🍧 One scoop or true

When was the last time you spent an evening with your local FoodTech community?

Because chances are, there’s a full house of bright minds gathering at a Meetup near you very soon.

Come along and join us in one (or more) of these FoodTech hotspots: Berlin, Brussels, Istanbul, Kigali, Lausanne, Mexico City, Tel Aviv, Valais and Wageningen.

Always free to attend, you just need to sign up. Head this way.

This Week in Food:

🧬 Lactic acid from jackfruit seeds
🦀 Cost-conscious vegan king crab
🍄 High-performance fungi packaging

The Digest

📈 What’s up? Nestlé SA has been named the world’s most valuable food brand for the ninth year running.

📉 What’s down? Consumer trust in UK supermarkets is at the lowest point since the horsemeat scandal in 2013, according to data from consumer research company Which?

🐷 The Minister for Agriculture in Germany’s Lower Saxony region announced plans to increase investment to pig farms which plan to downsize their production, in a bid to support diversification and sustainable agriculture.

🇬🇧 Labels citing ‘not for EU’ have begun appearing on food products at supermarkets in Northern Ireland as a result of the Windsor Framework, a post-Brexit trade deal between Great Britain and Northern Ireland meant to simplify movement of goods between the two countries.

🇸🇬 Scientists from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University have created lactic acid from discarded jackfruit seeds. Lactic acid is a key ingredient for the production and preservation of many foods.

🔝 Chobani Founder, Hamdi Ulukaya shares his recipe book for scale up success.

New in Funding

💸 A report by the Good Food Institute shows that governments around the world are investing a total of around $1 billion into alternative protein projects.

🐮 CH4 Global, headquartered in the US, raised $29 million at the first close of its $45 million Series B round. It will use the funds to build a production facility in southern Australia producing seaweed that can supplement the diets of 30,000 cows to slash their methane emissions.

🐕 US-based healthy dog food startup Jinx secured $17.85 million Series B funding to further expand its retail partnerships, having become the fastest-growing brand in retail with revenue expected to reach over $45 million this year.

🍄 Israeli startup MadeRight secured $2 million seed funding for its high-performance fungi-based packaging. It has created a solid-state fermentation process during which mycelia transform industrial waste into biomass, which is then turned into pellets for use in existing packaging manufacturing machinery.

💲Check out all the funding from the week including pre-series A for vegan egg whites and investment for a sustainable protein research hub.

DIY bubble tea

☕️ Californian startup Frazy unveiled its customisable, shelf-stable boba tea products, which come with a 2.5-oz aluminium bottle of tea concentrate, a vacuum-sealed packet of boba tapioca pearls and milk powder.

💰 US precision fermentation leader Perfect Day has agreed to sell its consumer-facing subsidiary, The Urgent Company, to new US food tech firm Superlatus in a deal valued at $1.25 million. Here’s why and what’s next.

🍨 Boston-based startup True Scoops has developed powdered ice cream mixes, which can be combined with a cup of milk using common kitchen equipment to easily make ice cream at home.

👨‍🍳 Food tech startup Circus has acquired kitchen robotics startup Aitme, both based in Germany. Circus will incorporate Aitme's cooking robot into its AI-crafted culinary technology, which enables a wide array of personalised dishes at low production costs.

🍺 Better-for-you beverage maker Olipop, based in the US, debuted a functional ginger ale, which contains a prebiotic plant fibre blend including cassava root fibre, marshmallow root and chicory root inulin.

Plant Based

🌾 German wheat company Loryma has developed plant-based tuna from wheat to help meet growing demand for alternative seafood.

🦀 Netherlands-based Vegan Zeastar debuted the “world’s first” plant-based king crab at a lower cost than conventional king crab. Here’s a sneak peak.

💡 US plant-based industry leaders are considering creating a coalition similar to those behind renowned marketing campaigns like “Got Milk?,” “The Incredible Edible Egg” and “Pork, the Other White Meat”, in response to negative media coverage and targeted ads by Big Ag.

🇨🇭 French startup Umiami is launching its plant-based chicken fillets into 165 Co-op stores across Switzerland, as a result of a strategic partnership with Swiss distribution specialist FFF Fresh & Frozen Food. Here’s how it looks and cooks.

🤝 Strong Roots, based in Ireland, partnered with Swedish climate company CarbonCloud to launch climate footprint labels across all of its packaging.

👀 Good Read: Want to know what’s going on with Oatly? Green Queen has the lowdown.

Big Food

🐄 UK supermarket M&S unveiled a live-action 3D digital billboard campaign to promote its commitment to RSPCA Assured milk, featuring a cow called Daisy who appears to come out of the screen and with the tagline ‘Chilled milk should come from chilled cows’.

🛒 Grocery delivery giant Instacart has filed for IPO and expects to list shares on the Nasdaq under the name CART in September. It has also said that PepsiCo will purchase $175 million of convertible shares at the IPO price in a separate private placement.

5️⃣ Gene-editing specialist Pairwise announced a new five-year partnership with agriculture giant Bayer, after its five-year initial collaboration resulted in novel traits such as corn phenotypes with a 20% increase in kernel row numbers per ear.

🇯🇵 UMAMI Bioworks is joining forces with Japan’s largest seafood company, Maruha Nichiro, to “build the infrastructure of Japan’s cultivated seafood industry”.

🍔 Burger King is being sued by a group of customers, who allege that the company is telling “whoppers” about the size of its burgers. Can you spot the difference?

🇨🇱 Nestlé announced a new shelf-stable plant-based product line for the Chilean market after registering 333 plant-based patent applications.

HackTrends: Enhanced Rock Weathering

🔎 Discover in the full HackTrend Report:
- 2x case studies (UNDO, 44.01)
- The why, the challenges and the figures behind the space
- List of 20 companies using enhanced rock weathering for carbon capture

Find out more about how enhanced rock weathering has things going for it that its competitor technologies do not - the next few years, as the new technology becomes more established, will be an interesting time for the space and its integration into carbon credit marketplaces.

From the Community

Job hunting? 👉 Here’s 50+ roles
Hiring for a new role? 👉 Post it here 

🗯 Try out this 3-minute pitch methodology.

🤔 Is it better to be a solo founder or have a co-founder? Here’s 8 top tips.

🇳🇱 How this tiny country became an agricultural giant.

🔦 Are you looking for scientific, IP, business & financial support to push your startup to success? biotope ^{by VIB} provides agrifood biotech startups with a network of industry, science and investment experts, high-tech facilities and €250K pre-seed ticket. Apply by Sept 30th

👋 Regulating the Future of Food Conference is now live! Head over to Barcelona this November 23-24th for a deep dive into how to obtain regulatory approval globally. Lock in the best price with the early bird - ends Sept 15th.

⚽️ Just for fun: Big food trying to launch a product faster than a startup

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Curated by Nicola and Laura 

Until next time - Stay Hungry