🍬 Sugar sweet protein

This time next week we’ll be, you guessed it, at the HackSummit.

The networking platform is live. And with almost 2,000 meeting requests sent out already, it’s set to be a fruitful and fun two days for everyone heading to beautiful Lausanne.

The Summit will sell out. So if you’re still planning to join us, here’s your final reminder to grab a ticket, before it really is too late. See y’all there!

This Week in FoodTech

• GM purple, healthier tomatoes

• EVERY x Alpha Foods team up

• Fast food chain’s latest rollout

The Digest

📈 What’s up? Data from Crunchbase shows that alt seafood is “charting a new course”, with more funding going to fewer startups meaning that we should see significant growth.

📉 What’s down? Barclays has implemented an explicit policy on beef for the first time, informing its beef sector clients that they must prevent deforestation in their South American supply chains, having been targeted by activists for its role in financing meat giant JBS, criticised for its role in deforestation in the Amazon.

🔍 Interesting Insight: Foodlabs’ Christian Guba explores the “picks and shovels” (AKA the enabling infrastructure space) in the alt protein industry.

👀 Take a look: Forbes is celebrating ten women who are reimagining the future of food through synthetic biology.

🔬 Good Read: The modern precision fermentation industry is (rightly) celebrated as a game-changer, but, with the present capacity craze, Blake Byrne asks: have we lost the plot?

💡 Here’s why becoming an entrepreneur isn’t too risky for your career.

New in Funds and Funding

💸 The51 Food and AgTech General Partnership secured $30 million of its $50 million fund to support pre-seed to Series A startups working within the future of food and agriculture.

💰 The Yield Lab Latam secured $20 million at the first close of its third fund, from investors including Grupo Bimbo and SQM, which it will use to support early-stage agrifoodtech startups in Latin America.

🧫 Chinese cultivated meat startup Joes Future Food Technology Co., Ltd. says it has raised “tens of millions” of Yuan (RMB) in a Series A+ funding round, exclusively funded by Qiming Venture Partners, to establish a 1000-liter scale pilot plant.

🇳🇱 Wageningen scale up revyve secured €8 million from Cosun and East NL to scale its patented technology, which produces protein and fibre ingredients from upcycled brewer’s yeast.🍔 Try their burger and Mayonneggless mayo at the HackSummit.

🐶 Good Dog Food, a cultivated pet food company launched by Agronomics and Roslin Technologies, raised $3.6 million seed funding to bring its products to market.

🔝 Catch up on all the funding rounds from this week including investment for low-carb no-sugar bread and cannabis-based snacks.

GM Purple Tomatoes

💜 UK-based Norfolk Healthy Produce has developed a purple tomato, packed with antioxidants and benefiting from a longer shelf life, and is now going through the FDA's pre-market consultation process for new plant varieties ahead of launch into the US.

🍞 US startup the Wilkinson Baking Company is launching its Breadbot into grocers across the country. It’s a robotic “bakery in a box”, able to produce up to 200 loaves a day.

🇰🇷 CellMEAT, based in South Korea, unveiled its prototype for cultivated Osetra caviar, a sustainable alternative to the luxury delicacy, conventionally sourced from sturgeon.

🤝 Precision fermentation startup The Every Co. has partnered with plant-based foods producer Alpha Foods to “accelerate advancements in the taste and texture” of the latter’s vegan meat products by incorporating The Every Co.’s animal-identical proteins.

🍎 Michelle Obama has co-founded Plezi Nutrition, a healthy food and beverage brand for children. The company’s first product is a fruit juice that has 75% less sugar than average leading fruit juices.

🍰 Sweegen has secured GRAS status for its ultra-sweet protein, brazzein, produced via precision fermentation, which can replace sugars in a multitude of products.

Plant Based

🇦🇪 UAE-based Switch Foods has opened a 20,000-square-foot plant-based meat facility, which it claims is the first of its kind in Abu Dhabi.

🇨🇱 The government in Chile has passed a bill to redefine the concept of meat and prohibit meaty terms for non-animal origin products, including plant-based foods, in order to safeguard its meat industry.

🍝 Meatless Farm debuted what it says is the “UK’s first” branded plant-based meat-filled pastas in two varieties: Beef, Red Wine & Porcini Mushroom Girasole and No-Duja Ravioli.

🧀 Bel Brands’ Babybel has launched a Babybel Plant-Based White Cheddar Cheese Alternative, its first new flavour since the launch of its plant-based original Babybel a year ago.

🥤 Fast casual burger chain Shake Shack launched its first-ever vegan burger patty in a new vegetarian burger at all 262 of its US outlets.

Big Food

🧡 Colouring solutions firm GNT has developed what is says is the first purely oil-based food colouring, made from paprika seed oil and paprika pulp, which delivers a clean-label bright orange colour.

🏭 Mondelez International, Inc. opened its new $50 million global R&D innovation center, which includes pilot and scale-up capability for cookies, crackers and candy, for brands such as Oreo, Ritz and Sour Patch Kids.

🌾 Nestlé has officially opened its Institute of Agricultural Sciences in Switzerland, aimed at “supporting the development of sustainable food systems by delivering science-based solutions in agriculture”.

Trends: Low / No Alcohol

The low and no-alcohol segment is growing, quite speedily in fact. Which signals a very exciting opportunity to meet the increased demand. Whether it’s Monday mocktails, Wednesday (alcohol-free) wine or a post-work zero-ABV pint, this is a broad space with a whole lotta potential.

🔎 Discover in the full FoodHack+ Report:
- 2x case studies (CleanCo, Athletic Brewing)
- The why, the challenges and the figures behind the space
- List of 46 companies bringing alcohol-free drinks to the mainstream

From the Community

💡Get your dream job:
- The Good Food Institute (Europe) are hiring a Head of Operations
- Proveg International (Germany) are looking for an Impact Research and Program Manager
- High Time Foods (USA) are recruiting a Leadership Role
- KOA (Switzerland) are looking for a Marketing and Sales intern

🍳 What’s cooking? Here’s what these 5 founders and their chefs will be cooking live on stage in Lausanne next week.

🤝 56 startups to meet at the HackSummit Startup Fair.

👋 Join one of these FoodHack Meetups in Melbourne (18th May), Lisbon (23rd May), Reykjavik (May 25th), Bologna (25th May) and Mexico City (21st June).

⏳ Brett Brohl of Bread and Butter Ventures explains when to start a board for your startup.

🏆 Meet the 6 winners of the Sustainable Food Solutions Challenge with MassChallenge Switzerland.

💦 Just for fun: A first-time entrepreneur in at the deep end.

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Curated by Nicola and Laura 

Until next time - Stay Hungry