Spanish AI-powered fermentation startup MOA Foodtech has received €14.8M ($15.4M) from the European Innovation Council to transform agricultural waste into high-value ingredients.
Turning waste into functional foods using artificial intelligence (AI), Spain’s MOA Foodtech has secured millions in funding commitments under the European Innovation Council’s blended finance scheme.
The startup has received €2.3M ($2.4M) in a direct grant from the EIC’s accelerator programme, in addition to a €12.5M ($13M) equity investment commitment from the EIC Fund. The latter is to be executed in a second phase as the amount would need to be matched by further financing from private investors.
MOA Foodtech will use the capital to advance its Non-GMO Directed Fermentation project, which leverages its Albatros AI platform and fermentation to valorise food industry sidestreams and produce functional and sustainable ingredients.
In addition to the financial support, projects backed by the EIC Accelerator benefit from Business Acceleration Services too, which provide companies with access to leading experts, corporate partners, and investors.
Marrying AI with fermentation to save food waste
Courtesy: MOA Foodtech
Founded in 2021 by Susana Sánchez, José María Elorza, and Bosco Emparanza, MOA Foodtech utilises biomass fermentation to develop high-value ingredients.
The company’s AI platform, Albatros, helps identify the optimal microorganisms to feed on these byproducts, which include cereals, bagasse, and legumes. The resulting biomass has high nutritional credentials – it contains all essential amino acids and has a protein digestibility score of 0.9 (on par with soy, beef, eggs and casein).
Combined with its functional attributes, this allows companies to use the ingredient in a variety of applications, from plant-based meat and cheese to bread, sauces and pasta.
One of the biggest challenges of commercialising fermentation-derived ingredients concerns regulation. But unlike precision fermentation – which requires novel food and GMO approval – MOA Foodtech uses microbes already recognised as safe by the European Food Safety Authority and the US Food and Drug Administration. This will help the startup streamline its approval process and bring its ingredients to market faster.
The firm has been the recipient of several EU-backed investments, in collaboration with the local government of Navarra, under projects titled OMIC4FOOD, React, and Valsana. Prior to this latest EIC investment, MOA Foodtech raised €3M in a Series A round last summer, taking its total equity funding to €4.5M.
“Our selection by the EIC is a vote of confidence in MOA’s technology, which seeks to revolutionize ingredient production,” said Emparanza, who is the CEO. “This funding will allow us to advance our AI platform, develop new functional ingredients, and further expand our impact.”
Fermentation startups continue to find success
Courtesy: MOA Foodtech
Armed with the new funding, MOA Foodtech is finalising and scaling up the Albatros platform, and building a catalogue of proprietary ingredients to showcase the tech’s versatility.
It is also looking to expand operations to an industrial scale, which would strengthen its position as a supplier, as part of its goal to become Europe’s first large-scale producer of ingredients made using directed fermentation.
The company is already working with food industry leaders, including Italy’s Barilla, the world’s largest pasta producer.
It was one of 71 startups selected by the latest EIC Accelerator funding round, which the body labelled as the “most competitive” to date since its launch under the Horizon Europe scheme. Over 1,200 applications were submitted, and only 430 were invited to present the projects to the council. The eventual winners secured a cumulative €387M ($404.6M) in funding, split between grants and equity investments.
Courtesy: GFI Europe
The EU has collectively pumped €252M into future food research since 2020, half of which was invested in 2023 and early 2024, chiefly from its Horizon Europe programme. The scheme also set aside €50M to help scale precision fermentation and algae-based food startups in 2024.
Other fermentation startups that have benefitted from the EIC Accelerator in recent months include Sweden’s Millow and Melt&Marble, Dutch firm NoPalm Ingredients, and Finland’s Onego Bio.
This comes on the back of growing VC interest in fermentation-derived startups too. While investment in plant-based protein and cultivated meat startups in 2024 fell by 65% and 40%, respectively, the fermentation vertical secured 43% more capital last year, making up four of the five largest alternative protein funding rounds.
As more Brits, Europeans and Americans cool on meat alternatives, one region is making gains on the protein transition – can homegrown brands in the Gulf cater to local demand for plant-based meat?
While some consumers in the West are turning their back on planet-friendly meat alternatives, citing reasons like inflation and unsatisfactory flavour, those in Africa and the Middle East are bucking the trend.
A growing number of consumers in the Gulf region are embracing plant-based food, as locals look for more sustainable options. While most meat analogues in the region have long been imported, which has often meant high markups for shoppers, a wave of homegrown companies is looking to change this.
A handful of startups are providing alternatives to more expensive products from international players like Kerry Group, Beyond Meat, Quorn, Amy’s Kitchen, and others while catering to the region’s youth. More than half of the GCC’s population is under 25, and across the world, younger generations tend to lead the plant-based charge.
In parallel, as concerns around food insecurity intensify, regional governments are recognising the potential of alternative proteins to safeguard the local food supply, providing the niche sector with added momentum.
Plant-based food in the Gulf in numbers
Courtesy: Redseer
The GCC plant-based market is expected to expand significantly by the end of the decade, reaching $500M at a 35% CAGR. This is nearly double the industry’s predicted growth in the wider Middle East and Africa (MENA) region.
While frequent consumption of meat-free food decreased by at least five percentage points in North America (now at 13%), Europe (18%), and Asia-Pacific (14%) between 2023 and 2024, Africa and the Middle East (38%) is bucking the trends with encouraging growth.
As in the rest of the world, price is now the main barrier to eating more plant-based food in the Middle East, with 36% of consumers citing it. In addition, taste (33%), an unfamiliarity with eating vegan food (33%), and convenience and availability (32%) are equally important factors.
Courtesy: EAT/GlobeScan
Awareness about plant-based products is increasing in the GCC – in the UAE, 94% of people were familiar with them in 2023 (up from 91% in 2022), while in Saudi Arabia, this increased from 85% to 89% in 2023.
A good chunk of consumers are also happy to pay a premium for plant-based food in the UAE (27%) and Saudi Arabia (21%).
Around 15% of Emiratis want to cut back on meat, primarily for health reasons. And of these, 26% want to replace it with plant-based alternatives.
Taste is the top purchase driver for meat alternatives (chosen by 33% of consumers) in the region, followed by brand reputation (25%) and recommendations from others (19%).
Gulf consumers are most interested in replacing meat in their children’s meals, with nearly half (48%) saying so in the UAE, and 43% in Saudi Arabia.
Courtesy: Redseer
In Saudi Arabia, around 5% of a representative population sample followed a plant-forward diet, as of 2022, with four in five of them being women.
Nearly 40% of these consumers have difficulty finding locally inspired plant-based food, and 20% say meat alternative options are restricted.
While only 8% of Gulf consumers identified as flexitarian in 2023, this is set to rise to 23% by 2030.
The plant-based meat players leading the charge
Switch Foods
Courtesy: Switch Foods
Based in Abu Dhabi, Switch Foods was founded by Edward Hamod in 2022 and made a splash in the region’s plant-based space with the opening of a 20,000 sq ft plant-based meat factory. Situated in the capital’s Khalifa Industrial Zone, the facility manufactures meat-free kebabs, koftas, soujouks, mince, and burger patties.
These products are available at over 130 stores across a wide range of retailers, including Carrefour, Spinneys, Waitrose, Géant, Union Coop, Sharjah Co-op, and LuLu, alongside online stores like Talabat, Careem, and InstaShop.
While 95% of its initial sales came from retail, its foodservice penetration has grown significantly since. Now, Switch Foods’s plant-based meat can be found at Hilton Hotels, Millennium Hotels, Marriot, 25hours Hotel, Eataly, and onboard Emirates flights, among others.
The company has raised $6.5M in seed funding and was said to be in talks to secure another $7M in Series A funding last year. Since June 2023, it has expanded at a 20% CAGR per month, and closed that year with a revenue of around Dh2 million ($544,000) in only half a year of operations. Last year, it expected to earn a revenue of Dh10 million ($2.7M).
Thryve
Courtesy: Thryve
A subsidiary of business house IFFCO Group, one of the UAE’s largest food companies, Thryve arrived on the scene in late 2022 as part of its parent’s regenerative agriculture push. IFFCO Group has named regenerative farming and healthy soils as one of its ESG focus topics.
“We are guided by nature-based principles in our food system design, bringing nature to the core of our business decisions,” Valeria Krynetskaya, then head of Thryve, explained. “We rediscovered an ancient crop, Faba Bean with significant regenerative potential, healing soil through nitrogen fixation and saving water. We are transforming this climate-smart faba bean into faba-lous plant-based meat with local flavours of the Middle East.”
Marketed as the GCC’s first 100% plant-based venture – as opposed to meat companies that sell certain animal-free products – Thryve opened the Middle East’s first vegan meat production facility in Dubai Industrial City, and is part of a family of 80 brands with a footprint in over 100 countries.
Thryve’s fava-bean-based meats include burgers, mince, shawarma, koftas, shish tawook, chicken kabsa chunks, and nuggets, and they’re available at retailers like Carrefour, Waitrose, Lulu, Spinneys, and more in the UAE. The company has since expanded to Saudi Arabia too, and says its factory canhelp it reach 30% of the GCC population.
Arlene
Courtesy: Arlene
Founded by Helene Raudaschl in 2020, Arlene makes frozen ready-to-eat vegan meals that incorporate meat analogues. They’re produced in a 60,000 sq ft manufacturing facility in Dubai.
Arlene’s meat alternative dishes include local favourites like kebabs and kibbehs, Asian staples such as gyozas, dan dan noodles, and spring rolls, and international classics like spaghetti bolognese and chilli con carne.
The company’s products are available at Waitrose, Spinneys, and Maxzi in the UAE, as well as retailers in Singapore.
Nadura*
Courtesy: Natura*
The newest kid on the block, Nadura* is a Dubai-based subsidiary of legacy manufacturer Food Specialties Limited, which launched in 2024 with a range of meat-free proteins made from Canadian peas.
The frozen burgers, mince, chicken and kebabs are marketed as clean-label alternatives to the ultra-processed foods typically found on the market. And in 2023, its chicken mince won Bronze at the Plant-Based Excellence Award at Plant Based World Expo Europe.
While these products are currently available online at Elfab in the UAE, the company is positioning them towards the foodservice and hospitality industry – soon, you could find its plant-based meat at restaurants across the country.
Niya Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Fork & Good, on what separates the startup from other cultivated meat players, earning its first revenue, and its regulatory plans.
It was just only in January 2024 that, in an Irish pub in Davos, Switzerland, Fork & Good held Europe’s first public tasting of cultivated meat. The startup served dumplings made from a blend of 30% cell-cultured pork and 70% conventional pork (plus a cultivated and plant-based mix for vegetarians), with more than half of the taste-testers preferring the blended meat version.
This was a marker of progress for the New Jersey-based firm, getting some real-world feedback from an international group of people just 10 minutes away from the World Economic Forum conference.
Now, just over a year later, the company has earned its first revenue, courtesy of a joint development agreement with an $8B global food manufacturer. “It is an exciting milestone to earn revenue in cultivated red meat, and shows market validation of our technology,” co-founder and CEO Niya Gupta tells Green Queen, though she declines to name the company.
In fact, Fork & Good has signed deals with three clients and is in talks with about a dozen manufacturers and retailers – all focused on using cultivated pork as a complementary ingredient in both meat and plant-based formulations. Currently, the protein is being tested as part of ham and meat snacks.
“We have always been a B2B company,” says Gupta. “When we first started, African swine fever had wiped out 25% of the world’s hog herd, and our customers were struggling with reinforcing their supply chains. Pathogen shocks, tariffs, and tighter demand conditions have all resulted in significant volatility, which poses challenges in consistency of product and cost for our customers.”
Joining forces with an industry pioneer
Courtesy: Fork & Good
For Gupta, it’s hard to imagine a life without dim sum, the Cantonese term for a whole host of dumplings served for breakfast in restaurants across China. After all, she grew up in Hong Kong, which consumes more meat per capita than any other place. “My family were farmers [in India] for generations, and I spent every summer at the farm, which gave me a deep respect for agriculture and also a desire to improve our food systems,” she says.
Having spent 15 years working in agriculture, including a consultancy stint at McKinsey, it made sense to “come full circle and be a future farmer”.
To do so, she joined forces with Gabor Forgacs, a pioneer of cultivated meat. He co-founded Modern Meadow, one of the earliest players in the space, showcasing a prototype of a cultivated sausage at TEDMED 2011, a whole two years earlier than Dr Mark Post’s world-famous burger.
Modern Meadow “really sparked people’s imagination and showed it was possible to build meat from cells”, says Gupta. Cost barriers led Forgacs and his team to pivot to cultivated leather at the time, and today, the company makes cow-hide alternatives out of plant proteins and upcycled post-consumer tyres. Forgacs left the firm in 2016, and co-founded Fork & Good with Gupta two years later.
“We are working together to invent a much more practical, cost-based approach informed by my experience in the food industry and using his expertise in the fields of tissue engineering and biophysics,” she says.
“We need all the solutions possible to keep having safe, affordable meat and if we [want to] have any chance of meeting our 1.5°C global warming target. Cultivated meat builds a more resilient supply chain and helps us do it sustainably.”
How Fork & Good makes its cultivated pork
Courtesy: Fork & Good
Gupta’s agtech background led her to realise that cultivated meat is a lot like hydroponic farming, where you “optimise input for output” – that is, you grow vegetables in nutrient-rich water instead of soil.
“In the same spirit, our process is based on the mutual optimisation of the three input components – the cell line, the medium and the bioprocess – to grow animal cells (i.e. the biomass) more efficiently than livestock,” she explains.
“Specifically, we developed immortal cell lines and corresponding medium with an iterative approach by analysing the waste medium and determining what the cells use (for example, which amino acids and in what concentration). We adopted a bioreactor technology that assures the best control over the way our adherent cells grow in aggregates – we can control the size of the aggregates – to maximise cell density,” she adds.
This approach reduces the calorie intensity of feedstock fourfold for pork and fivefold for beef, making Fork & Good confident it can “grow meat with fewer resources than animals”.
The optimisation through the three components forms the base of its patented integrated cell manufacturing (ICM) platform, which lets it grow a large number of cells in a cost-effective manner. In addition, the company has an optimised downstream process and continuous harvesting process at its pilot facility in Jersey City, which can produce about seven tonnes of product in less than 800 sq ft of space.
“The ICM, combined with our continuous downstream processing and the fact that we are not using stem cells – instead, [we] are editing muscle cells to skip the cost and complexity of differentiation – substantially differentiates Fork & Good from others,” says Gupta.
“Furthermore, unlike many companies focused entirely on the biology, we are also addressing capital expenditure by having low-cost distributed manufacturing, made possible via designed-for-purpose bioreactors and continuous harvesting,” she adds.
“In particular, this allows us to build much smaller facilities (10×1000 litres) to scale up production to commercially relevant quantities of biomass – $10-20M for a single facility rather than hundreds of millions.”
Fork & Good’s target pricing is $2 per lb, which would match commodity pork, and in-house R&D data supports this goal. But the bulk of this work comes during scale-up and engineering. “In our first scale-up factory, we’re targeting $5 per lb for 100% biomass with our more tried and tested cell line, which would be possible at commercial scale today. This is based on existing observed yields, media costs and purchasing components at scale,” Gupta says.
US regulatory plans hinge on RFK Jr
Courtesy: Fork & Good
The startup’s initial geographic priorities are North America and Southeast Asia. “We have been working with the FDA and USDA for two years, and are applying to Singapore as well,” says Gupta.
The latter was the first country to allow the sale of cultivated meat back in 2020, and authorised Australia’s Vow to sell cultured quail and foie gras too last year. “Some of our partners in other Asian countries are keeping us informed of the latest regulatory developments for us to be opportunistic there,” she says.
In the US, only Eat Just and Upside Foods have been cleared to sell cultivated meat so far, and with Robert F Kennedy Jr sworn in as the new health secretary, uncertainty looms for how this sector is regulated.
“We believe the biggest relevant challenge in the US is the uncertainty facing all government agencies at this moment,” says Gupta. “If the FDA has fewer resources or is reorganised, this will impact their bandwidth for review and lengthen processing times. Diversifying geographic focus is a good idea to mitigate regulatory risk.”
Fork & Good has been vocal about this – before Florida finalised its ban on cultivated meat last summer, its head of business opportunities, Emily Bogan, told a House panel in February: “A ban like this threatens a free market and sets a dangerous precedent for government interference.”
If all goes well, though, looking at past approvals, Gupta envisions Q2 2026 as the earliest launch date for its cultivated pork.
‘Nothing is inevitable’ – including cultivated meat
Courtesy: Fork & Good
Fork & Good has so far attracted $30M from investors including True Ventures, Starlight Ventures, BBG Ventures, and Leaps, the VC arm of German pharmaceutical giant Bayer. “We closed a Series A2 round October last year, to fund our response to FDA feedback and deliver on customer deals we had signed,” notes Gupta. “We have $1-2M open for this same round closing at the end of Q1.”
Cultivated meat has been a victim of the food tech investor fallout, with companies in the category raising 40% less money last year than they did in 2023. Worryingly, they only secured $6M in the second half of last year.
“The funding landscape has definitely changed due to the burst of the hype bubble combined with macro forces in VC. Our last round was the most challenging of the three institutional rounds we have raised. Luckily, as we have stayed capital-efficient and have had reasonable valuations, [we] were less impacted than others,” Gupta explains.
“If startups rode the wave, they should be taking a hard look at their business and resetting expectations. [They should also be] adopting leaner approaches and looking at alternative forms of capital – particularly from funders who value our solutions. This is still a really huge problem to solve, and supply chain pressures and meat prices are higher than ever,” she adds.
Gupta warns that “nothing is inevitable except for death and taxes”, and this applies to cultivated meat too. “Unlike pure software innovation, outside of the breakthrough, you need to solve for infrastructure, supply chains, consumer education and safety/regulation,” she states.
“This is true of any major zero-to-one innovation, especially in a climate where we have to touch the physical world. But when the need is great enough, you see multiple waves of innovation in the same area until the problem is solved – e.g., solar energy took several attempts over the years, before costs fell faster than any expert or academic predicted.”
The company has ridden that wave Gupta spoke of – can it now make good on its promise to put cultivated pork on your fork?
Eat Just CEO Josh Tetrick says soaring egg prices have driven up demand for its mung-bean-derived Just Egg, with sales hikes unlike what the firm has seen in the past.
Eggs have never been more expensive in the US. According to consumer price index data released by the USDA last weekend, average retail Grade A egg prices reached $4.95 per dozen last month, surpassing the previous high recorded in January 2023.
The new record came just as 23 million birds were culled in January due to this latest wave of avian flu (taking the total to nearly 160 million since February 2022). “It’s the most serious bird flu crisis in history,” says Josh Tetrick. “It’s spreading faster than ever before.”
Courtesy: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Tetrick is the co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, the company behind Just Egg that is very much meeting the moment. “Egg shelves are empty, except for one product, and it happens to be made from plants,” he tells Green Queen on a phone call. “It’s both an extraordinary and strange moment.”
This is because millions of Americans are being exposed to a vegan egg for the very first time, he says, and his company takes up 99% of that market. “If they want eggs, they [only] have a few choices,” notes Tetrick. “One, don’t eat them. Two, you know, have applesauce. Or three, have Just Egg.”
In January alone, Just Egg’s sales grew five times faster than in the past year, while 56% of shoppers have returned to buy more (a three-point increase from 2024). At one of the country’s largest retailers, its sales are up by 70% compared to the same week last year.
The plant-based company makes a refrigerated liquid alternative, a frozen omelette-style folded product and a just-relaunched mayonnaise range.
Courtesy: Just Egg
“We have some of the largest chains in the country reaching out to us – on the foodservice side, the convenience store side – saying they don’t know when this is going to end, and they want to bring in something that’s more reliable and more permanent, i.e., what we’re doing,” says Tetrick.
Restaurants are feeling the pinch, too. Popular breakfast chain Waffle House has introduced a temporary 50-cent surcharge per egg, and some bakeries are switching to vegan eggs. One local cafe in Philadelphia – 90% of whose menu depends on eggs – told the Guardian that a plate of bacon, eggs and toast with coffee now costs twice as much as it did last year.
This, Tetrick feels, is a moment for the sustainable protein sector – to show that there’s a different, safer, healthier and more reliable way to produce eggs than farming birds in concentrated feeding operations: “This is a real moment in time for the plant-based industry to prove that it’s up to the challenge.”
