milan, Mexico City and Vienna.

Why not come along and join us?

This week in FoodTech:
🧪 Forever chemicals: In our fruit and veg
☄️Out of this world: Deep Space Winners
🐟 O-fish-al: First cultivated black sea bass

The Digest

📈 What’s up? A new report from the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment shows that grocery retailers on the west coast of the US decreased their number of tons of unsold food by 25% from 2019 – 2022.

📉 What’s down? New research from the Pesticide Action Network has found PFAS “forever chemicals” in fruits and vegetables in the UK.

📉 Also down? Food inflation is dropping in OECD nations, and in fact is at its lowest point in 15 months after hitting a peak of 16.2% in November 2022.

🔒 Closing down: Yamo, maker of plantbased and fresh snacks for kids. Hear why the Co-Founders made the near-impossible decision.

🐝 A student at the University of Texcoco has developed 3D-printed bee hives to help boost honey production.

👀 Good Read: Koen van Seijen explains why these 21 funds could transform agriculture.

🏆 Apply today: As seen in Green Queen Media, enter your startup to the FoodTech World Cup, a global tournament for industry disruptors, take part in a regional Demo Day and pitch in the final at the HackSummit.

New in Funding

👶 Texas-based Serenity Kids secured $52 million Series B funding for its baby food products with extra protein, whole foods, and less sugar and carbohydrates. It will use the funds to further expand its innovation and marketing.

💨 Windfall Bio raised $28 million Series A funding, in a round led by Prelude Ventures, to scale its methane capture and transformation solution, which helps to address methane emissions across various industries such as agriculture, oil and gas, and waste management.

🧫 Danish startup Reshape secured $20 million Series A funding. Its robotic imaging system helps scientists track visual changes from petri dishes and similar plate formats; for example, to test for seed germination rates, or to test for food’s freshness or how the ingredients ripen over time. Here’s a behind the scenes to closing the round.

🍷 Full Glass Wine, a US-based brand acquisition and management firm focused on acquiring DTC wine companies, raised $14 million Series A funding and acquired subscription-based wine service Bright Cellars.

🏭 US-based Liberation Labs secured $12.5 million to support the ongoing construction of its large-scale precision fermentation protein production facility in Indiana.

🔍 See all 13 funding rounds from the week including space-led environmental ag and meteorological sensors for water content in soil.

New in Startups

🐟 Atlantic Fish Co. unveiled what it says is the world’s first cultivated black sea bass, using its proprietary technology to cultivate fish cell lines that can thrive in liquid suspension. Take a look.

☕️ UK-based Plamil Foods debuted the ‘world’s first’ chocolate bar made from whole coffee beans, aimed at capturing some of the billion-pound global coffee market. Here’s why it’s timely even if it’s not your cup of joe.

🍫 Meanwhile US confectionery brand Macalat partnered with MycoTechnology to create a vegan, organic, zero-sugar, sweet dark chocolate bar made with mycelium-derived flavour modulator ClearIQ. 

🥛 US food tech The Live Green Co. launched a breast milk fat analogue and a post-biotic for gut health, both derived from yeast and produced via precision fermentation.

🪐 The Canadian Space Agency and Impact Canada awarded the Deep Space Food Challenge C$380,000 grand prize to Ecoation and Maia Farms for their CANGrow food system, which can grow more than 700 kg of food annually, including tomatoes, strawberries, and lettuce, in a unit the size of a wardrobe.

🍊 Israeli startup Blue Tree Technologies achieved self-GRAS status for its patented approach to selectively remove sugars from juice, milk and beer, and has successfully scaled its technology with Israeli juice manufacturer Priniv. 

Plant Based

🍄 Finland’s Three Mushketeers is using mushroom waste to “revolutionise the taste” of plant-based foods. It processes the byproducts of mushroom production into a savoury powder that masks off-flavours in plant proteins.

🐑 Australian startup Harvest B unveiled its new blended meat range, featuring 50/50 slow-cooked beef and lamb made with animal proteins and plant-based ingredients via its patent-pending tech.

🇦🇺 Wide Open Agriculture, based in Australia, is ready to commercialise its groundbreaking lupin fibre, characterised by a smooth texture, solubility, and neutral taste, for use in the food industry.

🇫🇷 The French Conseil d’Etat has suspended a decree banning the use of meat-like terms such as “steak” and “ham” for plant-based products, following requests from the country’s plant-based producers on the basis that the ban may not be legal and could be damaging. Here’s the upside.

🇿🇦 The Johannesburg High Court overturned the planned seizure of plant-based meat alternatives marketed using “meat-like” terms in South Africa, after the country’s Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development first banned them in 2022, and the products will now remain permanently available in the country.

Big Food

🤝 Cargill is partnering with Californian food tech Voyage Foods, which produces spreads and chocolates free from cocoa, nuts, and dairy, to offer sustainable alternatives to popular sweet treats. Here’s how they’ll work together.

5️⃣ Five international retailers, Tesco, Ahold Delhaize, Woolworths Group, Empire Company Limited/Sobeys and Shoprite, have teamed up to create W23 Global, a venture fund looking to invest $125 million over the next five years into innovative startups across retail

❌ Kraft Heinz’s Lunchables lunch kits have been found to contain “relatively high” levels of lead, cadmium and sodium.

🧂 Marks & Spencer is investing £1 million to cut its dairy supply chain carbon emissions, giving the cow herds that provide its milk a feed supplement derived from mineral salts and a byproduct of fermented corn to help cut their methane emissions.

🥛 Seeing double: UK grocery delivery firm Modern Milkman has announced its strategic acquisition of the US-based Modern Milkman. They both deliver milk and soft drinks in reusable glass bottles, as well as eggs, baked goods and more, connecting households to local farmers and suppliers in their community.

From the Community

Recent jobs in FoodTech:

• Good Food Institute (Europe) are hiring a Comms Assistant

• Le Mat (Romania) are recruiting a Sales Manager

• Synonym (USA) are looking for a Process Engineer and Director of Business Development

• Nutropy (France) have open roles for a strain engineer, technician and apprenticeship

💚 Proveg International’s next Kickstarting for Good cohort is open for applications. The world’s first incubator aimed specifically at nonprofit organisations and impact initiatives working on transforming the food system and animal advocacy. Take part here.

📣 Final call for EIT Food’s Fast Track to Market 2024 to accelerate the commercialisation of food products and services in Europe contributing to positive change in our food system. Apply now.

🎬 Foodpreneur Collective Pitch Lounge takes place on April 18th at 6-8PM BST live on Zoom. Register to watch online.

⛳️ Just for fun: 99% of VCs investing in the same 1% of FoodTech startups

Until next time - Stay Hungry

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Until next time - Stay Hungry