Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Two River’s lion’s mane broth, Planta’s acquisition, and animal-free egg legal battles.
New products and launches
US startup Two River has launched the country’s first Lion’s Mane Mushroom Broth into Sprouts Farmers Market stores nationwide – with an emphatic approval from mushroom king Derek Sarno.
Also in the US, fast-food chain Just Poké has added Impact Tuna‘s plant-based raw tuna to the menu of all its 29 locations in Washington state.
British tempeh leader Better Nature has made its way into the Nordics, starting with ICA Gruppen and Coop Sverige in Sweden.
Kallø, the natural foods brand owned by Ecotone, has entered the UK dairy alternatives segment with protein-boosted and gluten-free oat milks – the former contains 2.5g of protein per 100ml, and the latter just three ingredients.
Swedish pea milk brand Sproud has launched a new billboard campaign in the UK with Love Island host Maya Jama, who is an investor and brand ambassador.
To take advantage of Paris’s September weather, Danone has kickstarted Alpro Sundayz, which include a brunch using its non-dairy products and an open-air DJ set in the evening. It will run at Frivole restaurant every Sunday this month.
And in Singapore, Nurasa, the sustainable food innovation platform owned by Temasek, has joined forces with Cremer Sustainable Foods and Quality Meat to launch Q Protein, a range of blended meat products, this month. The inaugural products include beef patties, beef stir fry, and minced beef and chicken.
Company and finance updates
In Miami, celeb-favourite vegan chain Planta has been acquired out of bankruptcy by former investor Anchorage Capital Group in an $7.8M deal.
Events organiser Emerald X has postponed its Plant Based World Expo Europe, due to take place in London in November, indefinitely.
Over in India, meat delivery company Licious has shuttered its plant-based meat platform, Uncrave, ahead of a planned IPO next year.
In some positive alternative protein news from the subcontinent, Mumbai-based cultivated meat firm Biokraft Foods has secured ₹2 crore ($225,000) in pre-seed funding by GVFL to speed up R&D and prepare for regulatory approval.
Finally Foods, an Israeli AI-led firm producing casein protein in potatoes via molecular farming, has raised $1.2M in a funding round led by beverage giant CBC Group, which has also signed a commercial agreement with the startup.
German startup Pacifico Biolabs, which makes fermentation-derived seafood alternatives, has secured €680,000 in public funding to further develop its mycelium technology.
Smaqo, a Swedish startup by former Mycorena founder Ramkumar Nair, has closed its first round of funding. It was led by Good Startup and will help it accelerate the launch of mycoprotein-based blended meat to supermarkets.
Finnish firm Perfat Technologies, which has developed an oleogel technology to transform liquid plant oils into solid fats that work like saturated fats, has raised €2.5M ($2.9M) in Series A funding. It will use the capital to scale up production and launch a fibre-reinforced gelled vegetable oil.
Meanwhile, Romania’s Terra Wave has bagged €1.2M ($1.4M) in an EU innovation grant to advance its fungi-derived fermented proteins for the meat, plant-based and pet food industries.
Canadian plant-based fast-food chain Odd Burger has secured C$2.5M ($1.8M) in equity financing from Rockcliffe Capital.
Japanese snack maker Calbee Group has acquired a majority stake in US tofu producer Hodo to expand its international footprint. The deal also saw Japanese tofu giant Sagamiya Foods Co take a minority stake in the startup.
Checkerspot, a producer of precision-fermented fats and oils, has appointed J Casey Lippmeier as its CTO. He previously held senior roles at DSM and Conagen.
At the Los Angeles Dodgers vs San Francisco Giants MLB game on September 12, Impossible Foods held a 99 in 9 challenge, pitting competitive eater Joey Chestnut against a fan to eat 99 vegan nuggets in nine innings. Chestnut ended up wolfing down 275 nuggets in seven innings.
A host of future food companies have been selected in the second cohort of Mars and Unreasonable Group‘s annual Unreasonable Food accelerator, including precision fermentation firms Standing Ovation, Oobli and Pow.bio, rubisco protein producer Plantible Foods, and molecular farming startup Alpino Bio.
Policy and awards
There’s an ongoing scramble in the world of precision-fermented eggs. Finnish startup Onego Bio has sued Californian producer The Every Company to invalidate a key patent granted to the latter in the US, accusing it of fraud. At the same time, the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (which Onego Bio spun off from) has challenged one of Every’s patents in Europe.
Speaking of molecular farming, Luxembourg-based Moolec Science has received regulatory approval for its safflower GLASO technology in Argentina, through which it produces a GLA-enriched specialty safflower oil.
Meanwhile, Finland’s Solar Foods has submitted a Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) notification to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in pursuit of a ‘no questions’ letter for its gas-fermented Solein protein.
US food tech startup California Cultured has filed an industry-first patent for the production of cell-based cocoa butter.
Finally, fresh from its US approval, Australian precision-fermented fat maker Nourish Ingredients has been named Overall FoodTech Company of the Year at the 2025 AgTech Breakthrough Awards.
Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.
The post Future Food Quick Bites: Mushroom Broth, Planta & Aquafaba Powder appeared first on Green Queen.
This post was originally published on Green Queen.