In our 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.
Gil Horky is the Founding Managing Partner at Flora Ventures.
What future food technologies most excite you?
The usage of peptides to deliver new functional benefits in food and supplements
New sustainable and efficient cold-chain technologies to extend route-to-market and food freshness
Blockchain and its applications in food transparency
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
Supply Chain: Supply chain resiliency within the food chain is increasingly important due to climate change, geopolitical disruptions, and the most recent, crazy tariff war.
Longevity: Longevity and nutrition are deeply intertwined, and we will see new food and supplement products tailored to promote longevity,
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
Globally highlighting the dialogue around the urgent need to fix our global system.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
Sadly, I think that even a magic wand can’t fix it, because the majority of existing products have not delivered on the expectations of consumers and investors. There was just too much hype with overpromising (and underdelivering) products in this segment.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
Grit, and the ability to fundraise.
The One That Got Away: What is the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t?
Foreverland. I worked for many years in the chocolate industry for Mondelēz, and I love their carob-based ‘chocolate-like’ products – tasty and sustainable.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
It is a very exciting investment we made in a stealth startup in the GLP-1 space. The technology is cutting edge and led by a stellar serial entrepreneur.
What has been your most disappointing investment so far?
So far, none. I, of course, wish that some investments would progress faster.
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
That it is not as glamorous as it looks like. Similar to entrepreneurs, fund managers are spending a significant amount of their time fundraising from LPs and managing the administrative aspects of running a fund (reporting, compliance, legal, etc.). More importantly, delivering outlier returns (which is what counts at the end) is damn hard.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
Noma Projects. Had the privilege to visit them last year – not only super tasty products, but also using a very thoughtful approach on the sustainable footprint of their ingredients and processes .
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
I truly love the food industry, I worked in it most of my entire career and cherished every moment of it. Food is ingrained in human culture and emotions, and everyone has an opinion or something to say about it. But it is also the industry with the biggest impact and potential return on human and planetary health.
In our 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.
Christian Nagel is a Co-Founder and Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital.
What future food technologies most excite you?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionising food tech with entirely new approaches through generative models. For example, precision nutrition is becoming possible with hyper-personalised meal recommendations based on biomarkers and real-time data. In the lab, AI is accelerating synthetic biology, designing microbes that produce animal-free proteins.
Robotic kitchens powered by AI are moving beyond automation into culinary creativity, and supply chains are getting smarter with AI predicting demand and reducing food waste. Across the board, AI is making food systems more efficient, sustainable, and tailored to individual needs.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
AI is accelerating the design of microorganisms that can produce new proteins, vitamins, and fats, or even mimic complex animal products. This innovation will drive momentum in the most compelling foodtech opportunities: fermentation-based protein platforms, clean-label functional ingredients, and technology that enhances supply chain resilience.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
The commercialisation of cultivated meat products, exemplified by regulatory approvals and first-to-market entries, such as Upside Foods and Eat Just’s cultivated chicken approvals in the US, Mission Barns‘s cultivated pork approval in the US, Eat Just’s cultivated chicken approval in Singapore, and our portfolio company Gourmey, which is in the approval process for fois gras in seven countries, representing a massive technological and regulatory milestone.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
I’d significantly enhance the taste and texture parity with conventional meat, particularly around juiciness, flavour, and cooking experience. This would likely involve breakthroughs in fat formulations, texture scaffolding, and ingredient innovation to dramatically improve consumer adoption.
Like Nosh.bio’s Koji Chunks, addressing all the aforementioned points, with no additives, and now moving from the lab to mainstream shelves. This proves that sustainable, functional alternatives can deliver on taste, scalability, and consumer appeal in real-world markets without a magic wand.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
We look for founders with the potential, both in grit and vision, to redefine an industry.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
When it comes to future food, impact can come from very different directions, and that’s exactly what we see in both our portfolio companies Gourmey and Nosh.bio. I wouldn’t pick just one because they represent two very different, equally exciting approaches.
Gourmey is redefining high-end cultivated meat with a focus on culinary excellence, while Nosh.bio is building a foundational fermentation platform with broad applications. Both are shaping the future of food, just from very different angles.
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
People often think venture capital is just about chasing the next big thing, but after 28 years in this industry, the hype cycles become easier to spot. In reality, it’s about a long-term partnership. Being all in from day one is what we embrace at Earlybird, and that means being a sparring partner before the breakthrough and through the uncertainty so that you might get to celebrate the wins at the end.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
Fois gras in Paris from Gourmey – this was an experience with cultivated meat, where it was even better than the original, also confirmed by Rasmus Munk, who was Chef of the Year 2024 and is now part of Gourmey’s culinary board.
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
Besides having been catered with Nosh.bio’s products, Cookies Cream in Berlin is still my most favourite climate-forward restaurant, despite not being vegan.
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
Being part of the founding journey, from the earliest stage, is what keeps me inspired. There’s something deeply meaningful about being the first to believe in a founding team, sometimes before anyone does. That early conviction can make all the difference.
US cultivated seafood startup BlueNalu is targeting an initial launch of its bluefin tuna in California and has cemented partnerships to take the product global.
A highly prized sushi delicacy made from cultured tuna cells could soon be coming to diners’ plates in California.
San Diego-based BlueNalu is targeting the state as the first port of entry for its cultivated bluefin tuna toro, having filed for regulatory approval with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Agriculture (USDA).
“Our initial launch will focus on California, starting in our home base of San Diego – a region known for its vibrant food culture and consumers who prioritise healthy and responsibly produced products,” founder and CEO Lou Cooperhouse tells Green Queen.
At the same time, the company is laying the groundwork for international operations in “markets where demand, regulatory clarity, and strategic partnerships align”. That includes Singapore (where it has submitted a regulatory dossier), the UK (where it’s part of the government’s new regulatory sandbox scheme), and several nations in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.
The UK is the only European country to have approved cultivated meat for sale, which has prompted BlueNalu to amp up its focus on this market and expand its ongoing partnership with frozen food distributor Nomad Foods.
“We began collaborating in 2021 to explore the market potential for cultivated seafood and following compelling consumer insights, we are now working together on market entry and commercialisation strategies,” says Cooperhouse, noting that the link-up will help bring its cultivated tuna to both the UK and the wider European market.
“This includes evaluating premium foodservice offerings that align with consumer demand for high-quality, sustainable seafood, and also exploring other channels of distribution that align with Nomad’s current and future capabilities,” he adds.
Brits respond positively to cultivated seafood
Courtesy: BlueNalu
As part of its global push, BlueNalu commissioned a survey of 2,000 frequent sushi consumers in the UK last summer. “The results showed strong enthusiasm for BlueNalu’s first product, cell-cultivated bluefin tuna toro: 92% of respondents expressed some level of interest in trying it, including 55% who were very or extremely interested,” reveals Cooperhouse.
“Consumers identified the absence of parasites, pesticides, microplastics, mercury, and antibiotics as top benefits, followed by high omega-3 content and sustainable production,” he adds. “The study also affirmed that the terms ‘cell-cultivated’ and ‘cell-cultured’ effectively communicate the product’s origin and align with consumer expectations.”
BlueNalu is one of eight startups participating in the UK Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) two-year regulatory sandbox programme, which aims to help firms bring cultivated meat to market faster. It is the only US company in the scheme, and the only one focused on seafood.
BlueNalu CTO Lauran Madden calls it a “first-of-its-kind initiative” designed to support the development of safe and innovative cultivated food products. “The sandbox offers a unique opportunity for early, collaborative engagement with regulators to ensure we are aligned with the FSA’s expectations and data requirements for novel food applications, and structured dialogue and feedback,” she tells Green Queen.
“We commend the FSA for its forward-thinking approach and leadership in enabling a science-based, transparent regulatory pathway for emerging food technologies,” Madden adds.
In the aforementioned survey, 73% of Brits said they’d likely visit a sushi restaurant that offers the product. So it stands to reason that BlueNalu is planning to introduce its tuna in the UK and Europe through premium sushi and fine-dining restaurants.
“This approach reflects both consumer interest and our product’s unique value proposition. Nomad Foods has a long history of launching innovative seafood products, and together we are identifying the best entry points that meet today’s expectations for taste, safety, consistency, and sustainability,” says Cooperhouse.
“As we progress towards commercialisation, this partnership enables us to pair scientific and regulatory progress with real market insights and commercial expertise.”
The cost economics of bluefin tuna
Courtesy: BlueNalu
Bluefin tuna is a highly sought-after seafood delicacy, thanks to its velvety texture, buttery flavour and nutritional attributes. However, this species represents the ocean’s fastest and longest-distance swimmers, which makes it difficult to raise the fish in captivity, thus commanding a higher price. Toro is the fatty part of bluefin tuna belly, and is used in high-grade sushi and sashimi.
However, its supply is limited and extremely variable in quality, and its stocks face declines due to overfishing and illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing. Continued demand is driving the species towards endangerment and has prompted governments to place strict quotas to limit its fishing. Plus, tuna is one of the most polluted fish in the oceans, often contaminated with plastic debris and extremely high levels of heavy metals like mercury.
