Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Impossible Foods’s Joey Chestnut partnership, Billie Eilish’s emissions-cutting concerts, and Aleph Farms’s Peta promise.
New products and launches
US plant-based meat giant Impossible Foods has again partnered with competitive eater Joey Chestnut for a 99 in 9 challenge. It entails Chestnut and one fan (selected from an online process) eating 99 Impossible nuggets in nine minutes at the Los Angeles Dodgers vs San Francisco Giants MLB game on September 12.
Plant-based frozen meal company Blackbird Foods has rolled out its newest product, the five-inch Blackbirdie Pizza Minis, exclusively at Whole Foods Market stores nationwide for $9.99. They’re available in cheese and pepperoni variants, and can be made in a microwave in 90 seconds, air fryer in six minutes, and oven in eight.
Mission Barns has revealed the menu for its first two dinners at Fiorella Sunset. Its cultivated pork meatballs will be paired with classic Italian-style herbs in one dish, and stuffed with raisins and pignoli in a Sicilian twist in another. The cultivated bacon, meanwhile, will be smoked with Applewood.
Alpro has introduced a new entrant to a season dominated by the PSL: a cinnamon-roll-flavoured barista milk made from a soy and oat base. The limited-edition product is available in UK supermarket Sainsbury’s for £1.75 per 750ml bottle.
And French vegan cheesemaker Jay&Joy has launched Albert, its dairy-free Camembert alternative made from cashews and soy milk, in the UK. It’s available online and at independent stores for £5.80.
Company and finance updates
After going fully vegan for four nights of pop superstar Billie Eilish‘s Hit Me Hard and Soft tour, Co-op Live in Manchester slashed its food-related emissions by 47% and saved 3.5 million litres of water, while signature menu items saw a 13% sales boost.
Speaking of emissions, catering giant Sodexo‘s The Good Eating Company has partnered with carbon accounting firm My Emissions to report its full-scope emissions.
Bespoke Kitchen Foods, a supplier of vegan and vegetarian food for the UK foodservice industry, has bagged an investment from LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Bank. It comes on the back of 18% annual growth for the firm, which will use the funds to support its organic growth and make acquisitions.
Spanish plant protein startup Vanetta Food has secured fresh funding from BeFuture Invest, which shot up its valuation by 70% compared to last year.
Dutch startup Myriameat is working with two industrial partners to create a hybrid sausage combining conventional and cultivated meat, with no plant-based additives. The project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the state of Lower Saxony.
Nestlé, meanwhile, has withdrawn the vegan KitKat from the UK and Ireland, the only markets it was still available in. It means the product has now officially been discontinued.
Following its acquisition of The Vegetarian Butcher from Unilever, Brazilian meat giant JBS has combined the business with Vivera to form a new entity, called The Vegetarian Butcher Collective.
Californian vegan restaurant chain Burger Patch has closed its last remaining location in Midtown Sacramento after eight years of operations.
Protein Industries Canada has announced that Robert Hunter is no longer CEO, six months after he started in the role. The reasons for the decision are undisclosed, but the government’s innovation cluster has launched an expedited search for a new chief.
There’s change at the top at UK tempeh maker Better Nature, whose four co-founders are shifting roles. Elin Roberts is now the sole CEO, with former co-CEO Christopher Kong transitioning to board member and advisor next month. Ando Ahnan-Winarno is the COO, taking over from Fabio Rinaldo, who is now the head of supply chain and product development.
Research, policy and awards
Israeli cultivated meat firm Aleph Farms has signed onto Peta‘s Eat Without Experiments programme, which helps consumers identify food and drink companies that don’t test on animals.
Researchers from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have developed two technologies to process chickpea protein into edible microcarriers and fibrous scaffolds for minced and thick-cut cultivated meat, respectively.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published a first-of-its-kind global standard for plant-based food and ingredient labelling.
Finally, Indian plant-based meat startup Vezlay Foods has won the Plant-Based Food of the Year 2025 award at the Star International MSME Forum.
Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.
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