🥤 Ready-to-drink colostrum soda

Clean labels are quickly becoming the defining edge of plant protein. All food, actually.

This week’s launches say it all: Australian Plant Proteins’ new direct-to-consumer brand “Nothing Else” goes all-in on single-ingredient fava and pea protein isolate powders, while India’s Immunosciences combines plant proteins with enzymes and probiotics to support digestion and everyday nutrition. One strips it back, the other builds it up; both are keeping ingredients purposeful and easy to understand.

Why now? Because protein has moved from fitness to foundational health. The rise of GLP-1 drugs is sharpening focus on muscle retention and metabolic health, driving demand for higher-quality protein sources. At the same time, consumers are scrutinising ingredient lists like never before, pushing back on ultra-processed foods and gravitating toward products that feel closer to their source.

Clean-label is about doing more, with intention and transparency. Could this be how the plant-based space wins back consumers?

This week in FoodTech:

🐣 Omegga cracks €10M for chick sex tech
👩🏻‍⚖ Big Food is getting sued (again)
🍬 Europe’s first dedicated sweet protein factory

The Digest

💪🏼 Matthew Glover launched “Project Slingshot”, a UK-wide, celebrity-backed campaign, featuring figures like Diane Morgan and Simon Amstell, aimed ultimately at ending factory farming by 2040 through making the practice “indefensible”.

📈 What’s up: Oatly reported Q1 2026 revenues of $228.3 million (+15.6% YoY) with a return to growth in North America and improved profitability, as it continues executing a Gen Z-focused growth strategy to drive sales and market share gains.

📉 What’s down: Plant-based mince is now 29% cheaper than beef at Tesco, according to price comparison data from Good Food Institute Europe, which analysed 33 products across UK supermarkets and found widening cost gaps driven by rising meat prices.

🇨🇳 China could shift from being the world’s largest importer of alternative proteins to a net exporter by 2040, according to analysis by the Good Food Institute, driven by domestic investment, policy support and scaling local production to boost food security and reduce reliance on imports. 

🤓 Good Read: The 2025 Precision Agriculture Intelligence Report reveals $668 million in funding skewed to late-stage deals, record M&A activity led by John Deere and CNH Industrial, and way more. 

New in Funding

🐣 German startup Omegga secured €10 million in a seed round co-led by IQ Capital and Capnamic to scale its AI-powered spectroscopy technology that identifies chick sex inside eggs before hatching, eliminating the need to cull male chicks.

👶🏻 Primogene, based in Germany, raised €4.1 million seed funding in a round led by High-Tech Gründerfonds, with participation from Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen, Better Ventures, Sächsische Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Golzern Holding, FS Life Science Investment and C-LEcta founder Marc Struhalla, to further develop enzymatically produced, nature-identical bioactive molecules such as human milk oligosaccharides for infant nutrition.

🥛 Canada’s Opalia closed around CAD$2 million from investors including Hoogwegt Group, Ahimsa Foundation, Box One Ventures, Cycle Momentum, Kale United, Investissement Québec and Natural Products Canada. It will use the funds to scale its cell-based dairy and work towards regulatory approval in North America.

🍦 US-based Frozen One raised $2 million seed funding, in a round led by Supernatural Ventures, to produce high-protein, low-calorie ice cream, with the funds set to scale production, expand retail distribution and boost marketing efforts.

💡 US startup Fermeate secured $2 million in a seed funding round led by Newfund Capital, with participation from SOSV and Ajinomoto Group Ventures, to further develop its optogenetics platform that uses light to control microbial gene expression and boost precision fermentation output. 

🏭 Solar Foods secured €350,000 in EU funding through the BalticSeaH2 hydrogen valley project to scale production of its air-based protein Solein, with the funds aimed at expanding capacity at its Factory 01 facility and demonstrating hydrogen-powered food production as part of a broader clean energy ecosystem. 

New in Startups

🇮🇳 India’s Praj Industries has opened an AI-powered precision fermentation lab at its Praj Matrix R&D centre in Pune, in partnership with BRIC–NCCS, with the initiative aimed at improving efficiency, reducing costs and accelerating commercialisation of fermentation-derived ingredients.

🍬 Lithuania-based Pentasweet has begun building Europe’s first dedicated sweet protein factory, backed by a €65 million investment, to produce precision-fermented brazzein.

🇿🇦 South African biotech startup Immobazyme is working with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research to produce and scale fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF-2) - a critical, high-cost ingredient used to grow cultivated meat cells - with the goal of reducing production costs and enabling more scalable, affordable cell-based meat.

🌿 US startup Invasive Species Corporation is developing a new class of bioherbicides using cocktails of microbial metabolites to tackle herbicide-resistant weeds, designed to replace or complement conventional chemicals like glyphosate. 

🤖 Toronto-based robotics startup Appetronix has acquired fellow Canadian startup Cibotica, which develops automated ingredient dispensing and salad assembly robotics, in a deal aimed at integrating its technology into Appetronix’s robotic kitchen platform to accelerate expansion into new cuisine formats.

🥤 US-based Armra launched a ready-to-drink colostrum soda, featuring over 400 bioactive nutrients derived from bovine colostrum.

Plant-Based

🌱 US-based Kite Hill unveiled a first-of-its-kind almond milk-based, high-protein vegan cream cheese alternative, made using fermentation and soy fortification, that delivers twice the protein of dairy versions.

🇦🇺 Australian Plant Proteins debuted its direct-to-consumer brand “Nothing Else”, offering clean-label, single-ingredient fava bean and pea protein isolate powders.

🇮🇳 India’s Immunosciences launched its “Pure Plant Protein”, a clean-label, plant-based protein powder formulated with DigeZyme enzymes and monk fruit designed to improve digestibility and target widespread protein deficiency among everyday consumers.

Big Food

🤝🏼 Laird Superfood acquired Terrasoul Superfoods for $48 million, in a deal backed by Nexus Capital Management, to expand its portfolio of superfood products and scale its functional nutrition platform.

👩🏻‍⚖ A lawsuit filed by the city of San Francisco targets major food companies, including Kraft Heinz and PepsiCo, alleging they deliberately engineered and deceptively marketed ultra-processed foods to be addictive and harmful, with the case seeking financial damages and changes to marketing practices to address the resulting public health crisis.

From the Community

✅ LATAM agrifoodtech founders: expand into the US with WINGSPAN by First Flight Venture Center, a hybrid accelerator based in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. Apply now for the Summer 2026 cohort.

💶 Unlock up to €250,000 in funding with the Due Diligence Fund 2026, which is supporting impact-driven agriculture projects that advance human rights and environmental sustainability. Find out more.

🚜 Y Combinator says low-pesticide agriculture is a “generational” opportunity and is looking for startups. 

🌰 Just for fun. ‘Out of this world’ Nutella

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Until next time - Stay Hungry