🥜 Peanut butter isn't butter

As if it wasn’t already hard enough for FoodTech Founders, this week the EU Parliament voted to ban meat-like terms such as beef, burger, and sausage on plant-based product labels, advancing the proposal to trilogue negotiations

The decision raises questions about innovation, consumer clarity, and just how far labeling laws should go. Meanwhile restricting consumer choice and undermining sustainable food innovation.

Here are a few hot takes from Founders on the ban:

• Europe’s system is designed to protect the big incumbents, not to build the future. We do this by creating lots of red tape. We make it very hard for new companies to grow - Adnan Oner

• Poor policy and a lack of subsidies continue to create an uneven playing field for meat and dairy alternatives. This stifles innovation and hits consumers - Brad Vanstone

• Food, like politics, isn’t just about tradition. It’s about the future we want to shape. The question is: which Country, which European Union, do we want to build? - Pascal Bieri

This week in FoodTech:

🍭 16 startups working on the future of food colors
🫚 The savvy strategy behind gingerbread Doritos
👋 4 next FoodHack Meetups in Europe and US

The Digest

👀 Good Read: The Eat-Lancet Commission released the 2.0 update to its Planetary Health Diet report.

📉 What’s down? Data from AgFunder shows that agrifoodtech funding fell 32% in Q3 2025 to $1.7 billion.

♥️ Interesting: The Spoon shares how smart home tech is beginning to merge with health tracking, with devices like continuous glucose monitors and wellness hubs already linking to lights, alarms, and other automations.

🎨 Food dye manufacturers, led by the International Association of Color Manufacturers, are suing West Virginia to overturn the nation’s first broad ban on artificial colours and preservatives, arguing the law lacks scientific basis and violates constitutional rights.

🧈 TIME released its “Best Inventions of 2025” list, and it features Wildtype’s cultivated salmon, Savor’s carbon-derived butter, and The Better Meat Co’s Rhiza mycoprotein, among others.

💡Nutraingredients covers the the growing “proteinification” trend, with high-protein products expanding beyond shakes and powders into mainstream foods and beverages.

👋 Sign up for the next FoodHack Meetups in London (Oct 15), Lisbon (Oct 23rd), Barcelona (Nov 4) and Boston (Oct 28th).

New in Funding

🤖 Australian agtech startup SwarmFarm Robotics raised $30 million Series B funding to scale production of its autonomous SwarmBots and expand into North America, in a round led by European investor Edaphon with participation from CEFC, QIC, and Artesian Capital.

🇫🇷 Paris-based biotech Phagos closed its Series A funding round with €25 million from investors including CapAgro, Hoxton Ventures, CapHorn, and Demeter. It will use the funds to expand its AI-powered bacteriophage therapy platform for treating bacterial diseases in animals and eventually humans.

🧀 US vegan cheesemaker Climax Foods has rebranded as Bettani Farms, secured $6.5 million in a Series A funding round led by S2G Investments, and appointed former Califia Farms CFO Sandeep Patel as CEO to drive its shift toward plant-based mozzarella and feta for the pizza market.

🧫 Israeli startup Asterix Foods emerged from stealth with $4.2 million in funding led by CPT Capital to scale its low-cost plant cell culture platform for producing complex animal proteins like dairy and egg glycoproteins, which it says offers a faster, cheaper alternative to microbial precision fermentation.

🛒 Italy’s Tuidi raised €3 million seed funding from Vertis SGR, Azimut, and QBerg to advance its AI-powered retail management platform Delphi, which helps grocery retailers optimise operations, reduce waste, and boost efficiency through machine learning.

🌾 The James Hutton Institute received a £3 million investment from Scottish Enterprise to establish a high throughput plant phenotyping facility at the Advanced Plant Growth Centre in Invergowrie, combining automation, AI, and climate-controlled systems to accelerate crop resilience research and support sustainable agriculture innovation.

🍄 Vancouver-based Maia Farms received $1.75 million from Genome British Columbia’s Industry Innovation Fund to advance its fermentation-based mushroom mycelium ingredients, which upcycle agricultural byproducts into sustainable, protein-rich food components.

💄 Singapore-based biotech startup ImpacFat secured undisclosed seed funding from Toyo Seikan Group, 144 Ventures, and Esco Aster CEO Lin Xiangliang to support its Asian expansion and upcoming launch of cultivated omega-3 fish fat in cosmetics, starting with a new R&D hub in Tokyo’s Takanawa Gateway City.

