🥛Silk milk moustaches

If you’ve got a world-changing solution, then the world needs to hear about it.

But getting the word out about your technology can often feel like navigating a minefield.

Here at FoodHack, we’ve put together this list of 20+ FoodTech PR agencies to help give your startup the spotlight it deserves.

This week in FoodTech

• 5 emerging agtech trends to watch

• A choco-lot of funding for alt candy

• The next 6 cities to host a Meetup

The Digest

📈 What’s up? Data from market analysts speaking at the International Sweetener Colloquium shows that US sugar prices are up year-on-year, and are likely to increase further.

📉 What’s down? Canada’s The Very Good Food Company is closing its operations, having succumbed to receivership.

💡 Good Read: Here are 5 trends to watch out for in AgriTech, according to Geospatial World. And Fast Company names its 10 most innovative startups

🔍 Here’s a 5 page summary of how a multi-family office assess startups.

📊 This infographic shows the state of the AgriFoodTech investment scene.

New in Funding

🛒 Divert raised a $100 million funding round and secured a $1 billion infrastructure deal with one of North America’s largest energy infrastructure companies, Enbridge. Divert works with grocery retailers to turn surplus food, which would otherwise have been wasted, into renewable gas using anaerobic digesters.

🇬🇧 UK-based Hectare raised $20 million Series A funding for its software-as-a-service platform, designed to offer insights into inventory, trading, logistics, and the sustainable food market to farming businesses, especially those in the livestock trade.

🇺🇸 BelliWelli secured $15.4 million in a Series A funding round led by The Invus Group. It makes gluten-free, dairy-free, probiotic snack bars, designed for consumers with gut issues such as IBS.

🌾 Futura Gaïa, a French startup that has designed an automated soil-based vertical farming solution, secured €11 million in its second funding round to expand its operations, including the installation of its first industrial-scale vertical farm.

🍫 FH Portfolio: London-based WNWN Food Labs secured $5.6 million in a Series A funding round led by PeakBridge VC for its sustainable cocoa-free chocolate, made via fermentation with legumes and cereals.

💸 Read all the latest funding rounds including okra-based production for cheese and an AI-powered crop analysis platform.

Cultivated quail and eel

🇦🇺 Aussie cultivated meat startup Vow has begun the regulatory approval process with Food Standards Australia New Zealand, marking a first for the country, with a view to commercialising its cell-based quail in 2024.

🏭 Aleph Farms, based in Israel, is increasing its cultivated meat production capabilities through the acquisition of a local production facility from biotechnology firm VBL and a manufacturing agreement with ESCO Aster in Singapore.

🤝 Singapore’s Umami Meats is partnering with biotechnology company TripleBar to accelerate cell line development for its cultivated seafood products, starting with Japanese eel.

🧑‍⚖️ An anonymous petitioner has challenged precision fermentation pioneer Perfect Day’s US animal-free dairy patent, who argues that it “should never have been issued”. This is not a first, whose patent in Australia has been successfully opposed by dairy giant Fonterra.

🍻 New York-based beverage startup Uncle Waithley’s Beverage Co. has developed a non-alcoholic, small-batch ginger beer blended with scotch bonnet, based on a family recipe, and has opened an equity crowdfunding round to support its national expansion.

🌾 Motif FoodWorks is joining forces with molecular farming startup IngredientWerks to explore animal-free heme from corn.

Alt Protein

🍄 Swedish startup Millow has emerged from stealth, seeking funds to scale up its minimally-processed meat alternatives made from oats and mycelium, which it claims use a “fraction” of the energy and water used by competitors such as Quorn.

📈 Beyond Meat’s stock has surged 15%, having shrunk its losses and reported higher-than-expected revenue in its fourth quarter earning results. 👉Here’s why this board member is optimistic for the brand’s next advances.

🍣 Californian startup Impact Food’s plant-based, sushi-grade tuna is set to debut at all three locations of Bay Area Japanese eatery Onigilly.

👨‍🍳 Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck will serve 22 vegan dishes at the Governors Ball, the official Oscar’s after-party which he has catered for 29 years.

🍖 Renegade Foods, based in California, unveiled its “industry first” shelf-stable plant-based salami.

Big Food

👎 General Mills has shut down its animal-free dairy brand, Bold Cultr, which launched with a cream cheese alternative made with Perfect Day’s animal-free whey protein in November 2021.

🥛 Silk Nextmilk’s latest ad campaign features the children of David Beckham, Shaquille O’Neal, John Travolta and Christie Brinkley with plant-based milk moustaches in a clever recreation of the 90s ‘Got Milk’ adverts their parents starred in. 👉 Here’s why it’s a ‘genius’ move.

🍍 Dole Packaged Foods is trialing BlueTree Technologies’ sugar removal methods, which use filtration and absorption technologies, to reduce the sugar content in its pineapple juice.

🐟 UK-based John West, owned by seafood giant Thai Union, marks a first in its 166-year history: a plant-based tuna alternative.

🍔 Germany has seen social media outrage following the launch of McDonald’s’ Mcplant burger and nuggets in the country, as it has come to light that neither product is suitable for vegetarians or vegans.

 🤝 Cargill is entering into an agreement with Cubiq Foods to “accelerate wide scale commercialisation” of the startup’s novel plant-based fat technologies.

Trends: Cell-Cultured Milk

🔎 Discover in the full FoodHack+ Report:
- 2x case studies (Opalia, Wilk)
- The why, the challenges and the figures behind the space
- List of cell-cultured milk companies

Find out more about how cell-cultured milk - both human and animal - is an exciting space that could eventually provide a genuinely sustainable alternative to the milk we know today.

From the Community

Find your dream job:
- Astanor Ventures (France and Belgiun) are hiring a HR Manager and a Marketing and Communications Lead
- Michroma (Argentina) are looking for a Senior Fermentation Scientist

🐣 The early bird for the HackSummit ends next week. We can’t wait to see you in Lausanne. Get your ticket today to lock in the best price.

🔎 Who are the top women in Climate? Tag someone missing from this list.

👩‍💻 The next Future Food Series (8th March) focuses on Molecular Farming with speakers from Aypyre Foods, Moolec Science, VelozBio, Pigmentum.

🏎 Today’s the last day to apply for MassChallenge Switzerland’s equity-free accelerator.

👋 Meet your local community at a FoodHack Meetup in San Francisco (March 13th), Basel and Lisbon (March 14th) Cape Town, Milan and Wageningen (March 16th).

🦈 Just for fun: Testing the water to raise your next round

That’s a wrap! Thanks for reading.

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Curated by Nicola and Laura 

Until next time - Stay Hungry