🍫 Cocoa's next bioreactor

For years, the economics of food biotech have been tied to stainless steel. The bioreactors that power fermentation and cell culture are notoriously expensive - often costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and requiring specialised facilities to run.

Now US startup California Cultured is testing a very different approach. The company says it has successfully produced its cocoa ingredients in a reusable 2,000-litre plastic bioreactor costing roughly $3,000.

Instead of scaling with ever-bigger steel tanks, the company is betting on cheap, modular reactors that can be deployed quickly and replaced easily. If the model holds up at commercial scale, it could significantly lower the infrastructure costs holding back the next generation of food biotech.

This week in FoodTech:

🥩 Could Washington break up Big Meat?
📉 Beyond Meat races to stay listed on Nasdaq
🍌 Tropic raises $105M to future-proof bananas

The Digest

🗺️ Interesting: Dario Berrebi shared a map of soil health in Europe.

📉 Beyond Meat has received a delisting warning from Nasdaq after its share price fell below $1 for 30 consecutive business days, giving the company until 31st August to regain compliance.

🥩 A new US Democratic proposal to address rising grocery prices would “break up” dominant meat companies like Tyson Foods and Cargill by forcing them to choose between selling just beef, poultry or pork.

🚫 South Dakota has imposed a five-year ban on the sale of cultivated meat, becoming the eighth US state to restrict the category after Governor Larry Rhoden signed the bill into law.

📊 Good Read: Rebellyous Foods’ Christie Lagally says that alt protein companies can, and must, lower their production costs.

🔮 Interesting: Fred Hart shared his industry friends’ 2026 predictions for ExpoWest.

🎟️ Get your HackSummit pass and join us for 2 days of high-impact networking, dealmaking and fun this April 22-23.

New in Funding

🍌 UK agri-biotech Tropic raised $105 million Series C funding in a round co-led by Forbion’s Bioeconomy Fund and Corteva, with backing from Just Climate, IQ Capital, ABN Amro, Invest International and existing investors including Temasek and Five Seasons Ventures, to scale commercial production of its gene-edited bananas and rice and expand its pipeline of climate-resilient crops.

👩🏻‍🍳 Saltz, a Lithuanian food-supply marketplace that connects professional kitchens directly with verified suppliers, secured €20 million in a Series A funding round led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Inovo, Lifeline Ventures, and Change Ventures, with participation from business angels. It will use the funds to support its European expansion plans. 

🤠 Dutch startup Those Vegan Cowboys raised €12.25 million from crowd investors via Invesdor, a privately owned impact fund, and earlier investors including dairy farmers and cheesemakers, to prepare for industrial-scale manufacturing of its precision-fermented casein proteins.

🚜 AgriPass Robotics, an Israeli agricultural robotics startup developing AI-powered robotic weed-control systems, secured $7.5 million in a seed funding round led by Harbor Venture Consulting with participation from E44 Climate Ventures and strategic partners to further develop its RHIC robotic cultivation platform across additional crops and use cases.

🤖 New York–based AI startup Anchr raised $5.8 million seed funding from investors including a16z Speedrun, Anterra Capital, Offline Ventures, Long Journey Ventures and leaders from OpenAI. It will use the funds to expand its platform that automates back-office workflows such as sales, purchasing, inventory and finance across the food distribution supply chain. 

🌾 UK-based Cytotrait raised £3 million seed funding in a round led by Northern Gritstone, with participation from the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund and the Northern Universities Ventures Fund, to advance its MOSS gene-editing platform and expand crop research programmes in wheat, maize, potato and canola aimed at improving yield, resilience and sustainability.

🍼 Australian precision-fermentation startup All G received a A$1.1 million grant from the New South Wales government’s Biosciences Fund to scale up production of its human beta-casein protein and advance proof-of-concept manufacturing and regulatory preparation for use in infant formula.

🥤 Caliwater, a US beverage brand co-founded by actors Oliver Trevena and Vanessa Hudgens, is expanding its prickly-pear cactus-based hydration drink business thanks to new celebrity investors including Benson Boone, Demi Lovato, Glen Powell, Gerard Butler and Cody Bellinger.

New in Startups

✅ Swedish precision fermentation startup Melt&Marble secured US self-affirmed GRAS status for its MeltyMarble food fat and an INCI name for its Marble7 cosmetic lipid, enabling it to commercialise the ingredients in food and personal care markets while advancing partnerships and regulatory approvals for broader global launches.

🛡️ US startup Wisecode unveiled a certification scheme called the Non-UPF shield, designed to get rid of the red tape that comes with conventional certification programmes, alongside an AI-powered UPF Detector feature in its consumer-facing mobile app.

🐶 Magic Valley launched Rogue Pet, Australia’s first dog treats made with hybrid cultivated pork, as an early commercial step to generate revenue, demonstrate consumer demand, and build market traction while it continues developing cultivated meat products for human consumption.

👩🏻‍🌾 Crop Diagnostix, based in California, is preparing to commercially launch an RNA-based crop health monitoring system that detects plant stress weeks before visible damage, enabling farmers to intervene earlier and reduce yield losses and input use. 

🍫 US-based California Cultured, which produces cocoa ingredients via plant cell culture, has successfully run production in a reusable 2,000-litre plastic bioreactor costing about $3,000 - far cheaper than traditional stainless-steel systems - and says the modular reactors could dramatically lower capital and operating costs.

Plant-Based

🥛 Swedish oat milk giant Oatly is investing $16 million to expand its Landskrona production facility, increasing capacity by over 33% to meet growing European demand for plant-based drinks while improving efficiency and lowering the climate impact of its operations. 

🥩🌱 Spanish plant-based meat startup Novameat is expanding into the blended meat category by offering its plant-based “balanced protein” beef ingredient to meat manufacturers, enabling them to mix it into conventional products like burgers and mince to reduce meat content, improve nutrition, and cut emissions while using existing production lines.

Big Food

🍴 PepsiCo has launched its first-ever Lay’s-branded restaurant concept, Pilla Tortilla, in Madrid, developed with Michelin-starred chef Miguel Carretero, featuring Spanish tortilla and other dishes made with Lay’s potato chips as the signature ingredient.

🍫 Nestlé debuted a new Choco Crossies “Snack Vibes” range in Germany, made with German startup Planet A Foods fermentation-derived cocoa-free chocolate alternative, ChoViva.

🥚 Mexican food multinational Sigma Foods has partnered with Finnish precision fermentation startup Onego Bio to test and develop food products using its animal-free egg white protein.

From the Community

• Oyster Bay Venture Capital is looking for a Senior Associate / Principal to join its investment team

• Ohalo is seeking a Biotech Program Manager with level 20 skillz

• REDUCED is looking for an energetic, structured, and ambitious Market Development Manager to take ownership of commercial growth within a defined industry segment

• Revo Foods is hiring a new Food Production Worker (and you don’t need to speak German!)

• Nutropy has an exciting internship opportunity in precision fermentation R&D

🇦🇹 🇨🇭 Join the next FoodHack Meetups in Vienna (19th March) and Basel (24th March)

🤑 Interesting: These 15 emerging food and beverage brands have collectively raised roughly $1.6 billion in equity funding, with the top four capturing about 40–45% of capital.

💀 Good read: VC Sarah Nolet shares ‘Lessons from $18 billion in AgTech failures’.

🏆 Grow-NY is now accepting applications for the eighth round of its Food and Ag Startup Competition. Selected finalists will compete to win up to $1 million and receive mentorship, training, and business development support. Find out more and apply here before 15th May.

🎤 In loving memory of plant-based and fungi-based “bacon”

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Until next time - Stay Hungry