Eat Just offering free cases to restaurants and retailers
Courtesy: Eat Just
Eat Just is witnessing greater demand across retail and foodservice, including local diners and cafés, mom-and-pop stores, and caterers that supply to universities (like Sodexo). “People are wanting to order more because consumers are going through the product faster because there are fewer options – i.e. chicken eggs – available,” says Tetrick.
Currently, more than 70% of its sales come from the retail channel, with the pourable liquid format its most popular product (followed by the foldable egg patty).
To expand its uptake, though, Tetrick says Eat Just is incentivising restaurants and retailers by providing them with a free case of Just Egg and other discounts. This helps them bring the product in for the first time and ensure they have a supply of eggs, which they struggle to do “when they’re only relying on chickens”.
While it’s hard to find eggs on supermarket shelves right now, Just Egg is available in over 40,000 stores today. “Almost every major retailer carries Just Egg. But we do have gaps, and we expect to fill more of those gaps in the next few months,” he says.
Courtesy: Eat Just
The firm’s manufacturing facility in western Minnesota has enough capacity to double its production if needed – though it’ll need to be expanded if it needs to produce more than that. “Then we have partner facilities that we work with. We send the protein, and they have plenty of capacity also,” says Tetrick.
He adds: “We are scheduling more days of production. We’re ordering more materials, like packaging, ahead of time to ensure that we’re prepared for even more orders than we might even anticipate.”
Tetrick says that Just Egg is cheaper than chicken eggs in some parts of the country (its 16oz liquid egg carton, equivalent to about 10 eggs, retails for US$7.36 at Walmart) right now. In some places, consumers and restaurants are paying up to $7 per dozen for the latter, while wholesale prices of white-shell eggs now stand at $8 per dozen.
Recently published research suggests that undercutting the cost of animal proteins is the most effective purchase driver for plant-based food, so Eat Just needs to find a way to continue to lower costs and stay cheaper beyond the current egg price hike caused by supply shortages.
Tetrick says the company is working on it. To make its egg alternatives, Eat Just separates protein from mung beans, a process responsible for roughly half of the cost of production. “The more efficiently we can [do that], the lower our cost is,” Tetrick explains. “So we’re devising more and more processes to reduce the cost of protein, using techniques to yield up and having a higher throughput.”
Chicken egg makers stuck in a cycle
Courtesy: Eat Just
Nearly all Americans (94% of them) eat eggs. It’s by far the most widely consumed animal protein in the country. “I don’t remember a time in the United States when a major animal protein is literally not on shelves anymore, in many of the biggest grocery stores,” Tetrick points out. “People have a hard time finding it.”
It’s not the first big wave of bird flu to hit the US egg industry in recent years. And when prices skyrocketed last time, they returned to normal levels in the months that followed. However, this wave appears worse.
This time, the avian flu is “objectively” bigger, in terms of the number of birds affected, and the impact on egg prices and the supply chain. Tetrick believes this is happening because of the “inherent nature of the system”.
Courtesy: Eat Just
“To make eggs for a country of 350 million people, it means one very basic thing: you have to pack lots of animals in small spaces. And when you do that, because basic biology is a thing, those animals will just get sick, and that’s going to keep happening,” he says.
“The industry can’t get out of that cycle. Move them closer. They get sick. Then there’s avian flu, and then you’ve got to kill lots of them. And then the egg shelves are empty. And here we go again,” he adds. “More and more retailers are realising that that is a fact, and they’re beginning to think through what the world will look like when that continues to happen.”
In Tetrick’s ideal world, you’ll have more pasture-raised eggs at higher prices, and a greater number of plant-based alternatives.
He acknowledges that the current reality is far from his vision. “It’s quite different from what the egg shelves look like today, though,” he says.
An inflection point for the plant-based industry
Courtesy: Eat Just
To date, Eat Just has raised over $850M in venture capital, with existing investor VegInvest/Ahimsa Foundation pouring in $16M in the last publicly announced investment in 2023. At the time, there were suggestions that the company was facing a cash squeeze.
But Tetrick confirms that the company has healthy cash flow and isn’t looking to fundraise at the moment: “We sell every Just Egg product at a positive margin, and it’s able to support the key functions of the company, so it can continue to grow faster.”
Chicken-free eggs made up just 0.5% of the plant-based retail market in the US in 2023, having been bought by just 1% of households. However, with bird flu and soaring chicken egg prices, the category is set to expand faster now.
According to Tetrick, Eat Just is the 17th largest egg company in the US today: “And we’re growing everywhere – retail, foodservice, everything.”
Courtesy: Box Clever/Eat Just
This is a moment for the sustainable protein sector to prove itself. “We have to prove that we can be in stock. We have to prove that we can make a nice omelette. We have to prove that we can continue to do it consistently,” he says. “And if we do that, we think this could be a real inflection point where millions of people move from a conventional egg to something that we think is a lot better. And it’s a broader statement about what plant-based can be.”
Just Egg makes up “99.999% of our sales”, says Tetrick – the rest comes from its cultivated meat arm, Good Meat. “We are the reliable egg today, and we cannot let this moment pass,” he says. “We’ve got to deliver on time, and in full. We’ve got to make sure that we’re making sufficient product. We need to make sure that if there’s any out-of-stocks around the country that we even hear of anecdotally, we’re on top of it, within hours.
“When we look back 20 years from now, I think it’ll be one of the most important moments in the plant-based industry. And I hope we meet it.”
US food tech firm Oobli has raised $18M and partnered with global ingredients supplier Ingredion to co-develop better-for-you sugar alternatives with sweet proteins.
As Americans turn their backs on sugar in the Ozempic era, one startup is leading the alt-sweetener charge with sweet proteins that don’t impact the glycemic index.
Based in California, Oobli has secured $18M in Series B1 funding from investors including Ingredion Ventures, Lever VC, and Sucden Ventures, which have joined existing backers like Khosla Ventures, Piva Capital, and B37 Ventures.
The financing round takes Oobli’s total raised to almost $50M and is complemented by a new partnership with global ingredients giant Ingredion. This will involve the development of new sweetener solutions – using ingredients like stevia and sweet proteins – for food and beverage companies.
Large food companies are increasingly turning to synbio startups for supply chain solutions like Oobli’s sugar alternative.
“We’ve long been at the forefront of innovation in sugar reduction solutions, and our work with sweet proteins is an exciting new chapter in that journey,” said Nate Yates, VP and general manager of sugar reduction and fibre fortification at Ingredion, and CEO of its PureCircle stevia division.
How Oobli makes its sweet proteins
Courtesy: Oobli
Oobli takes its name from the Oubli fruit, which is native to West Africa and contains brazzein, a natural sweet protein that’s up to 2,000 times sweeter than sucrose.
But harvesting enough of the fruit for large-scale production of brazzein isn’t possible. Instead, Oobli makes use of precision fermentation, which combines traditional fermentation with the latest biotech advances to efficiently produce a compound of interest – a sweet protein, in this case.
The startup isolates the genes responsible for sweet proteins and inserts them into yeast, which is added to a fermentation tank filled with a nutrient-rich broth. The microbes feed on the sugars in the broth to produce the proteins, which are filtered out and purified.
In March 2024, Oobli received a ‘no questions’ letter from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), allowing it to sell brazzein to manufacturers and as part of CPG products. While the brand used to sell juices and iced teas too, it currently sells chocolate bars made with its sweet protein (combined with coconut sugar).
Brazzein isn’t the only sweet protein it has commercialised, though. In December, it obtained the FDA’s greenlight for monellin, which is found in the serendipity berry and is even sweeter than brazzein.
But how do they work? According to the company, the sweet proteins bind to and activate the same taste receptors on your tongue that sugar does, enabling us to “taste sugar without ingesting sugar”, and digest and metabolise sweet proteins just like any other protein.
The portion sizes of sweet proteins are too small to have an impact on your daily macros; the real impact is on glucose. These ingredients can replace over 70% of sugar in products like sodas, baked goods, and yoghurts, and are said to have no impact on blood sugar, insulin or the gut microbiome, according to the company. They can also complement other natural sweeteners to help companies achieve ideal sweetness levels, meet nutrition goals, and manage costs.
Sweet proteins are ‘long overdue’
Courtesy: Oobli
Oobli is already working with a number of food companies globally, including Group Bimbo, with several product launches expected in 2025. The latest capital injection will allow the startup to expand the reach of its proteins both as a standalone solution and in combination with other sweeteners like stevia (developed with Ingredion).
“Sweet proteins are a long-overdue addition to the toolkit of better-for-you sweeteners,” said Ooblu CEO Ali Wing. “Working with Ingredion’s best-in-class teams to pair natural sweeteners with our novel sweet proteins will deliver game-changing solutions in this important, growing and timely category.”
Yates added: “Whether we’re enhancing existing sweetener systems with sweet proteins or using our established sweeteners to unlock new possibilities, we see incredible synergies across these platforms.”
The two companies have tested several co-developed products to expand the opportunities for sweet proteins and stevia, and positive consumer feedback led to their collaboration. They are showcasing some of these sweet treats at San Franciso’s Future Food Tech event in March.
Ingredion and its VC arm are also working with Better Juice, an Israeli sugar reduction startup that has developed a platform to convert fruit sugars into dietary fibre and non-digestible sugars, allowing manufacturers to cut sugar content by up to 80%. The solution has obtained self-determined GRAS status in the US.
Ozempic boom lays open potential for sugar reduction startups
Courtesy: Oobli
There is a lot of potential to change how we use sugar for the benefit of human health, the planet, and the global economy.
In the US, people eat 17 teaspoons of sugar every day, much higher than the recommended amount. This has risen over the last century, with 2021 estimates suggesting sugar and artificial sweetener intake was up by 53% from 1909. Meanwhile, spending on sugar grew by 4% from pre-pandemic levels through to December 2022.
The calorie-rich ingredient has been a major contributor to America’s obesity epidemic, which plagues 42% of its citizens. Meanwhile, over 11% of US consumers have type 2 diabetes.
It’s why 76% of Americans are trying to limit or avoid their sugar intake, and among them, 60% are targeting added sugar in packaged foods to do so. Losing weight and managing diabetes are among the top reasons behind this anti-sugar drive, which are pertinent in the era of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Moujaro.
Courtesy: The New Consumer/Coefficient Capital
Polling shows that sugar is the dietary element most GLP-1 users are turning away from (with 45% consuming it less since starting the medication), and that has directly impacted the sales of several companies. Hershey’s, one of the world’s largest chocolate companies, acknowledged that these weight-loss drugs have had a “mild year-on-year impact” on its business.
With nearly three-quarters of Americans aged 20 and above overweight and obese, and almost four in 10 children and teenagers prediabetic, the appeal of the $7B sugar alternatives industry is only going to widen, sweetening the market for Oobli and competitor brands, such as Amai Proteins, Naturannova, MycoTechnology, and Sweegen.
US food tech firm Oobli has raised $18M and partnered with global ingredients supplier Ingredion to co-develop better-for-you sugar alternatives with sweet proteins.
As Americans turn their backs on sugar in the Ozempic era, one startup is leading the alt-sweetener charge with sweet proteins that don’t impact the glycemic index.
Based in California, Oobli has secured $18M in Series B1 funding from investors including Ingredion Ventures, Lever VC, and Sucden Ventures, which have joined existing backers like Khosla Ventures, Piva Capital, and B37 Ventures.
The financing round takes Oobli’s total raised to almost $50M and is complemented by a new partnership with global ingredients giant Ingredion. This will involve the development of new sweetener solutions – using ingredients like stevia and sweet proteins – for food and beverage companies.
Large food companies are increasingly turning to synbio startups for supply chain solutions like Oobli’s sugar alternative.
“We’ve long been at the forefront of innovation in sugar reduction solutions, and our work with sweet proteins is an exciting new chapter in that journey,” said Nate Yates, VP and general manager of sugar reduction and fibre fortification at Ingredion, and CEO of its PureCircle stevia division.
How Oobli makes its sweet proteins
Courtesy: Oobli
Oobli takes its name from the Oubli fruit, which is native to West Africa and contains brazzein, a natural sweet protein that’s up to 2,000 times sweeter than sucrose.
But harvesting enough of the fruit for large-scale production of brazzein isn’t possible. Instead, Oobli makes use of precision fermentation, which combines traditional fermentation with the latest biotech advances to efficiently produce a compound of interest – a sweet protein, in this case.
The startup isolates the genes responsible for sweet proteins and inserts them into yeast, which is added to a fermentation tank filled with a nutrient-rich broth. The microbes feed on the sugars in the broth to produce the proteins, which are filtered out and purified.
In March 2024, Oobli received a ‘no questions’ letter from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), allowing it to sell brazzein to manufacturers and as part of CPG products. While the brand used to sell juices and iced teas too, it currently sells chocolate bars made with its sweet protein (combined with coconut sugar).
Brazzein isn’t the only sweet protein it has commercialised, though. In December, it obtained the FDA’s greenlight for monellin, which is found in the serendipity berry and is even sweeter than brazzein.
But how do they work? According to the company, the sweet proteins bind to and activate the same taste receptors on your tongue that sugar does, enabling us to “taste sugar without ingesting sugar”, and digest and metabolise sweet proteins just like any other protein.
The portion sizes of sweet proteins are too small to have an impact on your daily macros; the real impact is on glucose. These ingredients can replace over 70% of sugar in products like sodas, baked goods, and yoghurts, and are said to have no impact on blood sugar, insulin or the gut microbiome, according to the company. They can also complement other natural sweeteners to help companies achieve ideal sweetness levels, meet nutrition goals, and manage costs.
Sweet proteins are ‘long overdue’
Courtesy: Oobli
Oobli is already working with a number of food companies globally, including Group Bimbo, with several product launches expected in 2025. The latest capital injection will allow the startup to expand the reach of its proteins both as a standalone solution and in combination with other sweeteners like stevia (developed with Ingredion).
“Sweet proteins are a long-overdue addition to the toolkit of better-for-you sweeteners,” said Ooblu CEO Ali Wing. “Working with Ingredion’s best-in-class teams to pair natural sweeteners with our novel sweet proteins will deliver game-changing solutions in this important, growing and timely category.”
Yates added: “Whether we’re enhancing existing sweetener systems with sweet proteins or using our established sweeteners to unlock new possibilities, we see incredible synergies across these platforms.”
The two companies have tested several co-developed products to expand the opportunities for sweet proteins and stevia, and positive consumer feedback led to their collaboration. They are showcasing some of these sweet treats at San Franciso’s Future Food Tech event in March.
Ingredion and its VC arm are also working with Better Juice, an Israeli sugar reduction startup that has developed a platform to convert fruit sugars into dietary fibre and non-digestible sugars, allowing manufacturers to cut sugar content by up to 80%. The solution has obtained self-determined GRAS status in the US.
Ozempic boom lays open potential for sugar reduction startups
Courtesy: Oobli
There is a lot of potential to change how we use sugar for the benefit of human health, the planet, and the global economy.
In the US, people eat 17 teaspoons of sugar every day, much higher than the recommended amount. This has risen over the last century, with 2021 estimates suggesting sugar and artificial sweetener intake was up by 53% from 1909. Meanwhile, spending on sugar grew by 4% from pre-pandemic levels through to December 2022.
The calorie-rich ingredient has been a major contributor to America’s obesity epidemic, which plagues 42% of its citizens. Meanwhile, over 11% of US consumers have type 2 diabetes.
It’s why 76% of Americans are trying to limit or avoid their sugar intake, and among them, 60% are targeting added sugar in packaged foods to do so. Losing weight and managing diabetes are among the top reasons behind this anti-sugar drive, which are pertinent in the era of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Moujaro.
Courtesy: The New Consumer/Coefficient Capital
Polling shows that sugar is the dietary element most GLP-1 users are turning away from (with 45% consuming it less since starting the medication), and that has directly impacted the sales of several companies. Hershey’s, one of the world’s largest chocolate companies, acknowledged that these weight-loss drugs have had a “mild year-on-year impact” on its business.
With nearly three-quarters of Americans aged 20 and above overweight and obese, and almost four in 10 children and teenagers prediabetic, the appeal of the $7B sugar alternatives industry is only going to widen, sweetening the market for Oobli and competitor brands, such as Amai Proteins, Naturannova, MycoTechnology, and Sweegen.
German food tech startup Kynda has raised €3M in seed funding to expand production of its mycoprotein-based meat made from upcycled food waste.
Fuelling its drive to make sustainable protein from food waste, German startup Kynda has secured €3M in a seed funding round led by Enjoy Ventures (through its Invest-Impuls Scale fund).
The financing included participation from Swiss climate tech investor Clima Now and German poultry giant PHW Group (parent company of Wiesenhof), and takes its total raised to €5.8M.
These invetors will be joined by C.E.L.L. Investment in a second closing of the seed round. Anticipated in April, this upcoming round currently has a commitment of €200,000, but “discussions are ongoing with others”, Kynda co-founder and COO Franziskus Schnabel told Green Queen.
Kynda will use the capital to scale up its fermentation technology and mycoprotein production at its factory in Jelmstorf, a municipality near Hamburg, which is set to open in Q2 2025.
“Since its foundation in 2024, VTEC Precision Foods, a subsidiary of the PHW Group, has been intensively dedicated to the fermentative extraction of raw materials from byproducts of plant protein production,” said Marcus Keitzer, chief alternative proteins officer of the PHW Group. “An investment and partnership in the field of fungal-based fermentation was therefore the next logical step for us.”
Investment will help Kynda scale up to meet client demand
Courtesy: Kynda
Founded in 2019 by Schnabel and CEO Daniel MacGowan, Kynda utilises food industry sidestreams like soy, oat and rice pulp, which are put through a submerged biomass fermentation process. Here, microorganisms are rapidly grown in a liquid medium, and the entire biomass becomes the end product.
Kynda’s fungal strain – already compliant with the EU’s novel foods regulations – allows it to produce mycelium protein in just 48 hours, compared to seven to 10 days for the industry standard.
The resulting ingredient is a raw material that is cheaper to produce than plant-based textures and boasts environmental and nutritional aspects that Kynda believes will entice manufacturers.
According to the company, their mycelium meat generates 700% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than pea protein, an ingredient used by industry giants like Beyond Meat.
Moreover, it has a protein content of 37% in dry matter and comprises all nine essential amino acids. Plus, it’s low in fat, rich in fibre and vitamins, and allergen-free. These attributes make the meat suitable for use in applications like plant-based alternatives, hybrid meat, dog food, and animal feed.
Courtesy: Franziskus Schnabel/LinkedIn
Its technology integrates hardware and biotechnological expertise, offering a scalable plug-and-play solution for industrial partners. The new factory, first announced in May, spans 6,200 sq m and features two 720 sq m production halls. Equipped with 30,000 litres of fermentation capacity, the facility will allow Kynda to manufacture 2,000 tonnes of mycelium protein annually.
The PHW partnership will allow it to scale up capacity to 70,000 litres. “Many of our customers require thousands of metric tonnes of product. This investment will allow us to increase our production capacity with our partners to meet those needs and to reach the mass market,” said MacGowan.
Kynda – which unveiled its mycoprotein as part of a vegan pork burger by The Raging Pig Company last year – is among several fungi protein producers in the country, including Nosh.bio, Bosque Foods, ProteinDistillery, Infinite Roots (all of which are also valorising industry sidestreams).
PHW Group has signed on as a strategic partner for Kynda, its latest effort to expand into the alternative protein market. Europe’s fourth largest poultry company, it has been selling vegan products since 2015, and has a plant-based label called Green Legend.
In 2022, it signed a deal with Israeli-cultivated meat startup SuperMeat to bring these products to market in Europe, a year before it founded VTEC Ingredients to advance biotech processing and raw material manufacturing for plant-based meat and seafood. This was followed by the establishment of VTEC Precision Foods, which focuses on fermentation.
“By closely networking our teams, we can develop innovative formulations and further optimise existing products,” Keitzer said of the partnership with Kynda. “At the same time, this partnership strengthens our position in the field of fermentative raw material production and promotes the development of a competitive infrastructure.”
Courtesy: Kynda
Kynda’s Schnabel added: “This strategic partnership creates exciting synergies, accelerating the implementation and commercialisation of our technology and superfood raw materials. With PHW’s support, we are well-positioned to drive sustainable innovation at scale.”
The startup’s fundraising round comes at a fruitful time for mycelium protein companies. One of the best-known names in the category, Meati, raised $100M in Series C funding last year when its sales doubled. This was the largest investment in an alternative protein startup since Meati’s own Series B raise in 2022.
Infinite Roots also made the top five of that list with its $58M round in January 2024, and has since entered the South Korean market through a partnership with local food giant Pulmuone. Finnish mycoprotein startup Enifer also received €24M in new funding to build a commercial-scale factory, while New York-based Ecovative secured $28M for its mycelium-derived MyBacon.
