🧫 Is Lab-Grown Meat Halal?

‘Fermentation, a 10,000 year old natural food processing method using healthy bacteria to nibble on foods to transform flavour, texture and overall characteristics of your foods.’ Sorosh Tavakoli of Stockeld Dreamery tells us.

And yet we are still only scratching the surface of what is achievable.

This week, the technology continues to make headlines:

• Yali Bio develops a ‘world first’ breast milk fat

• Algae Cooking Club unveils its microalgae-based cooking oil

• Stockeld Dreamery launches MELT, cultured cheddar cheese slices

• Remilk’s milk protein secures Health Canada’s “Letter of No Objection”

P.S. Talking of headline-rs, we just announced the first 40 speakers for the HackSummit. You’ll find top names like Better Bite VC, Shiru, Nestle R+D, Givaudan, Green Queen Media, Liberation Labs, Twig, MicroTERRA and Planted… See you there too?

This week in FoodTech:

🍊A-peel-ing: Try a new hybrid mandarin
🔥 Heating up: Fermented microalgae oil
💰$10T question: Fixing our food system

The Digest

📈 What’s up? Data from CoBank shows that cocoa prices are up nearly 65% on a year ago, thanks to heavy rains and the spread of black pod disease in West Africa.

📈 Also up: The National Restaurant Association expects the US foodservice industry to see a record $1.1 trillion in sales in 2024.

📉 What’s down? Data from AgFunder shows that cultivated meat funding declined by 78% in 2023, as investors cite ‘general risk aversion’.

📉 Also down: American food and beverage imports and exports are being adversely affected by shipping disruptions, caused by militia attacks in the Red Sea and drought problems in the Panama Canal.

🇸🇬 The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore announced that cultivated meat is generally halal, and the country’s Muslims can eat these products as long as they adhere to halal standards.

🍼 The US FDA is set to undergo a major overhaul to transform its human foods programme and regulatory affairs teams, following the country’s infant formula crisis.

🇮🇹 The Italian cultivated meat ban could be “unenforceable”, as the European Commission says that the country has violated an EU scrutiny procedure by banning cultivated meat without allowing other member states or the Commission itself to give their views. 

👀 Good read: The $10T question to fixing our broken food system.

New in Funding

💰 Netherlands-based The Future Food Fund II closed with its target of €40 million to support seed and Series A companies in Western Europe working within areas such as regenerative agriculture, environmentally friendly food, and circular systems. Its portfolio includes Extracellular, a CDMO scale-up and development partner for cultivated meat.

🍗 Spanish plant-based meat startup Heura raised €40 million Series B funding to accelerate its international expansion plans and explore more collaborative models beyond its own meat alternatives as it drives towards profitability. Plus more breaking news from their Co-Founder.

🥗 LA-based ProducePay secured $38 million Series D funding to help tackle fresh produce supply chain waste. Its proprietary agri-fintech platform provides fruits and vegetables growers with financing and market intelligence to support them to meet their commitments.

🇪🇸 Spain’s theFoodTechLab launched its first fund, Climate Fund I, with a target size of €30 million. It will use the funds to support seed to Series A startups across the EU and Israel, working within Ag-tech, Health & Nutrition, Alternative Proteins, and the Circular Economy & Waste sectors.

💸 Catch up on all 8 FoodTech funds and funding rounds including data management for livestock and sidewalk delivery robots.

➕ Bonus: The US Department of Defense unveiled a new funding route for food tech companies, the Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Investment Program, as part of the country’s effort to support the advancement of biotechnology and bolster its defence capabilities.

Now in Startups

🍼 Californian startup Yali Bio has developed what it claims is the world’s first breast milk fat made from yeast, using precision fermentation technology, to help improve the nutritional credentials of infant formula.

🇨🇦 Israel’s Remilk has secured Health Canada’s “Letter of No Objection”, allowing the use and commercialisation of its animal-free milk protein within the country, making it the first company to receive the green light in Canada for a precision fermentation-derived protein. 

