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Matcha’s meteoric rise is pushing it from niche favourite to mainstream must-have. And yet industry insiders are already warning of looming shortages.

Global sales are up 86% in three years, with forecasts topping $760M by 2030.

The opportunity: Visually striking, wellness products with premium pricing potential.
The risks: Climate-impacted harvests and a 5-year lead time for new crops.

With Japanese matcha making up approx 7% of national tea output and prices spiking over 250% in a year, brands face scarcity, online scalpers and tariffs.

Has the supply chain met its match-a?

This week in FoodTech:

🍭 Up to 550X sweeter than sugar sweetener
☀️ Mayonnaise produced with protein from air
💰 Mars’ €1Bn bet on EU operations by 2026

The Digest

📊 What if the agrifood VC fund size ‘death spiral’ is actually a feature, not a bug, says Alex Frederick of Pitchbook.

📉 What’s down? Beyond Meat’s stock hit a record low after the US plant-based giant proposed an exchange offer to wipe out over $800 million in debt, following steep revenue declines and recent bankruptcy rumours.

🍵 Also down? Soaring global demand for matcha, fuelled by social media trends and its appeal as a “clean caffeine” alternative, has triggered severe supply shortages in Japan, according to data from the International Tea Committee.

✂️ A survey by Sunlight.com found that GLP-1 medication users in the US are cutting their monthly food spending by an average of $218, with the biggest declines in fast food, snacks, groceries, and restaurants.

💰 The Gates Foundation and Novo Nordisk Foundation have extended the Acetate Consortium for two more years with a $25.6 million investment to advance technologies that turn CO₂ into proteins and produce consumer-tested food prototypes.

🫒 The OLIWA project, a 25-partner EU-funded initiative coordinated by the University of Torino, has launched to repurpose olive waste into animal feed, functional ingredients, packaging, and biogas, targeting at least a 25% reduction in food losses and waste while strengthening Mediterranean agri-food resilience and sustainability.

🎤 Exclusive: Get the inside track on FoodYoung’s mission to rethink clean-label foods from formulation to scale as we catch up with their Founder, Abouzar Rahmani.

New in Funding

🍗 French plant-based meat startup Nxtfood raised €49 million from Creadev, Roquette Ventures, Clay Capital, and IRD Invest, marking the largest European plant-based meat investment since 2022, to triple production capacity, expand into new markets, and target profitability within 18 months.

🍄 Dutch fungi-based ingredients producer The Protein Brewery raised €30 million Series B funding from Invest-NL, BOM, Novo Holdings, Unovis Asset Management, and Madeli to scale production, expand its Fermotein® mycoprotein platform, and strengthen its commercial presence in Europe and the US.

🇳🇱 Netherlands-based scale-up Revyve secured nearly €24 million in a Series B funding round co-led by ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund and Invest-NL, bringing its total capital raised to over €40 million. It develops functional yeast proteins to replace eggs and additives in mainstream food products, and will use the funds to scale production and expand globally.

🏭 Queensland University of Technology unveiled an $18 million upgrade to its Mackay-based Pioneer BioPilot, transforming it into Australia’s leading pilot-scale fermentation facility to accelerate food and bioproduct innovation.

🍫 Californian startup Alice Mushrooms secured $8 million in a round led by NewBound Venture Capital with backing from Unilever Ventures, Tiësto and existing celebrity investors. It makes functional vegan chocolate blends with mushrooms, nootropics and adaptogens, and will use the funds to expand its operations.

🩼 Massachusetts-based ArkeaBio, which is developing a vaccine to reduce livestock methane emissions, raised $7 million at the first close of its Series A+ round co-led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and AgriZeroNZ, to advance its program from animal studies to large-scale field trials.

🔝 Check out the full recap of all the latest funding rounds including protein-centric ready-to-drink, low sugar, lactose-free shakes and $8 million to tackle the “blind spot” of indoor food delivery.

New in Startups

🍭 US startup Oobli received its third FDA “No Questions” letter, clearing its precision-fermented sweet protein brazzein-54 - up to 550 times sweeter than sugar - for use as a sweetener in food and beverage products.

🥚 Onego Bio received a US FDA “No Questions” letter for Bioalbumen®, its precision-fermented egg protein identical to ovalbumin, clearing it for use in a wide range of food and beverage applications.