Courtesy: GFI
This dovetails with heightened VC interest in fermentation-derived proteins. While investment in plant-based food and cultivated meat startups dropped by 64% and 40%, respectively, fermentation companies enjoyed a 43% hike in financing in 2024.
“Investors are increasingly cautious about the long timelines and uncertain regulatory pathways for cultivated meat. In contrast, fermentation and mycelium-based startups are seen as nearer-term opportunities with clearer paths to profitability,” explained Schnabel.
“Mycelium and fermentation technologies are more cost-effective and scalable compared to cultivated meat, which faces high production costs due to expensive growth media and complex bioreactor requirements,” he added. “Mycoprotein production, for example, uses readily available agricultural byproducts, making it more sustainable and price-competitive. This aligns with Kynda’s model of utilising food industry byproducts.”
In our new interview series, we quiz future food investors about the solutions that excite them the most, their favourite climate-forward restaurant, and what they look for in successful founders.
Anna Ottosson is Founding Partner at Mudcake.
What future food technologies most excite you?
I’m always on the lookout for scalable technical solutions to some of the toughest challenges related to the food system. These challenges are typically related to how the food system affects the planet and climate change, but also to the opposite; how the food system is already, and will continue to be, affected by climate change. The solutions that excite me the most are the ones that can really move the needle if they succeed – especially from an impact perspective.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
I have a number of holy grails that I’m always on the hunt for, including a coffee alternative, a vegetable oil alternative, and a sugar replacement product. For all of these three, I’m dreaming about finding a great founding team with a very strong impact drive, an amazing product at a price that is ideally lower than the price for the original product that they are replacing, and a promising sales pipeline with prospective B2B customers – so I’m well aware that it’s quite a tough wishlist from my end.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
Several things have developed in the right direction for the food system in the past five years; including a greater understanding of how the food system is negatively affecting the planet, as well as an increased consumer emphasis on nutrition and health. It’s evident that technical developments in biotech as well as AI and software are having ripple effects on the broader food system, including the development of GLP-1 products, and advancements in crop genetics to name a few examples.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
It’s a complex topic, but if I could only do one thing it would probably be to remove subsidies for meat and dairy production to ensure that the price point better reflected the true cost of these products.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
One thing I often come back to is a founder’s ability to build excitement around what they are doing, which is something that different founders can accomplish in different ways. It doesn’t have to be the cliché ‘extroverted-pitch-on-a-stage-capacity’– in fact, it’s probably not, but can be showcased by their conversational style, how they’ve developed their product, how they tell a story, how they view a certain problem.
When I leave a conversation with a founder with more curiosity and energy than I came with, it’s a strong sign that I should spend more time on the case.
‘The One That Got Away’: tell us about the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t.
Hmm, I know that companies can look pretty different from the outside than the inside, so I honestly don’t spend a lot of time thinking about “what if” scenarios. But I do have a mental list of amazing founders in the space that I believe that I would personally have enjoyed working with, but where the stars haven’t been aligned for various reasons (at least not yet).
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
Too early to tell! But some of our portfolio companies that have already made a significant impact dent in the food system are Planet A Foods, driving the shift to planet-friendly chocolate; InPlanet, which just delivered the first ever Enhanced Rock Weathering carbon removal credit; and Amatera, which is accelerating the natural evolution to sustain perennial crops like coffee.
What do you consider your most disappointing future food investment?
A lot of things don’t turn out as you expect in the startup world, and it’s just the name of the game.
What do people get wrong most about VC?
How fundamentally different that path is compared to just “building a great company”. There are so many ways to build an amazing company, and doing it the VC way is just one of them.
What is the most ‘future food’ dish or ingredient you have eaten this month?
I want to say traditional lentils and chickpeas? Nutritious, cheap food that is good for the planet.
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
I always love to spend time in Copenhagen, so much great food!
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
As much as it’s a cliché, I want the time and energy that I spend on things to matter, not just for me, but for the next generation, and for my kids. When they ask me in 20 years what I focused on and why, I don’t want there to be any regrets about having wasted my time and energy on things that didn’t truly matter in the end.
In our new interview series, we quiz future food investors about the solutions that excite them the most, their favourite climate-forward restaurant, and what they look for in successful founders.
Anna Ottosson is Founding Partner at Mudcake.
What future food technologies most excite you?
I’m always on the lookout for scalable technical solutions to some of the toughest challenges related to the food system. These challenges are typically related to how the food system affects the planet and climate change, but also to the opposite; how the food system is already, and will continue to be, affected by climate change. The solutions that excite me the most are the ones that can really move the needle if they succeed – especially from an impact perspective.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
I have a number of holy grails that I’m always on the hunt for, including a coffee alternative, a vegetable oil alternative, and a sugar replacement product. For all of these three, I’m dreaming about finding a great founding team with a very strong impact drive, an amazing product at a price that is ideally lower than the price for the original product that they are replacing, and a promising sales pipeline with prospective B2B customers – so I’m well aware that it’s quite a tough wishlist from my end.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
Several things have developed in the right direction for the food system in the past five years; including a greater understanding of how the food system is negatively affecting the planet, as well as an increased consumer emphasis on nutrition and health. It’s evident that technical developments in biotech as well as AI and software are having ripple effects on the broader food system, including the development of GLP-1 products, and advancements in crop genetics to name a few examples.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
It’s a complex topic, but if I could only do one thing it would probably be to remove subsidies for meat and dairy production to ensure that the price point better reflected the true cost of these products.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
One thing I often come back to is a founder’s ability to build excitement around what they are doing, which is something that different founders can accomplish in different ways. It doesn’t have to be the cliché ‘extroverted-pitch-on-a-stage-capacity’– in fact, it’s probably not, but can be showcased by their conversational style, how they’ve developed their product, how they tell a story, how they view a certain problem.
When I leave a conversation with a founder with more curiosity and energy than I came with, it’s a strong sign that I should spend more time on the case.
‘The One That Got Away’: tell us about the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t.
Hmm, I know that companies can look pretty different from the outside than the inside, so I honestly don’t spend a lot of time thinking about “what if” scenarios. But I do have a mental list of amazing founders in the space that I believe that I would personally have enjoyed working with, but where the stars haven’t been aligned for various reasons (at least not yet).
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
Too early to tell! But some of our portfolio companies that have already made a significant impact dent in the food system are Planet A Foods, driving the shift to planet-friendly chocolate; InPlanet, which just delivered the first ever Enhanced Rock Weathering carbon removal credit; and Amatera, which is accelerating the natural evolution to sustain perennial crops like coffee.
What do you consider your most disappointing future food investment?
A lot of things don’t turn out as you expect in the startup world, and it’s just the name of the game.
What do people get wrong most about VC?
How fundamentally different that path is compared to just “building a great company”. There are so many ways to build an amazing company, and doing it the VC way is just one of them.
What is the most ‘future food’ dish or ingredient you have eaten this month?
I want to say traditional lentils and chickpeas? Nutritious, cheap food that is good for the planet.
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
I always love to spend time in Copenhagen, so much great food!
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
As much as it’s a cliché, I want the time and energy that I spend on things to matter, not just for me, but for the next generation, and for my kids. When they ask me in 20 years what I focused on and why, I don’t want there to be any regrets about having wasted my time and energy on things that didn’t truly matter in the end.
Consumers are cutting back on meat due to health concerns, but plant-based alternatives fail to meet their taste expectations – a new study says blended proteins could offer a balance.
Flavour, nutrition and affordability have long been thought to be the most influential factors driving food purchases. A new report from Food System Innovations (FSI) suggests that entrenched beliefs, familiarity concerns, and functional expectations are becoming increasingly important and are having an effect on people’s food choices.
The future food non-profit says that while their data shows consumers’ appetite for meat is decreasing due to health concerns, plant-based alternatives are not meeting the moment either – and their acceptance hinges on taste improvements.
FSI’s proposed solution? Blended meat – or, as they say, ‘Balanced Proteins’. The clue’s in the name. These products combine meat with plant-based ingredients, providing a better-for-you and better-for-the-planet solution without “changing the essence of what makes meat so beloved”.
According to a 2,000-person nationally representative survey of US omnivores and flexitarians, FSI conducted with YouGov, a 50:50 blend is the “sweet spot”. Since 37% of Americans prefer products with 1-49% of plant-based ingredients, and a third favour a 51-99% ratio, brands offering 50:50 blends – like the Both Burger, Fable Foods, and the Duo Burger – stand to win.
“This is an intuitive heuristic that people gravitate towards and helps them understand the category,” suggests Tim Dale, category innovation director at FSI.
Balancing health, taste and price concerns
Gen Zers have been labelled as the group spearheading the protein transition. Studies suggest that they are likely to reduce meat consumption based on factors like the environment, and the same goes for millennials.
According to FSI’s data, these two demographics also find the blended meat category more appealing than other age groups – 38% of Gen Z and 34% of millennial Americans were interested in the concept, compared to just 8-21% of the rest.
Courtesy: Food Systems Innovation
That being said, the widespread adoption of balanced proteins – as well as plant-based meat – is faced with a major barrier: taste. Nearly two-thirds of consumers who tried vegan alternatives rated their flavour as ‘okay’, ‘not so good’, or ‘terrible’, no doubt contributing to the 71% of respondents who said they’re unlikely to buy meat-free products in the next six months.
Even with blended meat, 63% said they wouldn’t purchase these products in the ensuing months. Asked why, 38% cited flavour and 29% texture.
At the same time, just over half of Americans who have reduced or intend to reduce their meat intake cite health and price as the biggest reasons. And for people who find blended meat appealing, having it be the same price or cheaper than conventional meat would influence at least 20% of those surveyed to buy these products.
So how do you balance the health and affordability concerns around meat with the taste dissatisfaction with alternatives? Dale proposes splitting the concept of taste into “perceived taste” and “actual taste”.
“Balanced proteins face a challenge with perceived taste, which is currently poor due to factors like familiarity, trust, and the role of meat and plant-based ingredients in consumers’ diets,” he says.
Indeed, 44% of those who find blended meat appealing say they’re “not someone who would eat this”, and cite it as a reason why they wouldn’t buy it for their loved ones.
Courtesy: Food Systems Innovation
“However, the actual taste of several brands has been shown to surpass leading conventional products in categories like burgers and chicken nuggets. This suggests that once consumers try these products, their initial taste scepticism may diminish,” notes Dale.
“Overcoming the perceived taste barrier will take time and will depend on more people trying products that provide new value to the consumer diets and consistently deliver on taste,” he adds.
Choose ‘functionality’ over ‘nutrition’ as processing fears persist
Curiosity drives the demand for blended meat more than factors like health or sustainability, and for Gen Zers, ease of preparation ranks just as high as nutrition on their list of priorities.
Speaking of which, most Americans who are turned off by blended meat aren’t worried about the nutrition aspect (only 18% expressed this concern) – instead, a third are worried about the way these products are manufactured. It’s a nod to the debate around ultra-processed foods, and how plant-based meat has been targeted across the media and criticised as being overly processed, unfairly so according to some.
Courtesy: Food Systems Innovation
“Consumers are particularly concerned about processing in novel meat categories, even though ingredient and processing concerns are less prominent in their overall diet,” says Dale. The fact that this doesn’t impact their nutritional perception of blended meat shows that “while they may dislike the means, they accept the ends”.
He points to the “tension” of trying something new as a reason for the pushback against processing: “Consumers must overcome habitual purchases and anxieties when trying a new product. For balanced proteins to succeed, they need to clearly communicate a compelling benefit that outweighs the perceived risk of change.”
This lack of familiarity and trust gives people “an easy reason to dismiss” novel products, since they look for information that reinforces their preexisting concerns. “To overcome these barriers, balanced proteins should lean into distinct advantages – ideally tied to plant-based ingredient inclusion – that address different consumer pain points,” Dale explains.
“While consumer education and cleaner ingredient strategies can help, the most effective way to move past UPF concerns is by delivering benefits that consumers actively desire. I think Perdue Plus [which uses plant-based ingredients from The Better Meat Co] is a great example – getting children to enjoy eating vegetables.”
Courtesy: Perdue
He notes that many blended meat formats are competing on the same value proposition as conventional meat, which has high consumer ratings for taste and value: “To win in these categories, balanced proteins must far exceed conventional options, not just match them.”
Dale also prefers using “functionality” over terms like “health” or “nutrition”, which may not be effective drivers. “While nutritional benefits matter, brands need to recognise how consumers perceive their conventional meat competition – if they don’t see a problem, nutrition alone won’t drive adoption,” he says.
How can brands tap into the blended meat opportunity?
Overall, only a quarter of respondents to the YouGov poll found blended meat appealing, in stark contrast to the 67% of omnivores who expressed interest in buying these products in a 2024 survey by FSI’s Nectar initiative.
Dale argues that the Nectar study likely setup the increased products’ appeal. People completed the survey immediately after tasting the product and were unaware whether they had eaten a blended or conventional version.
The methodology used in the YouGov poll, however, likely reduced appeal. “The category was described in the abstract rather than with images or real products, which may have limited familiarity,” explains Dale. The wording used to describe blended meat suggested that conventional proteins aren’t widely perceived as needing nutritional improvement and sustainability remains a niche driver.
Regardless, Dale advises brands to find their white space based on consumer needs and desires. “It is easier to solve an existing consumer problem rather than a created one,” he says.
Moreover, these products must be seen as approachable, and finding a balance between familiarity with meat and a differentiated value proposition from plant-based ingredients is crucial too.
Courtesy: Anisha Sisodia/Phil’s Finest
“Don’t let the pursuit of perfect clean labels or niche positioning overshadow the fundamentals – taste, value, familiarity, and functionality,” he says. “Engage consumers early and often to develop a clear, realistic understanding of their taste perceptions and preferences.”
He adds that brands should lean into innovative formats, experimenting with products that break down barriers to improve accessibility and appeal – think smaller pack sizes or family-friendly options for shared meals. Moreover, lowering the barriers to trial is important. “Address key friction points – such as taste scepticism and price sensitivity – to make trying and switching easier for consumers,” says Dale.
He recommends businesses measure the results of marketing campaigns in the long run: “A new category with new benefits requires sustained communication. Prioritise long-term brand building and consumer education to drive lasting adoption.”
Israel’s Finally Foods has announced its first field trial for potatoes containing casein, less than a year after the molecular farming startup launched.
In what it describes as “record time”, AI-driven molecular farming startup Finally Foods will begin its first field trial for potatoes that contain dairy proteins in Israel next week.
The move comes just 10 months after the Israeli firm emerged from stealth, marking a “major milestone” in its path to commercialisation. The field trial, which will last three to four months, will be a validation point of the company’s technology, which essentially modifies potatoes into bioreactors that can produce casein in a sustainable and cost-effective manner.
It will allow the company to assess the yield scalability and protein yield of its potato crops. The trial “transitions our technology from controlled greenhouse conditions to real-world agricultural settings, testing how our casein-producing potatoes perform in open-field environments”, explains Dafna Gabbay, co-founder and CEO of Finally Foods.
“One of the key challenges in molecular farming is the lengthy time-to-market, but Finally Foods is demonstrating that molecular farming can efficiently produce high-value proteins at scale in record time by drastically reducing the trial-and-error time,” she adds.
Molecular farming helping produce multiple casein formulations
Courtesy: Finally Foods
Gabbay established the startup with CTO Basia J Vinocur, who was formerly the VP of R&D at biotech firm Evogene. Finally Foods has an exclusive license for Evogene’s GeneRator AI technology, which it uses to optimise its production process by enabling short R&D cycles, more efficient extractions, and faster commercialisation plans.
Evogene holds around a 40% stake in the company, with the rest of the ownership divided between the co-founders and state-backed investor The Kitchen FoodTech Hub.
Finally Foods chose to use potatoes because they met several efficiency parameters, including high yields and effective protein extraction. The company has designed the potato as an optimised “expression system” that can formulate multiple variations of casein.
“We’re currently expressing multiple formulations of casein in our plants, with a primary focus on developing versatile formulations that can be used across a broad range of dairy applications,” says Gabbay.
Casein is the most common protein found in cow’s milk, making up 80% of its protein content, and is a key emulsifier that prevents water and fat from separating and gives cheese its melty and stretchy attributes.
There are four kinds of casein proteins found in milk, which fold into a spherical structure known as a micelle, where they are suspended in a highly hydrated solution and bound together with minerals like calcium. This is key to casein’s functional attributes, and Gabbay has previously indicated that her team plans to express all four sub-units in one plant.
Courtesy: Finally Foods
The startup is one of several companies working with molecular farming to produce animal proteins, including Moolec, Alpine Bio, Mozza, Miruku, PoLoPo, and Veloz Bio. A market set to double in value by 2029, molecular farming has been identified as a more viable and affordable way to replicate animal proteins than cell cultivation or precision fermentation.
This technology relies upon genetically engineering plants to produce proteins, which can be harvested from leaves or other tissues. This forgoes the need for expensive fermentation tanks, since plants themselves are the natural bioreactors here.
Finally Foods in talks with dairy producers
“This trial is a necessary step toward large-scale protein extraction, paving the way for efficient and cost-effective production at scale,” says Gabbay.
One of the major challenges faced by molecular farming is regulation – companies require approval to both grow genetically modified plants and then sell them for use in human food.
“Field trials are an essential step for regulatory approval, allowing us to gather key agronomic data and validate environmental impact assessments,” she adds.
This field trial follows the completion of a greenhouse gas trial, which confirmed that the potatoes grow and behave like non-transgenic potatoes and showcase no abnormal characteristics. “This is essential for regulatory approvals and to ensure the plant’s viability for large-scale agricultural production,” notes Gabbay.
“Also, the potatoes we harvested from the greenhouse enable us to extract and analyse casein from different lines expressing different formulations. This step is key for optimising protein yield, functionality, and extraction efficiency.”
Courtesy: Finally Foods
Integrating AI into the process has allowed Finally Foods to accelerate development and get high yields of functional casein within potatoes, while keeping costs low. More and more alternative porten companies are leveraging AI, including Shiru which has an AI-powered protein discovery platform; Climax Foods, which employs machine learning to reverse-engineer what makes cheese taste good; and NotCo, whose AI platform matches thousands of plant-based ingredients to find the combinations best suited to replace animal proteins.
Finally Foods is “in ongoing discussions with several dairy companies to start developing applications” with its casein formulations this year. To support its progress, it is currently securing an extension to the pre-seed round it raised last year, and expects to open a seed funding round in the months to come.
“This next phase of funding will support scaling our production, advancing regulatory approvals, and expanding commercial partnerships, as we continue to drive innovation in molecular farming and plant-based casein production,” Gabbay says.
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Beyond Meat’s new products and cookbook, the US’s first corn milk brand, and a cultivated seafood tasting.
New products and launches
Plant-based meat giant Beyond Meat has expanded its steak lineup with Chimichurri and Korean BBQ-Style flavours, which are available at Sprouts Farmers Market. It has also launched a Go Beyond the BUzzer cookbook with the National Basketball Players Association, with recipes from current NBA players like Cade Cunningham, Kyrie Irving and DeAndre Jordan.
Courtesy: Beyond Meat
German alt-seafood startup Koralo is expanding into the US, and looking to partner with clients for its co-fermented microalgae- and mycelium-based Wellness New F!sh fillet and functional food ingredients.
Speaking of seafood, Canadian firm Konscious Foods has partnered with New York-based seafood purveyor Acme Smoked Fish, which will distribute its plant-based smoked salmon to delis, restaurants, bagel shops, and more.
Fellow Canadian food tech player The Cultivated B has launched multi-channel biosensors to monitor the growth and metabolism of cell culture and fermentation processes. The tech combines continuous tracking with AI-enabled real-time analytics to help enhance accuracy and speed.
Also in Canada, Odd Burger has secured a retail listing with Calgary Co-op, making its vegan frozen food lineup available at all 22 locations in Alberta.
Courtesy: Maïzly
Based in one of the US’s major corn producers, Indianapolis startup Maïzly has debuted a category-first corn milk, which it offers in original and chocolate flavours. Free from seed, nut or vegetable oils, it packs 8g of fibre per cup, and is available on its website, Amazon and select retailers.
Sweden’s Veg of Lund has secured a listing for its Dug potato milk product at 150 Carrefour stores in Spain, marking its debut in the country.
In Spain, supermarket chain Eroski, catering company Ausolan, mycelium firm Innomy, and the Leartiker Technology Centre have created desserts and snack bars made from fungal protein as part of the Delifungus project.
Iceland’s ORF Genetics and South Korea’s CellMeathosted a public tasting for cultivated shellfish meat at the Iceland Ocean Cluster, in an event attended by First Gentleman Björn Skúlason and agrifood minister Hanna Katrín Friðriksson.