Israel’s Wanda Fish, too, is working on cultivated bluefin tuna toro to address this issue, though BlueNalu appears to be ahead in the race to bring it to consumer plates. It already operates a 38,000 sq ft pilot plant in San Diego (which can produce enough tuna for small-scale sales), and has unveiled plans for a larger 140,000 sq ft facility that can manufacture six million lbs of product annually once operational.
This will help bring down costs for the cultivated tuna, a crucial aspect for most consumers. That said, the company is already staring at an advantage here, since bluefin tuna toro already carries a premium price tag, so a cell-cultured version wouldn’t have the same cost difference as that with commodity beef or chicken. According to the poll, 74% of UK consumers are willing to pay the same or more than for conventional bluefin tuna.
“BlueNalu’s business strategy centres on high-demand species that address challenges in supply, consistency, sustainability, and food security – particularly those that displace imports… and command premium pricing,” says Cooperhouse.
“Seafood is already a premium category, and toro is one of the most expensive cuts, and has been described as the ‘Wagyu beef of the sea’. That gives us a unique opportunity to compete in a segment where consumers already expect to pay for quality, and where BlueNalu’s product’s health benefits, consistency, and safety attributes add real value.
“BlueNalu’s consumer research has already demonstrated that many consumers will see great value in our products, due to the health and safety advantages associated with our process. As a result, we believe we will be able to sell our products at or near price parity from our early stages of commercialisation.”
BlueNalu attracting global interest
Courtesy: BlueNalu
The results of the UK research are “highly consistent” with other consumer studies BlueNalue has conducted in the US, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, covering nearly 10,000 people who “showed broad demand” for its seafood.
“Across these markets, we’ve seen strong interest in cell-cultivated seafood, especially among health-conscious consumers who value safety, quality, and transparency,” says Cooperhouse.
BlueNalu has previously announced partnerships and agreements with Asian food giants Pulmuone (South Korea), Mitsubishi, Sumitomo (both Japan), and Thai Union (Thailand), as well as industry leaders like Rich Foods and Griffith Foods. In addition, it has teamed up with Neom, Saudi Arabia’s upcoming future-facing city.
It is one of the most well-funded startups in the cultivated meat industry, having attracted $118M over several rounds, including a $33.5M Series B raise in 2023. However, the firm was an outlier that year, when overall funding for cultivated meat dropped by 75%.
That fall has since continued, as legislative challenges in the US and overseas have attempted to ban cultivated meat (with several states being successful), with investment in this space dropping by a further 40% in 2024.
“As a pre-revenue startup, we’re continually exploring strategic investment opportunities to support our growth,” Cooperhouse says when asked if BlueNalu is seeking new capital.
He adds: “We remain focused on scaling production, advancing regulatory clearances, and building a strong foundation for commercialisation and global market penetration.”
Rudy Yoo, co-founder of Armored Fresh and Pureture, has big plans for the future food industry, featuring yeast-based casein, barley-derived coffee, and clean-label, complete plant proteins.
How does a five-ingredient, sugar-free, “zero-dairy” shake with 25g of protein per serving sound to you? How about coffee made from roasted barley instead of, well, coffee beans? Or an additive-free functional bar with complete protein from plants, designed as pre- and post-workout fuel?
Rudy Yoo is working to make all this (and more) a reality. The co-founder of oat milk cheese brand Armored Fresh and vegan casein maker Pureture is embarking on several new projects this year, all to unlock nutrition that’s sustainable for both the human body and the planet.
South Korea-based Armored Fresh has been expanding its US footprint over the last year with the launch of its oat milk cheese slices and parmesan shakers. Pureture, based in New York City, has developed a fermentation-derived casein that ditches the cows for yeast and comes 30-40% cheaper than the conventional protein.
Now, Yoo is taking things a few steps further. This year, he will launch Piilk (“Pure + Milk”), a new line of protein shakes combining Pureture’s casein tech with Armored Fresh’s product development expertise. They replicate the functional and sensory attributes of dairy with a clean and animal-free ingredient list.
Then, under Armored Fresh, he has announced JustAlt, a functional food brand with high-protein, low-sugar products, and Barley Brew, a beanless coffee alternative made from grains.
“Pureture is a biotech company specialising in innovative raw materials and B2B supply, while Armored Fresh is a B2C food brand offering alternative dairy products directly to consumers,” Yoo tells Green Queen. “Through strategic partnerships, both companies are working together to lead the next-generation alternative dairy market.”
Clean-label is a ‘necessity’ in the alt-dairy world
Courtesy: Pureture
The teams at the two startups tested more than 400 yeast strains to optimise the protein yield and eliminate off-notes in taste and colour. The result is an animal-free casein that provides “the same essential amino acid profile as dairy proteins” and “replicates dairy-like emulsification, texture, and nutritional properties without additives”.
Casein is the main protein found in cow’s milk, and is a market worth $3B. Pureture employs a six-step liquid fermentation process that combines yeast with plant-based ingredients to make its version. It begins by cultivating a yeast strain and enriching it. Then, it separates the protein and tests the emulsification functionality, before sterilising and drying the casein.
Pureture’s casein is said to maintain “excellent taste and functionality”, and can naturally bind water and fat. It contains 25g of protein, with a complete amino acid profile (like dairy). Yoo explains that it “offers high digestibility and bioavailability without requiring dairy-based fortification”, and has “a nutritional profile superior to traditional plant proteins”.
“Most dairy-free products rely on emulsifiers, gums, and stabilisers to mimic dairy texture, requiring heavily processed ingredients. In contrast, Pureture’s yeast-based alternative casein offers natural emulsification, overcoming the limitations of existing dairy-free products and providing a cleaner, more natural solution,” says Yoo.
“Consumers are increasingly favouring transparent ingredients and minimal processing, making clean-label products essential for building trust,” he adds. “In the alternative dairy market, clean-label is not an option – it’s a necessity.”
Globally, around half of consumers say they’d pay more for clean-label products. And as plant-based alternatives get knocked for some long ingredient lists, especially in the ultra-processed food context, developing cleaner labels will only become a more attractive proposition.
Armored Fresh to launch clean-label protein shake
Courtesy: Armored Fresh
The vegan casein will help Armored Fresh create products that are “nutritionally competitive” with dairy. To begin, it is launching a five-ingredient protein shake under the Piilk brand in July.
“We aim to set a new standard, creating products that are cleaner and healthier than traditional dairy protein shakes,” says Yoo. “While dairy-based protein shakes rely on various additives, we are proving that superior nutrition and functionality can be achieved without them. We may not surpass nature itself, but our goal is to maintain maximum nutritional integrity with minimal processing.”
After more than 100 rounds of testing, the product is now being finalised. There were several considerations for the teams at Pureture and Armored Fresh, including the inherent tasting notes of the protein, and choosing the appropriate flavours and sweeteners.
“Natural flavours are widely trusted by consumers but may react unpredictably with protein, making flavour consistency a key challenge,” describes Yoo. “Synthetic flavours effectively balance protein’s inherent taste and ensure uniform flavour quality, but they need to align with clean-label standards and consumer preferences.”
In addition, he and his colleagues are evaluating sugar alternatives like stevia and erythritol in their bid to optimise the taste for the public’s palate. “Our ultimate goal is to deliver the most natural and satisfying taste, ensuring the best balance between functionality and consumer preference,” Yoo says.
“We are at a critical decision point – prioritising taste enhancement or committing to all-natural ingredients,” he adds. While the final ingredient list is still under wraps, it is likely to contain cocoa, a sweetener, flavourings, and the Pureture casein.
The company is in talks with Whole Foods Market and other premium retail stores for the Q3 launch of this shake, dubbed ‘Only 5’. It will be followed by ‘Only 7’ and ‘Only 9’, with each protein shake featuring distinct functionalities and flavours. “Each product is designed for specific performance needs, from balanced nutrition to enhanced recovery and beyond,” he says.
Could barley-based coffee counter caffeine crashes and climate change?
Courtesy: Armored Fresh
Beyond protein shakes, Yoo recently detailed plans for another product. Describing his struggles with the side effects of caffeine consumption, he explained that Armored Fresh has developed a coffee alternative made from roasted barley.
“Coffee is a part of daily life for millions, but many struggle with side effects from caffeine crashes and jitters to digestive discomfort and poor sleep,” he tells Green Queen. “Barley Brew is our roasted-barley coffee alternative that keeps the bold, roasted flavour of coffee, while eliminating its downsides.”
The team landed on the grain after “countless trials”, finding that it delivered sustained, gentle energy (minus the caffeine crashes) and gut-friendly digestion with low acidity. In addition, it contains natural antioxidants, beta-glucan, and GABA for immunity and focus.
In a blind taste test of a cold brew made from the barley-derived coffee, consumers praised its clean finish, depth, and smoothness. The company is offering a Half-Caf blend as well, combining roasted barley with coffee beans for those who still need a light caffeine lift. More than 80% of taste testers were unable to distinguish it from conventional coffee.
