“It’s going to take fully-fledged tissue muscle tissue to convince die hard meat lovers [to eat cell-cultured meat],” says the founder of Myodenovo, a cultivated meat startup emerging from stealth with a mission to create thick, whole cuts, starting with a filet mignon steak.
Parties interested in bidding for distressed plant protein processor Merit Functional Foods have until April 21 to submit an offer, says receiver PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
2023 will be a pivotal year for cultivated meat, as a handful of well-capitalized startups hit the market and early-stage players wait with bated breath to see if consumers are sufficiently enthused to motivate anxious investors to keep funding the nascent space, said investors at the Future Food Tech conference.
Australian startup Cauldron has raised AUS $10.5m to scale a platform enabling firms to produce high-value ingredients via precision fermentation more efficiently via a continuous process.
Clean Crop Technologies tackles food waste with cold plasma tech, says CEO Dan White: “We target applications where we can achieve the same or similar decontamination as thermal pasteurization without harming quality.”
[Disclosure: AFN’s parent company, AgFunder, is an investor in The Supplant Company. Scroll down to watch our video interview with founder and CEO Dr. Tom Simmons
Cultivated meat startup New Age Eats has made the ‘painful decision’ to shut down after failing to secure funding to complete work on its pilot plant in Alameda, CA.
“Meat alternatives have to win on taste, price and health,” says the CEO of fungi-fueled Australian startup Fable Food. “And we think mushrooms are the best route to do it.”
Oatly raised $425m as it “moves towards reaching financial self-sufficiency,” cultivated meat startup Fork & Good opened a pilot plant in New Jersey, and Klimato secured €4.2 million ($4.5 million) to expand its platform to help restaurants report the carbon footprints of their cuisine.
“Right now, a lot of plant-based products are no better than animal products, and in some cases they are actually worse,” claims the CEO at Climax Foods, a data-driven startup reverse engineering animal foods and rebuilding them with plants.
Cultivated meat is edging closer to commercialization in the US as GOOD Meat becomes the second startup to secure a ‘no questions’ letter from the FDA affirming the safety of its process for growing chicken from cells, outside of the animal.
If crickets—which pack an attractive nutritional punch with a low environmental impact—are going to gain traction in the alternative protein market, two things must happen, says Aspire Food Group. Costs must come down and supplies of consistent, high-quality raw material must go up.
PepsiCo has unveiled plans to pump $216 million into regenerative agriculture projects spanning 3 million acres of farmland in the US.
The public dispute between Miyoko Schinner and the board of the plant-based dairy company she founded heated up this week, with Schinner filing a lawsuit alleging she was forced out of Miyoko’s last year after complaining to HR about male executives who “openly denigrated women.”
Sugar-eating microbes dominate industrial fermentation today. But algae will be the “predominant biomanufacturing platform of tomorrow,” predicts Australian startup Provectus Algae, which is unlocking the potential of photosynthetic algae to make high-value ingredients.
Israeli startup Plantae Bioscience uses CRISPR gene editing techniques to slash levels of bitter-tasting saponins in yellow peas, addressing a major pain point in the plant protein industry.
The #1 priority for new trade association Food Fermentation Europe is helping startups navigate the regulatory pathway for approving novel foods in the EU: a lengthy and uncertain process that right now, they argue, is “completely unclear.”
In part two of our whistlestop tour of foodtech at Expo West, we look at startups from Brightseed, which is exploring new bioactives for gut health, to Epogee, which has found intriguing new applications for EPG: a plant-based oil restructured in such a way that virtually none of it is absorbed by the body.
Shiru has identified plant proteins that can be combined with unsaturated oils to create a solid fat that can replace highly saturated animal or tropical fats such as palm and coconut oil.
As news about Silicon Valley Bank rippled through the exhibition halls at Expo West on Friday, AFN walked the show floor to catch up with key players in foodtech, from Climax Foods, showcasing the next generation of plant-based cheese, to Eat Just, which is taking “critical steps towards profitability.”
Sponsored
International Fresh Produce Association launches 2023 Fresh Field Catalyst Accelerator program