Courtesy: Solar Foods
Italian algae startup KelpEat has launched high-protein crackers using Solein, the gas protein produced by Finnish firm Solar Foods. It was showcased at the Pitti Taste show in Florence this week.
Company and finance updates
Solar Foods has also reached a step closer to bringing its air-based protein to the EU market, after addressing inquiries from the European Food Safety Authority regarding the scientific opinion on its novel food application.
Courtesy: Heura
Spanish plant-based meat leader Heura has improved its B Corp rating by 18%, now scoring 111 points and securing the top spot for CPG food businesses with a turnover of over €1M.
NoPalm Ingredients, a Dutch producer of fermentation-derived oils and fats from upcycled agricultural sidestreams, has become the first company to scale such ingredients to industrial levels of 120,000 litres.
Israeli food tech startup SuperMeat has teamed up with Argentinian biomanufacturing firm Stämm to expand production of the former’s cultivated meat, which it says can be produced for $11.79 per pound. The partnership is supported by mutual investor Varana Capital.
Courtesy: Dror Varshavski
Canadian plant protein manufacturer Burcon Nutrascience has agreed to acquire a commercial-scale facility in Galesburg, Illinois, and will begin production in the first half of this year.
In the US, YC-backed blended meat startup Choppy (formerly Paul’s Table) has ceased operations nearly three years after it was established.
Californian alt-honey startup MeliBioearned $15,000 after winning Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition‘s NGT3 pitch slam contest for its precision-fermented honey.
Research, policy and awards
MeliBio‘s European vegan honey distribution deal with Narayan Foods is on the backburner, but the business is aiming to become profitable by the end of the year.
Courtesy: Imperial College London
In the UK, the University of Bristol and Imperial College London have voted to support the transition towards plant-based catering menus, joining a host of other institutes in the Plant-Based Universities movement.
Can targeted menu modifications ‘nudge’ people into picking plant-based items in restaurants? A new study by Bryant Research explores this question, based on trials run at Mumbai restaurant Gracias Granny.
South Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs has unveiled its 2025 Agri-Food Fund Operation Plan, committing ₩55B ($38M) towards smart agriculture and food tech.
Courtesy: Gander
Food waste app Gander has been nominated for Prince William‘s Earthshot Prize 2025. The app operates in UK, Ireland, Australia and Brazil, and has saved about 40 million items of food from ending up in the trash.
Finally, the Freedom Food Alliance (FFA) has launchedFoodFacts.org, a fact-checking platform powered by an AI chatbot and expert-backed nutritional and health content. Disclaimer: Green Queem Media founder Sonalie Figueiras is an advisor at FFA.
With egg prices returning to sky-high levels in the US, it brings a major opportunity for plant-based and fermentation-derived alternatives. Can these companies capitalise on the moment?
You know things are serious when Waffle House starts upcharging you for every egg.
The all-day breakfast chain serves 272 million eggs every year; it has now added a temporary 50-cent per-egg surcharge on orders due to the bird-flu-induced national shortage.
The current wave of avian flu – in its third year now – killed more than 40 million chickens in the US in 2024, causing major supply problems and subsequently driving up prices. The peak may have been January 2023, when a dozen eggs set you back $4.82 in the supermarket – though current costs are agonisingly close.
The crisis is showing no signs of abatement – the number of chickens affected by the flu per month tripled in December, and increased further last month. That leaves an egg-shaped hole in grocery baskets and restaurant orders.
This is an opportunity made for sustainable egg protein startups, which are making egg alternatives with plant-based ingredients, as well as recombinant egg proteins from fermentation.
The egg market in numbers
Courtesy: CNBC
Retail chicken egg prices in the US reached $4.15 per dozen in December 2024, a 65% hike from 12 months prior, with consumers and restaurants paying up to $7.
Egg prices are projected to rise by another 20% in 2025, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
The cost of eggs wholesale has already reached an all-time high. White shell eggs now cost $8 a dozen, obliterating the previous record of $5.46 in December 2022.
Inventories of shell eggs are roughly 15-16% below the five-year average, as per the USDA.
It’s not just the US – since 2019, egg prices have doubled in South Africa, and grown by 50-90% in Europe, Russia, Japan, India and Brazil.
In Australia, 1.8 million hens were culled last year as a result of the country’s largest avian flu outbreak. While that was eradicated, a new strain of the virus has appeared.
Courtesy: GFI
Plant-based eggs are a nascent market, making up just 0.5% of retail sales of vegan food in 2023. This amounted to $43M in dollar sales, a 5% decrease from 2022. Unit sales also dropped by 13%.
In the longer term, retail sales of plant-based eggs grew by 11% between 2021 and 2023, and unit sales were up by 8%. In comparison, unit sales of conventional eggs fell by 4% in this period.
Only 1% of US households buy vegan eggs; repeat rates have continued to increase, from 38% in 2020 to nearly half (48%) in 2023.
Courtesy: GFI
While the price gap between chicken-free and conventional eggs shrunk in 2022, a slight stabilisation in the latter’s supply widened it in 2023, with plant-based eggs costing over $8 higher per dozen. This disparity is set to narrow again as avian flu rages on.
One research firm suggests that in Europe, the plant-based egg market is expected to grow by 40% annually to reach $3.88B in 2031, showcasing the potential for these products.
In Asia, this market is set to expand even faster (73% annually) to reach $850M in 2028, led by China and India.
Courtesy: Data Bridge Market Research
The problem: Why egg prices are high
A long-running flu: At the root of the issue is H5N1, the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza that has led to the culling of nearly 158 million birds since 2022. This wave has been ongoing for much longer than usual – in the past, bird flu waves have only lasted for a season or so. Meanwhile, high animal feed prices (initially originating from Russia’s war on Ukraine) have contributed too.
Refreshing flocks is not a quick process: More than 1,550 commercial and backyard flocks have been affected by H5N1 in the last three years. Disinfecting and verifying the safety of a farm can be a lengthy process – and even when it’s deemed safe, it takes a new flock up to 16 weeks to start laying eggs.
Logistical challenges: The egg supply chain has not been spared by the logistical crises that have hit the global food industry. Transportation costs – especially for refrigerated items – have soared amid a shortage of truck drivers in the US and a hike in long-haul truck rates.
Courtesy: Getty Images via Canva
Cage-free policies: Almost a dozen states in the US – including California, Massachusetts, Arizona, and Washington – have introduced cage-free egg policies. Such anti-cruelty legislation sets minimum space requirements for hens, which reduces producers’ overall capacity.
Political pressure: Eggs have been a talking point in the US political sphere over the last year, with President Donald Trump criticising former President Joe Biden’s administration for failing to control the price hikes and promising to get them back to normal when he took over – in actuality, things have only gotten worse since the start of his second term.
Low supply, high demand: While supply has dwindled, Americans’ demand for protein-packed foods like eggs has increased. These consumers are increasingly swapping red meat for poultry and eggs, and 71% have named protein as the macronutrient they’re most interested in consuming.
What are chicken-free egg makers trying to solve?
Direct swaps for classics
Several startups offer liquid eggs or ready-to-eat versions of classic egg dishes that can be used as a 1:1 swap, and these tend to target CPG consumers who use eggs as part of their meals at home.
Perhaps the largest name is Eat Just, whose Just Egg comes in pourable and toaster formats and uses mung bean as a base – it can be used to make scrambles, omelettes and even baked goods, though it does come with a steep price tag.
As of late 2023, Eat Just indicated that its egg alternative captured 99% of the US vegan egg market and that by February 2024 it had sold the equivalent of half a billion eggs. The startup faces competition from brands like Zero Egg and Simply Eggless in the US, and international players such as Crack’d, Oggs, Perfeggt and Vegge.
Courtesy: Eat Just
Others, meanwhile, are moving past pourable formats to offer more novel options. Yo Egg, for example, makes vegan sunny-side-up and poached eggs with runny yolks, which can be boiled or fried. BeLeaf also makes hen-free fried eggs. And under it WunderEggs brand, Crafty Counter turns almonds and cashews into egg patties, boiled eggs, and deviled eggs.
In Singapore, Float Foods has developed a range of plant-based eggs for different applications, including poached, yolks, and XL omelette wraps, under its OnlyEg brand. Poached eggs are also a feature of Germany’s Neggst, as are sunny-side-ups, boiled eggs, and patties.
Courtesy: Le Papondu
French brand Le Papondu, meanwhile, is looking to take things a step further. While it has gone to market with egg patties, it’s working on a crackable whole egg in the background.
A bang for your buck
Most of these pre-prepared or pourable egg alternatives don’t actually undercut the cost of eggs, contributing to the price gap between plant-based and conventional versions. This is where powdered alternatives come in.
It’s the original egg substitute format and it continues to enjoy popularity, as illustrated by the number of brands in this space. As dried products that shoppers add water to, they are much more wallet-friendly, they can be packaged more minimally and they don’t require refrigerated transportation.
Courtesy: Acremade
Powdered vegan eggs are an ideal alternative for cash-strapped consumers in the egg-flation era. Brands like Peggs, Acremade, Orgran, Bob’s Red Mill, Vegg, and Sol Natural are filling this gap.
Like-for-like functionality
Some companies are targeting the bakery and CPG sectors with alternatives that perform like eggs in different products—estimates suggest that up to 40% of all eggs are used as ingredients in foodservice and food manufacturing.
For example, Follow Your Heart, Fabalish, and Eat Just all make egg-free, plant-based mayonnaise, and companies like Orgran, Oggs, and Egg’n’Up all offer substitutes for use in baked goods.
Courtesy: Eat Just
Others, including Revyve and ProteinDistillery, are using waste ingredients like spent brewer’s yeast – a byproduct of the beer industry – as fermentation feedstocks for microbes to produce egg protein alternatives for use in baked goods and meat analogues.
Meanwhile, some startups are using precision fermentation to make bio-identical versions of egg proteins without chickens. The Every Company makes EggWhite (which contains an ovalbumin equivalent), a transparent glycoprotein, and a whole egg; the startup has been granted three ‘no further questions’ letters from the FDA in the US and has applied for regulatory approval in the UK and the EU as well.
Finland’s Onego Bio is using the same technology to produce its recombinant ovalbumin, Bioalbumen, and is awaiting FDA approval this year.
Courtesy: Onego Bio
Belgium’s Otro is also working on egg white proteins made via precision fermentation. And Germany’s Formo is set to launch a precision-fermented egg alternative (though their version isn’t bioidentical). Elsewhere, Israeli startups PoLoPo and Finally Foods are growing egg proteins inside potatoes via molecular farming.
While it’s still early days for many of these startups, there is a clear opportunity amidst what looks like continued supply, quality and price volatility for the global chicken-egg industry.
Food and climate tech investors remained cautious with their cash in 2024, as funding for alternative protein dipped, investments failed to align with emissions impact, and women founders were sidelined yet again.
The venture sector is experiencing a crunch overall, with 2024 being a disappointing 12 months for those looking for funding. GlobalData’s Deals Database suggests that early-stage rounds – which remain key for the growth of the wider climate tech ecosystem – were down 14.2% last year, while growth, expansion, and late-stage funding rounds decreased by 2.7%.
Moreover, fewer firms are deploying less, as US-headquartered funds dropped from 8,315 to 6,175 in 2024. The Financial Times reported that this trend concentrates “power among a small group of mega-firms”, leaving “smaller VCs in a fight for survival”. Further, it thins out “funding options for smaller companies”.
Businesses in the food tech world may have hoped for an investment reset last year, after a tough 2023 forced downsizing, M&As, and in some cases, closures. But venture capitalists continued to be cautious in 2024, with food tech funding shrinking, and investment in alternative protein players declining for a third consecutive year.
This is reflective of the broader 38% dip in climate tech venture funding, from $52B to $32B last year, according to BloombergNEF research, which in turn was the result of a shift in investor interest towards artificial intelligence (AI), where financing crossed $100B.
Layoffs, mergers and takeovers are part of a trend that’s likely to continue this year, according to Sharyn Murray, senior manager of investor engagement and financing at the Good Food Institute, an alternative protein think tank.
“While challenging for individual companies, such consolidation is a natural phase of industry maturation and can accelerate technological and operational progress for those that remain,” she says.
Speaking of trends, there are several to pick out from 2024 data on food tech funding – let’s just say it was a win for AI, fermentation, and men.
The emissions-funding mismatch
Courtesy: Sightline Climate
According to climate tech data platform Sightline Climate‘s 2024 investment report, the “still-high interest rates, delayed IRA funding rollouts, and political uncertainties created headwinds” for investors, blocking any restart the “2023 ‘wait-and-see’ crowd had hoped” for.
Nevertheless, the authors note the sector did settle down, as venture funding in climate tech fell by 14% to $30B in 2024, much less than the 24% drop it experienced 12 months earlier. Average deal size similarly dipped by 14%, while the value of growth rounds was down by 48%.
Courtesy: Sightline Climate
The average deal size in the food and land use vertical – which includes alternative proteins – was 6% lower in 2024 ($15M), though it is now the second most populated climate tech sector (behind energy) in terms of deal numbers, with more than 250 new companies raising money last year.
While food and land use had the second-highest number of funding deals (768), the total dollars poured into the vertical is disproportionate to the impact it has on the climate. The report suggests that this sector accounts for 22% of global emissions while receiving only 18.5% of climate tech capital ($29.3M) last year.
In its State of Climate Tech Funding 2024 report, PWC writes that “higher borrowing costs and uncertain economic conditions weighed on the broader deal-making market”, which resulted in a climate tech funding decline. The authors found that sector investments decreased “by 29%, from $79B, between Q4 2022 and Q3 2023, to $56B in the ensuing four quarters” and venture capital and private equity flows came down from $799B to $673B, contracting from 9.9% to 8.3%, with transaction volumes way down too as “investors and start-ups are finding it tougher than ever to make deals”.
Europe making gains, Asia not so much
Courtesy: DigitalFoodLab
The geographical makeup of the climate and food funding landscape has changed over the past few years with some regions gaining on others.
In the first half of 2024, while no region was spared from the investment declines of the previous years, Europe was “slightly less affected” by the challenges, according to analysis by Paris-based food tech consultancy DigitalFoodLab. This echoes previous data illustrating that Europe overtook the US in funding for the first time in 2023, making up 58% of global investments.
“Europe had been ignored for some time, maybe due to the old continent being slow to structure its innovation ecosystem (incubators, business angels, etc.),” Matthieu Vincent, co-founder and partner at DigitalFoodLab, told Green Queen in September. But the emergence of large delivery startups with an international focus “definitely helped put the continent on the global food tech map”.
Within the alternative protein world, too, 50% of all investments between Q1 and Q3 2024 came from Europe, garnering $528M. North America was second with a 38% share, and Asia a distant third at 10%.
Vincent ascribed the decline to the 80% fall in China, which in turn was a result of a shift away from delivery startups. Food science and alternative protein companies dominated investment (36% of the share), while in the second half of the year, analysts didn’t “observe a bounce back or even a plateau as investments keep declining”.
Source: AgFunder
Numbers shared by data analytics firm MAGNiTT in its 2024 Emerging Markets Venture Capital Report show that total venture funding in Southeast Asia was down 45%, with both exits and the number of deals decreasing by more than 30% and 20% respectively. While Singapore – a hub for food tech in the Asia-Pacific region – continues to be the most active emerging market for VC, climate tech is not on the menu, with fintech dominating deal flow.
A January 2025 Deal Street Asia report depicts a similar picture. The data outlines that total deal volume in the region last year decreased by 10.3% (633 deals) compared to 2023, while deal value fell by 41.7% to $4.56B, less than half of the capital raised in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, revelations of fraud at one of the agrifood darlings of the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem have sent chills across the region’s investment community.
That said, a report by AgFunder about APAC agrifood tech sector funding found that “while was still lower than 2020 levels in terms of dollar amounts, the number of deals in the first three quarters of 2024 (616) has already surpassed the full-year totals of each of the last three years, indicating that VCs remain interested in the category, but are more cautious in doling out larger amounts to single companies”.
AgFunder’s research also underscored some positive trends for alternative food, which falls under the report’s ‘Innovative Food’ category. The latter “attracted $204M by the end of October, an 85% increase from the same period in 2023, with deal count also growing from 49 to 59.”
Funding for fermentation proteins grows as investors quit plant-based and cultivated meat
Courtesy: GFI
Funding for alternative proteins continued to decline in 2024, dropping by 27% from the previous year. This was driven by VCs abandoning the plant-based protein vertical (a 64% decrease) and the cultivated meat space (down 40%). Worryingly, the latter only saw $6M in financing in the second half of 2024.
Plant-based meat was hit by the ultra-processed food debate, with misinformation from lobby groups causing consumers to question how healthy these products are. Meanwhile, in the US, lawmakers in more than a dozen states brought legal actions against cell-cultured beef. Two states (Florida and Alabama) went ahead with a ban, and several other states look likely this year.
The bright spot was fermentation. Companies working in this vertical attracted 43% more investment last year than in 2023 and made up four of the five largest alternative protein funding rounds. Even governments – from the US to the Netherlands – are getting involved with grant-based financial support.
Helene Grosshans, infrastructure investment manager at GFI Europe, wrote in August about why investors are increasingly attracted to fermentation-based proteins. “Many of the fermentation companies that received large investments are focused on leveraging agricultural and food industry sidestreams as a sustainable feed source, helping produce food more efficiently and affordably – both of which are attractive propositions for investors.”
James Petrie, CEO of fermentation startup Nourish Ingredients concurs. “The food tech sector, particularly in plant-based and precision fermentation, is experiencing a significant correction. We’re seeing companies that once commanded huge valuations facing massive down rounds or recapitalisation,” he wrote in an op-ed for Green Queen last month.
Analysis based on Pitchbook data shared by Trellis showed that women-founded businesses received just 0.4% ($135.8M ) of the $33.5B invested in US climate tech startups in the first nine months of 2024, compared to $2.45B secured by mixed-gender-led startups.
Part of this is a problem of underrepresentation within the VC world itself – Pitchbook data from 2022 exposed that only 16% of VC decision-makers in the US are women, while 96% of VC firms have a majority male population of decision-makers.
This is despite the fact that startups founded by women offer investors a much better return – 78 cents for every dollar, compared to 31 cents for male-founded businesses – and provide a 34% better return on equity than companies with minimal or no women in leadership. Female-founded startups also exit faster (7.2 years versus 8.1 years for the overall average).
Continued uncertainty amidst global tariffs, though investors face attractive entry points
Courtesy: Bloomberg via Getty Images
“2024 wasn’t the launchpad [climate tech] investors had hoped for. The slow rollout of Inflation Reduction Act funds and guidance meant a lot of projects stayed stalled. Political uncertainty in Europe and the US stunted investment as investors continued to wait and see,” Sightline Climate co-founders Kim Zou and Mark Taylor write in their report.
While Zou and Taylor contend that “the uncertainty is mostly over” saying that “while the US may back away from climate commitments, markets anticipating higher EU carbon prices will be transformative for hard-to-abate sectors,” others are not so sure.
Fortune spoke to a handful of generalist venture capitalists about President Donald Trump’s tariffs and looming trade war(s), who pointed out uncertainty will almost certainly lower valuations, decrease exits and give investors pause in terms of deployment. While the investors were speaking broadly, it stands to reason that climate tech and food tech are worried too.
Still, some founders remain hopeful. Nourish Ingredients’ Petrie drew on historical parallels to point to a brighter future: “Every transformative industry has gone through periods of correction and consolidation. Current valuations, while challenging, create attractive entry points for new investors.”
“The days of raising significant capital on potential alone are behind us. That is not necessarily a bad thing for a sector that badly needs to mature. Investors have shifted their focus from promises of transformational products toward clear, tangible paths to revenue and offtake deals,” he added.
“This creates a particular challenge for companies that have blown their wad on CapEx before firming up customer demand, but this simultaneously creates opportunities for those willing to be patient and strategic.”
Grow with Iris co-founder Amy Langfield explains why she created a free-from, plant-based milk for toddlers, and details her conquest to develop an all-conquering infant formula.
Amy Langfield was an art teacher when her newborn daughter, Iris, was diagnosed with severe allergies to dairy and soy. It was a turning point.
When she prepared to return to work from maternity leave, she was looking for free-from infant formula products that could “fill the gaps”. “But there was just literally nothing,” she recalls.
This was 2017, and Langfield eventually found Prémiriz, one of the only soy-free vegan infant formulas available in Europe at the time (and in the world). It was difficult to obtain the product. It had to be imported from France to her home in the UK, and the product fell host to a global shortage in 2018, disappearing from the market soon after.