🥚 British startup Ivy Farm Technologies has joined forces with high-end department store Fortnum & Mason to develop what it claims is the world’s first scotch egg containing cultivated sausage meat. Watch the taste test.

🛢️ US-based Algae Cooking Club unveiled its chef-grade microalgae-based cooking oil, which has a smoke point of 535°F (approximately 280℃), much higher than olive or corn oil, and contains a high density of Omega-9 fats. See it up close.

🐟 Finish startup ​​Hailia is working to “unlock the potential of fish industry sidestreams”, turning raw materials such as salmonid sidestreams and underutilised small pelagics into products such as chunks, bites, strips, and patties.

☕️ Seth Rogen’s cannabis lifestyle brand Houseplant is partnering with frozen coffee company Cometeer, which makes flash-frozen “pucks” of coffee packaged in aluminium capsules that dissolve in hot water to create hot or iced coffee, since coffee and cannabis are “the perfect pair”.

🍲 First Bite, founded by ex-Impossible Foods executive, emerged from stealth to help food manufacturers navigate ‘antiquated’ food service channels.

🧀 Stockeld Dreamery launched MELT Cultured Cheddar Slices. Read why the new wave of cheese products has potential to shake up the market.

Plant Based

🍤 Plant-based shrimp maker New Wave Foods has ceased operations, commenting that it “couldn’t outrun industry headwinds”.

🤝 Israel’s Steakholder Foods is partnering with the country’s leading tofu producer, Wyler Farms, to produce 3D-printed plant-based beef steaks at industrial scale.

🥚 Barcelona-based UOBO debuted liquid plant-based eggs in a 1-litre bottled format for the Spanish food service industry, and claims to have already received over 40 requests from interested restaurants, caterers, and distributors.

🍄 Belgian startup Bolder Foods unveiled its functional mycelium ingredient, MycoVeg, which offers creamy and stretchy textures in non-dairy cheese and is currently being trialled by dairy companies ahead of a 2025 market launch.

🥪 British sandwich chain Pret a Manger is shutting its last remaining vegetarian-only stores, marking an end to an eight-year concept,  as its customers increasingly turn away from dedicated meat-free outlets.

🇳🇱 Amsterdam has become the first EU capital city to endorse calls for a global Plant Based Treaty, with the city’s council acknowledging that the food system has “a significant impact on the health of people and animals and contributes to the climate crisis”.

Big Food

🍊 Tesco has developed a new hybrid ‘mandarin’ which has fewer pips, in response to a decline in the production of traditional satsumas.

🍩 Dunkin’ is facing a $5 million lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act, with plaintiffs alleging that the company’s surcharge on plant-based milk discriminates against people with lactose intolerance.

🏭 Kraft Heinz is partnering with energy infrastructure developer Carlton Powers to create a renewable green hydrogen plant, with the potential to meet 50% of the manufacturer’s annual natural gas demand.

🛍️ Aldi UK has saved almost 1,000 tonnes of C02 in one year thanks to its partnership with Too Good To Go, selling 400,000 ‘surprise bags‘ to customers to allegedly save shoppers £8 million.

From the Community

Apply for your dream job:

• Nutropy (France) are hiring Food Scientists

• New Roots (Switzerland) are looking for an Event Coordinator and Communications Manager

• Project Eaden (Germany) are hiring a Research Lead, Sr Food Chemist and Sr Product Developer

🎧 Good listen: Lessons from scaling Impossible Foods with Nick Halla, employee #1.

💰 Take a look: New funding opportunity for alternative protein companies.

🔍 9 accelerators and incubators accepting applications in AgriFoodTech.

😇 Here’s what this impact angel looks for in a Founder.

📆 Come and join us this month at a FoodHack Meetup near you in The Hague, Melbourne, Lisbon, Istanbul, Zurich.

🎬 Closing soon: Apply to become a FoodHack Ambassador.

⛷️ Just for Fun: Founders be like: "Everything is going well, slowly building up traction."

Until next time - Stay Hungry

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