🥔 AI for crunch-cancelling crisps

PLUS: $145M agrifood fund, Netflix for chefs, 9 local Meetups to join this November

November 03, 2023

This week 1,000+ FoodTech experts flocked to the little red dot for Singapore International Agri-Food Week.

So it’s no surprise that many of the top headlines centre around new developments in the nation and across the APAC region:

💸 Singapore-based Clay Capital closes a $145M fund
🥃 Milestone Beverages launches whiskey using molecular science
🏭 Nourish Ingredients announces plans to open a hub in Singapore
9️⃣ A new platform across 9 APAC countries to advance cultivated meat
📝 A Food Safety and Security Bill for regulatory framework of novel food
🎀 Givaudan opens its Food Experience Lab at Nurasa’s innovation centre

Also, in the news:

  • €8M for designer proteins

  • 3D bio-printed plant-based bacon

  • Carbon-cutting crownless pineapples

The Digest

Credit: Jumbo

📈 What’s up? Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo announced its commitment to ensuring that 60% of its protein offerings are plant-based by 2030.

📉 What’s down? Beyond Meat is conducting a strategic review of its global operations and planning to cut its non-production workforce by 19%, as sales continue to struggle.

9️⃣ A new platform of industry stakeholders across nine Asia-Pacific countries, the APAC Regulatory Coordination Forum, launched at Singapore International Agri-Food Week to facilitate collaboration to advance the regulatory approval of cultivated meat in the region.

🇸🇬 Singapore is working on a new Food Safety and Security Bill to offer greater clarity on regulatory frameworks for novel foods like cultivated meat and help prevent food borne illnesses.

🛢 The FDA is proposing to ban the use of brominated vegetable oil in food, due to toxic effects on the thyroid.

💊 Good Read: Here’s how weight loss drugs might affect the F&B industry.

🔍 Synonym released a new and improved State of Global Fermentation Report.

New in Funding

Credit: In Ovo

🥚In Ovo, based in the Netherlands, secured a €40 million loan from the European Investment Bank to make culling of male chicks a “thing of the past”. Its sensor platform extracts tiny amounts of allantoic fluid from hatching eggs to determine the sex at an early stage, meaning they can be discarded before a foetus develops and then turned into things like protein powders or ingredients for animal feed.

💰Californian biotech Triplebar raised $20 million Series A funding, in a round led by Synthesis Capital, to expand its tech platform for optimising biomanufacturing. Here’s a short read on the importance of biomanufacturing for green industries.

🧬 Berlin-based synbio startup Cambrium raised €8 million seed funding to expand its designer proteins operations, including scaling its proof of concept product, a custom derivative of collagen called NovaColl. Hear how they do it.

🍄 Tupu, based in Berlin, raised $3.2 million in a seed funding round co-led by FoodLabs and Zubi Capital. It combines its patent-pending modular farming tech with bioscience, robotics and artificial intelligence to “redefine mushroom cultivation” and grow mushrooms directly in cities. Here’s the inside story.

👩‍🍳 Amsterdam-based ‘Netflix for star chefs’, Cheflix, raised €1 million. Having grown to over 60,000 members from 30 different countries, it will use the funds to invest in the development of its own mobile app and new content.

👉 Check out all the funding rounds from the week including a $145M agrifood fund and €6M to develop fertiliser alternatives with natural microbes.

New in Startups

Credit: BlueNalu

📝 US-based cultivated seafood startup BlueNalu has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NEOM, a sustainable regional development initiative in northwest Saudi Arabia, to advance the commercialisation, marketing, and distribution of its sustainable seafood. So, what’s next?

🇸🇬 Australian precision fermentation startup Nourish Ingredients announced plans to establish an operations hub in Singapore to accelerate the production of its animal-free fats, and will produce its flagship ingredient, Tastilux, at Nurasa’s FoodTech Innovation Centre.

🍸 Actor Woody Harrelson has partnered with health and wellness entrepreneur Amy Holmwood to launch Holistic Spirits Co., which makes all-natural spirits from organic ingredients.

Plant Based

Credit: Foods and Cocuus

🇪🇸 Carrefour Spain is launching 3D bio-printed plant-based bacon, developed by Spanish startups Foodys and Cocuus, into all of its stores at almost price parity with conventional bacon.

🐶 British vegan pet food startup THE PACK announced that it has successfully secured B Corp certification, and claims to be the first brand of its type in Europe to receive the certification.

🐟 Nestlé is launching three new vegan white fish products in Europe and Asia under its Garden Gourmet and Harvest Gourmet brands, to help meet the growing demand for alternative seafood.

Big Food

🍍 UK Supermarket Sainsbury’s is introducing crownless pineapples (regular pineapples but with the green leaves removed for recycling in the production process). Here’s why it’s a good idea.

🌬Sainsbury’s also announced the completion of a new wind farm in Scotland which will power up to a third of its estate, marking a milestone in its plans to become net-zero in its own operations by 2035.

🤝 ADM is partnering with ClimateTech company Solugen to build a manufacturing facility in Minnesota for plant-based organic acids.

🥃 Leading APAC wine and spirits company Milestone Beverages launched Stateless Whiskey, a brand which uses molecular science to give control over each aspect of the flavour profile and “recreate rare and expensive whiskeys”. 

🔺Doritos unveiled what it says is the “world’s first silent snack” designed with gamers in mind. Doritos Silent is an Ai-augmented snack, powered by ‘Crunch Cancellation’, which cancels the sound of the crisps’ crunch for gamers in real time.

HackTrends: Smart Grids

Power networks are under more strain than ever, with the move towards clean energy increasing demand. Smart grid technologies can help to manage this transition while reducing the need for costly new grid infrastructure, and reduce the frequency of cuts, surges and other costly problems.

🔎 Discover in the full HackTrend Report:
- 2x case studies (SNRG, Enode)
- The why, the challenges and the figures behind the space
- List of 20 companies powering the future
- Expert insights from Felix Winckler and Alison Imbert 

From the Community

Are you hiring? Post the role here 

🔥 5 new job openings:

👋 Come and join us at a FoodHack Meetup this month in:

Lisbon and Istanbul (9th), Boston and Toronto (16th), Paris (20th), Basel (21st) Kigali (22nd), Vienna and San Juan (30th).

🔝 How to run a perfect early-stage board meeting.

📦 A quick video to highlight the problem with paper food boxes.

🇩🇰 A list of the most active investors in Danish FoodTech startups.

🏆 Oceanium was crowned winner of the Thai Union Innovation Challenge for ‘Novel Ingredients and Applications from Ocean-Derived Ingredients’.

🦖 Just for fun: Investors reviewing pitch decks

Have a great weekend ahead

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Curated by Nicola and Laura 

Until next time - Stay Hungry