🥛Green Milk from Brown Foods

Q. What’s the common thread between these 8 women?

• Jasmin Hume of Shiru

• Martina Miotto of CellRev

• Luisa Cruz of MicroHarvest

• Maya Bendifallah of Nutropy

• Shannon Falconer of BioCraft

• Verónica García Arteaga of Neggst

• Shulamit Levenberg and Neta Lavon of Aleph Farms 

A. They are all (Co)Founders of FoodTech startups who are turning their PhD research into real-world impact.

Ahead of International Women’s Day, we take a closer look at the increasing number of women in Food and Climate who, having completed a PhD, are becoming Founders, CEOs, CSOs, and leading scientific teams to drive innovation in ClimateTech.

This week in FoodTech:

🌾 World's first crop epigenetic platform
🐕 Vegan pet food startup files for bankruptcy
💸 2024 global agrifoodtech investment hit $16Bn

The Digest

📈 What’s up? The International Cocoa Organization has projected a surprise global cocoa surplus of 142,000 tonnes for the 2024-25 season, sending cocoa futures tumbling by around 10% amid improved production and pressured demand.

📉 What’s down? Vegan pet food startup Wild Earth has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy but says it will continue operating as it restructures.

📊 Global agrifoodtech investment showed signs of recovery in 2024, reaching $16 billion—just a 4% drop from 2023—driven by increased investment in key markets like the US, the Netherlands, and India, according to a new report from AgFunder.

📝 New policy documents from China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs suggest growing support for alternative proteins, highlighting novel food research and potential regulatory advancements that could accelerate R&D and investment in the sector.

🙋🏾‍♀️ 770+ Women in Food and Climate to Know. Plus add yourself/a colleague here.

🏆 Green Queen gives the 101 on why we’re running the FoodTech World Cup.

Fundraising

🇻🇳 Vietnamese integrated agritech platform Techcoop secured $70 million Series A funding. Its platform offers end-to-end solutions tailored to export-oriented supply chains, and is designed to support sustainable farming practices while bolstering Vietnam’s food security.

🦠 Spore.Bio raised $23 million in a Series A funding round led by Singular. It specialises in AI-powered microbiology testing, and plans to scale and prepare for commercialisation of its rapid, on-site contamination testing device for food, beverages, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics.

🌾 Decibel Bio emerged from stealth with $12 million in funding to develop the world's first crop epigenetic platform, enabling farmers to reprogram plant traits in real time for improved yield, efficiency, and resilience to environmental stresses without genetic modification.

🌱 Avalo, a North Carolina-based startup specialising in AI-powered plant breeding, raised an $11 million Series A round and partnered with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners to develop climate-resilient sugarcane varieties that require less water and fertiliser, aiming to enhance sustainability in sugar production.

☀️ Finnish startup Solar Foods secured an additional €10 million from Business Finland to support the development, regulatory approval, and commercialisation of its Solein protein, and also introduced Solein® Protein Bites, a new protein snack concept designed for the health and performance nutrition market in the US.

💸 See all 16 AgriFood Fundraises from this week including funding for sustainable seaweed-based functional ingredients, 7 Canadian startups developing bio-based and natural products and a sustainable nitrogen fertiliser plant.

Startup Milestones

🐄 Brown Foods unveiled UnReal Milk, a cell-based whole cow milk created through mammalian cell culture to replicate the taste, texture, and nutrition of conventional dairy.

🐶 German pet food maker Marsapet debuted MicroBell, a grain-free kibble for dogs made with Calysta’s gas fermentation-derived FeedKind protein, offering a sustainable and hypoallergenic alternative under its Marsavet line.

🔬 Pow.Bio opened a 25,000 sq ft facility in California, equipped with continuous fermentation systems and expanded processing capabilities to help clients scale precision fermentation from experimentation to commercial production. See inside.

🤍 Ingredients startup Vivici launched Vivitein BLG, a precision-fermented beta-lactoglobulin protein for the US active nutrition market, designed to offer dairy-like functionality in protein beverages, powders, and bars.

🍞 Upcycled Foods, Inc. is partnering with Misfits Market to launch Odds & Ends upcycled bread, made with ReGrained Supergrain and Puratos sourdough, in multigrain and honey wheat varieties.

🧫 US startup Debut has developed a breakthrough animal-free carmine using a new enzyme-driven bioproduction process, offering a high-purity, sustainable alternative to beetle-derived pigment for beauty and potential food applications.

🍹 Opinion: Is this the most polarizing beverage startup of 2025 so far?

Plant Based

🥩 Impossible Foods launched Steak Bites, a pre-cooked plant-based steak alternative with 80% less saturated fat than beef, and is calling it its “meatiest” product yet.

🍗 Demolish Foods unveiled its Gen4 platform, an advanced plant-based meat manufacturing system designed to create more realistic and scalable plant-based whole cuts by engineering muscle fibers at a microscopic level.

👩‍🔬 Russian scientists have used a statistical method called the Taguchi Method to optimise the Maillard reaction in plant-based meat alternatives, finding that temperature is the key factor in enhancing meat-like flavours.

🥗 British vegan meal kit startup Grubby has acquired the recipe IP of Allplants, and is aiming to relaunch its popular plant-based meals as an extension of its existing range following Allplants' administration.

Big Food

🍸 Diageo’s Baileys brand is launching a Non-Dairy Liqueur made with oat milk in Coffee Toffee and Cookies & Creamy flavours, tapping into the growing demand for plant-based coffee creamers.

🔐 General Mills is closing its in-house innovation unit, G-Works, and pausing new investments by 301 Inc. as part of cost-cutting measures amid consumer spending declines.

🚗 McDonald's is upgrading technology across its 43,000 restaurants with AI-driven drive-throughs, smart kitchen equipment, and Google Cloud-powered edge computing to improve efficiency and predict equipment failures.

From the Community

Job opportunities with:

• Cultimate (Germany) are looking for a Bioprocess Engineer

• BaCta (France) are hiring a Fermentation Scientist

• Formo (Germany) are recruiting a VP of Marketing

• Eatable Adventures (Spain) are looking for a Partnership and Ecosystem Manager

👋 Come and join us as a Volunteer at the HackSummit.

🎉 Join us at a FoodHack Meetup in Zurich, Amsterdam, Berlin, Tel Aviv and Lisbon - sign up here.

🥅 Just for fun: Going for goal

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Until next time - Stay Hungry