🏆 XPRIZE to 0 Prize

Happy Thanksgiving to all those who celebrate 🎊

Here at Hack, we’re thankful for the 150+ Ambassadors hosting Meetups around the world in their local cities - earlier this week in Dubai and next month in Berlin, Zurich, New York, Lisbon, Paris and San Juan.

If you live in or are visiting one of these cities this December, then it’s not too late to come and meet the local FoodTech community for the final get-together of 2024.

This week in FoodTech:
🧬 €69.5M to design better proteins
🖤 40% saving on your HackSummit pass
☕️ 121 yr old brand falls into administration

The Digest

📈 What’s up? Agrifoodtech funding in Japan reached $280 million across 93 deals in 2024, marking a 58% year-over-year increase.

What’s also up? Donald Trump announced plans to impose a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% tariff on goods from China on his first day in office, aiming to encourage domestic production.

📉 What’s down? The XPRIZE 'Feed the Next Billion' competition to develop innovative alternatives to chicken breasts and fish fillets has ended without a winner or grand prize. Read the joint statement from the startup finalists.

👎️ Data from IP firm Appleyard Lees reveals that patent applications for cultivated meat have plateaued, and plant-based meat patents have declined for the first time since 2013.

🖋️ The Good Food Institute APAC, KoreaBIO, and the BFFIC have signed an MOU to advance novel proteins in South Korea. The new initiative will work to support market research, knowledge exchange, policy coordination, educational initiatives, and fostering international industry connections.

👨‍⚖️ A Los Angeles judge is set to dismiss a class-action lawsuit against Beyond Meat, which alleged the company misled investors about its manufacturing capacities, causing inflated stock prices that later plummeted by 92%.

📊 A graph on how coffee prices are reaching an all-time high.

🎟️ If you’ve been waiting for Black Friday, it’s time to get your HackSummit pass, use discount code BLACKFRIDAY40 to save 40% on your pass. Hurry, ends Sunday.

Fundraises

🍎 Hort Innovation and Artesian launched a $60 million VC fund to support early-stage startups addressing challenges in Australia’s horticulture sector, focusing on robotics, AI, sustainability, affordability, and resilience to enhance productivity and support fruit, vegetable, and nut farmers.

🧬 Swiss AI-powered protein engineering platform Cradle raised €69.5 million Series B funding to scale its generative AI technology that accelerates protein research, impacting sectors such as pharmaceuticals, eco-friendly pesticides, and animal-free foods.

🍽️ Coventry University’s Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience is leading a £1.9 million research project, 'Procurement for Good,' to promote sustainable, locally sourced food in UK public sector menus

🇳🇱 Dutch plant-based ingredients company GNT launched GNT Ventures, an independent VC firm investing up to €1 million in startups innovating in plant-based colours, with a focus on raw materials, fermentation, processing, food ingredients, and upcycling.

Startup Milestones

🌾 Molecular farming startup ​​Alpine Bio has harvested its first large-scale crop of soybeans containing casein proteins, marking a major milestone.

• Come and meet CEO and Founder, Magi Richani at the HackSummit where she joins Dan Altschuler for a fireside chat on molecular farming, sustainable food solutions and the future of cheese.

🇦🇺 Sydney-based All G Foods has become the first company to gain regulatory approval to sell precision-fermented lactoferrin protein in China, and is targeting a 2025 market launch.

🥛 Israeli startup Imagindairy received regulatory approval to sell its animal-free whey protein in Israel, following its US approval earlier this year, enabling the commercialisation of its beta-lactoglobulin for use in dairy alternatives like milk, cheese, and yoghurt.

🪰 Goterra launched an innovative food waste management facility in Sydney's Wetherill Park, using Black Soldier Fly larvae housed in "Maggot Robots" to rapidly process food waste onsite, reducing CO₂ emissions by up to 97%.

🥣 Japanese startup Calbee unveiled Body Granola, a personalised cereal tailored to a customer's microbiome, determined through an at-home stool test analyzed by Metagin, allowing users to select prebiotic ingredients based on their unique gut bacteria.

💯 W-Cycle and Brazilian company Melhoramentos have partnered to produce compostable food packaging from renewable materials that decompose naturally within 100 days.

Plant Based

🏭️ Germany’s ProteinDistillery has broken ground on its Protein Competence Centre, set to open by Q2 2025, to advance research, development, and large-scale production of sustainable plant-based proteins, including Prew:tein®, derived from brewer’s yeast.

🥛 New Zealand oat milk startups Otis and All Good have merged to form Good & Humble, with the aim of scaling operations, supporting local oat growers, and expanding into global markets, particularly Southeast Asia.

🍄 Hamburg-based Infinite Roots joined forces with plant-based leader Pulmuone to launch its umami-rich mycelium protein in South Korean supermarkets.

🥜 Milk Depot Inc. launched the Milk Maker, a home appliance which allows consumers to create fresh plant-based milks from nuts, grains, and seeds in under a minute.

Big Food

🫖 After 121 years, British tea brand Typhoo Tea has fallen into administration. So how did it happen?

🔪 Unilever is reportedly preparing to sell The Vegetarian Butcher, the Dutch vegan brand it acquired six years ago, as part of its strategy to streamline its global food portfolio and focus on international megabrands.

🐷 Aldi is launching a pigs in blankets delivery service in London on 30th November, offering five festive meat options for £5 per order, with all proceeds supporting the community giving platform Neighbourly.

🍺 Sirocco, a joint venture between Heineken and Maritime and Mercantile International, plans to build the Gulf region's largest brewery in Dubai, marking a significant development in a region with strict alcohol regulations.

📣 Take part: The Nestlé R+D Accelerator announced the launch of an open Innovation Challenge focusing on women’s health. The challenge is seeking to identify and bring to market innovative nutrition-based solutions that help women maintain physical and mental fitness throughout their adult lives.

From the Community

Get hired in FoodTech

• New Wave Biotech (UK) are hiring a Bioprocess Engineer

• Farmless (Netherlands) are offering an internship in Fermentation

• Paleta Loca (Switzerland) are recruiting for a Sales and Ops intern

🔙 Comparing a 1950’s shopping list with today’s health stats.

4️⃣ The next 4 big technologies in Food and Agriculture for 2024.

🌽 Good watch: How to grow food in your apartment.

🔍️ Tälist's Alt. Protein Career & Hiring Report is out, packed with insights into hiring trends, geographic hotspots, candidate insights in Alternative Protein.

☃️ Just for fun: As you reach the end of your week as a startup founder…

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Until next time - Stay Hungry