So the new mother decided to take matters into her own hands. With the help of a local product development company and her best friend of 30 years, Sophie Paynter (now also an ‘allergen mum’), Langfield set out to create a fortified, free-from line of plant-based milk for babies and toddlers.
Courtesy: Grow with Iris
Fast-forward to August 2024: Langfield and Paynter launched the first product from their brand, which they call Grow with Iris. The powdered Growing Up Drink – developed with paediatricians, dietitians, and allergy experts – is made for kids aged 12 months to four years, and free from the six most common allergens in the UK milk, soy, egg, wheat, nuts, and sesame.
Instead, it contains what they describe as a short ingredient list of coconut MCT oil, date sugar, pea protein isolate, chicory fibre, natural flavouring, and a vitamin and mineral blend. The toddler milk has 5.3g of protein per serve, 1.8g of fibre, and over 70% of the daily recommended intake of riboflavin, iodine, vitamin E, and vitamin K.
Courtesy: Grow with Iris
The startup is hoping to meet the needs of the 400,000 UK toddlers who have allergies or are on plant-based diets, while catering to climate-conscious parents – its carbon footprint is lower than dairy competitors in 11 out of 12 categories, and 86% lower than ready-made toddler drinks.
Grow with Iris wants to go beyond just free-from. “We have a huge protocol to make sure that we have no ‘may contain’ [labels],” says Langfield. “As an allergy parent, your biggest bugbear is having a ‘may contain’ on the back of the pack.” To do so, the Growing Up Drink goes through rigorous allergen and raw material testing.
Langfield and Paynter have big plans for the company. They are on a mission to create nutritious, safe, planet-conscious, and allergy-friendly products for children from newborns to teenagers.
For babies, taste is paramount
Courtesy: Grow with Iris
Up to 8% of British kids under three have a food allergy, and between 2-3% are allergic to dairy. At the same time, 8% of children in the UK now follow a vegan diet.
With a full-time staff of three, Grow with Iris is a challenger brand facing competition from established players offering kid-friendly plant-based milk – think Koko Dairy Free, Nestlé’s Little Steps, and Alpro.
Langfield calls the latter Grow with Iris’s biggest competitor. That being said, the Danone-owned company’s Growing Up milk is sold in ready-to-drink cartons, and – like most in the space – isn’t nutritionally tailored for infants and toddlers.
“They work to adult regulations because they can make more claims,” she says. “We’re really strict on saying: ‘It works for babies and it’s for toddlers.’ So we will work to their recommended dietary intakes, which we want to be honest and transparent [about] as both of us are allergy moms.”
Courtesy: Grow with Iris
Being free from allergens and climate-friendly is one thing – it’s no good if kids don’t like the taste or texture of these products. Grow with Iris has conducted three rounds of focus groups to ensure its milk satisfies toddler palates.
“We use an infant-grade pea protein, which is super fine and smooth, and it doesn’t clump,” says Langfield. “It looks like milk. It tastes really good… You can have the most amazing formulation. You could have everything in there that works – but if a child isn’t going to drink it, what’s the point? It needs to be a powerful discussion.”
Having entered the market just over six months ago, the startup is currently in its infancy, and sells the Growing Up drink direct-to-consumer via its website. It has racked up sales worth £6,700 through 350 first-time purchasers, 11% of whom returned for more. As the brand evolves, this number is expected to rise.
It also has a broad base of customers, with parents aged 25-45 – and while they’re predominantly mothers, Langfield estimates that 10% of its buyers are dads.
To fuel its next phase of growth, Grow with Iris is rolling out its plant-based milk on Amazon this month, followed by TikTok Shop in March. It’s also in talks with Whole Foods Market in Ireland, which could pave the way for its European expansion in the future. For now, though, the focus remains on commercialisation in the UK.
Courtesy: Grow with Iris
Working with Innovate UK on infant formula
Grow with Iris is currently working with a co-manufacturer in Somerset, and has raised over £300,000 in pre-seed funding. In addition, the company has received £250,000 in R&D grants from Innovate UK, the government’s innovation agency, which it is using for both its toddler drinks and the infant formula it is working on- the holy grail of baby and toddler drinks. There are only a handful of dairy-free baby formula brands available worldwide, and many of them rely on soy, making them unsuitable for those with strict allergen requirements.
“Our project at the moment is the Biomedical Catalyst, and it’s to find and develop the optimal plant-based protein for use in infant formula,” says Langfield.
While that’s coming to an end this quarter, in its next project, the startup will conduct rigorous protein testing under strict protocols to identify the right ingredient, “because it might not be pea”, says Langfield.
Courtesy: Grow with Iris
“Back in 2017, when I was struggling with Iris, there wasn’t really any issue with the rise in allergies to legumes in the UK. As we’ve gone along, we’ve got more and more people saying they can’t have this or can’t have that,” she explains.
“It’s about working out: What’s going to be the most sustainable? What can we grow in the UK, or in Europe, that’s closer in terms of carbon footprint, able to do crop rotation, and hypoallergenic?
“We want to create a plant-based formula for infants that is the best it can possibly be, which is future-proofed in terms of sustainability and our future food chain, but it’s also for kids with allergies, and is bringing more choice.”
Courtesy: Grow with Iris
Baby formula is Grow with Iris’s ‘North Star’
Infant formula is a $56B market monopolised by dairy formulations and a handful of industry giants, which leads to supply problems like the infamous shortage in the US three years ago. That poses a problem for the many mothers who are unable to or don’t want to breastfeed.
About 5-10% of women are physiologically unable to breastfeed, and many more say they’re not producing enough or have nutritional deficiencies in their milk.
Today, 90% of formula products on the market are dairy-based, and the rest usually contain soy or rice. This is why it’s hard for upstarts to break through – and even when they do, sustaining sales is tough work, as can be seen with brands like BéBé M and Earth’s Best, whose dairy-free offerings are no longer available.
Courtesy: Grow with Iris
Grow with Iris predicts it will take at least five years before its free-from, non-dairy formula can come to market. “It needs to have all the protein and formulation ready to go, but also undergo human clinical trials,” says Langfield.
Regulation is a major issue. Plant-based or not, getting approved to sell infant formula is a complex, time-consuming process, which involves comprehensive testing based on strict standards, nutrient analysis, ingredient safety assessments, comparative studies with breast milk, and more.
If a formula product is devised for special medical purposes, companies can get through the regulatory framework quicker, says Langfield, though she doesn’t want to go down the medicalised route.
“I want it to be for healthy children and children who need it. So there’s not this sticker label on it, you know?” she notes. “It’s just on the shelf. It’s for everybody. And yeah, it’s not going to be an overnight thing. But we’re working so hard. It’s my North Star.”
The founders of London-based startup Omni – which makes plant-based pet food – bagged £75,000 from two investors on Dragons’ Den UK last night.
Plant-based food continues to succeed on the small screen, with dog food maker Omni becoming the latest vegan company to win over investors on TV.
Guy Sandelowsky and Shiv Sivakumar, who founded the pet nutrition startup in 2020, appeared on the UK edition of Dragons’ Den on Thursday night and struck a joint deal with Deborah Meaden and Steven Bartlett.
The famous investors agreed to pour £75,000 into the startup in exchange for a collective 2.5% equity stake, valuing the vegan dog food business at £3M.
“I had already been looking for a healthy, balanced alternative to processed-meat dog food, so when Guy and Shiv presented Omni and its credentials as a highly nutritional, vet-formulated choice, I was bound to invest. Trust in a product is hugely important to dog owners,” said Meaden.
“The big test came, though, after the den, when I offered the food and treats to my pack of dogs, and they literally woofed them down – that certainly sealed the deal,” she added.
Omni’s pet food pitch on Dragons’ Den
Courtesy: BBC
Omni sells a range of vet-formulated foods and supplements for dogs, such as No-Chicken Pot Pie, No-Beef Casserole, breath supplements, and Training Treats for physical and mental health. The products are catered to pets with sensitivities, allergies, anxiety, and gut issues, among others.
Sandelowsky and Sivakumar began thier pitch asking for £75,000 for a 1% stake in Omni. “I’m a small-animal vet that’s been in practice for just shy of 10 years, and I’ve seen a number of nutrition-related diseases in our pets,” Sandelowsky explained.
“At Omni, we believe that novel proteins – like those derived from yeast, pules, algae, and soon lab-grown meat – can be healthy and as delicious as traditional meat-based diets,” he added.
The company generated over £2.5M in sales in 2022 and 2023, and 80% of its 30,000-strong customer base are subscribers. It has delivered more than five million meals to pets globally.
Peter Jones questioned the £7.5M valuation set by Omni’s founders, and Sivakumar responded by laying out the business’s forecast for the upcoming 12 months, when it expects to become profitable. He added that the startup had recently secured £2M in VC funding at a valuation of £10M. But Jones was still unconvinced and exited the discussions.
The entrepreneurs were met with similar scepticism by Touker Suleyman, who wanted a stake of 30%. “You’re delusional about what this is really worth,” he said. “So I’m out.”
Another Dragon, Sara Davies, praised the founders and their pitch, and didn’t feel the valuation was outlandish. But she wasn’t sold on the project enough at the terms being asked of the investors, and took herself out of the running.
‘Wealth and experience’ of Dragons worthwhile
Courtesy: Omni
But Meaden and Bartlett were impressed by Omni’s lifetime value of customers – while their cost of acquisition is around £40, repeat rates have meant its customers spent £400 each in just two years.
Meaden made the first offer, asking for 3% of the business – which was matched by Bartlett. The founders then went to discuss, whispering: “That’s basically the two dragons that we wanted.”
Sandelowsky and Sivakumar asked if the two investors would like to join forces and come in at a 2.5% stake. After some deliberation, the Dragons agreed to the deal.
“Through the jubilation of hearing a Dragon say: ‘I believe in you,’ there’s an undercurrent of feeling that you have to now give away a large part of your business – something that we have spent years building, only to give away quite a substantial portion of it after a couple of minutes in the Den,” Sivakumar said.
“Ultimately, we felt the wealth of expertise and guidance brought by the Dragons was definitely worthwhile,” he added. “The experience, to us, really affirmed how much we complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses, both driven by a passion to really revolutionise pet nutrition.”
Speaking to the Daily Express, Sandelowsky said: “We were happy with the result, the number that we arrived at, I think it could potentially be one of the highest valuations for a pet food business.”
Cultivated meat and ‘Ozempic for dogs’
Courtesy: Meatly/Omni
The pitch also revealed Omni’s plans for the future – the founders are targetng an exit in the next three to five years, the hope being that it is acquired by a bigger pet food company for around £150M.
The startup has also hinted that it’s developing a natural weight loss powder for dogs, which it has teased as “Ozempic for dogs” – this effort would be helped by the involvement of Bartlett, who has a stake in several health and wellness companies, including peronalised nutrition app Zoe.
The episode aired the same day news broke that Brits can buy cultivated chicken for their pets starting Friday, with food tech startup Meatly joining forces with vegan pet food maker The Pack to launch dog treats with hybrid meat.
But a year ago, Meatly had teamed up with Omni to co-develop cat food too, prototypes of which were showcased on Dragons’ Den. It remains to be seen whether this partnership will materialise in the market.
Either way, it is a big moment for cultivated pet food across the globe, with multiple companies eyeing regulatory approval for thier novel proteins in the US and Singapore.
Omni’s investment on Dragons’ Den also comes as more and more future food startups find success on the show and its sister programmes across the world. In the last year, for example, Meat the Mushroom and Finneato Fysh Foods have both won deals on Shark Tank US for their plant-based meat and seafood, respectively, while vegan bakery brand The Cinnamon Kitchen found success on Shark Tank India.
In our new interview series, we quiz future food investors about the solutions that excite them the most, their favourite climate-forward restaurant, and what they look for in successful founders.
Andrew D Ive is the General Managing Partner at Big Idea Ventures.
What future food technologies most excite you?
Cultured meat and dairy: I’m still excited by this technology, the current scale-up phase and finding ways to work with the traditional protein industry to enhance protein production overall.
Precision fermentation: This is the second candidate in the race that can unlock a more sustainable food future.
Scaling Technology: Though not a specific technology, scaling presents challenges that require innovative solutions and approaches.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
Food and biology.
Agriculture and nature: Enhancing agriculture’s interaction with nature and biodiversity, and collaborating with top universities.
Food production technologies: Boosting food production and utilising waste to develop bio-materials, bio-surfaces, and sustainable packaging.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
Investors have been supporting remarkable future food companies across various sectors, discovering what’s possible with cutting-edge technologies. The next focus is scaling these technologies to benefit the food system sustainably.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
Enhance taste and texture, lower costs through scalable methods, and improve nutritional profiles to meet or surpass traditional meat.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
Tenacity: the perseverance to navigate challenging times.
‘The One That Got Away’: tell us about the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t.
The jury is still out.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
Too many great investments to choose just one. We have 20+ companies that have the potential for global impact in our portfolios.
What do you consider your most disappointing future food investment?
I am disappointed when a company that is growing well and has found product market fit fails because the founders fall out and don’t want to move forward as a team. This scenario is the most disappointing investment.
What do people get wrong most about VC?
VC is often not all about the money. Many of us are focused on finding and working with great founders and companies who have the potential to make an enormous difference in our world.
What is the most ‘future food’ dish or ingredient you have eaten this month?
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
Did I mention the plant-based shrimp salad from Bayou Best Foods?
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
I believe founders, scientists and engineers have the ability to solve many of our greatest challenges and we need to do everything we can to help them to achieve their visions. Time is pressing.
London-based Meatly’s cultivated chicken has debuted at Pets At Home in the UK, as part of a hybrid dog treat made by vegan pet food startup The Pack.
British pet owners can now buy cultivated chicken for their furry friends, in what is a global first for the alternative protein industry.
Starting February 7, leading pet retailer Pets at Home’s Brentford store will stock dog treats made from a blend of Meatly’s cultivated chicken and plant-based ingredients from The Pack.
Called Chick Bites, the oven-baked treats come in 50g pouches and cost £3.49, and the limited run means around 750 units will be available initially.
The launch has been eagerly anticipated ever since Meatly received approval from UK regulators to sell its cultivated meat for pets last July. The startup had revealed last year that it would enter the market through Pets at Home – one of Meatly’s largest investors – while vegan pet food maker The Pack had hinted at a move into cultivated meat months earlier.
Chick Bites ‘a giant leap forward’
Courtesy: Meatly/Pets at Home
Meatly’s innovation is derived from a single sample of chicken cells, which – combined with its technology – can produce enough meat “to feed pets forever”, according to the food tech startup. The cells are fed on a mix of nutrients that facilitate their growth, and nurtured in a container that controls temperature and acidity.
The resulting cultivated chicken breast contains all essential amino acids, critical fatty acids, vitamins and minerals needed for pet health, while being more sustainable and just as palatable.
Feeding trials carried out by the company have shown that half of the dogs who ate its meat continued to lick the bowl after finishing it, and three-quarters of pet owners reported higher enjoyment than their dogs’ baseline diet.
“Just two years ago, this felt like a moonshot. Today, we take off,” Meatly co-founder and CEO Owen Ensor said of the launch. “It’s a giant leap forward – toward a significant market for meat, which is healthy, sustainable and kind to our planet and other animals.”
Pets at Home, which is the UK’s largest pet retailer with over 450 stores, said its investment in Meatly demonstrates its commitment to the planet. “We’re always looking to the future of pet care, and to make sure we’re developing and providing the products that matter to our customers,” said COO Anja Madsen Madsen.
Meeting the demand for sustainable pet food
Courtesy: Meatly/Pets at Home
“This innovation has the potential to significantly reduce the environmental impact of pet food and will be a game-changer for the industry,” Madsen added.
Meatly – which has signed up to the newly released C-Label certification – has previously cited research suggesting that pets account for 22% of the UK’s meat consumption, which is more than what British children eat every year. Meanwhile, labradors – the most popular pet dogs in the country – consume 70 million kg of meat annually, nearly 60% more than their owners.
Cultivated chicken presents consumers with a more planet-friendly option to feed their four-legged friends. Global polling has shown that 51% of consumers have switched brands or products due to environmental worries – a number that rises to 56% for millennials and 58% for Gen Zers.
When it comes to pet food, 58% of consumers across age groups switch items or companies out of sustainability concerns, and 54% are happy to pay a premium on eco-friendly products for their pets. This sentiment has deepened over the last few years, with over a third (36%) of consumers saying they were more likely to pay more for sustainable pet food in 2024 than three years prior.
Meatly plans fundraise to scale up production
The Pack CEO Damien Clarkson, Pets at Home COO Anja Madsen, and Meatly CEO Owne Ensor | Courtesy: Meatly/Pets at Home
Meatly indicates that its launch with The Pack and Pets at Home is just a start. “We’ll scale our production and make products more widely available to consumers,” said Ensor.
The company recently secured an undisclosed sum of funding to add to the £3.6M it had already raised to date, and now plans to attract more investment to help scale up production. “Despite only raising 1% of total European cultivated meat investment, we are the first company to sell cultivated meat in both the UK and EU,” noted the CEO. “We’re proving the potential of cultivated meat, and that there is an efficient and cost-effective route to market.”
Meatly is planning further small releases before expanding production to make the chicken more broadly available in the next three to five years, and has further collaborations planned with both Pets at Home and The Pack.
“Cultivated meat offers a tasty, low-carbon, and healthy protein source, which has the potential to eliminate farmed animals from the pet food industry,” said The Pack co-founder and CEO Damien Clarkson, who called the release of the Chick Bites a “watershed moment”.
Meatly has previously partnered with Omni to market its cultivated chicken for cats, before it pivoted to the dog food focus. “I’ve fed it to my cats several times and they love it,” Ensor told Green Queen in July. The company is now looking to conduct feeding trials for felines as well.
The cultivated pet food sector has made headlines of late. Cult Food Science conducted feeding trials in the US in pursuit of regulatory approval for its Noochies! brand, Friends & Family Pet Food Co inked two deals to launch stateside and in Singapore, BioCraft Pet Nutrition slashed the cost of its growth media, and Bene Meat Technologies released a life-cycle assessment proving cultivated meat’s superiority to beef.
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Eleven Madison Park’s new vegan hot honey, Beyond Meat’s new steaks, and Kite Hill’s post-Veganuary dairy-free campaign.
New products and launches
Famed New York City restaurant Eleven Madison Park has released a private-label version of MeliBio‘s Mellodyplant-based honey. Launched under the Eleven Madison Home label, the hot honey is made from plant extracts and red habanero chillies, and is available on its website for $28 per 375g jar.
Courtesy: Beyond Meat
Beyond Meat has expanded its vegan steak lineup with chimichurri and Korean-style BBQ flavours, which are available at Sprouts Farmers Market.
In the UK, Singapore-headquartered HAPPIEE! is taking on McDonald’s with its plant-based alternatives, launching a new truck with HAPPIEE Meals featuring its vegan scampi right in front of the Golden Arches.
US alt-dairy producer Califia Farms has brought its Simple & Organic range of three-ingredient plant-based milks to the UK, starting with almond and oat milk in Waitrose.
Courtesy: Califia Farms
Now owned by Oddlygood, British plant milk brand Rude Health has introduced a chilled soy milk with added calcium. Available from February in Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Tesco, the four-ingredient offering contains 120mg of calcium (or 15% of the daily recommended intake) per 100ml.
Meanwhile, TiNDLE Foods has brought its vegan chicken to all Call a Pizza locations in Germany, where it will be part of menu items like crispy tenders and juicy burgers.
In the Netherlands, Unilever-owned meat-free brand The Vegetarian Butcher has revamped its beef mince, rolled out tender beef stripes, and relaunched its Cordon Blij and Little Willies SKUs at Albert Heijn.
Courtesy: The Vegetarian Butcher
And agrifood firm Jaouda has launched Nabatlé, Morocco’s first homegrown plant-based milk brand. It’s available in three varieties: oat, almond, and coconut.
Company and finance updates
Dutch retailer Ahold Delhaize has set a ‘protein split’ target to achieve 50% of its protein sales from plant-based foods across its European operations by 2030.
Also in the Netherlands, AI-led food waste scanner startup OneThird has raised €3.5M ($3.6M) in Series A funding and appointed Henrike Langbroek as CEO.
Courtesy: OneThird
Danish biotech firm Enduro Genetics has secured €12M ($12.4M) in a Series A round to expand its “synthetic addiction” technology to boost yields and lower costs of microbial bioproduction across industries like alternative proteins, green fuels, bioplastics, and specialty chemicals.
British cocoa-free chocolate company Win-Win has named Mark Golder as its new CEO. He has previously worked at Bosh!, Ripple Foods, and Rhythm 108.
