🧈 Fats from thin air

Summer is here (or so I’m told) and we hope you find time to relax and recharge over the coming weeks.

On that note, we’ll be taking a short break from the FoodHack newsletter. Before bouncing back to keep you in the loop on the latest news and milestones.

⌛️ Just before you switch on your OOO, here’s a reminder to get your hands on one of the last 25 super early pre-sale tickets for the next HackSummits in New York and/or Lausanne for a steal at $200. Go on, you’ll thank yourself later.

This week in FoodTech:

☕️ Price hikes: Storm in a tea coffee cup
🥩 Better together? Blended beef launch
🦠 Mighty microbes: CO2 waste to protein

The Digest

📈 What’s up? Italian coffee company Lavazza has warned that coffee prices will keep rising until the middle of next year, having so far reached a 15-year high, as the industry continues to face “very challenging headwinds” due to supply chain disruption, geopolitical disruption and poor harvests.

📉 What’s down? UK meat production declined by 3.7% last year, marking the first decrease in total production in over a decade.

🇰🇷 Researchers at South Korea’s Yonsei University have developed a gelatin-based scaffold for cultivated meat that can recreate the flavours and aromas generated during the Maillard reaction.

🦗 The Singapore Food Agency has approved 16 species of insect for consumption, including various species of crickets, grasshoppers, locusts, mealworms, and silkworms.

❌ The US FDA has banned the use of brominated vegetable oil in foods and beverages, following studies concluding that it is no longer safe. Companies have until 2nd August 2025 to become compliant.

🌊 Good watch: Transforming 2 billion acres of wasteland with seawater agriculture.

🚘 Good Read: A new report by Boston Consulting Group, GFI and Synthesis Capital highlights the ways alternative protein companies can learn from the EV industry.

🎯 FoodHack Ambassador, Oliver Fuss gives the TL;DR on the latest EU fermented foods consumer report.

New in Funding

🫐 US-based alcohol-free brewery Athletic Brewing Company secured $50 million in a funding round led by General Atlantic. It will use the funds to double its US brewing capacity over the next 18 months. 

🦠 Californian startup NovoNutrients raised $18 million in a Series A funding round led by Woodside Energy and CM Venture Capital. It uses microbes to upcycle industrial CO2 waste into a sustainable protein that can be used in food and animal feed.

🍽️ Munich-based allO secured $5 million seed funding to further scale its restaurant software platform, which helps restaurant owners to increase their revenue and streamline their operations.

🪰 ByBug, based in Chile, raised $1.4 million seed funding to build a platform to produce recombinant proteins from genetically engineered black soldier flies, which it claims is a cheaper and more scalable process than using engineered microbes via precision fermentation.

🥚 French startup The VERY Food Co. secured €850,000 to accelerate commercialisation of its functional plant-based food ingredients, including VERY AQUAFABA, a natural emulsifier designed to replace egg whites in patisserie products and cocktails.

📌 OSY Group received a five-figure grant from Innovate UK, to support finding new markets for its antimicrobial food packaging coating, Xtend, which leaves microscopic pins that puncture and kill microbes on packaging surfaces to help delay spoilage.

New in Startups

🍭 Israeli startup Incredo, whose technology makes sugar taste sweeter, signed a manufacturing and commercial distribution deal with US sugar refiner Sucro.

🇸🇬 Singaporean cultivated seafood startup Umami Bioworks has partnered with two Indian entities, with the aim of advancing its R&D and reaching commercial-scale production.

🤝 Bonumose, based in the US, is partnering with Roquette to “enhance the scalability” of tagatose, a rare sugar with 92% of the sweetness of regular sugar but only 38% of the calories.

Plant Based

🧈 Californian startup Savor has developed ‘fats from thin air’ with a butter prototype made from CO2 and hydrogen, which it claims offers the taste and functional properties of dairy butter.

🧀 US-based Credo Foods debuted what it says is the “world’s first” oat milk spray cheeze, which took over three years to develop.

🇯🇵 Misola Foods launched what it claims is Japan’s first oat milk, made by using enzymes to break oat starch into sugar and containing as much calcium as regular milk.

🥛 Meanwhile Otis, based in New Zealand, opened a “first-of-its-kind” oat milk facility in the country, which will produce milk made from premium South Island oats.

🍤 Big Idea Ventures launched a new plant-based seafood company, Bayou Best Foods, using intellectual property from New Wave Foods, which shut its operations last year. It plans to initially commercialise with shrimp, with a move into other products in the future.

🍗 Good read: Why the plant-based meat investment landscape is challenging, according to Loui Blake, CEO of Miami Foods.

Big Food

🥩 Nestlé debuted Maggi Rindecarne, a soy-based meat product designed to be blended with conventional beef in a hybrid format and pitched at affordability.

❄️ Chobani launched its first-ever shelf-stable low-fat dairy milk product, which lasts up to nine months without refrigeration. Instead of going on general sale, it will be donated to people impacted by natural disasters or food insecurity. 

🐄 DSM-Firmenich and Elanco’s methane-reducing feed additive, Bovaer, has secured the regulatory green light for use in lactating dairy cattle in the US.

💰 UK convenience retailer Co-op launched a new ‘Future Farming Fund’ to support British farmers in adopting regenerative agriculture practices.

🍝 Heinz debuted a range of TikTok-inspired pasta sauces in a bid to cater to new consumers by bringing a “culinary twist to the kitchen”.

From the Community

Get a job in FoodTech:

• ProFuse Technology are hiring an R&D Scientist

• Good Food Institute are looking for a Communications Manager

• Kokomodo are recruiting a Bioprocess Engineer

• Simon Capital is hiring an Investment Associate

🌟 Check out the highlights from FoodHack Lisbon’s latest Meetup. The next Meetup is taking place in Tel Aviv. Sign up here.

💔 How to manage a Co-Founder break up without killing your company.

💰 The recipe to build an impact VC fund or to review your existing impact VC fund.

🐣 Forward Fooding opened its early bird applications for the 2024 FoodTech 500. Apply by July 31st here.

👋 Food & Beverage Pitch Lounge takes place on July 18th @ 6-8.30 PM UK-time/UTC+1. Register here for access or to get involved.

🥤Put this on your water bottle to sound super smart in your next meeting.

🎂 Finding product market fit for your FoodTech startup.

Give us your 2 cents 🪙 
Make our day with a few nice words or tell us how we can get better:

I love it 😁 Meh 😐 I hate it 🙁

Until next time - Stay Hungry