“Barley Brew isn’t just a caffeine-free option – it’s a new, flexible coffee ritual that adapts to different needs, supports gut health, and aligns with sustainable agricultural practices,” says Yoo. Coffee prices have reached record highs as climate change strains the commodity’s supply. Globally, 60% of coffee species are endangered, and the area suitable for cultivating Arabica is shrinking.
It has led to the rise of several beanless coffee startups, including Atomo, Minus Coffee, Northern Wonder, and Prefer. Now, Armored Fresh is joining that list, targeting a Q3 launch in Manhattan. “As barley cultivation requires significantly less water and fewer resources than coffee, it’s better for both people and the planet,” says Yoo.
More products in the pipeline
Courtesy: Armored Fresh
Last month, Armored Fresh unveiled JustAlt, whose debut product line features protein bars in chocolate, peanut butter, and fruit flavours.
“Most plant-based snacks lack performance, or sacrifice taste and ingredient integrity,” argues Yoo. “JustAlt is our new functional alt-food brand, launching with zero-sugar, high-protein, clean-label protein bars and spreads. These are designed for everyday performance, blending science-based nutrition with delicious flavours.”
The brand will enable “flexitarians, athletes, and busy consumers to make better daily choices without compromising on taste, convenience, or quality” through products designed for workout fuelling, snacking, or meal replacement.
“We are also exploring various plant-based milk and processed dairy alternatives using the emulsification function of our casein, with research on coagulation properties in progress,” Yoo says of further product development plans.
“As for Armored Fresh cheese, we plan to integrate this alternative casein into its formulation, with a target launch next year,” he adds.
“Additionally, we are developing a new research pipeline to use yeast protein peptides to mimic dairy protein peptides, further expanding functionality and applications.”
Armored Fresh, Pureture gear up for fundraising
Courtesy: Armored Fresh
To kickstart this new era, both Armored Fresh and Pureture are preparing to fundraise. The former closed a $23M Series B round in 2022, and as it continues to scale, it will initiate a Series C round in 2026. This is set to “support explosive growth, expand our zero-dairy and functional alt-food product lines, and accelerate our retail footprint”, says Yoo.
Pureture, meanwhile, secured $1M in SAFE funding led by Forward Deployed VC in 2023, and is now preparing for its Series A in 2025. The startup was previously close to finalising a $12M round, though despite “significant interest”, Yoo abandoned the effort as he couldn’t find the “right kind of investor”.
“I secured the flexibility last year to raise funds freely in the US, which allows us to move faster when the investment environment improves,” he says. “Thanks to this decision, Pureture is now in a much stronger position, and I’m confident the next round will happen under far better conditions.”
The fresh capital will help Yoo’s companies scale up yeast-based casein production, expand R&D efforts for functional proteins and peptides for sports nutrition and medical food applications, strengthen global partnerships, and optimise production efficiency and quality control.
Pureture has secured 50,000 sq ft of land to build a new production facility, and has begun research into functional peptides extracted from dairy proteins, aiming to “advance beyond plant-based alternatives into the future of smarter, more functional nutrition”.
“Through this funding, Pureture aims to set the new standard for alternative casein and functional protein markets,” he says. Scaling up will also help the firms make their products more competitive on price. “Typically, technology-driven zero-dairy products are more expensive, but Pureture’s protein is significantly cheaper than dairy proteins and requires no additives, reducing production costs.”
Yoo adds: “This allows us to maintain clean-label standards while ensuring pricing parity with conventional dairy products. As production scales, we can further reduce consumer prices, positioning Armored Fresh protein shakes as competitively priced within the high-protein alternative dairy category. By delivering superior quality without a price barrier, we aim to set a new standard beyond traditional dairy.”
In our 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.
Jenn Burka is the Principal at FTW Ventures.
What future food technologies most excite you?
Technologies that look at the future of food with a systems approach are the most interesting to me – things that aren’t a single product solution, but that can actually make an impact on the way we grow, transport, and get nourished by our food.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
Food as medicine
Cold-chain technologies
Farmer fintech
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
The advances we’ve seen in our understanding of the microbiome have brought the idea of a healthy gut into the mainstream and released some exciting first-generation products that will pave the way forward for more focus on how to utilise food to make us healthier.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
In order to make these alternatives competitive with meat, there would need to be significant changes in how meat is subsidised. Otherwise, at current costs, it’s hard to see these products being adopted by a significant enough part of the population to have a true climate impact. It also has to taste good.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
Product-founder fit is incredibly important, especially in food tech, which is such a complex system that really requires an understanding of how the parts fit together.
The One That Got Away: What is the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t?
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
Our fund is only two years in, so it’s a bit too early to say, but I’m really excited about our portfolio company VoltAir, which is looking at the impact that food has on other global emissions in the cold chain by creating a fully integrated software and hardware solution to electrify the refrigeration unit in diesel trucks.
What has been your most disappointing investment so far?
I’ve invested a ton of my time looking at microbiome startups, and I’m disappointed that I haven’t yet found the company that we’ve gotten over the finish line. Still waiting for the perfect blend of founding team, true technological innovation, and intelligent go-to-market strategy (we’re still rather hesitant about pure supplement plays).
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
VCs are often startups too! Particularly emerging funds that don’t have cushy management fees that allow them to earn a lot of money and pay for a lot of resources.
We have to really love working with founders and believe in their outsized potential in order to keep doing what we do.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
I found a craft beer that was brewed with Oishi berries…a bit gimmicky but I had to try it (and I do love a sour beer)!
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
Probably my favourite climate-forward dish would be the one I make out of our backyard garden using peak summer produce. With tomatoes, peppers, basil, garlic, and eggs from our neighbour’s chickens (plus homemade sourdough with my five-year-old starter), it’s easy to sustain myself for a few months (plus more with what I freeze/can/preserve).
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
I’ve worked in the food system most of my career, and there are so many legacy players that haven’t changed in 100+ years. I believe that startups can be the catalyst for change in these industries, and change is what needed to make our system better for you and better for the planet.
As sales of meat alternatives continue to slide, a new crop of whole-food plant protein formats is on the rise. Oh So Wholesome’s Veg’chop is among the products spearheading this shift.
This month, a shift seems to be occurring in Europe’s plant-based protein ecosystem. Austria’s Revo Foods, known for its vegan seafood, launched a Prime Cut product that isn’t intended to replicate meat, but provide a new source of plant protein. And in the UK, the brand behind THIS Isn’t Chicken rolled out a Super Superfood that champions whole foods and rivals tofu, not meat.
The latter’s product is said to have been years in the making, and will reach supermarkets like Tesco on April 28. On the same day, also at the UK’s largest retailer, a new startup will debut another whole-food plant-based protein format, also years in the making.
In 2023, Squeaky Bean and The Cultured Collective founder Simon Day explained his vision for what he called Vegbloc. Packed with whole grains, vegetables, legumes and seeds, he described the idea as “a no-brainer”, made from ingredients and a process “based firmly in food heritage rather than novel science”.
Oh So Wholesome co-founder Jason Gibb | Courtesy: Oh So Wholesome
Fast-forward to now, a few tweaks later, Vegbloc is now called Veg’chop, and will be sold under Day and co-founder Jason Gibb’s new brand, Oh So Wholesome.
“I wanted something that tasted like the plants it was made from and that I was happy to eat daily with my family,” says Gibb, who developed the product after being unenamoured by the current plant protein option on the market.
Next week, his innovation will stock the shelves of 649 Tesco stores, rivalling not just meat and vegan alternatives, but also tofu and tempeh.
Why Tesco bet big on plant-based whole foods
Veg’chop comes in a sausage-like chub chape, which can – as the name suggests – be chopped for use as a centrepiece in fajitas, curries, pasta dishes, salads and wraps, to name a few. It comes in two flavours (original and Mexican-style), boasting 10g of protein, and 9-10g of fibre.
The 250g packs retail for £3, and contain ingredients like red lentils, quinoa, yellow split peas, mushrooms, gram flour, chia and flax seeds, onions and nutritional yeast (plus spices).
They lean into some key consumer trends in the UK. Gut health has been in sharp focus, thanks to the popularity of apps like Zoe and the introduction of GLP-1 agonist drugs Wegovy and Mounjaro. A recent survey by Tesco showed that gut health is a top concern for 37% of Brits in 2025, which pushed the retailer to launch its own-label Gut Sense brand in January.
Meanwhile, 91% of Brits don’t eat enough fibre. Among children, only 4-14% consume the recommended amount. The Tesco poll showed that 70% of people are adding more fibre to their diet to maintain a healthy microbiome.
Courtesy: Oh So Wholesome
The push is also being led by health experts like Tim Spector, who has popularised the 30-plants-a-week mantra. In that vein, vegan food brand Gosh! this month refreshed its packaging to introduce a ‘Plant Points’ system, highlighting how many plants each of its products contains. If you’re wondering, Veg’chop has over 10 plants.
There was one more critical finding from Tesco’s research: 22% of Brits want to consume more plant-based foods. Last year, the retailer revealed that “veg-led meals” accounted for 40% of its plant-based sales, prompting it to go big on whole foods – rather than meat alternatives – in its vegan range for Christmas. It also introduced a meat-free Root & Soul ready meal line that put vegetables front and centre.