European firm The New Originals Company has acquired Dutch tofu maker SoFine Foods and its production facility in Landgraaf.
Courtesy: SoFine Foods
Now that Veganuary is over, plant-based dairy brand Kite Hill has launched a Dairy-Free February campaign, after a survey found that 36% of Americans would consider trying more plant-based products if they had more information about their health benefits.
North Carolina startup Biomilq, which specialises in cell-based breast milk bioactives, has filed for bankruptcy amid a protracted IP dispute.
Speaking of legal battles, precision fermentation leader Perfect Day has ended its dispute with co-manufacturer Olon, with the case voluntarily dismissed and each entity paying its own legal fees. It’s now on the hunt for a new CEO, following the exit of interim chief Narayan TM.
Courtesy: Perfect Day
Positioning cultivated meat as a direct alternative rather than a substitute, German cultivated meat startup MyriaMeat has developed pig muscle tissues from pluripotent stem cells that exhibit spontaneous contractions.
Israel’s Vanilla Vida has completed the first scaled harvest of vanilla plants grown via an indoor farming system, which cuts the growing time in half and delivers higher yields than vanillin.
Finnish precision fermentation startup Onego Bio has completed a successful large-scale bakery run with its animal-free egg protein, producing cookies, muffins and cakes.
Courtesy: Halle Redfearn/LinkedIn
Swedish oat milk giant Oatly has announced a plan to readjust the ratio of its American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) – instead of one ADR representing one ordinary share, the change would see each ADR represent 20 ordinary shares.
In more news from Sweden, dairy giant Valio has teamed up with food tech startup Melt&Marble to use its precision-fermented fats in a variety of “next-generation plant-based products”.
Policy, research and awards
Environmental action charity WRAP and the International Food Waste Coalition have joined forces to launch WRAP EU in an effort to tackle food waste in Europe.
Courtesy: WRAP EU
As part of the WIDERA ERA Talents call, the EU has invested €3M in a project to develop new types of plant-based proteins from Turkish staple crops like chickpeas, lentils, and other legumes. The four-year APRISE project is led by the Middle East Technical University, and the investment falls under the Horizon Europe scheme.
In Canada, the government of Nova Scotia has invested over C$1M to expand the Verschuren Centre, a precision fermentation facility in Cape Breton. The capital will create skilled biomanufacturing jobs, help enhance automation, and increase its client capacity.
Replacing meat with plant-based and fungal alternatives can reduce total cholesterol by 6%, LDL cholesterol by 11%, and body weight by 1% in eight weeks or less, a new study has found.
Courtesy: Senara
German cultivated milk producerSenara has been shortlisted for the 2025 edition of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, after being nominated by the WWF.
US food tech startup PlantBaby has secured $4M to expand the reach of its plant-based Kiki Milk for kids and launch new products, including a grain-free option this year.
Following several years of continuous revenue growth, PlantBaby has closed a $4M seed funding round for its non-dairy milks, taking total investment in the US startup to $10M.
The financing was led by B2 Partners at a post-money valuation of $20M, with additional participation from Big Idea Ventures, Everywhere Ventures, X Factor Ventures, Women’s Equity Lab Silicon Valley, and Babylist. It is the second seed investment in PlantBaby – the company also raised $4M in 2022, which was a rollup of safe notes from investors.
Its flagship product is called Kiki Milk, a range of plant-based milks for toddlers and children aged one and above. They’re available at Sprouts, Wegmans, Amazon, Thrive, and Erewhon, and have driven the firm’s financial growth since launching in 2021.
“In 2024, we reached $4.8M in revenue, which we are incredibly proud of,” co-founders Alex and Lauren Abelin tell Green Queen.
“With this funding, we’re expanding Kiki Milk’s retail distribution (we are launching nationwide into a major retailer this month), accelerating innovation, and growing our team – all to bring better, healthier options to more households,” they add.
The new capital will also spur its R&D efforts to develop new plant-based dairy and supplement products geared towards kids.
Catering to parents seeking whole-food nutrition
Courtesy: PlantBaby
PlantBaby’s current lineup includes four flavours of Kiki Milk: Original, Unsweetened, Chocolate, and Mac Nut. The former three have a base of oats, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds and coconuts, while the latter has a base of macadamia, cashews and brazil nuts. The milks contain 4-5g of protein per serving, plus calcium, magnesium, selenium and iron.
They’re free from seed oils, gums, preservatives, and glyphosate residue, and contain a range of whole-food ingredients like amla, blueberries, spinach, seaweed, and bananas, depending on the variant.
This plays into consumer demand for clean-label options amid heightened health concerns – four in five Americans say clean ingredient lists are important purchase motivators, and milk alternatives were among the products in focus among consumers most knowledgeable about the topic in 2024.
“Plant-based milk is becoming increasingly important to kids’ nutrition as more families seek alternatives that align with health concerns, ingredient transparency, and allergies,” the Abelins explain.
“Parents today are more mindful than ever about the quality of ingredients they’re feeding their kids. They want real, whole-food nutrition – not empty fillers or hidden additives.”
PlantBaby exploring grain-free milk, supplements, and spreadable butters
Courtesy: PlantBaby
The duo is now looking to expand their offering. “We’ve explored a lot of different plant-based foods when it comes to product development. There are so many things that we get excited about, but we keep coming back to plant-based milk, which is at the core of what we do,” they note.
“We’re exploring a grain-free option of Kiki Milk that would have protein and fat from nuts, and no oats or rice included. We see this as a need for many people who have grain sensitivities or those who are conscious of carbohydrates,” the founders add. This is slated for 2025, as is another single-serve option to add to the existing original and chocolate 8oz packs.
“We’re also looking ahead to 2026 and exploring opportunities to launch shakes or smoothies geared toward children who are active and in search of a drink that can be taken with them on the go,” the Abelins reveal.
“In addition, we’re exploring different supplement options that could be mixed with milk to give further benefits for children and adults, whether that’s immunity focus, vitamin/mineral premix, or even antioxidants.”
PlantBaby had previously also launched a line of Kiki Butters, which combined a base of oats, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds and coconut in a format akin to nut butters. “We miss our butters and have looked at potentially bringing those back for a limited time, as we know some of our die-hard consumers miss them as well,” the founders suggest.
Most conventional plant milks ‘fall short’
Courtesy: PlantBaby
Non-dairy milk is the largest category in the US plant-based market, racking up $2.9B in sales. Nearly half (44%) of households have bought these products – and homes with children are more likely to spend on dairy-free milk.
The Abelins’ household is one such example. They launched PlantBaby after their son’s birth, frustrated with what they describe as a lack of clean-label and dairy-free infant formulas. “We want to be accommodating to all families looking for great whole-food, plant-powered nutrition,” they say.
Food allergies affect one in 13 children in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – that’s roughly six million kids. “Dairy and soy are two of the most common allergens, yet truly clean, organic plant-based milk options remain limited, especially for kids,” Alex and Lauren argue.
“While plant-based milk has the potential to be a safe and nutritious alternative, most conventional options fall short – often because it’s cheaper for brands to use less real food.
“Instead of nutrient-dense ingredients, many rely on a single whole food – like almonds or oats – plus water, followed by a mix of unnecessary fillers and additives, including oils and gums to artificially enhance texture and frothing capabilities, natural flavours to mask the lack of real, whole-food flavour, and synthetic vitamins to compensate for missing nutrients instead of sourcing them from real food.”
With Kiki Milk, they’re hoping to flip the script. And investors are impressed. “PlantBaby represents the kind of forward-thinking, mission-driven company we look to support at B2 Partners,” said Matt Behrens, founder of B2 Partners. “Their commitment to creating clean, plant-based nutrition solutions aligns perfectly with our belief in backing businesses that prioritize both health and sustainability.”
The financing will allow PlantBaby to further innovate in a space that has bred competition from a growing crop of companies, including Ripple Foods, Califia Farms, Nestlé’s Orgain, and Kiddiwinks.
US food tech startup PlantBaby has secured $4M to expand the reach of its plant-based Kiki Milk for kids and launch new products, including a grain-free option this year.
Following several years of continuous revenue growth, PlantBaby has closed a $4M seed funding round for its non-dairy milks, taking total investment in the US startup to $10M.
The financing was led by B2 Partners at a post-money valuation of $20M, with additional participation from Big Idea Ventures, Everywhere Ventures, X Factor Ventures, Women’s Equity Lab Silicon Valley, and Babylist. It is the second seed investment in PlantBaby – the company also raised $4M in 2022, which was a rollup of safe notes from investors.
Its flagship product is called Kiki Milk, a range of plant-based milks for toddlers and children aged one and above. They’re available at Sprouts, Wegmans, Amazon, Thrive, and Erewhon, and have driven the firm’s financial growth since launching in 2021.
“In 2024, we reached $4.8M in revenue, which we are incredibly proud of,” co-founders Alex and Lauren Abelin tell Green Queen.
“With this funding, we’re expanding Kiki Milk’s retail distribution (we are launching nationwide into a major retailer this month), accelerating innovation, and growing our team – all to bring better, healthier options to more households,” they add.
The new capital will also spur its R&D efforts to develop new plant-based dairy and supplement products geared towards kids.
Catering to parents seeking whole-food nutrition
Courtesy: PlantBaby
PlantBaby’s current lineup includes four flavours of Kiki Milk: Original, Unsweetened, Chocolate, and Mac Nut. The former three have a base of oats, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds and coconuts, while the latter has a base of macadamia, cashews and brazil nuts. The milks contain 4-5g of protein per serving, plus calcium, magnesium, selenium and iron.
They’re free from seed oils, gums, preservatives, and glyphosate residue, and contain a range of whole-food ingredients like amla, blueberries, spinach, seaweed, and bananas, depending on the variant.
This plays into consumer demand for clean-label options amid heightened health concerns – four in five Americans say clean ingredient lists are important purchase motivators, and milk alternatives were among the products in focus among consumers most knowledgeable about the topic in 2024.
“Plant-based milk is becoming increasingly important to kids’ nutrition as more families seek alternatives that align with health concerns, ingredient transparency, and allergies,” the Abelins explain.
“Parents today are more mindful than ever about the quality of ingredients they’re feeding their kids. They want real, whole-food nutrition – not empty fillers or hidden additives.”
PlantBaby exploring grain-free milk, supplements, and spreadable butters
Courtesy: PlantBaby
The duo is now looking to expand their offering. “We’ve explored a lot of different plant-based foods when it comes to product development. There are so many things that we get excited about, but we keep coming back to plant-based milk, which is at the core of what we do,” they note.
“We’re exploring a grain-free option of Kiki Milk that would have protein and fat from nuts, and no oats or rice included. We see this as a need for many people who have grain sensitivities or those who are conscious of carbohydrates,” the founders add. This is slated for 2025, as is another single-serve option to add to the existing original and chocolate 8oz packs.
“We’re also looking ahead to 2026 and exploring opportunities to launch shakes or smoothies geared toward children who are active and in search of a drink that can be taken with them on the go,” the Abelins reveal.
“In addition, we’re exploring different supplement options that could be mixed with milk to give further benefits for children and adults, whether that’s immunity focus, vitamin/mineral premix, or even antioxidants.”
PlantBaby had previously also launched a line of Kiki Butters, which combined a base of oats, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds and coconut in a format akin to nut butters. “We miss our butters and have looked at potentially bringing those back for a limited time, as we know some of our die-hard consumers miss them as well,” the founders suggest.
Most conventional plant milks ‘fall short’
Courtesy: PlantBaby
Non-dairy milk is the largest category in the US plant-based market, racking up $2.9B in sales. Nearly half (44%) of households have bought these products – and homes with children are more likely to spend on dairy-free milk.
The Abelins’ household is one such example. They launched PlantBaby after their son’s birth, frustrated with what they describe as a lack of clean-label and dairy-free infant formulas. “We want to be accommodating to all families looking for great whole-food, plant-powered nutrition,” they say.
Food allergies affect one in 13 children in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – that’s roughly six million kids. “Dairy and soy are two of the most common allergens, yet truly clean, organic plant-based milk options remain limited, especially for kids,” Alex and Lauren argue.
“While plant-based milk has the potential to be a safe and nutritious alternative, most conventional options fall short – often because it’s cheaper for brands to use less real food.
“Instead of nutrient-dense ingredients, many rely on a single whole food – like almonds or oats – plus water, followed by a mix of unnecessary fillers and additives, including oils and gums to artificially enhance texture and frothing capabilities, natural flavours to mask the lack of real, whole-food flavour, and synthetic vitamins to compensate for missing nutrients instead of sourcing them from real food.”
With Kiki Milk, they’re hoping to flip the script. And investors are impressed. “PlantBaby represents the kind of forward-thinking, mission-driven company we look to support at B2 Partners,” said Matt Behrens, founder of B2 Partners. “Their commitment to creating clean, plant-based nutrition solutions aligns perfectly with our belief in backing businesses that prioritize both health and sustainability.”
The financing will allow PlantBaby to further innovate in a space that has bred competition from a growing crop of companies, including Ripple Foods, Califia Farms, Nestlé’s Orgain, and Kiddiwinks.
The Central Bottling Company, Israel’s largest beverage manufacturer, has teamed up with microalgae specialist Brevel to develop functional drinks and dairy alternatives.
Israeli beverage giant The Central Bottling Company (CBC) – the national distributor for Coca-Cola – is betting on microalgae for its next phase of products, establishing a 10-year partnership with food tech startup Brevel.
The deal will give CBC access to Brevel’s microalgae protein, oils and antioxidants, which it will use to develop dairy alternatives and functional drinks.
It’s an extension of CBC’s relationship as an investor in Brevel, having participated in the fermentation startup’s $18.5M seed funding round in 2023.
“As we pursue our strategy of continuous innovation to deliver superior products that respond to evolving trends and customer demands, partnering with Brevel is a natural fit,” said Lihi Rothschild, CBC’s head of innovation.
How Brevel makes its microalgae protein
Courtesy: Brevel
Brevel was founded in 2017 by CEO Yonatan Golan and his brothers Ido (CTO) and Matan (COO), and employs a technology that unites light with sugar fermentation into a single process, a feat Golan has described as akin to “putting an electric motor into a Tesla car”.
The cultivation process happens in indoor bioreactors and allows Brevel to produce large quantities of microalgae, without any need for genetic modification. Microalgae’s natural makeup of nutrients – including protein, lipids, fibre, and pigments – depends on photosynthesis for their development and growth, which is why Brevel opted to separate its fermentation process from traditionally dark environments.
It uses a strain of microalgae from the Chlorella family, a widely commercialised and highly important source of single-cell protein. This gives the company a regulatory advantage – it’s been classed as safe for human consumption by the FDA’s GRAS system in the US and has been part of the EU’s safe list of novel foods for decades.
To extract the protein, it has developed a downstream minimal process that does not involve any solvents or chemicals and retains the quality, functionality, and nutritional value of the microalgae. The resulting ingredient is a white powder with 60-70% protein concentration and a full amino acid profile.
This can be integrated into a range of meat and dairy analogues, thanks to functional attributes that allow it to replicate the taste, texture and behaviour of animal proteins. But it’s targeting the alt-dairy market first because the doesn’t yet have a plant protein solution with zero flavour or colour compromises, as Golan told Green Queen last summer.
Commercial factory and joint ventures to fuel global expansion
Courtesy: Brevel
CBC is Israel’s national franchiser of global brands like Coca-Cola, Carlsberg, and Muller, as well as major domestic juice and dairy producers. It also has a strong presence in Eastern Europe and Africa.
“[Brevel’s] groundbreaking approach gives us the opportunity to explore new categories and solutions and opens new doors in terms of the range of exciting consumer applications we can offer,” said Rothschild.
“We feel extremely fortunate to collaborate with, and enjoy the support of, such a major force in the beverage arena not only in Israel, but also internationally,” said Brevel CEO Golan. “This co-venture will be instrumental in keeping Brevel at the forefront of developments in food-tech and climate tech.”
CBC is one of several companies Brevel has partnered with, having strategised several joint-venture partnerships in the US, Europe, and Asia, which would result in the construction of large facilities with fermentation capacities of 900,000 litres and beyond, and the ability to produce thousands and tens of thousands of tonnes of microalgae ingredients annually.
The startup opened its own 27,000 sq ft commercial factory in southern Israel last year, which can produce hundreds of tonnes of microalgae protein powder every year. But the microalgae biomass won’t just be used to extract protein, but also co-products like polar lipids, fibre, pigments, and more.
“Our first commercial pilot plant is already primed to meet the first wave of our joint business development goals, delivering great tasting, better-for-you, sustainably sourced products to the growing population of health-conscious consumers,” Golan added.
The Israeli startup is among a host of firms leveraging the potential of microalgae for planet-friendly foods, which is set to be a $25.4B market by 2033. These include Checkerspot, Algae Cooking Club, Mewery, Quazy Foods, Ocean Kiss, Algama, Sophie’s Bionutrients, and Triton Algae, among others.
US biotech manufacturing company Liberation Labs has raised another $50.5M as part of its funding efforts to build a large-scale facility for precision-fermented foods.
In its newest fundraising round, Indiana-based Liberation Labs has secured $50.5M from investors to build precision fermentation factories in Richmond and Saudi Arabia.
The focus on the latter is spotlit with the involvement of the state-owned NEOM Investment Fund, which provided part of the $31.5M the startup raised in new capital, alongside Galloway Limited, Meach Cove Capital, and existing investors Agronomics, New Agrarian Capital and Siddhi Capital. The remaining $19M comes from insider bridge notes raised last year.
The funds are part of the $75M convertible note round Liberation Labs said it was hoping to raise, which it announced in October 2023 and is geared towards the construction of its first commercial-scale biomanufacturing plant in Richmond, Indiana.
The company has now raised a total of $71.5M in private capital since being founded in 2022, in addition to the $55M it has received in non-dilutive funding commitments – this includes $30M in equipment financing and a $25M loan guarantee from the US Department of Agriculture.
Liberation Labs’s global master plan
Liberation Labs is looking to commercialise precision-fermented ingredients via a global network of dedicated large-scale production plants, which would feature a fit-for-purpose design to enable cost-effective solutions.
Precision fermentation combines the process of traditional fermentation with the latest advances in biotechnology to efficiently produce a compound of interest, such as a protein, flavour molecule, vitamin, pigment, or fat.
The firm has suggested that it can support a range of clients, from well-funded precision fermentation startups to established consumer goods companies. Through the design, construction and operation of its purpose-built biomanufacturing platform, Bio3, it’s also hoping to address two of the biggest challenges facing the sector: capacity and costs.
Its Richmond factory is expected to cost around $115M and will have a fermentation capacity of 600,000 litres, alongside a fully dedicated downstream process. This will allow it to produce between 600 and 1,200 tonnes of protein annually while bringing in $40M in yearly revenue.
Liberation Labs is in the late stages of constructing the facility, which is expected to produce “building block ingredients” for food, chemicals and other industrial products. “We look forward to completing construction of our facility, starting up operations in 2025 and filling a crucial supply gap for biomanufacturing in the US market,” said founder and CEO Mark Warner.
The company’s master plan entails building factories in six geographies, starting with a 600,000-litre launch facility (like the one in Richmond), and eventually opening a plant with a capacity of four million litres in each market. The locations include the US, Europe, the Middle East, Brazil, East Asia, and Australia.
“Liberation Labs is developing state-of-the-art fermentation infrastructure to transform the world’s existing fermentation capacity,” said Agronomics director Jim Mellon. “This will help build a future where precision fermentation proteins reach the industrial scale needed to meet growing demand in the US and across the world.”
Courtesy: Liberation Labs
Precision fermentation attracting policymakers and investors
Armed with fresh capital, Liberation Labs has become one of the most well-funded companies targeting the precision-fermented food space, which has seen an uptick in interest from investors, despite an overall decline in funding for alternative proteins.
Fellow US firm Helaina, for example, closed a $45M round to commercialise its recombinant breast milk equivalent protein in September, two weeks after Germany’s Formo raised $61M for its animal-free cheeses, including those made from precision-fermented casein. Now, Liberation Labs has joined these pioneering startups, albeit 15 months after first announcing its fundraising plans.
Precision fermentation has also been on the radar of the US government, with five specialist startups winning grants under the final round of the Department of Defense’s Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Program, a scheme to bolster America’s fermentation capacity and defence material supply across food, fuel, fitness, firepower and fabrication.
This included Liberation Labs, which obtained a $1.4M award to conduct a detailed feasibility study for the addition of a flexible-use biomanufacturing facility (with the aforementioned four-million-litre capacity) adjacent to its flagship plant in Richmond. This, the DoD argued, would address the need for bioproducts in food, operational fitness, and fabrication.
