🍺 Molecular printed beer

PLUS: Approval for gene-edited pigs, world’s largest cultivated meat facility, Danone Waters in hot water

May 12, 2023

Here at the HackSummit, I’m surrounded by over 800 of the brightest, most talented and inspiring minds working in FoodTech and ClimateTech.

And in the words of this Forbes Contributor ‘it feels like a party of innovation, a party of hope for our planet’.

We can’t wait to hear about the collaborations and investments that sparked while we were in Lausanne together.

The Digest

📈 What’s up? Second quarter foodservice results for Post Holdings, Inc show that the food industry is “moving toward pre-pandemic conditions”. The company saw its net sales in foodservice increase by 40% to $633 million, driven by away-from-home demand for eggs and potatoes.

📉 What’s down? Indian food delivery platform Swiggy has had its valuation cut in half by Invesco, one of its investors, for the second year in a row.

🍖 Texas has passed a bill requiring meat alternatives to be labelled with qualifying terms such as “analogue, meatless, plant-based, made from plants” or “cell-cultured”, “lab-grown”, or similar language, to avoid “misleading claims” that could “deceive consumers”.

🐷 Washington State University has received the first-ever approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for gene-edited pigs for human consumption, which will be delivered in the form of German-style sausage from its on-campus catering services.

😇 7 ways to find angel investors.

👀 Here’s what an uninvestable cap table looks like.

New in Funding

🇨🇦 Canada-based ChrysaLabs secured $11 million for its smart farming technology, which offers real-time, reliable and low-cost soil insights. Users can have a complete soil analysis – including macronutrients, micronutrients, pH, organic matter, CEC, organic carbon, bulk density, moisture and more - within 30 seconds.

🌾 Sweden’s Improvin’ raised €3.5 million seed funding to roll out its technology to the German, Belgian, French, and Dutch markets. Its sustainability performance platform helps agri-food companies to measure, report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance biodiversity in their own value chain. Meet the team at their startup booth at the HackSummit

🍗 Leading Spanish plant-based meat producer Heura has raised more than €2.6 million Euros from 3,400 investors in just 48 hours after launching its latest crowdfunding campaign on the Crowdcube platform. Try Heura Bao Buns this lunchtime at the HackSummit

🇩🇪 German startup MicroHarvest, focused on producing single cell proteins from microbes, secured €1.5 million from Simon Capital to accelerate its research and development. Catch up with Katelijne, the Founder here in Lausanne.

💨 Portfolio Co: Farmless, based in the Netherlands, raised a €1.2 million pre-seed equity round to turn renewable energy into food without arable land, using e-methanol and green ammonia to grow microbes as a single cell protein. Listen to Adnan’s keynote in less than 1 hour.

💸 Check out all the funding rounds from this week.

Miracle Berries

🍓 Santa Monica-based Nature’s Wild Berry grows, processes, markets and distributes Ledidi berries, also known as “miracle berries” because they contain a glycoprotein molecule that binds to taste receptors on the tongue when chewing them, which temporarily converts sour, tart or fermented notes to sweet flavours.

🍻 New Belgian startup Bar.on claims to have created the world’s first molecular beer printer. Its One Tap machine can produce a variety of beer styles, plus high, low, or even no-alcohol beer.

🏭 Dutch cultivated meat pioneer Mosa Meat has opened the world’s largest cultivated meat facility, where it will carry out large-scale production of its cultivated beef once it has received regulatory approval.

🔬 Helaina, based in the US, is ready to commercialise its animal-free lactoferrin, made via precision fermentation, for use in consumer products focused on immune health. Meet Laura, the Founder at the HackSummit today.

🧫 Netherlands-based Meatable held its first-ever cultivated meat tasting event in Singapore, and is working towards regulatory approval in the city-state in collaboration with the Singapore Food Agency.

Plant Based

🥓 Spanish food techs Foody’s and Cocuus are collaborating to launch the world’s first industrial-scale 3D bioprinting facility for plant-based meat, and will jointly develop 3D-printed bacon.

🇨🇦 Canadian plant-based dairy company Bettermoo(d) is aiming to raise $10 million by selling shares at $6.80 each in a non-brokered private placement, ahead of the launch of its vegan alpine Moodrink.

❎ Members of the European Parliament have voted not to offer plant-based milks in schools, a move described as a “missed opportunity” by ProVeg International, since it excludes children who cannot or do not want to drink cows’ milk.

Big Food

🥛 Swedish oat milk giant Oatly has named a new CEO. Jean-Christophe Flatin, formerly of Mars Inc. and global president at Oatly since last year, will replace Toni Petersson, who has served as CEO since 2012.

🍬 Danish biotech Novozymes unveiled its new enzymatic baking ingredient, Novamyl BestBite, which is designed to increase freshness and improve shelf life in baked foods while cutting added sugar by 25 to 75% without impacting the sweetness level or taste.

💦 Danone Waters of America claims that the lawsuit challenging its ‘carbon neutral’ claims on bottles of Evian spring water “defies science and common sense” and should be “thrown out of court”.

☁️ Wendy’s announced it is working with Google Cloud to develop a generative AI solution for its drive-thrus, called Wendy’s Fresh AI, which will be able to have conversations with customers, understand made-to-order requests, and generate responses to frequently asked questions.

🤝 Swiss flavour maker Firmenich and Dutch specialty chemicals firm DSM are merging to form a “fragrance and nutrition giant”, focused on nutrition, health and beauty products, with the aim of generating an annual revenue of over €11.5 billion.

HackSummit Top Trends

Here’s our roundup of the top trends we’re watching here in Lausanne and some of the companies working in the space who are in the Summit spotlight…

TL;DR:

💨 Carbon capture and pollution reduction
🏷️ Biomaterials
🧪 Biomanufacturing
🌱 The power of plants
🍄 Mycelium
🏭 Infrastructure and scale-up
🍴Next-gen novel ingredients

And now, onto the details…

From the Community

💡Get your dream job:

👋 Join one of these FoodHack Meetups in London (17th May), Melbourne (18th May), Lisbon (23rd May), Reykjavik (May 25th), Bologna (25th May) and Mexico City (21st June).

📸 Wish you were here! A few of your highlights from the HackSummit

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Curated by Nicola and Laura 

Until next time - Stay Hungry