“Tesco specifically have often been at the forefront of plant-based category development in the UK and led with new ranges, and I see their backing of Veg’chop as another example of their strategic approach to the category,” Day tells Green Queen.
For Veg’bloc, entering the CPG world makes perfect sense. Only a quarter of Brits say they choose a healthier food option when dining out, but this rises to two-thirds at supermarkets.
“Most retailers are looking for more plant-packed, healthy and minimally processed foods with clean ingredient lists across the store. In plant-based specifically, I think the whole market knows that some changes need to be made to excite shoppers and inspire home cooks,” says Day.
A new category, based on age-old plants
Courtesy: Oh So Wholesome
Explaining why Vegbloc became Veg’chop, he says: “People really valued the naturalness of our product and how wholesome the ingredient list was. Our original design didn’t reflect that, so we made a change to use a more natural colour palette.”
He adds: “The product name was changed from Vegbloc to Veg’chop to help people more quickly understand how to use the product. We also felt that Veg’chop had more appetite appeal than Vegbloc.” The overarching brand name, Oh So Wholesome, was added because there are other products in the pipeline “that will help people to eat more plants”.
The new format will be stocked alongside tofu, tempeh, falafels and meat alternatives – but will Brits take to it? Oh So Wholesome conducted consumer research to answer that very question, and found that there was widespread interest in ‘eating more veg’ and ‘natural products’.
“People really welcomed how conveniently Veg’chop could deliver this. They were often surprised by how much they liked the taste. There was also very high interest in Veg’chop (and appreciation of our ingredient list) from people concerned with ultra-processed foods [UPFs],” says Day.
In the UK, the main growth is coming from products that are versatile, healthy and perceived as natural, with clean ingredient lists – foods that you would be happy for your family to eat every day, as he explains.
“Veg’chop, tempeh and tofu epitomise this. The growth is largely from people who will continue to eat some meat and aren’t interested in products that seek to taste like meat,” he says, noting that rising interest in beans comes from the same place too.
“Along with other brands who sell these products and are doing a fantastic job, our work is to inspire people to cook with these whole-food products and arm them with recipes and high-quality products that ensure they love them when they eat them,” he adds.
“I’m also a believer that a long history in food is a good predictor of future longevity. Tofu and tempeh are obviously traditional products with a long history, and whilst our product is a new concept in a way, it is just made from plants that have a long history in cooking.”
Courtesy: Oh So Wholesome
UPF concerns have ‘forced hands’ of plant-based meat companies
The launch of products like Veg’chop, THIS’s Super Superfood, and Revo Foods’s Prime Cut comes after sales of meat alternatives fell by 7% in 2024, while tofu expanded its market share to reach 9% of households. One of the best-performing meat-free brands was Better Nature, whose sales grew by 476% (albeit from a small base) as the UK embraced tempeh.
This comes on the back of rising concerns around UPFs, which make up 57% of the average Brit’s diet, and up to 80% when it comes to children or people with lower incomes. A December survey revealed that 90% of Brits agree that diet is an important factor in overall health, and among these consumers, 28% are likely to cut back on UPFs this year.
Day believes some meat alternative makers have “had their hands forced”, and “probably wouldn’t have looked to whole foods/non-mimics if their mimic sales were rocketing”. “I’m sure there are also some people who always wanted to do something in whole foods, but went where the growth was to start with,” he says.
Courtesy: Oh So Wholesome
As a food purchase driver, health isn’t going anywhere, and he expects that this will ensure the shift to whole-food plant-based continues. “Specific drivers like the need at a population level for us to eat more fibre (in the UK at least) and interest in the beneficial effects of eating a wide diversity of plants for the gut microbiome are also likely to support this direction,” he says.
“The backlash against UPF only seems to be gathering momentum and whilst there are nuances, I think products like ours will increasingly be looked for,” he adds. “In future, food security and making these products from locally available plants could also be a factor. Meat mimics often rely on protein isolates that are not produced in sufficient quantity in many locations.”
This will make brand positioning essential, especially as Oh So Wholesome competes with established plant-based players like THIS, which raked in £22M in sales last year. “We welcome any plant-packed and nutritious launches in the category,” says Day.
“Plant-based needs to entice and inspire people who have been sceptical about the whole category – we want it to be a destination for people who want to eat more plants, and that will take more than one brand. I’m confident there is a role for a brand like us, which isn’t associated with what has come before, as well as for more established brands.”
In our 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.
Steve Simitzis is a Partner at Solvable Syndicate.
What future food technologies most excite you?
Contrary to the doom and gloom, I’m most excited by cellular agriculture and cultivated meat. The crash in funding has, in my opinion, been a good thing for the space, as it’s refocusing founders on building real businesses with B2B customers in mind (meat producers, pet food manufacturers, etc.) without impossible valuations hanging over their heads.
Where I’m most interested is at pre-seed and seed level, where founders are inventing high-leverage technologies to reduce costs. Keep a close eye on the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture, which is building a new ecosystem around cell ag and, I expect, will have the next wave of breakout companies.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
Enabling technologies for cellular agriculture and bioprocessing that reduce costs.
Pet food! Always looking at pet food.
Future food replacements for ingredients, especially pigments and dyes, that have broad applications across food, beauty, nutraceuticals, textiles, etc.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
The achievement of plant-based milk reaching almost half of US households is something I could never have imagined in a million years. I went to a Starbucks in southeast Missouri and had my choice of soy milk, almond milk, and oat milk. Seriously, that’s incredible.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
By getting costs down to cheaper than animal-based meat. We could be headed in that direction already: startups are engineering new ways to drive down costs (Rebellyous Foods is leading the way here), while from the other end, pandemics and supply shocks are raising costs for animal proteins. Once they meet in the middle, that’s the tipping point.
Sales growth of vegan egg alternatives during the egg crisis has me convinced that food inflation is the central villain in the story of plant-based. It’s a rational choice: why pay 5x for a plant-based alternative when your grocery bill is rising? You’re going to cut the most expensive products first. Let’s make tastier and healthier products where we can, but without fixing the cost of goods sold, only vegans are buying them.
The other force at work, unfortunately, is the rise of trad culture, which is leading people to dangerous choices like carnivore diets and raw milk. So if I can be granted a second magic wand, it would be for America to re-embrace modern civilisation.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
I love founders who are obsessed with the problem they’ve set out to solve. When you’re problem-obsessed, you’ll want to keep digging deeper and deeper into your problem, and you’ll never give up until you solve it. I would say that tenacity and curiosity are the top founder traits that are downstream from being problem-obsessed.
I also look for founders who embrace work-life balance, even as they’re thinking about their startup 24/7. (Still problem-obsessed!) I don’t think anyone is more effective without good sleep, food, exercise, and time spent caring for the people and animals in your life. If I sense that a founder is neglecting those (and there’s always a tell), they are, to me, not investable.
The One That Got Away: What is the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t?
A startup from our old incubator in Berkeley. I had the opportunity to invest, but public markets were tanking and I was hesitant to pull out cash.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
It’s still too early to claim winners, but I’m very excited about Omni Pet, who just received investment and exposure on Dragons’ Den UK, and has had exceptional growth over the last two years. Great product, great founders, what’s not to love?
What has been your most disappointing investment so far?
Back in 2000, I invested in a bottled tea company based in Santa Cruz that was right at the beginning of yerba mate as a new beverage category in the US. Product and timing were perfect, but the team fell apart due to co-founder infighting.
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
Founders should deep dive into venture economics and how VC funds work (and where the capital comes from) to understand all of the incentives at play. Once you learn about the mechanics of venture funds, you start to see what kind of businesses aren’t a fit for venture capital, and more importantly, you’ll understand why.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
I was lucky enough to try the Mission Barns meatballs and salami, made with cultivated fat, at its FDA approval party during Future Food-Tech week. It was delicious and tasted like a real meatball without that uncanny valley experience you sometimes get with alternatives.
Even though I’ve been vegan for decades, the food you eat in childhood still resonates with you and unlocks old memories when you taste it again, and the Mission Barns meatballs were 100% future nostalgia.
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
I would consider moving to Zurich just to eat at Hiltl every night. It claims to be the oldest vegetarian restaurant in the world (since 1898, but who can say if Pythagoras wasn’t running a bistro on the side?).
The food at Hiltl is served buffet-style, so you never run out of new flavours to sample. I still think about their cremeschnitte, which was fully plant-based yet had the most delicate puffy pastry and custard. A triumph of a dessert.
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
I have been vegan for almost 30 years. I originally went vegan for the animals, in the OG days of brown soy milk and TVP (which, to be clear, I still eat and love).
Over time, I thought more and more about food system transformation, and the absurdity of using most of our land to raise cows. The wildfires here in the Bay Area that tore through forests around 2018-20 were deeply unsettling, and I wasn’t able to stop thinking about the destruction of habitats for the animals who lived in those forests. So, the fires cemented for me that this would become my life’s work.
At one point I considered going into climatetech (back when it was “clean tech”), but I connect with food more than power grids and heat pumps. Food is so fundamental, and everyone (and every culture) connects with it in a different way. We’ll never run out of problems to solve in food, which is what makes it such an endlessly interesting space to be in.