Courtesy: Liberation Labs
Once the prototype assessment and planning phase is completed, Liberation Labs could be selected to proceed to the build stage, which would provide up to $100M to construct new facilities or expand existing ones.
The company will use the latest private capital injection to also design and develop plans for a commercial-scale precision fermentation facility in Saudi Arabia. The Gulf state – which has the world’s biggest net-zero-busting plans for oil and gas expansion – has been keen to ramp up its support for future-friendly foods.
Saudi Arabia has previously partnered with domestic food companies to develop alternative proteins with locally sourced plants, while Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud is an investor in firms like Beyond Meat, BlueNalu, and precision fermentation player TurtleTree.
NEOM, Saudi Arabia’s upcoming future-facing city, itself owns Topian, a food company looking to safeguard planetary health and food security through green agriculture, personalised nutrition, and novel food innovations.
Self-heating vegan Hanwoo beef, plant-based octopus legs and Beyond Lamb were among the winners of the 2025 ProVeg Food Innovation Challenge.
Student-led teams across Asia-Pacific have won big at the fifth edition of the ProVeg Food Innovation Challenge, working in conjunction with some of the world’s leading future food companies.
This year’s winners have explored uncharted territory, creating innovations like plant-based lamb for Beyond Meat and Hanwoo beef for CJ Foods using local and innovative ingredients such as mung beans, konjac, rice bran, microalgae, duckweed, and wolffia.
The contest involved Unilever, Mars, Beyond Meat, CJ Foods, Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF), DaChan, Monde Nissin, and Thai Union, which presented the innovation topics students needed to address with their products. The first prize winner received $3,000, with those coming in second earning $1,500 and third getting $1,000.
Already the world’s largest market, Asia is set to be home to half the world’s population by 2050. The region is a culinary trendsetter, but as part of the Global South, it is much more adversely impacted by the climate crisis.
The continent will likely account for half of the global increase in beef and poultry consumption by the end of the decade, and 70% of global fish intake. To keep up with this demand, farms will need to increase their output by 60-70% versus a decade ago, a task growing harder by the day, thanks to the expansive land use and high emission of animal protein production.
Experts have identified alternative proteins as crucial to decarbonising Asia’s agrifood sector, free up land, and drastically reduce water and resource consumption. They will also be key in addressing hunger and food insecurity in Asia-Pacific, which already impacts 800 million (or 10% of the global population) of its inhabitants.
In Southeast Asia, research suggests a major knowledge gap around plant-based meat, with nearly half (44%) having never heard of it. But there are clear opportunities for the sector – particularly if these products were more affordable, nutritious and tasty than conventional meat. In China alone, 98% of poll respondents say they’re willing to add more vegan food to their diets once told their health benefits.
Asia-Pacific is also home to over 200 alternative protein startups, but with younger consumers leading the demand for low-carbon foods, Gen Z and Alpha are poised to disrupt the sector with novel offerings. Pairing them with proven industry successes – as the ProVeg competition had – is a marker of the collaboration needed to propel the future food economy.
Hanbap
Position: First Prize Partner company: CJ Foods Universities: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia), Wageningen University & Research (Netherlands)
Courtesy: ProVeg International
Hanbap answered CJ Foods’s call to create premium vegan meals inspired by Koran classics, which satisfied local tastes and the demand for healthier food.
This team of students developed a self-heating lunch box featuring vegan Hanwoo beef – an animal-free version of one of the rarest and more expensive beef cuts (due to its high marbling) – rice, and local vegetables, with a wooden spoon.
The beef was created with texturised pea proteins, oleogels and red microalgae, and made use of precision fermentation technology.
Burstatic
Position: Second Prize Partner company: Thai Union University: Institut Pertanian Bogor University (Indonesia)
Courtesy: ProVeg International
Based in Bogor, Indonesia, the four-strong team of Burstatic created Bomb Bites!, an innovative ready-to-eat plant-based product.
This was in response to Thai Union’s call for convenience meals targeted to young urban Asian consumers, using its vegan seafood products – like tuna, shrimp or crab – as the base ingredients.
VegVenture
Position: Second Prize Partner company: CPF Universities: AgroParisTech (France), University of Newcastle Australia, University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia)
Courtesy: ProVeg International
A modern twist on a Chinese classic, VegVenture’s team created a plant-based Peking Duck Wrap Kit with a durian filling, dubbing it Bao Bei Duck.
Working with CPF’s brief to develop a range of healthy and nutritious vegan ready meals to be sold in convenience stores, these students blended crispy plant-based duck with “bold flavours” in a format they said is convenient, sustainable, and ideal for busy, health-conscious consumers.
VeggieAlgaeSeafusion Sauce
Position: Second Prize Partner company: Unilever Universities: Ocean University of China, New York University (US)
Courtesy: ProVeg International
One of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, Unilever is also the parent organisation of meat-free leader The Vegetarian Butcher (for now). It tasked students to create a new generation of products for the brand.
The final winner of the $1,500 prize, the team at VeggieAlgaeSeafusion Sauce used microalgae as a raw material. It added savoury peptides extracted from a Chinese seaweed called Porphyra, alongside a seafood flavour to develop a rice dressing.
They also used bursting purls to lock in the flavour substances and provide a unique sensory experience to diners.
Baa-yonders
Position: Third Prize Partner company: Beyond Meat University: National University of Singapore
Courtesy: ProVeg International
Working with a brief from one of the world’s largest plant-based meat makers, students at the National University of Singapore created a new product for Beyond Meat.
This is based on the concept of ‘light eating’, and tailored to meet the taste preferences and use cases unique to Asian consumers.
Baa-yonders’s answer was a marbled plant-based lamb, created with duckweed and Asian-inspired ingredients. It is aimed at flexitarians and Gen Zers, bridging the gap in vegan lamb options while addressing its high carbon footprint.
Natugi
Position: Third Prize Partner company: Thai Union University: Ho Chi Minh University of Technology (Vietnam), University of Hohenheim (Germany)
Courtesy: ProVeg International
Another team following Thai Union’s innovation topic was Natugi, developing a convenient, vegan sticky rice meal with the company’s fish-free tuna and shrimp products.
The team said that many urban Vietnamese students skip breakfast due to time and budget constraints, so its offering could help provide balanced nutrition and a sustainable food option for busy youngsters.
Teamo
Position: Third Prize Partner company: Mars University: Bogor Agricultural University (Indonesia)
Courtesy: ProVeg International
Confectionery giant Mars had issued a call for a new vegan snack product lineup that leveraged abundant plant resources and crops well-known to Asian consumers, which would be launched under an existing brand or a new label that advances its chocolate, snack and ice cream portfolio.
The all-Indonesian group of Teamo came up with a winning solution, creating a chocolate made from the whole cacao fruit, filled with okara (the pulp from tofu production), tempeh, and chocolate paste.
With a proposed price of $2 per 50g bar, it’s aimed at health-conscious women, featuring 30% of the daily recommended value of iron and fibre in Indonesia, and 35% of protein.
World Peacemakers
Position: Third Prize Partner company: CPF University: Jiangnan University (China)
Courtesy: ProVeg International
The final third-prize winner of this year’s challenge was a team called World Peacemakers, which worked on CPF’s call for healthy, convenient vegan ready-meals.
The Chinese team leveraged microalgae protein, plant polysaccharides and 3D-printing technology to create plant-based, high-protein octopus legs, providing what they called a “nutritious, tasty and sustainable alternative to seafood”.
Peanuts, potatoes and pistachios are just some of the ingredients taking on the established order of plant-based milk, which remains the most popular vegan category globally.
Nearly half of Americans are drinking plant-based milk now, and most of them aren’t vegan. They like these products first and foremost for their taste, followed by their health benefits, not to mention for intolerance/allergy reasons. In Europe too, more than a third of consumers in several countries are now consuming milk alternatives.
The category is dominated by four base ingredients: almond, oat, soy, and coconut. But with alt-milk the most profitable plant-based product category across the world, challenger brands are aiming to take a slice of the non-dairy pie with newer milk bases to upend the dominance of the Big Four.
Think watermelon seeds, pistachios, buckwheat, and even potatoes. These plant-based milk products aim to keep the sector fresh and give the non-dairy-curious something new – whether that’s for taste purposes, better nutrition, or higher sustainability credentials.
Plant-based milk in numbers
Courtesy: Statista
Asia leads the worldwide market for milk alternatives, recording $13.4B in revenue in 2023. China alone accounts for $9.5B of this, making it the largest plant-based milk market.
The global market for these products was valued by one research firm at $19.4B in 2023, with a CAGR of 7.6% until 2030, reaching $32.4B.
In the US, milk alternatives account for 36% of the plant-based market, racking up $2.9B in sales, and 80% of all non-dairy milk sold is either almond or oat milk.
Nearly half (44%) of US households bought plant-based milk in 2023, and eight in 10 came back for more. That being said, one in five Americans who purchase vegan alternatives also put cow’s milk in their shopping carts.
Courtesy: GFI
Also in the US, 15% of all milk sales in the country are plant-based, a figure that rises to 41% in the natural channel.
Meanwhile, foodservice operators are spending much more on plant-based milk than dairy – while they bought 8% more cow’s milk in 2023 (spending 7% more), their purchases of vegan alternatives grew by 18% in volume, representing a 21% higher spend.
Across the Atlantic, milk alternatives make up 41% of all vegan sales in Europe’s biggest markets, reaching €2.2B in 2023.
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Vegan alternatives take the highest market share of the milk market in Germany (10%), followed by Spain (8.6%) and the Netherlands (8%).
In Germany, Spain, and the UK, more than 35% of households buy plant-based milk.
A third of Americans still haven’t found a non-dairy product that meets all of their needs.
While non-traditional milk alternatives only make up 5.5% of the alt-milk market in the US – their sales value grew by 6% in 2023 to reach $160M.
Courtesy: PBFA
The problem: Why brands are looking beyond the established plant-based milks
We need to quit dairy: Simply put, dairy is bad for the planet. Per litre, cow’s milk uses 11 times more land than oat milk and nearly 70% more water than almond milk (often criticised for being too water-intensive), while producing around thrice as many emissions as rice and soy milk.
Current plant-based milks face multiple issues: As mentioned, almond milk suffers from a bad rep for needing too much water to grow, while oat milk has been through its own identity crisis with questions around seed oils and glucose levels. For many, coconut milk has too much fat, and rice milk too much sugar (it’s also the most carbon-intensive plant-based milk). Others, meanwhile, find soy milk’s flavour too beany or off-putting.
Courtesy: Our World in Data
Novelty helps: New innovations and food trends tend to go viral on social media, and brands that capitalise on these can win big. Offering alternatives to common plant-based milk options with attractive packaging and key functional benefits goes a long way.
People are often unsatisfied with the texture and performance: While baristas may love oat milk, others don’t quite match up in terms of foamability. Moreover, barista milks don’t always taste great on their own. The opposite is true too – good-tasting milks often have a texture problem. There are very few one-size-fits-all products in the current market.
Consumers want elevated nutrition: With health becoming more and more important to consumers, some brands could lose out. The demand for seed-oil-free milks is increasing, while being free from allergens like soy, nuts and gluten (from oats) is a major plus. And outside soy, protein is a key issue for the other common milk alternatives.
Courtesy: Minor Figures
There are some sustainability question marks: Dairy milk is, of course, as bad as it gets from a climate point of view. Meanwhile, almond and rice milk both use up a significant amount of water, and rice alone produces 2% of global carbon emissions, and 8% of the anthropogenic methane output. Soy, meanwhile, is often associated with Amazon deforestation (although most of the crop goes to animal feed).
Users care about food waste: What do companies like Oatly, Alpro and Califia Farms do with the leftover pulp left from their production? The answers are varied, based on where a facility is located. What’s clear is there’s a major opportunity for brands to valorise the sidestream and upcycle ingredients destined to go to waste.
What are these emerging plant-based milks trying to solve?
As they look to gain ground and consumer trust, the new-ingredient plant-based milks are playing to a host of key trends.
Targeted nutrition
Courtesy: Lattini
Some consumers aren’t satisfied with the lack of protein in traditional almond or oat milks. And while soy milk is a great source, many are put off by its flavour. Enter brands like Sproud and Ripple Foods, which are positioning pea milk as the ideal alternative. They have seen considerable success over the last couple of years, attracting investors and celebrities alike.
Brands like Bam and Niúke Foods, meanwhile, aren’t just focusing on the amount of protein, but also its composition. The former’s buckwheat milk contains all nine essential amino acids, as does the latter’s superfood quinoa milk, making both of them sources of complete protein.
Whole Moon blends soybeans with oats, almonds, as well as pistachios to provide complete protein. It also focuses on fibre, a macronutrient that has become prominent in people’s nutrition goals – 95% of Americans don’t consume enough fibre, despite its benefits for the gut. Another fibre-centric blend comes from Potina in the UK, which mixes whose banana pulp oat milks are geared towards children.
Others are providing allergen-free alternatives, which would speak to more than 225 million people globally. Lattini is catering to this population with its sunflower milk, which is free from the top nine allergens (which include soy, nuts, and gluten). Sweden’s Veg of Lund, meanwhile, makes potato milks under its Dug brand that are free from the top 14 allergens.
Elevated sustainability
Courtesy: Táche
Companies are looking to offer superior environmental attributes to existing plant-based milks, which can be riddled with issues like excessive water use (like almond and rice milks) and deforestation (coconut and soy milks), as well as climate-change-induced supply shortages.
Bam and Lattini, for example, is touting buckwheat’s credentials as a regenerative crop, while Sproud has been found to be the most sustainable plant milk out there by CarbonCloud. Dug’s potato milk, meanwhile, is 56 times more water-efficient than almonds, and uses only half as much land as oats. Hemp milk is also among the greenest, a segment led by brands like Good Hemp, Soon, and Pacific Foods.
Sustainability is top of mind for the red-hot pistachio milks on the market. The US – where this segment is populated by Táche, Three Trees, and Elmhurst 1925 – has become the largest exporter of the premium nut in the last decade, thanks to California (where it’s the sixth most valuable commodity, directly behind almonds).
The growth is partly ascribed to the fact that pistachios grow on drought-resistant trees that require lower-quality water than almonds. And since they take around seven years to start producing decent harvests, California may not have even reached its full growing capacity from the trees planted in the last decade.
Courtesy: Forca Foods/Instagram
Meanwhile, Força Foods is explicitly taking on the mainstream categories with Milkish, its watermelon seed milk, which uses 99% less water than almond milk, 72% less than oats, and 53% less than soy. And it’s not just water waste that the product seeks to address – it’s putting a commonly wasted ingredient in watermelon seeds.
Austria’s Kern Tec is also making use of a food industry byproduct to transform the alt-milk landscape. Its apricot kernel milk is sold via its Wunderkern brand, and as part of offerings from dairy processor Bauer and Swiss retailer Coop.
Food waste accounts for 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and is recognised by Project Drawdown as the single most impactful thing people can do to fight the climate crisis and lower personal GHG emissions.
And with food waste in sharp focus in the US – 38% of all food produced in the country goes to waste, amounting to $473B – formats that use discarded ingredients and industry byproducts stand to win.
New taste experiences
Courtesy: PKN
For some of the novel plant milks, it’s all about bringing a different flavour profile to the table. Niúke is banking on consumers’ curiosities with its indulgent peanut milk range, with a cocoa-infused offering that is said to taste like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
The banana milk from Mooala Organic, meanwhile, is reminiscent of banana bread, according to the brand, helped by the addition of sunflower seeds and cinnamon.
And then there is the new crop of pecan milk brands, hoping to take the essence of one of America’s most beloved nuts to the liquid format. THIS PKN, Pecanamilk and Treehouse Naturals (in canned packaging no less) are spearheading this charge.
The emerging plant-based dairy category is vast and innovative – can it milk the market share of the established alternatives?
In our new interview series, we quiz future food investors about the solutions that excite them the most, their favourite climate-forward restaurant, and what they look for in successful founders.
Stephanie Dorsey is a Founding Partner at E Squared VC.
What future food technologies most excite you?
I’m really excited about how AI can improve agriculture and food systems, especially in agtech. One of the biggest problems in agtech right now is that different software systems don’t work well together. This creates a lot of headaches—like having to enter the same data multiple times or not being able to share information easily. But new AI capabilities like LLMs, could help fix this. These tools can understand messy, unstructured data like photos or handwritten notes and make it easier to build connections between different systems.
Imagine if farmers or agribusinesses could just type a question into a chat box and get the answers they need, instead of clicking through confusing menus that don’t quite work. LLMs could make software faster to build and easier to use, helping companies focus on creating new features instead of just fixing old problems. For farmers and ag professionals, this means smoother, more intuitive tools that save time and effort.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
SAAS solutions across the value chain, supply chain tech, and cybersecurity.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
From my perspective, the most significant achievement in food tech has been the rapid advancement and scaling of precision fermentation technology for creating animal protein alternatives. This technology has allowed companies to produce real milk proteins, egg proteins, and other animal-derived molecules without animals, leading to products that are virtually indistinguishable from their conventional counterparts. The breakthrough wasn’t just in the science, but in bringing production costs down dramatically from hundreds of dollars per kilogram to just a few dollars in many cases.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
If I could wave a magic wand to fix plant-based meat, I’d address the misinformation campaign orchestrated by the animal agriculture industry. But at the present moment, the plant-based industry isn’t just fighting for market share–they are fighting for the truth. For quite some time now, the animal agriculture lobby has been waging a strategic war of misleading nutrition claims and anti-competitive legal tactics designed to slow plant-based innovation.
The reality is that plant-based meats offer significant health and environmental advantages: lower saturated fat, zero cholesterol, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and dramatically lower water usage. These products aren’t just alternatives; they are solutions to some of our most critical global challenges.
I would use the wand to cut through the noise and let the products speak for themselves.
By clearing away baseless legal and marketing barriers, companies could redirect resources from defence to development, accelerating innovation, improving product quality, and offering consumers real choices that benefit both personal and planetary health.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
I’m looking for a true entrepreneur – a founder with a compelling vision, the mental strength to push boundaries, and the tenacity to see opportunities where others see roadblocks. I call it having a “healthy disregard for the impossible”. They imagine solutions to real problems, creating what the world needs but doesn’t yet have, and they stop at nothing to turn that vision into reality, no matter the obstacles. They possess the sheer force of will to persist, pivot, and push forward where others would give up.
This type of founder is self-aware, humble, and acts on facts rather than emotions. They have rigour in their reasoning. They have good decision-making hygiene that helps them reduce the noise and bias around the decisions they make. They’ve done the inner work to understand themselves and others, which enables them to read people and opportunities with precision. They understand their gaps and blind spots, and actively seek feedback and weigh options carefully. They deeply understand human nature, and therefore have the ability to inspire their team with purpose and focus, while also staying adaptable and laser-focused on what truly matters. This type of founder is obsessed with optimizing their time and energy and has the ability to cut off low-ROI distractions without hesitation.
The best founders are contrarians – they think differently, challenge assumptions, and question conventional wisdom. They don’t follow the herd. They take bold, calculated risks and are unafraid of being misunderstood or making unpopular choices. They don’t cling to conventional wisdom or traditions. Most importantly, they question their social conditioning, the truths that ordinary people cling to, and the hardwired biological defaults we’re all subject to.
‘The One That Got Away’: tell us about the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t.
It’s still too early to say – we invest at the early stages, and it usually takes eight to 10 years for companies to go public or reach their full potential. Ask me again in a few years, and I’ll let you know.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
Vori is emerging as a revolutionary force in the $1 trillion grocery industry, positioning itself as the vanguard of vertical AI in a massive, legacy sector. The company’s innovative VoriOS is an all-in-one, AI-powered operating system for supermarkets, combining a cloud-based point-of-sale system with a supplier-integrated back office suite. This platform is designed to level the playing field for independent grocers, empowering them to compete against retail giants in an increasingly challenging market.
Vori’s solution addresses critical issues such as inventory management, pricing optimisation, and supply chain efficiency, while also tackling broader industry challenges like food waste. With its cutting-edge technology and a world-class diverse team described as the “avengers of software, hardware, and fintech,” Vori is poised to transform the entire food supply chain. The company’s rapid growth and expansion into major US cities signal its potential to become a market-defining force in grocery tech.
What do people get wrong most about VC?
People don’t understand that our default is to say no. Venture capital involves saying no far more than yes – it’s just the math of the business. When a VC passes on your company, it’s not personal, even though it can feel that way at the moment. Our decisions are based on a mix of factors, from market fit to timing, and a “no” doesn’t mean your idea isn’t great or that you won’t succeed elsewhere. It just means it wasn’t the right fit for us at that time.
