🫏 Why stop at cow’s milk?

Nestlé has filed a patent for a precision-fermented version of beta-lactoglobulin, the key whey protein found in donkey milk. An unusual choice, perhaps, until you learn that donkey milk is naturally hypoallergenic and easier to tolerate than its bovine counterpart.

It's the latest sign that precision fermentation is entering a new phase. First, the industry set out to replicate cow's milk proteins. Now it's rummaging through nature's pantry in search of proteins with better nutritional, functional or allergenic profiles.

In other words, the question is no longer "Can we make dairy without cows?" It's "If we can make any protein we want, why limit ourselves to cows?"

This week in FoodTech:

🪳 €51M for insect-based ingredients
🍺 Ekonoke’s developing indoor vertical farms for hops
🧃 IKEA’s ‘Great British Bin Juice’

The Digest

🇳🇱 The Netherlands’ Biotechnology Fermentation Factory has opened as an open-access precision fermentation scale-up facility in Ede, to help startups, scale-ups and food producers develop proteins, enzymes and fats without building their own infrastructure.

🥬 University of Surrey researchers found that vertical farming could cut UK lettuce land use by 93%, and that using the spared farmland for solar power could offset vertical farming’s higher energy-related emissions and make the overall system lower-carbon than conventional field-grown lettuce.

🔍 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into glyphosate residues in food products, issuing demands to companies, including Bayer and PepsiCo, to examine whether consumers have been exposed to harmful levels of the herbicide and whether food manufacturers have complied with state laws and marketing claims. 

🤑 Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a plant-derived cellulose scaffold that could cut cultivated meat growth-factor use by up to tenfold while supporting whole-cut muscle and fat tissue formation.

🧃 IKEA UK launched ‘Great British Bin Juice’, a limited-edition apple juice made from surplus fruit, alongside free ‘Waste Not, Want Not’ workshops and discounts on food storage products to encourage shoppers to reduce household food waste.

New in Funding

🪳 Paris-based Innovafeed raised €51 million from historical shareholders including Creadev, QIA, Temasek, FFC, ABC Impact and ADM, plus banking partners, to scale its sustainable insect-based ingredients for animal nutrition, pet food and agriculture.

🌱 NS/TX Industries, parent of New School Foods, raised $10.5 million in Series A financing and non-dilutive grants co-led by Inter IKEA Development and Lever VC, with participation from Good Startup, Verdex Capital, founder Chris Bryson and Protein Industries Canada, to build an automated assembly line and cut production costs for its whole-cut plant-based meat and seafood products.

📝 IFT’s Global Food Traceability Center secured a $3 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to expand interoperable traceability standards, develop practical implementation tools and strengthen collaboration with regulators and food industry stakeholders worldwide.

🍠 Appalachian State University researchers secured a $1.82 million NCInnovation grant to develop Rootsii, a plant-based dairy range made from surplus sweet potatoes, with funding supporting consumer testing, shelf-life validation, production scale-up and commercialisation.

🌱 Boston-based Ayana Bio and Israel’s Brevel received a $1.25 million BIRD Foundation grant to combine plant cell culture with illuminated fermentation for sustainable bioactive ingredients, with funds used to scale the technology and accelerate commercialisation for food and wellness applications.

🚜 Cordon Technologies, based in the UK, secured £1 million in a funding round led by the British Design Fund to accelerate development and commercial rollout of its Loop precision spraying system, designed to help farmers cut pesticide and fertiliser use through real-time treatment adjustment.

🍅 Belgian agtech Sensie raised a €500,000 pre-seed funding round led by Division Q, with participation from NewSchool.vc and Percival Participations, to scale its technology that provides greenhouse growers with real-time plant intelligence by directly measuring plant responses. 

🍃 New Zealand’s Leaft Foods received an undisclosed strategic investment from Japanese dairy major Lacto Japan to scale its alfalfa-derived Rubisco protein for food, nutrition and pet food applications.

💪🏼 US-based collagen protein bar maker David received a growth investment from VMG Partners to accelerate expansion of its high-protein snack portfolio as demand for functional nutrition products grows.

New in Startups

💰 UPSIDE Foods has submitted a $50 million stalking horse bid for the US assets of distressed cultivated meat company Believer Meats, including its North Carolina production facility, setting a baseline offer ahead of a July bidding process for the world’s first large-scale cultivated meat plant.

🍺 Spain’s Ekonoke is developing indoor vertical farms for hops, using long-term brewer partnerships to provide a reliable, local and climate-resilient supply of the key beer ingredient.

🧊 US-based CryoVera is developing an antifreeze technology ‘inspired by extremophile organisms’ to prevent damage during frozen food storage, aiming to reduce quality loss and food waste by protecting products from ice crystal formation during freezing and thawing.

🐄 Swiss startup Sixteen44 is preparing its first farm demo in Switzerland for a plasma-based methane abatement system that treats emitted methane from dairy barns, ahead of exploring wider European deployments and expansion into other methane-emitting sectors. 

📱US-based Zest launched an AI-powered restaurant discovery app that uses anonymised transaction data and dining behaviour to recommend places people actually eat, aiming to make restaurant search more personal, social and reliable than review-led platforms.

Plant-Based

🇮🇳 India’s FSSAI announced that it will require all approved vegan foods sold in the country to carry a standardised green vegan logo from 1st July 2027, giving consumers a government-recognised identifier and requiring food businesses to update packaging and secure approval before using the mark. 

🍄‍🟫 UK plant-based brand THIS has relaunched its whole-food “Super Superfood” range with mushroom-led branding, renaming its products Extra Firm Mushroom ‘Tofu’ and Crunchy Mushroom Bites to improve clarity, usage cues and appeal among consumers seeking high-protein, fibre-rich veg-led foods.

🇮🇹 Sicilian city Caltanissetta has become the first local authority in Italy to back the Plant Based Treaty, committing to plant-forward municipal catering and climate planning measures in response to drought, extreme heat and agricultural pressures.

Big Food

☕️ Nestlé has developed six climate-resilient, high-yielding robusta coffee varieties with Côte d’Ivoire’s CNRA to nearly double yields, improve cup quality and support farmer livelihoods through its Nescafé Plan cooperatives.

🫏 Nestlé also filed a patent application for precision-fermented donkey beta-lactoglobulin, a lactose-free and potentially hypoallergenic whey protein designed for use in infant formula, dairy alternatives, sports nutrition and other functional foods.

🌾 Grupo Bimbo has expanded its regenerative agriculture programme to 1.24 million acres, supporting soil health, biodiversity, supply-chain resilience and farming communities across key crops including wheat, corn and sugar.

From the Community

🤖 On June 18, Explore how AI is reshaping the way FoodTech gets built with our FoodHack Vienna community.

🔥 On June 22, FoodHack and ClimateHack are teaming up to host a free meetup in Instanbul.

6️⃣7️⃣ Just for fun: Six-seven…

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Until next time - Stay Hungry