🍫 Better (choco)late than never

A startup, an investor and a food brand walk into a bar.

No, I’m not about to tell a cheesy bar joke, but there’s bound to be lots of fun and laughs at get togethers in bars and venues around Lausanne during the upcoming HackWeek.

So grab one of the few remaining tickets to the HackSummit, then come along to meet the ecosystem at one or more of these side events:

• Morning Run

• Tech Taste Soirée

• Founders Get Together

• Alternative Protein Networking

• Cocktail Fundraiser Welcome Party

• Showcase on Swiss FoodTech Talents

• Workshop with Swiss Food Corporations

• …Last but not least, the Hack After Party

This week in FoodTech:

🐈 Price Parity: Cultivated cat food
🍄 Fungi Fat: For gut health and immunity
🧀 Out of stealth: Molecular farming startup

The Digest

📈 What’s up? Dutch egg producer Kipster has committed to in-ovo sexing as an alternative to culling male chicks, becoming the second company to do so in the US.

📉 What’s down? Australian plant-based meat startup ProForm Foods has been placed in voluntary administration, though production and trading continue for now.

🇮🇳 Two new smart protein centres have opened in Bengaluru, India, designed to support alternative protein startups in manufacturing and commercialising their products.

🍄 Researchers at Hong Kong Polytechnic University have developed a fungi-derived fat alternative that can decrease the fat content of a food product while helping to improve gut health and immunity and relieve anxiety.

🥩 The USDA has found bird flu in beef from a sick dairy cow, and its agencies are conducting traceback efforts to ensure no contaminated meat enters the food chain as the virus continues to spread.

New in Funding

🍅 Iyris raised $16 million Series A funding to make fresh produce easier to grow in difficult climates. Its flagship tech involves adding an additive to polyethylene manufacturing, which blocks near-infrared radiation, significantly reducing heat while allowing photosynthetically active radiation, meaning farmers can reduce cooling costs, water usage, and electricity consumption.

🐟 Sustainable aquaculture investor Hatch Blue secured $10 million for its second fund, with which it will support companies focused on ocean technology, aquaculture, and blue carbon.

🤝 Protein Industries Canada is partnering with Lupin Platform, PURIS Holdings, and YOSO Canada to invest $6.2 million in the country’s lupin protein industry.

🇩🇰 Copenhagen-based NUTRUMAMI secured €450,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by Kost Capital and Planetary Impact Ventures. It will use the funds to further develop its plant protein powder, produced via a patent-pending “cross-fermentation process”, designed to replace the nutrients found in animal meat products.

👀 Good read: Why this CVC is putting economic growth and sustainability hand in hand to offer a Win-Win formula for early stage startups.

New in Startups

🧀 Israeli molecular farming startup NewMoo is making liquid casein proteins using soybean plants, has plans to partner with the dairy sector on animal-free cheese applications and is now officially out of stealth.

🇰🇷 South Korea’s Pulmuone, which makes plant-based foods, is working with ABB Korea Robotics to develop cultivated seafood, with the aim of achieving mass production by 2026.

🇬🇧 UK-based BIOVIT launched the world’s first clinically developed plant-derived micronutrient blends, designed to help food and beverage companies to naturally fortify their products, replacing ‘synthetic’ nutrients currently used by the majority of the industry.

🐟 Australian startup Goterra is partnering with aquaculture feed supplier Skretting Australia to scale its technology, which converts food waste into high-value, low-impact protein and fertiliser in just 12 days, using modular maggot-based robotic systems. 

🐈 BioCraft Pet Nutrition has achieved price parity with premium pet food for its cultivated mouse meat, by “reimagining the use of growth media” to cut costs and boost its product’s nutritional profile. Heres why it is big news.

🍬 UK-based functional mushroom brand Dirtea debuted a new range of gummies for cognitive and physical wellbeing, powered by lion’s mane, chaga, cordyceps and tremella.

Plant Based

🍫 The world’s second-largest confectionery company, Ferrero, is set to debut a vegan version of Nutella in Europe later this year. Listen in to get the lowdown.

🔬 Germany’s Kynda broke ground on a large-scale facility near Hamburg where it will produce 2,500 tons of its mycoprotein product, Kynda Meat, each year. Take a look at the floorplan.

🇪🇸 Spanish plant-based meat startup Heura is opening an itinerant plant-based butcher shop that will initially land in three E-Leclerc hypermarkets in France. And at Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” concerts in Madrid this week, they offered a variety of meat-free dishes at her request.

Big Food

🍳 PepsiCo is expanding its use of hydrotreated vegetable oil, derived from used cooking oil, in its trucks across its supply chain, in a move that is expected to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by an additional 13,000 tonnes by the end of this year.

🥤 The Coca-Cola Company is planning to invest $175 million in its business in Kenya, where it works with more than 500,000 micro, small and medium enterprises, over the next five years.

👉 Exclusive: CSM Group’s Managing Director, Christian Sobolta reveals how their Ingredient-Tech Platform is helping startups push boundaries across the food value chain.

From the Community

🔍 Check out the 100+ open roles in Food and Climate.

🏆 Meet the winner of the Feike Sijbesma Sustainable Innovation Award 2024, which includes a €25,000 grant prize.

💸 The government of Victoria, Australia, is launching a $1 million grants program for agtech startups in the region, offering $50,000 to companies driving innovation and adaptation in the agriculture sector.

👀 The Coller Startup Competition hosted by CPT Capital closes applications on June 7. Apply now to win a £100k investment; open to UK university startups in the alternative protein ecosystem.

👉 ICYMI: 40 solutions these FoodTech investors will be on the look out for at the HackSummit.

🙌 Join us at the next FoodHack Meetup taking place in Istanbul.

🩳 Just for fun: VCs adding value

Until next time - Stay Hungry

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Until next time - Stay Hungry