What is the most ‘future food’ dish or ingredient you have eaten this month?
For me, it’s been Prime Roots’ pepperoni! It doesn’t taste like a substitute at all – it’s just as good, if not better, than traditional pepperoni. Prime Roots uses this amazing ingredient called koji, which is basically a fungus that’s been used for centuries in Japanese cuisine to make things like sake, miso, and soy sauce. But Prime Roots has figured out how to use it to create these incredibly realistic deli meats and pâté. It’s a perfect showcase of how food innovation is rewriting the rules, turning something ancient like koji into the cornerstone of what could be the future of meat.
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
Breads on Oak in New Orleans—it’s truly in a league of its own. From their organic sourdough artisan bread to their premium plant-based desserts, every dish is thoughtfully crafted with the planet in mind and absolutely mind-blowing in taste. Their plant-based sausage biscuit (the “Biscuit Tower”) is, without a doubt, the best I’ve ever had—truly a perfect blend of comfort food and innovative culinary craft.
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
This isn’t just a job or career to me. I really love the art of investing. I am obsessed with food, health, animals, and nature. So, I feel incredibly lucky that I get to merge these personal interests with my professional life, and work on the most pressing challenges of our lifetime: the health of people and the planet.
While the Californian startup is cleared to sell its cultivated chicken fillet – containing 99% chicken cells – it stopped selling this at restaurants last year with the product is in relatively tight supply. The company says it doesn’t intend to bring this back to market either, prioritising its use for marketing and advocacy purposes.
What it is hoping to commercialise are its chicken shreds, which are produced differently and require separate authorisation from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company is hopeful that it can bring these to restaurants stateside by the end of 2025.
The shreds are made using suspension technology, instead of the tissue process used for the fillet. “Because the cells are grown in suspension, they don’t have anything to grip on. So after we harvest the cells, we are removing moisture – the suspension fluid – as much as we can,” says Melissa Musiker, head of communications at Upside Foods.
According to Musiker, this second innovation has been in the works for a long time and was the basis of Upside’s $400M Series C raise in 2022. The shreds will be used to make blended meat products – a combination of cultivated chicken and plant-based ingredients.
Still in R&D, the current version includes soy protein, wheat gluten (Upside says it is working to remove the latter) and a plant-based oil, in addition to the protein and fat from the chicken cells.
While the inclusion rate of the cultivated chicken is yet to be determined, Musiker confirms that it will be the predominant ingredient on the label. “It’s a differentiator in the industry at this point. Because some of these other products have relatively low inclusion rates. Our goal is to have it be the predominant ingredient on a label,” she says.
Upside Taps Distributor That ‘Put Impossible Foods On The Map’
Courtesy: Upside Foods
Musiker is speaking to me a fortnight after Upside Foods held a tasting in collaboration with meat purveyor Pat LaFreida in New York City, one of several such events it has hosted since hitting pause on its restaurant plans last year.
The startup’s chefs prepared the shreds in various formats, including a yoghurt-marinated chicken shawarma-taco, a breakfast sausage, empanadas, and a fried version – a first for the startup. “It was delicious. I personally hadn’t had it that way before,” says Musiker.
“We’re partnering with different people and groups, leveraging their relationships and their validation to bring more people into the room and get them to try the product for the first time,” she explains.
She clarifies that there’s no official partnership with the meat purveyor yet, but adds that Upside Foods is “looking forward to opportunities to formalise something in the future”.
Musiker says LaFreida has a great deal of experience introducing new alternative ingredients to the market, and his support has helped inform its decision to start in B2B for the chicken shreds.
“Pat and his team are so supportive of what we’re doing. They are pioneers in bringing alternative proteins to the Mid-Atlantic region of the US. They were the first distributor of Impossible Foods and really helped put them on the map,” she says.
“We just feel Pat gets it. He and his team really understand the issues that are going on and the reasons why this kind of product can be appealing, and we’re especially gratified just how much they like it.”
Eventually, Upside Foods wants to bring its product to supermarket shelves too, but given the production scale-up this requires, it remains “several years away”.
Speaking of which, Upside Foods signed a lease on a 187,000 sq ft facility in Illinois in 2023, which would have been able to produce 30 million lbs of cultivated meat a year. However, financial challenges and strategic pivots saw the company put the project on hold.
“We’re currently renovating our production facility in Emeryville, EPIC, to expand capacity and make it fit-for-purpose, to produce a commercial volume of the suspension [chicken],” reveals Musiker.
In its current form, this plant is designed to produce 50,000 lbs of cultivated meat per year, with the ability to expand up to 400,000 lbs. But with the renovation, this capacity will be significantly upgraded. Upside Foods has conducted dozens of production runs at a 2,000-litre scale, tech transferred multiple processes into the facility, and produced enough cells to make thousands of lbs of its shredded chicken in the last few months.
‘Not ready to throw in the towel’ with cultivated meat bans
Courtesy: Upside Foods
Cultivated meat has been part of a culture war in the US, where states like Florida and Alabama have banned it and a dozen others have attempted to do the same.
Upside Foods is in the heat of it all, suing Florida for its law, although a judge has denied the company a preliminary injunction that would have allowed it to serve cultivated chicken at trade shows.
“We knew that this was going to take time,” Musiker says of the lawsuit. “This is going forward exactly the way we thought it would. [But] we’re hopeful that the constitution’s on our side.
Musiker acknowledges that the legislative attacks are a disappointing distraction, but she calls these hurdles “part of the reality” the industry has to operate in though the company is committed to bringing cultivated meat to all Americans.
“We’re not ready to write off potential consumers in Florida and Alabama or any of the other states that are contemplating this ban. We think they have a right to buy it and try it and see if they like it. If they don’t want to buy it and try it, don’t.”
Upside applied for regulatory approval for shredded chicken a year ago
Upside Foods submitted a dossier for the shredded chicken over a year ago, and has been in what Musiker calls a “productive process”.
With Donald Trump back as president, the industry’s short-term future is full of uncertainty. And with Robert F Kennedy Jr in line to be health secretary, there have been suggestions that the regulatory pathway for novel foods could become much more complicated.
Musiker wouldn’t be drawn on the political discourse, but did note that “most of the work that we did to get the fillet approved was under the first Trump administration”.
“This is bigger than us, right? There are precedents that are beyond just what’s happening in cultivated meat. And that’s part of why we’re committing resources to move this through the process, as opposed to just saying: ‘Fine, we won’t sell it in these states and we’ll give up.’ We’re not ready to throw in the towel yet.”
Is Upside Foods not worried? “We are always worried – we were worried before and will remain worried,” she suggests. “It would be wrong for us to take anything for granted… We’re doing everything the same today as we were on November 4.”
She adds: “We’re gonna continue moving forward, and we remain optimistic that we’ll be able to do a commercial launch in 2025.”
‘Making smart decision to maintain runway’
Courtesy: Upside Foods
Investors seem to be distancing themselves from the cultivated meat category, pouring in just half as much money in the first nine months of 2024 than they did in all of 2023, and hundreds of millions less than in the boom years of 2020-2022.
Upside Foods has had its share of financial challenges too, citing “political, regulatory and macroeconomic headwinds” behind its decision to lay off 26 employees last summer.
“Our focus must now narrow to a tighter set of priorities that pave the way for our product launches in the next two years,” co-founder and CEO Uma Valeti wrote in an email to employees last July. “We need to deliver on the work that remains, especially on critical milestones that are yet to be hit or are delayed.”
Asked about the company’s financial health, Musker says: “We know we’re in a privileged position. We’re making smart decisions to maintain runway for what we need to get done at this phase. We are just being thoughtful about how we spend money and what we invest in, who we hire and when we hire them.”
She acknowledges that there are other companies in much more constrained circumstances, which could run out of funds before they reach approval. “That’s scary for the industry. So we’re hopeful that there won’t be additional hurdles placed on companies,” she says.
Clearing these obstacles would “be consistent with the principles and some of the messaging coming out of the administration about minimising barriers to innovation and regulatory hurdles”, she adds.
Tasting is believing
Upside Foods is planning more tasting events in the months ahead. “Tasting is believing,” says Musker. “When they try it, they like it, and it minimises whatever mental barriers they might have had, And then they start to see the potential of it, they start to think past: ‘Oh, this is going to be expensive or different,’ or: ‘How am I going to explain this to my customers?’”
She highlights that tastings can be beneficial for not just chefs and restaurants, but also policymakers and regulators. “Obviously, we want people to sign up and be a commercial partner. But the secondary goal that we have is to just get people to try it for the first time,” she says. “It’s much less intimidating when you’ve tried it.
“It’s literally just a chicken nugget. Who would be afraid of a chicken nugget?”
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers two new dairy-free coffee creamers, Hellmann’s social media prank, and Oato’s launch of fresh oat milks at Sainsbury’s.
New products and launches
Alt-dairy giant Violife has made a foray into coffee creamers, which use lentils as their base and don’t separate or curdle, according to the brand. They’re available in Tempting Vanilla, Seductive Caramel, and Boldly Original flavours at Walmart stores nationwide for $4.88.
Courtesy: Heura
More news from the coffee creamer space: Organic Valley has introduced its oat-based lineup, with flavours like vanilla, caramel, oatmeal cookie, and cinnamon spice.
A week after partnering with Moonburger, vegan cultured Cheddar maker Stockled Dreamery will now be the “headline cheese” at all 13 locations of plant-based fast-food chain PLNT Burger.
Unilever-owned Hellmann’s has launched a new social-media-led campaign for its Plant-Based Mayo, which sees chef Matthew Ravenscroft trick his friends into making dishes with the product to prove there’s no difference in taste compared to the original version.
At the Scientific Kick-off Event for Bezos Earth Fund‘s Centre for Sustainable Protein at Imperial College London last week, Californian precision-fermented fat startup Yali Bioshowcased its designer cocoa butter alternative.
Fellow Californian company Beyond Meat has brought its vegan steak and chicken ranges to foodservice operators in France via Metro, Costco, Creta Gel, SDV, and other distributors.
Germany’s GoodMills Innovation has launchedGoWell Tasty Protein, a new plant protein blend for baked goods, made from faba beans, yellow peas, sunflower seeds and wheat. It has a protein content of 60% and a well-rounded amino acid profile.
British fresh oat milk maker Oato has gained a listing at Sainsbury’s. Its one-litre and one-pint bottles – which are non-UHT – will be available in the chilled aisle at over 370 stores nationwide.
Speaking of plant-based milk, fellow UK startup MYOM has launched its powdered oat milk at Whole Foods Market stores, one of “many grocery listings” planned for 2025.
Company and finance updates
US precision fermentation startup The Every Company has named Evan Geisert as its new CFO. He was formerly the finance chief at Smart Wires and Kairos Aerospace.
Spanish plant-based meat startup Heura was present at the Faculty of Medicine in Barcelona during the country’s Medical Residency Entrance Exam to spread awareness about the health benefits of a vegan diet to the doctors of the future.
Courtesy: Heura
French hemp fermentation startup Auralip has raised €500,000 ($521,000) from Business Angels Grandes Ecoles, Femmes BA, Yes Invest, and others, which could be matched by a loan from state investor Bpifrance.
Czechia’s Ministry of Agriculture has decided against introducing stricter labelling regulations for plant-based meat and dairy after considering the feedback to the proposal, a big win for the vegan sector.
Courtesy: Arla
Danish dairy giant Arla has withdrawn its Jörd plant-based milk brand from UK supermarkets, with the range already unavailable at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Asda.
Research and policy developments
In the UK, the Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein, the Microbial Food Hub, the Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub, and the National Alternative Protein Centre (NAPIC) have signed an MoU to work together and address alternative protein challenges like cost reduction, scalability, and consumer acceptance.
NAPIC has also opened applications for five fully funded PhD studentships for alternative proteins, covering subjects like allergenicity and processing, the gut-brain axis, colloidal performance, nutritional equivalence, and microbubble stabilisation.
Courtesy: NAPIC
Across the Atlantic, anti-cultivated meat legislation remains popular. In South Carolina, SB 103 aims to restrict “misleading or deceptive” labelling of these foods.
US-cultivated meat startup Orbillion Bio has won the Salesforce DreamPitch event at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
In its latest collaboration, Dutch vegan giant Flora Food Group has reeled in Gordon Ramsay to sing the praises of its flagship plant-based butter.
Gordon Ramsay has been railing against vegan food for a long time, but the Scottish celebrity chef seems to have mellowed in recent years and embraced a bit of plant-based cuisine.
The MasterChef US has teamed up with Amsterdam-based Flora Food Group (formerly Upfield) to promote its dairy-free butter range as part of the company’s Skip The Cow campaign.
The collaboration comes after Ramsay rigorously tested the vegan butter in a range of culinary applications, which led him to incorporate the product into his professional kitchen.
“From scrambled eggs to chocolate cake, I have put the product through its paces,” said the eight-Michelin-starred chef. “It gives me the creaminess and rich taste I get from butter, whilst being more sustainable.”
Gordon Ramsay makes homemade Flora to showcase clean label
The campaign has been launched in the UK and the Netherlands, and will roll out on TV globally. It features a 20-second spot where a narrator wonders whether the alt-butter – “made from ingredients that haven’t been through a cow” – works well in baking.
Susan the cow says yes, but the voiceover acknowledges she “could seem biased”. Then, the ad cuts to a wider shot of Ramsay sitting on a cow with a dairy-free chocolate cake in hand, as the narrator says: “Let’s ask an expert.”
The chef responds: “Is that a serious question? Just look at this f-ing cake.”
The Dutch company’s flagship Flora brand includes spreadable butters and the Plant B+tter range of block butters, which contain 10 ingredients, with a base of plant oils and faba bean protein. According to the company, they also have a 75% lower climate footprint than conventional butter.
To highlight the clean-label ingredients, Ramsay stars in a 15-second tutorial showcasing how people can make a version of Flora’s vegan butter at home. He combines plant oils, plant protein, carrot juice, lemon juice, water and salt with an immersion blender, before churning and chilling it in an ice-cream maker.
“This campaign represents a bold step forward in showcasing the incredible versatility and taste of Flora for cooking and baking,” said Jorn Socquet, chief marketing officer at Flora.
“Gordon’s passion for exceptional food aligns perfectly with our commitment to innovation and offering sustainable, plant-forward alternatives that don’t compromise on flavour or performance. And if Gordon Ramsay thinks it’s good, who the f%$k are we to disagree?” he added.
Flora hits on ‘critical megatrends’
Flora’s Skip the Cow campaign dates back to Veganuary 2023, when it launched a tongue-in-cheek video in the style of a food documentary. Later that year, the brand released out-of-home ads with copy saying: “We had this mad idea not to put the plants through a cow,” and “Farewell cow butter and thanks for the mammaries.”
The commercial drive won several plaudits in 2023, including Cannes Lion for Creative Strategy, an APG Gold Award for Creative Strategy, and a PETA Vegan Foods Award. And last year, it rolled out its Bit Weird commercial featuring Susan the cow, who nods yes to the narrator’s question: “Is it a bit weird we spent all those years pumping the plants through a cow?”
“The evolution of our award-winning Skip the Cow campaign, represents more than just a marketing initiative – it’s a testament to our leadership in responding to critical megatrends: growing demand for dairy-alternative solutions, increased focus on animal welfare, and the pressing need for environmentally conscious food choices,” said Flora CEO David Haines.
Getting Ramsay – a household name and one of the world’s greatest chefs – is a big deal for Flora, especially given his history of anti-vegan sentiment. It’s in line with his recent shift, though, with the Kitchen Nightmares host boosting his TikTok following with plant-based recipes during the pandemic, including a viral rice paper bacon.
On an episode of MasterChef: Back to Win in 2022, he admitted: “I actually love vegan food,” later crediting his kids for the realisation. Ramsay is also an investor and advisor in Borealis Foods, maker of Chef Woo Vegan Ramen, and last year commenced a partnership with Impossible Foods to put its plant-based meat on the menu of its Street Burger and Street Pizza chains in London.
Courtesy: Flora
“Gordon Ramsay’s decision to partner with us validates what millions of families around the world have known for generations – that our products deliver exceptional taste and performance while addressing crucial global challenges,” said Haines.
“This collaboration reflects our evolved purpose and our 150+ years of heritage in offering consumers compelling choices that are both more affordable and more sustainable than their dairy equivalents.”
The former Unilever subsidiary’s roots go back to 1871, but its latest iteration came after it was spun off as Upfield in 2018. The group then rebranded last September, a year after it announced its intention to transition to a fully plant-based lineup. Flora today owns brands like Violife, Bertolli, Country Crock, and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, and recorded €3.3B in net sales in 2023, gaining 55 million additional customers.
Dutch-Belgian startup Those Vegan Cowboys is raising €15M for its recombinant casein as it prepares to enter the US this year, and has teamed up with dairy giant Hochland to test animal-free cheeses.
To get its cow-free cheese onto diners’ plates faster, Those Vegan Cowboys is stepping up its regulatory efforts and aiming to secure fresh capital from investors.
“We are currently raising €15M to get us on the road to commercialisation,” CEO Hille van der Kaa tells Green Queen.
The Ghent-based precision fermentation startup has its sights set on several markets globally, but will start with the US, where it plans to obtain (GRAS) Generally Recognized as Safe status by the end of the year.
Food tech in the US will likely have a rough time under the new Trump administration, especially if Robert F Kennedy Jr – a detractor of ultra-processed foods and GMOs – is confirmed as the new health secretary.
Van der Kaa indicates that the decision to begin stateside was due to the expectation of “earlier approval”. Asked about the political landscape, she says: “We are seeing a growing demand from the market, and we expect the market to do its thing.”
Focus on hybrid and animal-free cheeses
Courtesy: Those Vegan Cowboys
Those Vegan Cowboys has been working with several cheese producers in the last year to work out how its precision-fermented casein behaves in different circumstances at a lab scale. And last week, it announced a partnership with German dairy giant Hochland Group to test the protein in a variety of hard and soft cheeses on a larger scale.
Asked about the startup’s prediction capacity, van der Kaa says: The first set of scale-ups was successful, and we have planned the next set this year.”
The Hochland partnership comes three months after it claimed the protein can outperform its cow-derived counterpart under certain conditions. “Our partners have seen better stretching and melting compared to the animal-sourced version, allowing cheese producers to use less casein with the same result,” she explains. “This will ultimately lower the price of cheese. Now that we’ve got this casein, we want it to make as big an impact as possible.”
She calls the Hochland collaboration a “very important next step” on its path to market. “We are looking at various cheeses, including hybrid cheeses. Not only cheeses for the mass market, such as the well-known slices of cheese on burgers, but also high-end cheeses,” she explains.
“Those Vegan Cowboys, at the same time, is also working on the development of fully [animal-free] cheeses. We focus on both the B2B and B2C markets. B2B with a focus on sustainability and functionality – our casein has currently proven to be five times more functional. B2C will target the markets where we can have the most impact,” she adds.
Hochland CFO Hubert Staub notes that its dairy business will remain the “strong core”. “But we see that there is a demand for alternatives and we want to provide the best quality to our consumers. Milk proteins derived by precision fermentation could be a great solution,” he says.
Casein could also cater to applications outside of cheese
Courtesy: Those Vegan Cowboys
Casein makes up 80% of the protein content found in milk, and is crucial to the taste and functional attributes of dairy products like cheese – it’s what makes hard cheeses melt and stretch when they’re heated, allowing water and fat to emulsify and deliver the desired mouthfeel.
It represents a $2.7B market, but comes from a highly emissive, water-guzzling, land-hungry industry. Those Vegan Cowboys is among a host of startups working on producing bioidentical animal-free casein via fermentation, including New Culture, Standing Ovation, Change Foods, Zero Cow Factory, and Fermify.
Those Vegan Cowboys – the brainchild of the Dutch entrepreneurs behind The Vegetarian Butcher – says its microbial casein requires a fifth of the land and water compared to conventional casein, and produces 80% less carbon and no methane.
It also touts some nutritional benefits – when cheesemakers replace animal fats with specific plant-based ones, they can do away with saturated fats, lactose, and cholesterol.
“We are also preparing filings in Asia and evaluating various market scenarios,” says van der Kaa, adding that market entry in the EU is expected in the next three to four years.
In the US, New Culture and Fermify have already gained approval to sell precision-fermented casein, serving as a blueprint for firms like Those Vegan Cowboys. “Initially, we will sell on a small scale in the foodservice industry (restaurants, hotels, etc.) and be taking the cheese to market with one of our partners,” she says.
But she reveals that the cow-free casein may not be just restricted to cheese. “We are working with different cheese players, but there is also interest from other markets, such as confectionery and sports nutrition.”
