If you’re in space for three days, says Phnam Bagley, food is fuel. If you’re on a three-year round trip to Mars, it’s mission critical, a matter of life and death.
One of a new wave of startups seeking to unlock the potential of plant cell culture in the food and nutrition industry, Ayana Bio has launched its first ingredients: lemon balm and echinacea.
US regulators have warned startups in the emerging field of ‘molecular farming’ that expressing animal proteins such as casein in genetically engineered plants will require strict allergen management protocols.
Growing meat from animal cells instead of plundering the oceans and slaughtering billions of sentient creatures sounds like a no-brainer. But we have to aim for cost parity, says Fork & Good: “It’s a totally useless exercise to make these products at a price nobody can afford.”
Aqua Cultured Foods has raised $5.5 million in a seed round led by Stray Dog Capital to expand its fermentation-based production platform for high-protein whole cuts of fungi-based seafood.
In part two of our roundup from the Future Food-Tech summit in San Francisco, we highlight startups spanning everything from molecular farming to upcycled prebiotic fibers.
Swiss startup Impossible Materials has raised $3.8m in seed funding to help commercialize its first product, a cellulose-based alternative to titanium dioxide, a white pigment recently banned in the EU for use in foods.
While investor sentiment has soured on alternative proteins, last month’s Future Food Tech summit in San Francisco attracted a record number of foodtech startups showcasing everything from foodie chatbots to upcycled prebiotic fibers.
Reducing the absorption of sugars in processed foods could help lower the glycemic impact of our diet and deliver digestive health benefits, claims BioLumen
“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.
While global foodtech investment declined in 2022, foodtech investment in Spain increased 9.3%, says the founder of Madrid-based foodtech accelerator Eatable Adventures.
“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.
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.
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.”
Israeli startup Ever After Foods (formerly Plurinuva) has unveiled technology it claims can transform the unit economics of cultivated meat by reducing the capex required to build facilities and increasing the productivity of tissue production.
Israeli startup Aleph Farms has struck deals enabling it to take an “asset-light” approach to scaling up cultivated meat production in Israel and Singapore. CEO Didier Toubia tells AFN Aleph is also scouting for sites in the US for a larger scale facility and believes it can achieve cost parity with premium beef by 2028.