Plant-based meat maker TiNDLE Foods is keeping tabs on tariffs and the UPF conversation as it builds on revenue growth with retail expansions and prioritises cash reserves.
It’s never easy to be a business leader, and it feels particularly arduous right now, especially if you work in the food system.
For plant-based meat companies, the macroeconomic challenges that come with global tariffs are only compounded by investors’ resistance to the category and consumer criticism over ultra-processing.
“The main thing we’re advising founders is to stay focused on what they can control, which is to keep burn in check and extend runway,” one investor told Green Queen last week.
It seems like Timo Recker, co-founder and CEO of plant-based food startup TiNDLE Foods, is listening. “Our current priority is on capital preservation and with that, having a clear focus on the growth of our current product portfolio,” he says.
He’s responding to a question about the barista oat milk that TiNDLE Foods showcased last year, a product that is currently not on the top of the priority list.
“Our long-term goal is still to accelerate the adoption of more sustainable, plant-based foods all over the world, so we remain focused on growing the business and bringing more customers to the category,” he says.
Recker is speaking to Green Queen after TiNDLE Foods launched its vegan chicken in over 500 Kroger family stores in the US, marking a ninefold increase in its retail presence stateside over the last 12 months.
“We were in about 150 grocery stores this time last year, mainly in the Midwest and the Northeast. Today, that coverage spans multiple regions,” he says. “Our footprint today stands at over 1,300 grocery stores, nationwide delivery offerings through e-commerce partners like Hungryroot and Vegan Essentials, and hundreds of foodservice outlets – and that number continues to steadily grow.”
He adds: “Some of our newest retailers as part of the Kroger Family of Stores [are] located in areas like the Pacific Northwest and California, where we previously only had a foodservice presence.”
TiNDLE Foods locks focus on core markets
Courtesy: TiNDLE Foods
According to Recker, retail is TiNDLE Foods’s most profitable channel, and it’s where the brand has witnessed a steady rise in sales. “We’re seeing great reception to our product range when it comes to flavour, particularly the Stuffed Chicken line,” he says, in reference to its newest product range, which was rolled out in the US last August.
The entrée comes in parmigiana and tikka masala flavours, and contains over 10g of protein per serving. “It’s a unique offering when compared to some of the other plant-based items on the shelves, largely thanks to the convenience and ease of preparing the products. There’s room to expand the Stuffed Chicken line even further, with additional flavours and through brand partnership opportunities,” he says.
That said, TiNDLE Foods’s roots lie in the foodservice channel, which offers higher margins than retail, allows it to better understand plant-based consumers, and informs what works or doesn’t work for culinary operations.
“It’s also a strategic channel when it comes to raising both brand and category awareness – and we’re continuing to prioritise partnerships in foodservice, particularly with like-minded businesses who value quality and taste,” says Recker.
The startup is not planning any expansions into new countries at this point. “Our focus remains on our priority markets of the US, Germany, and Switzerland – where we currently have the largest retail footprints,” he outlines.
“These are some of the most substantial and mature markets for plant-based meat sales, where we feel there’s a strategic combination of market need and also potential for growth in our category.”
Meat-eaters understand why they need to swap out animal protein
Courtesy: TiNDLE Foods
While Recker hasn’t disclosed the exact increase in revenue for TiNDLE Foods, he feels “confident about our growth in the last year”, especially with the development and reception it’s seen from its retail rollouts in the US.
Still, the company is an outlier in the wider plant-based meat category, where annual volume sales dropped by 2.3% in 2024, against a 4% increase for conventional meat, according to NielsenIQ. “Retailers are responding to this trend by limiting their offerings of plant-based meats and focusing more on their core meat products,” the market research agency said.
“Sales on paper for the category have declined year-on-year, but when you look at what’s going on in other areas of the food system, it’s becoming increasingly more important that we produce alternative sources of protein for our population that aren’t fully animal-based,” argues Recker.
“We’re experiencing record-high prices on the costs of goods, thanks to inflation and other production concerns like the recent bird flu epidemic. It’s clear to us that we need to diversify our sources for healthy and sustainable foods that can keep feeding our growing planet.
“When we talk to flexitarian and meat-buying consumers today (versus a few years ago), there’s even a better understanding of why they may swap out animal protein for plant-based alternatives every so often – mostly for health concerns. I believe there’s still a need for plant-based meat in our everyday lives and diets, even in the face of waning public excitement.”
It’s true. While Americans still fail to make the connection between meat and climate change, 48% of them think plant-based foods are healthier than animal proteins, and another 45% want to eat less meat and dairy due to personal health worries.
“Even before that became a hot topic, we wanted to improve the nutritional benefits of our products – to make them even better than animal meat and other plant-based products,” he adds.
“We’re looking forward to the feedback and rollout of our Gourmet Chicken line, which features some improvements when it comes to nutrition and ingredient innovation.”
On the geopolitical front, TiNDLE Foods is “monitoring the tariff changes” in the US, with investors advising companies to either shore up domestic operations or look outward.
“We’ve always been a flexible company and because we’ve operated in several regions and continents since the very beginning, we’ve had to deal with challenges and uncertainties when it comes to the global supply chain,” says Recker.
“Our aim is always to bring the best quality and value to our customers, so we plan to keep our pricing for our partners and consumers stable at this time,” he confirms.
TiNDLE Foods bets on premium vegan chicken
Courtesy: TiNDLE Foods
For TiNDLE Foods, fundraising isn’t a top priority in 2025. “But we are seeing consolidation efforts and mergers take place in our category that not only help build a stronger business and structure for sustained success, but also make sure we’re not losing sight of our mission,” Recker acknowledges.
What the company – which has raised over $130M from investors (following a $100M Series A round in 2022) – is focusing on is its R&D capabilities for new product development and rollouts.
The aforementioned Gourmet Chicken line – featuring premium chicken steaks and bratwursts – comes to mind, having recently been introduced in German supermarkets. The range is built on TiNDLE Foods’s TrueCut tech platform, which delivers a juicy texture with “added improvements in selecting natural, clean ingredients”.
“We remain committed to using high-quality, non-GMO soy as the primary protein source, but we’ve also made the addition of chlorella algae as a main ingredient,” says Recker. This allows the company to add key nutrients like increased vitamin B12, iron and zinc.
He adds: “Our aim is to bring the Gourmet products to more and more partners globally, particularly in the US, as we feel it brings a next-level experience when it comes to plant-based protein.”
Americans in 2025 want more protein, cleaner labels, better-tasting products, and superior nutrition – amid a resurgence of animal proteins, can TiNDLE Foods meet the moment?
In our 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.
Bodil Sidén is a General Partner at Kost Capital.
What future food technologies most excite you?
Using machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve scalability and predictability.
Many novel technologies in food are still too expensive to reach healthy unit economics and scalable business mode. This will be changed with AI and the difference now compared to the first waves of food tech is that food tech companies can be AI-first companies.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
Functional ingredients that can improve our favourite food.
Digital infrastructure and AI that can take steps towards ‘food as software’.
Food safety and traceability in a world with challenged supply chains.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
Initiating a market. Everything will happen in the coming five to 10 years, because it’s important and it’s urgent. And it would have been a lot harder without the first waves of food tech’s incredible effort to develop and apply the technology that sets the foundation of how we will develop the future of food.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
Better, clean, nutritious inputs that can improve texture and flavour.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
Impatience.
The One That Got Away: What is the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t?
I think Planted is doing a super cool job with taste, texture and mouthfeel, and have come far in terms of scalability.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
It’s like naming your favourite child… but I am really bullish about our bean-free coffee company Rest, led by the amazing David Cerami.
What has been your most disappointing investment so far?
We launched in 2024 – so far, all our investments have been performing really well. So it’s probably ahead of us – and that’s okay – because it’s a natural part of early-stage VC. The most important thing is to learn from your mistakes and try to not repeat them.
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
This is a tough one… I believe there’s something about risk-taking in VC that might be misunderstood sometimes. We’re obviously in the business of taking risks – but it needs to be in causation of the potential upside, and I rarely like to take both product and market risk.
And as a founder, it’s important to present not only your step towards the next round, but the long-term play with your business and how you plan to navigate through each step.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
I had several feijoa fruits in New Zealand, an incredible fruit and a strong reminder that the future of food is within what’s already out there. There is an incredible amount of regional food that’s unutilised and better suited for the future instead of global, over-standardised and processed food.
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
I’m very excited about Eric-Alan Rapp and Anne-Marie Søbye Rapp’s Sloppy Jo’s wrap – delicious grab-and-go food that’s good for you and the planet. I also love everything that the Farmacy team is doing.
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
I’m very passionate about equality and equal opportunities. At Kost, we’re committed to bringing better food for more people, and I’m all for finding better, affordable food for more.
Food is the key that can unlock so many areas – feeding more with less, reducing obesity, improving health and planetary boundaries, providing work opportunities at scale, and, of course, bringing people together.
Australian firm Nourish Ingredients has completed an industrial-scale production of its animal-free, meat-like fat while keeping costs low – here’s how it’s doing it.