New in Startups

🇸🇪 Swedish startup Saveggy has developed an additive-free, edible plant-based coating made from rapeseed and oat oil to replace plastic packaging on fresh produce, beginning with a cucumber pilot in Sweden.

🧈 French biotech Verley has become the first company to receive FDA approval for precision-fermented dairy proteins.

💊 San Francisco-based Evolv launched Evolv GLP-1, a biomimetic dietary supplement made from engineered baker’s yeast that mimics appetite-regulating hormones GLP-1 and GIP, offering a longer-lasting, oral alternative to traditional weight loss drugs like Ozempic.

🍼 Checkerspot has partnered with Huvepharma to scale production of a microalgae-derived nutritional oil that replicates human milk fat as a sustainable alternative to palm oil, for use in infant formula.

🍫 Italy’s Foreverland has opened a new production facility in Puglia capable of producing 500 metric tons of its cocoa-free chocolate alternative, Choruba, annually, while partnering with Small Giants to launch vegan, high-protein snacks.

🔢 HowGood launched a Global Carbon Database, an audit-ready emissions library for the food and agriculture industry that enables companies of all sizes to easily access credible carbon data for reporting and reduction planning.

🤝 New Wave Biotech has partnered with CPI to use AI-powered process simulations to optimise lipid extraction and intracellular bioprocesses, aiming to make the production of lipid-based ingredients more efficient, scalable, and sustainable across multiple industries.

Plant Based

🌭 French plant-based meat brand La Vie debuted a new aperitif range featuring mini sausages, chorizo sticks, chiffonade-style ham slices, and croquetas made from plant-based meat and cheese.

❌ The EU Parliament has voted to ban meat-like terms such as “beef,” “burger,” and “sausage” on plant-based product labels, advancing the proposal to trilogue negotiations despite criticism that it restricts consumer choice and undermines sustainable food innovation.

🥚 Two US Senators have reintroduced the Consistent Egg Labels Act, a bipartisan bill requiring the FDA to restrict the use of terms like “eggs” and “egg products” on plant-based alternatives and ensure clear labelling to distinguish them from animal-derived products.

🥖 Subway Switzerland has partnered with plant-based meat producer Planted to launch a vegan teriyaki chicken sandwich, a collaboration that began after a lighthearted Instagram comment between the two brands turned into reality.

🏩 Major hotel groups including Accor, Hilton, Marriott, IHG, and Four Seasons have partnered with Vegan Hospitality through the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance to cut food-related emissions by expanding plant-based dining and reducing high-emission foods like beef and dairy.

Big Food

🎨 Walmart is set to remove artificial dyes and 30 other ingredients linked to ultraprocessed foods from its private label brands by January 2027, in what it calls one of the largest reformulations in retail history.

🧫 Corning Inc. has filed a patent for edible microcarriers for cultivated meat production, aiming to streamline scalability by eliminating removal steps and signalling the entry of the global materials science giant into alternative protein supply chains.

🗝️ DSM-Firmenich opened its new Van Marken Food Innovation Center in the Netherlands, which will serve as the headquarters for its Taste, Texture and Health unit and drive innovation in plant-based foods, sugar reduction, taste and texture, and nutrition solutions.

🩸 Meiji is set to launch a new functional yoghurt range made with MI-2 lactic acid bacteria that may help lower blood sugar levels.

📉 Nestlé has withdrawn from the Dairy Methane Action Alliance, raising concerns over its climate commitment.

🔺 Inside the savvy marketing strategy behind gingerbread Doritos.

From the Community

Apply for your next role:

• PepsiCo is hiring in Vendor Management

• PowBio (USA) are recruiting a Facility Manager

• Oddlygood (UK) are hiring a Head of Grocery

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

🔝 Meet the 12 winners of the 10th MassChallenge Switzerland including Lembas, Kokomodo, Elucid, Turnover Labs, apheros and The Bland Company.

🌾 Join Tech4Regen at their next event: Innovations for Regenerative Agriculture and Viticulture on 28th October in Changins, Switzerland. Sign up here

👀 Good read: A founder’s guide to the hidden rules, nuances, and decision models that shape funding outcomes.

🥥 Just for fun: Smile though your heart is breaking with comments on the result of the EU ban from the community, (mainly from this post).

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Until next time - Stay Hungry