💔 Consciously Uncoupling in the Plant-Based Aisle

As regulators crack down on synthetic additives and Big Food races to clean up its labels, natural colour is fast becoming one of the hottest battlegrounds in food.

With titanium dioxide banned in the EU, artificial dyes under scrutiny in the US, and consumers demanding cleaner, more transparent ingredients, the industry is hunting for stable, scalable, sustainable alternatives. 

So it’s not surprise that this week’s news is packed with companies colouring outside of the synthetic lines:

• Octarine Bio raised €5 million for its precision-fermented colours

• Mirra revealed structural colour tech made from proteins instead of pigments

• Emsland Group launched a starch-based ingredient to replicate gelatin’s shine

This week in FoodTech: 

🍕 Trialling protein-infused crust pizza
🧂 AI 0-calorie sweeteners and salt-cutting flavours
🧫 €6 million for plug-and-play cultivated meat tech

The Digest

💡 Take a look: DigitalFoodLabs just released its yearly report on the 36 trends shaping the future of agriculture and food.

👋 Become a FoodHack Ambassador and join the team in Lisbon. Apply today 

⏩️ Tufts University will use a $2.1 million state grant to launch an innovation hub, bringing together scientists, policymakers and entrepreneurs and providing shared resources such as an open-access cell bank, labs and test kitchen to accelerate the commercialisation of future foods.

🚫 A US district judge has rejected Texas’s attempt to dismiss a lawsuit by cell ag startups Upside Foods and Wildtype, allowing their challenge to the state’s ban to proceed under the dormant Commerce Clause, although the ban will remain in place for now. Meanwhile, Arizona’s House of Representatives is deliberating over sending cultivated meat makers to prison.

Latest Funding

💪🏼 US-based NextFoods Inc., parent of functional beverage brands Cheribundi and GoodBelly that makes science-backed products for gut health, muscle recovery and wellness, raised $10 million in a Series 3 funding round led by growth investor ECP Growth to expand its operations.

🥩 Cream Co. Meats closed an $8 million Series A funding round led by Soilworks Natural Capital with participation from Builders Vision, Desert Bloom and the Schmidt Family Foundation to expand processing capacity and its regenerative rancher network, strengthening regional supply chains for responsibly raised beef, lamb and pork.

🧫 German cultivated meat startup Innocent Meat secured €6 million from backers including GENIUS Venture Capital to develop its automated, plug-and-play production technology and build a demonstration facility as it prepares for regulatory approval and market entry in 2028.

🎨 Danish startup Octarine Bio raised €5 million in a Series A extension led by investors including The Footprint Firm, Edaphon, Unconventional Ventures, DSM-Firmenich Ventures and Oskare Capital, to commercialise its precision-fermented pigments for food, textiles and personal care.

💧Brussels-based Dripl secured €4 million in a funding round led by Abacus Investments with support from Spadel, Faraday Venture Partners and the Meert Family. It makes smart, zero-waste water dispensers offering flavoured and functional drinks for workplaces, and will use the funds to roll out across more European markets.

👀 Don’t miss all 10 funding rounds that made waves this week.

New in Startups

🆕 UPSIDE Foods has spun out Lucius Labs, a new division focused on developing and selling fast, lower-cost custom cell culture media for life sciences applications, leveraging its expertise built in cultivated meat to create a new revenue stream.

🇸🇬 Israeli cultivated meat startup Aleph Farms has teamed up with Cell Agritech and set up operations in Singapore to make the city-state its Asia-Pacific hub, using local manufacturing partnerships to scale production and prepare for regional launch once regulatory approval is secured.

🤝🏼 Cell4Food and Algocell have formed a strategic partnership to combine Cell4Food’s BlueCell™ animal cell cultivation platform with Algocell’s AI-powered bioprocess modeling to speed up and scale the development of sustainable cultivated seafood and other cell-based foods.

🤍 US startup Mirra is developing a plant-protein-based “structural colour” technology as a potential alternative to titanium dioxide, using light-scattering microstructures rather than pigments to create stable white colouration for foods.

🧁 Cincinnati-based 2nd Nature is launching its first AI-discovered ingredients, turning agricultural side streams into natural, zero-calorie sweeteners and savoury flavour enhancers designed to help food companies cut sugar and salt.

Plant-Based

💔 UK-based VFC Foods, owner of Vegan Fried Chicken and Meatless Farm, is separating from The Vegan Food Group as co-founder Adam Lyons returns to take full operational control with backing from the Ahimsa Foundation, following restructuring, site closures and losses.

🍬 Germany’s Emsland Group launched Emjel® LC 15, a new starch-based ingredient that mimics gelatin’s processing and texture in vegan and vegetarian confectionery.

🥇 HappyCow’s 2025 Vegan City Index ranks London as the world’s top city for vegan infrastructure and community engagement, followed by Paris, Berlin and Barcelona, with European cities dominating the global top ten.

Big Food

🍇 Bel US has partnered with Boston-based Foodberry to develop new portion-sized fruit-and-protein snacks using Foodberry’s fruit-coating technology.

✈️ Brazilian agribusiness SLC Agrícola has signed a deal with California-based Pyka to deploy its Pelican 2 autonomous crop-spraying aircraft across multiple farms, expanding night-time aerial application for large-scale crops such as soy, corn and cotton.

🍕 Papa Johns trialled a protein-infused crust pizza on Wednesday, offering meat and vegetable varieties delivering up to 55 grams of protein.

⚡️ Arla Foods announced that all of its European operations across seven countries now run on 100% renewable electricity through long-term solar and wind power purchase agreements.

From the Community

Get hired:

• Hack (remote) are hiring in Events and Media

• Oleo (USA) are hiring a Fermentation Engineer

• Newtree Impact (Belgium) are recruiting an Investment Manager

• Fresh Venture Studios (Netherlands) are hiring a Venture Builder

7️⃣ Mark S Brooks shares his 7 bets in agrifood for 2026-2028

🔟 Books to read to shape how we think about food systems, sustainability and the future of agriculture. Add your top read here.

🍟 Big Idea Ventures and McCain Foods launched the Golden Crisp Innovation Challenge, a global initiative aimed at solving one of food delivery’s most persistent consumer challenges: keeping french fries crispy from kitchen to customer. 

👋 Join us at the next FoodHack Meetups in Zurich (Jan 29th) and Tokyo (Feb 6th).

💇🏻‍♂️ Just for fun:

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Until next time - Stay Hungry