Six months after forming a partnership with Chinese fermentation specialist Cabio Biotech, Nourish Ingredients has achieved a production milestone for its precision-fermented fat ingredient.
The Canberra-based startup has completed the first industrial-scale manufacturing cycle of its meaty ‘designer’ fat, Taxtilux, enough to meet 170,000 tonnes of end-product demand.
This represents a 1,700% increase in Nourish Ingredients’s capacity, and the firm claims it is the first alt-fat company to reach commercial-scale validation while maintaining low costs.
Precision fermentation combines traditional fermentation with the latest biotech advances to efficiently produce a compound of interest – in this case, an animal-free fat designed to improve the taste, aroma and cooking experience of meat analogues.
“We’re able to produce our final product from start to finish by tapping into Cabio’s existing fermentation capacity,” Nourish Ingredients CEO James Petrie tells Green Queen.
“Cabio already produces a fat for infant formula using the same microorganism behind Tastilux, a fungal strain naturally found in soil. By leveraging their infrastructure, our intellectual property and tech, we’re able to accelerate our path to commercial scale. It’s a true win-win.”
Just 1% of Tastilux can transform meat alternatives
Courtesy: Nourish Ingredients
Cabio has been supplying functional ingredients for over two decades and owns one of the world’s largest factories for long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids. The partnership, announced last November, will leverage the Chinese firm’s facilities and expertise to efficiently produce Tastliux with minimal waste.
“Our manufacturing approach leverages fermentation technology, which allows us to produce these specialised fat molecules efficiently and consistently,” says Petrie. “We’ve achieved our current scale through strategic partnerships that combine our intellectual property with established production capacity.”
A key factor behind its scale-up and cost efficiency is the low inclusion rate of its fat. “Our research has consistently shown that our products can significantly increase animal-like authenticity in flavour, mouthfeel, and aroma with an inclusion rate as low as 1%,” reveals Petrie.
“This means we don’t need massive production volumes to significantly impact the finished product, which considerably reduces the scaling challenges typical in our industry. Our process is designed specifically for efficiency and minimal capital expenditure while maximising output quality, allowing us to reach commercial scale much faster than alternative approaches,” he adds.
“We’ve found global manufacturers are surprised when they discover they are achieving such an authentic meaty perception with just a 1% inclusion level. This efficiency means food manufacturers can dramatically improve their products while keeping their costs manageable, which has been a crucial factor in our strong market interest.”
Tastilux ‘hits the sweet spot’ on pricing
Courtesy: Nourish Ingredients
Tastilux relies on naturally occurring lipids scaled through precision fermentation to provide the distinct flavour and cooking properties of meat fats when used in plant-based chicken, beef, pork and other alternatives.
While commodity plant fats like coconut or palm oil are cheaper in absolute terms, Petrie argues they “lack the taste and functionality” Nourish Ingredients’s fats provide, and their link to deforestation can make them a climate nightmare.
“They are often also mixed with complex and expensive flavour solutions, which can contain up to 30 ingredients, including synthetic chemicals and lack an authentic animalic taste,” he adds.
Meanwhile, cultivated fats derived from cell lines – soon to be commercialised by the likes of Mission Barns and Mosa Meat, among others – are “significantly more expensive and less customisable”.
“Our approach hits the sweet spot – we produce the same molecules found in animals but through precision fermentation, allowing us to optimise the flavour and cost. The key economic advantage is our low inclusion rate – at just 1%, food manufacturers can dramatically improve their products while keeping their overall costs manageable,” says Petrie.
“Our precision fermentation process creates a cost structure that’s competitive when you consider the impact-to-inclusion ratio,” he adds. “This low-volume, high-impact approach means we can achieve commercial viability much sooner than alternatives that require higher inclusion rates.”
Nourish Ingredients eyes global markets
Courtesy: Nourish Ingredients
According to Petrie, interest in Tastilux has been “exceptional”, with the company’s research showing that incorporating Tastilux in plant protein increases people’s purchase intent and preference. This should come as no surprise – fat is the main driver of flavour and texture, two of the biggest consumer pain points for meat alternatives.
“We’re working with several global food companies who are excited about how our product unlocks flavours previously unavailable to them,” he says.
This first batch of Tastilux is being shipped across three continents, in line with Nourish Ingredients’s “multi-region strategy” for regulatory approvals. It has identified the US and Singapore as its initial focus, with an eye on Australia, the UK, and the EU too.
“Our strategy prioritises markets where there’s strong demand for our products and relatively clear regulatory pathways to commercialisation,” explains Petrie.
Singapore is an important market for the firm, “given its leadership in alternative protein innovation and strong government support for food technology”. The company is in the middle of regulatory assessments in the city-state there, a process that takes 12-18 months.
“Our go-to-market strategy focuses on partnering with established food manufacturers who can leverage our ingredients effectively,” Petrie says. “We’re taking a collaborative approach, working directly with potential customers to fine-tune flavour profiles that resonate with local preferences.”
Food tech ‘funding winter’ has shifted investor priorities
Courtesy: Nourish Ingredients
Nourish Ingredients has raised A$40M ($24M) to date, allowing it to develop the tech platform and reach the pre-commercial stage.
“Now we’re operating in what I’ve previously called a ‘food tech funding winter’, where investors have shifted focus from potential to tangible paths to revenue and offtake deals, which means our focus has been on commercial agreements,” notes Petrie.
“What differentiates us in this challenging investment landscape is our capital-efficient approach. Our low-inclusion-rate products significantly reduce the scale-up capital required compared to other precision fermentation companies,” he adds.
“Any future capital will be targeted at sales and commercial adoption with major food companies, many we’re already engaged with.”
The company is also working on Creamilux, a similar alternative for non-dairy applications. It has teamed up with New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra to create both dairy and plant-based products with the ingredient.
This comes during a time when the alternative fat sector is booming. Like Nourish, California’s Yali Bio, New York’s C16 Biosciences and Sweden’s Melt&Marble use precision fermentation to produce fats and lipids, while Hoxton Farms, Steakholder Foods and Genuine Taste employ cell cultivation. Bill Gates-backed Savor, meanwhile, is fermenting carbon to produce animal-free butter.
Precision fermentation pioneer The Every Company recently released a sugar-free syrup made from its recombinant egg protein – and it’s meant for more than just your lattes.
The Every Company has rolled out a protein-packed, zero-sugar syrup that would make you more likely to ask for that extra pump in your iced latte.
The Californian food tech startup is famous for its recombinant egg proteins, which give food and beverage products the functionality of eggs, minus the chicken. It’s a proposition that has long attracted welfare- and climate-conscious consumers, and with egg prices breaking records in the US, it might just lure a much wider set of Americans now.
To diversify its portfolio and expand its reach, the company’s new syrup – marketed under a new white-label brand, Dash – is now part of a limited-edition promotion at wellness hub Earthbar. Customers can order a mocha or a matcha latte with the syrup at one of several locations.
“We are working closely with the Earthbar team to explore longer-term plans,” The Every Company’s director of product marketing, Corinn Williams, tells Green Queen.
The syrup can be used for a lot more than just your lattes. “The protein-boosted beverage syrup was specifically formulated to blend seamlessly into coffee and tea-based drinks, but it works just as well in a range of other hot and cold beverages, including fruit smoothies, milk-based beverages, and protein shakes,” says Williams.
EveryBoost delivers functionality without sensory compromises
Courtesy: The Every Company
The star ingredient powering the Dash syrup is the Every OvoBoost (formerly Every Protein), a highly soluble protein powder with a neutral taste and texture, designed specifically for integration into food and drinks.
The firm is a pioneer of precision fermentation, which combines the process of traditional fermentation with the latest biotech advancements to efficiently produce a compound of interest – in this case, a bioidentical version of glycoprotein.
“It can be used to enhance protein content in products like sparkling water or soda where protein-boosting with ingredients like whey or pea protein is impossible,” explains Williams.
The ingredient is said to “deliver functional benefits without altering flavour or texture”, helping boost protein concentrations without any sensory impact.
“OvoBoost can also be used as a natural emulsifier for total or partial replacement of eggs in high-fat applications like mayonnaise, sauces, and dressings,” Williams adds.
What goes into the protein syrup?
Courtesy: The Every Company/Earthbar
The Every Company chose to create the Dash brand to distinguish itself from its core business as a B2B provider of fermentation-derived proteins.
The sugar-free syrup used at Earthbar uses allulose as a sweetener to “appeal to a more carb-conscious consumer”, Williams says. Other ingredients include water, phosphoric acid, sodium citrate, potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate (both to preserve freshness), natural flavours, and an Every Protein Blend (a mix of OvoBoost with L-Isoleucine, L-Tryptophan and L-Leucine).
At launch, the company said it had created a “game-changing Protein Pump” to allow protein-boosting to almost any drink. Each ounce of the syrup contains 5g of recombinant egg protein. “It delivers functional benefits without altering flavour or texture, making it highly versatile and allowing for elevated protein concentrations with no impact to a beverage’s mouthfeel and other sensory attributes,” says Williams.