📍 Australian startup Nourish Ingredients opened a global commercial hub in Leiden, Netherlands to scale its precision-fermented fats and strengthen partnerships in Europe, alongside an ongoing $15 million fundraise.

🍳 UK-based Clean Food Group acquired the assets of Algal Omega 3 Ltd, gaining a million litres of fermentation capacity and a 12-acre site that positions it to become the world’s largest producer of yeast fermentation-derived sustainable oils and fats.

☀️ Solar Foods unveiled a mayonnaise made with Solein®, its fermentation-derived protein made from air, replacing egg yolk to deliver the same creamy taste and texture while tripling production efficiency and lowering costs for manufacturers.

🐶 Cultivated meat startup BeneMeat launched a “Try & Share” program across the EU to let dog owners test its cultivated treats and provide feedback on taste, safety, and quality.

🥤 Actor Ben Stiller launched Stiller’s Soda, a low-sugar, vitamin-infused soda brand debuting in New York City and on Amazon, with nationwide retail expansion planned for 2026.

🐈‍⬛ Omni Pet Ltd. filed its first patent for a wet cat food that combines cultivated chicken with plant proteins and starches to create meat-like chunks in gravy.

Plant Based

🛒 UK plant-based brand This has partnered with Berlin-based Omami to launch the UK’s first chickpea-based tofu, rolling out in supermarkets from late September.

🥩 Thailand’s Swees Plant Based Foods, known for its vegan cheese, launched CleanBean, a new line of simple, healthy plant-based meat alternatives debuting with Beev Steaklets and Chick*n Bites.

🍣 Mitsui DM Sugar is set to launch Osakana Kakumei, a plant-based bluefin tuna alternative made from konjac, seaweed, and bamboo fibre.

Big Food

🍧 Unilever’s The Magnum Ice Cream Company is partnering with NotCo to use its Giuseppe AI platform for developing new products and nutritional profiles, ahead of Magnum’s spin-off as the world’s largest ice cream company.

🌈 Michroma, which makes heat- and pH-stable natural colors via fermentation, is joining forces with CJ CheilJedang to scale commercial manufacturing of its pigments, leveraging CJ’s global biomanufacturing capabilities, supply chain expertise, and regulatory know-how.

🤝 New Zealand’s Leaft Foods is joining forces with Lacto Japan to accelerate commercialisation of its Rubisco Protein Isolate in Japan’s food manufacturing sector, positioning the plant-based protein as a clean-label, high-performance alternative to whey and eggs.

📖 Kraft Heinz is piloting an AI tool called The Cookbook, designed to give employees instant access to 150 years of ketchup production expertise and streamline its operations.

💸 Mars, Inc. is set to invest €1 billion in its EU operations by 2026 to boost manufacturing capacity, sustainability, and innovation, building on more than €1.5 billion invested in the region over the past five years.

🧬 Danone opened its OneBiome Laboratory in Paris-Saclay, establishing a global hub for microbiome, nutrition, and digital health research to accelerate science-driven gut health and nutrition innovations.\Japanese craft gin brand KI NO BI, part of Pernod

🏭 Ricard, opened a fossil-free distillery in Kyoto Prefecture powered entirely by renewable energy.

♻️ The City of Philadelphia is suing SC Johnson and Bimbo Bakeries, alleging they misled consumers by labeling plastic bags and packaging with recycling symbols.

From the Community

Apply for your next role:

• UNFAO (Italy) are recruiting for an Innovation Officer

• PINC (Sweden) are looking for a Sr Investment Manager

• Nosh Bio (Germany) are hiring for Business Development

• Michroma (Argentina) are looking for a Lab Technician in Fermentation

👋 Sign up for the next FoodHack Meetups in Dubai (Oct 7), Amsterdam (Oct 9th), London (Oct 15) and Boston (Oct 28th)

🍞 The functional bread rebrand conundrum, according to Samantha Alexander.

🪨 Can Charcoal really make your soil healthier and crops stronger? Asks Naresh Kumar.

🍇 On the Grapevine: A CPG founder getting nothing after the sale of her company, says Miyoko Schinner.

🦆 Just for fun: Stepping out of your comfort zone.

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Until next time - Stay Hungry