“We have also developed alternative formulations that use other sugar-free sweeteners, natural cane sugar, and unsweetened/unflavoured iteration,” she adds.
“We do not plan to release our own version in retail, but we’re looking forward to working with experts in sweet and savoury syrups to help them unlock their own protein-boosted innovation.”
Scale-up plans are a priority for 2025
Courtesy: The Every Company
Could you potentially use the syrup as an egg substitute in baking, given its functionality? “Dash Protein Syrup is designed to blend in hot and cold beverages and is not intended to replace eggs in baked goods,” Williams clarifies.
“We have a separate protein ingredient for replacing eggs in baked goods: Every OvoPro, a functional egg white ingredient (bioequivalent to ovalbumin) that replicates the binding, gelling and foaming of traditional eggs,” she says.
“OvoPro can be used as a total replacement for whole egg or partial replacement in concert with egg or other ingredients. Designed for both packaged foods and foodservice, it seamlessly integrates into applications like sweet baked goods, rich doughs, frozen and prepared foods, pasta, protein bars, and more.”
The Every Company has also commercialised animal-free pepsin, a functional digestive protein with broad applications in food processing and dietary health products. While the startup has received FDA approval for all three of these proteins, “due to the volatility of the egg market and the growing demand for innovative solutions”, its current focus is on OvoPro and OvoBoost.
“Our core focus for 2025 is on expanding manufacturing capacity to meet customer demand,” says co-founder and CEO Arturo Elizondo. Asked about the company’s runway, he adds: “Every is well-capitalised and supported by a robust investor base with the ability and willingness to continue supporting the company.”
Pat Brown has spent his career transforming the impossible into the achievable. A former Stanford biochemist renowned for his research on AIDS and other pressing global health issues, Brown left academia to address what he views as the most urgent crisis of our time: the environmental devastation caused by animal agriculture.
Laser-focused on innovation, Brown has made it his life’s mission to disrupt the food industry and reimagine how we nourish ourselves. His work as the founder of Impossible Foods has not only revolutionized plant-based eating, but sparked widespread conversation about the future of food and its role in combating climate change. Now, with his latest venture—a documentary titled Wild Hope: Mission Impossible—Brown is doubling down on his efforts to restore ecosystems, reduce carbon emissions, and inspire a movement to reclaim land for nature.
In this exclusive interview, Brown discusses the science behind his bold vision, the groundbreaking experiments taking place on his new Arkansas ranch, and why replacing animals in the food system is key to humanity’s survival.
HHMI Tangled Bank Studios
JASMIN SINGER: What inspired you to transition from academia to addressing climate change through food innovation?
PAT BROWN: I loved my job at Stanford—it was my dream job. I got paid to follow my curiosity and invent things to make the world better. But I started educating myself about global environmental issues and realized the two greatest threats to humanity are climate change and the collapse of ecosystems and biodiversity—both caused by our use of animals. Animal agriculture takes up 45 percent of Earth’s ice-free surface, displacing healthy, biodiverse ecosystems. In the oceans, it’s overfishing. Phasing out animal agriculture could actually unlock negative emissions that would have the power to offset more than two-thirds of projected CO2 emissions this century. Once I realized that, I felt I had to do something.
JS: Could you elaborate on how replacing animals in food systems addresses this crisis?
PB: Biodiversity loss is overwhelmingly driven by the land use of animal agriculture. That land that was once used to support diverse ecosystems is now used as grazing land or to grow feed crops. We’re seeing catastrophic consequences—populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish have dropped to less than a third of what they were 50 years ago. Phasing out animal agriculture can reverse these losses by restoring ecosystems. This isn’t just about food; it’s about the survival of humanity.
JS: Why focus on replacing animal-based food rather than advocating for dietary changes or legislation?
PB: You’re not going to solve the problem by persuading people to change their diets or legislating what they eat.
The issue isn’t that people love meat; it’s the destructive technology we use to produce it. It’s like how we moved beyond using horses for transportation or carrier pigeons for communication. We need to offer better technology for producing delicious, satisfying food.
The challenge wasn’t matching the nutritional value of animal products—that’s easy. It was about replicating their sensory experience: taste, texture, aroma. By applying biochemistry, we realized we could create plant-based foods that not only matched but outperformed animal products in deliciousness and environmental impact.
JS: And speaking of biochemistry and food, heme has been a defining ingredient in Impossible Foods’ success. Can you explain its role and address misconceptions about its safety?
PB:Heme was a critical discovery because it’s one of nature’s best catalysts. It drives the chemical reactions that create the explosion of flavors and aromas when meat is cooked. Using heme and basic biomolecules like amino acids and fatty acids, we could reproduce the sensory experience of meat. As for safety, more than 90 percent of the world’s cheese is made with genetically engineered rennet. Our heme protein is produced in the same way—using genetically engineered fungi. Organizations worldwide, including the FDA and the European Food Safety Authority, have reviewed it and concluded it’s safe. The skepticism often comes from industries trying to create confusion, much like what tobacco and fossil fuel companies did.
JS: Your new documentary, Wild Hope: Mission Impossible, showcases your work converting cattle ranches into carbon-sequestering forests. What do you hope it achieves?
PB: Yes, the documentary showcases the Carbon Ranch project, where we’re experimenting with ways to restore land to self-sustaining ecosystems. I hope it inspires people to see the potential in reversing environmental damage, not just slowing it down. It’s also about creating hope—showing that we can make meaningful changes at scale.
JS: And what motivated this initiative?
PB: Eliminating the demand for animal agriculture is essential, but it’s only part of the solution. The opportunity created by freeing up 45 percent of Earth’s land is massive. Restoring healthy ecosystems on that land can halt biodiversity collapse and capture the 800 gigatons of carbon released by clearing it in the first place.
Unlike fossil fuel emissions, these land-use emissions are reversible—plants can pull the CO2 back.
However, there’s no clear roadmap for how to restore this land effectively. So we’re conducting experiments on a thousand-acre former cattle ranch in Arkansas, testing different approaches to ecosystem restoration and carbon capture. This work will help us determine the best strategies to maximize biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
HHMI Tangled Bank Studios
JS: The plant-based market has seen growth in areas like chicken, but slumps in beef alternatives. What’s your perspective on the future of innovation in this space?
PB: The food industry has been a wasteland of innovation, which is a huge opportunity. The basic foods and crops we eat haven’t fundamentally changed in a thousand years. Meanwhile, other sectors have seen more innovation in the past decade than food has in centuries. There’s so much room for improvement—not just in replacing animals in the food system but also in enhancing food security and sustainability. The key to success is creating products that outcompete animal-based ones in taste, price, and convenience. Once we do that, the transition is inevitable.
JS: Impossible Foods has embraced flexitarian-friendly marketing. How do you balance this approach with staying true to your mission?
PB: Our goal is to serve the meat-eating consumer. Most vegans and vegetarians adopt their diets for ethical reasons, which is a personal choice. But for the majority, changing eating habits isn’t about ethics. That’s why we focus on creating plant-based products that people want because they’re simply better. It’s not about imposing ethics—it’s about meeting people where they are.
JS: What advice would you give to young innovators looking to make a difference in food systems?
PB: The opportunity to replace animals as a food technology is massive and still wide open. The food industry’s lack of innovation means there’s enormous potential to improve sustainability, security, and even the fundamental foods we eat. Don’t approach it with the goal of making a quick buck. Focus on solving problems that improve lives and create a better future. If you do that, you’ll find success—and meaning—in your work.
This post was originally published on VegNews.com.
In our 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.
Matteo Leonardi is an Investment Manager at Grey Silo Ventures.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
Globally, introducing the first cultivated products in the market.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
I wouldn’t call this fixing, just as I would not call it plant-based “meat”, as these products deserve their own definition and category.
If there’s one thing I’d like to adjust, though, that is the flavour profile, to make it a bit more complex and longer-lasting.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
Relentlessness, drive, and the ability to look at the grand scheme of things without losing touch with the real world.
The One That Got Away: What is the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t?
Planet A Foods. We were super late to the party, and the round turned out to be much bigger than planned. Luckily, another great company in the sector came after them (Foreverland), which we invested in.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
xFarm Technologies (also the first).
What has been your most disappointing investment so far?
Quite proudly, none. We have a limited portfolio of companies (seven) as we are not forced to invest as a conventional VC following investment/divestment periods, allowing us to invest only when we build strong conviction. Luckily (and kudos to them), the founders we partnered with are all performing according to the plan.
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
Timing plays a much bigger impact than anything else.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
Gotta be the new version of Choruba, Foreverland’s chocolate alternative made with carobs.
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
I’ll stick to my roots: a simple pasta al pomodoro. Quality ingredients, tasty, and climate-friendly.
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
Working with ambitious people trying to change the planet we live on for the best. No matter what you’re working on, if you are an entrepreneur in our field, you might not always get our money, but you surely (for what it’s worth) have my complete esteem.
In our 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.
Erika Hombert is a Senior Investment Manager at Paulig Incubator (PINC).
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
Cell-based chocolate – yummy!
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
I’m currently obsessed with ancient grains grown in my region, like Öland wheat, spelt, and rye. They are great for the soils and ecosystems, and very nutritious and tasty!
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
I’m driven by impact. My why is a liveable future for my children and the continuation of humanity.
New Zealand-based cauliflower ice cream startup EatKinda is moving operations away from its home country to focus on the US amid scaling challenges.
EatKinda, the New Zealand startup making dairy-free ice cream from cauliflower, is withdrawing from its home market and shifting focus across the Pacific.
The firm’s products sold out at Hell Pizza locations four weeks after being launched, and are currently available at 120 Woolworths stores. But it has faced challenges in scaling up its operations domestically, which has impeded its growth plans.
“Right now, we’re producing manually, hand-filling each tub, which results in high wastage and inefficiencies. It’s simply not a sustainable model for scaling,” explains co-founder and CEO Mrinali Kumar.
“New Zealand, with a population of just five million, has limited manufacturing options for a niche product like ours, making it difficult to produce at the volume and cost needed to grow further.”
This compelled Kumar EatKinda to look outwards, landing on the US as its next destination. Here, “viral social media content” has helped the brand attract significant interest, according to Kumar. “Following this momentum, we built an email sign-up list, where thousands of US consumers have expressed a strong demand for our products, particularly in the natural retail channel,” she says.
“EatKinda was always meant to be a global brand, and this decision to step back from New Zealand retail and foodservice is the best short-term move to ensure we can have a much bigger long-term impact,” she adds.
Courtesy: EatKinda
US manufacturing ‘more sophisticated’ than New Zealand
EatKinda was founded in 2020 after Kumar and her co-founder Jenni Matheson at a Startup Weekend event as strangers and worked on the cauliflower ice cream concept, which came third in the competition.
This was followed by two years of R&D, after which they landed on a recipe featuring a base of cauliflower, glucose, sugar, coconut oil, and pea protein. The ice creams are available in chocolate, strawberry, and mint chocolate flavours.
But despite experiencing “incredible growth” in New Zealand, as Kumar puts it, it’s a “small market with limited manufacturing options”, which has resulted in an “inability to scale”. Activity in the country’s manufacturing sector suffered from its longest contraction since 2009 over the last two years, and only just reversed the trend this month.
Kumar says EatKinda’s social media reach – it has 37,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok, with some videos receiving more than a million views (and one surpassing five million) – has proven demand for its cauliflower ice cream globally. “We funnelled this traction into direct consumer engagement, and the response has been incredible,” says Kumar.
“At Expo West, we saw firsthand how excited people are about a truly unique, sustainable, and allergen-friendly ice cream. Buyers, investors, and industry leaders loved the taste and were eager to see it enter the US market,” she adds. “Interestingly, we originally thought we’d need to reformulate for American tastes, but the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, our flavours and level of sweetness are already a hit.”
Plus, the US has “more sophisticated manufacturing facilities and openness to innovation”, paving the way for its market entry here.
Courtesy: EatKinda
EatKinda gears up for fundraise to support US move
EatKinda has high hopes for the US, given the demand it says it has witnessed. But this comes with its own challenges. Sales of dairy-free ice creams have kept falling in recent years, reaching $351M in 2023 (a 14% drop from 2021), according to SPINS data crunched by the Good Food Institute. The volume of vegan ice creams shifted has plunged even faster in this period (-22%).
But for Kumar, the market for allergen-friendly, plant-based options in the US is “undeniable”, with a quarter of Americans having a food allergy. “And that doesn’t even include those who are vegan or plant-based,” she says.
That said, she acknowledges the reality that “consumers still won’t settle for anything less than great taste”. Research shows that a third of Americans have been buying fewer plant-based products because they don’t like how they taste, highlighting a key hurdle for manufacturers in the space.
“The plant-based category is still evolving, and while we’re making strides, there’s work to be done in perfecting the balance between flavour and price. That said, we’re not backing down from the challenge,” says Kumar.
Courtesy: EatKinda
EatKinda is kickstarting a seed funding round to support the US launch, and is in talks with potential partners. “The US market is already familiar with cauliflower as an ingredient, thanks to the success of cauliflower pizza bases and snacks. That openness to innovation makes it the perfect place to scale EatKinda,” she notes.
This doesn’t mean EatKinda is out of New Zealand for good; its home country remains part of the long-term strategy. “New Zealand is home for both Jenni and me. We’ve built an incredible community of loyal EatKinda lovers, and we would love to bring our ice cream back in the future,” says Kumar. “This short-term pivot allows us to build toward that bigger goal in a way that’s sustainable and scalable.”
She adds: “Over the past few days, we’ve received so many messages of support – as well as requests from customers as our ice cream starts disappearing from shelves. That response means the world to us, and it reinforces why we started this journey in the first place.”
Chile’s NotCo pioneered the use of AI in food. Its co-founders explain why they’re doubling down on the B2B business, which is growing by triple digits.
Karim Pichara has been working with artificial intelligence (AI) his whole life. “I always knew that AI was going to be a great thing – [but] not necessarily in the food space,” he says.
The CTO of NotCo, the Chilean food tech startup he co-founded with CEO Matias Muchnick a decade ago, is sitting in the company’s office in San Francisco, speaking to Green Queen on a Zoom call in late February.
“Back in 2015, I had this conversation with Matias,” he recalls. “He brought me this question: ‘Have you ever imagined what would happen if we create an AI technology, especially to formulate food?’ And I say: ‘How’s that? How do you actually formulate food?’ And he started telling me about what it takes to create a full formulation.”
The two realised this was an empty space ripe with opportunity. Pichara went away to build some algorithms and scrape (some totally unused) data from the web. “My main assumption there was that all that data could be a proxy for flavour and texture. So I just created the first version of the algorithm that would generate these formulations,” says Pichara.
“That was a generative AI for actual food formulas, without having any prior experience in the food space. And I think that was a good thing, because it was totally unbiased,” he adds. “We started producing those formulas [on a] kitchen-scale, and we liked the results: very crazy colours and flavours. And we said: ‘Well, we have something here.’”
Courtesy: The Kraft Heinz Company
Fast-forward to 2025. NotCo is a unicorn with $400M raised from investors including Jeff Bezos. It’s a global leader in AI-formulated food tech, with a CPG division that makes everything from meat-free burgers and eggless mayos to plant-based milk and vegan protein bars.
It is perhaps most well-known for its joint venture with The Kraft Heinz Company in the US and Canada, which has borne animal-free alternatives to classics like the blue-box mac and cheese, and Oscar Mayer hot dogs.
As AI’s influence over our lives deepens, NotCo is doubling down on its pioneering work with the technology. Pichara outlines that this is not a food company; it’s a tech firm. And its path to profitability lies in providing AI-led solutions to food manufacturers across the world, including some of the biggest names in the space.
Why AI can change the game for food product developers
Pichara notes that while traditional CPG companies would let the marketing and innovation teams decide what the next product should be, this can be a “very limited” approach.
“What if you had an AI that would explore all the data in social media, all the products that are available out there, and could tell if we found a white space [if] there is a need for this type of product that is not available out there?” he posits.
NotCo’s platform can generate innovative concepts and help humans decide what products to launch. “Let’s say the AI-assisted you in creating the concept of a very innovative product. Now you need to create a formula for that. And if you were just a human without any help or tools, you would have to go and try whatever you know from your experience,” says Pichara.
“That is a super biased approach, because, in general… you might have a few 100 formulations of possible products that might be similar to the one you need to do.”
The number of available combinations is “more than grains of sand on the Earth”, he says. This is where AI can do wonders, helping companies find the ideal formula for product development.
Courtesy: NotCo
“Imagine that you have the prototype and you need to scale it up. You need to make it functional again, you need to optimise the process. You need to rebalance ingredients. You need to change some of the ingredients, add some proteins, decrease sugar, and so on,” adds Pichara.
“As a human, you would try to go step by step. But in general, it’s a multi-dimensional product that needs to be solved at the same time, because in food, if you decrease the sugar, you screw that flavour and texture,” he says. Likewise, finetuning the taste and texture could mean a shift in ingredient use and nutritional quality. AI, he explains, can help avoid this cycle and fast-track product development.
How does NotCo’s AI platform work?
Pichara and Muchnick have dubbed their AI platform ‘Giuseppe’, after the Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who painted human faces using vegetables.
“Initially, the purpose of the technology was to create plant-based formulations that would mimic the flavour of animal-based ingredients,” says Pichara. “We felt like there was a lot of resonance between the artist and what we were trying to do.”
NotCo’s Giuseppe is an AI system that complements the work of food scientists, chefs, product developers, from concept creation all the way to the final version of the formula. “[Ingredient] combinations are almost infinite, right? So you need an AI that guides you through the process of creating the prototype of the formula,” he says.
Courtesy: NotCo
When you’re trying to scale up, you quickly discover that processes that work well in the lab don’t necessarily perform the same way on a larger scale. “You need to take into account all those factors, and at the same time, you need to usually add or make sure that your prototypes have some functional properties,” outlines Pichara.
If you’re making a milk alternative, for example, you’d want it to work in both hot and cold beverages, and sweet and savoury dishes. It needs to have a certain nutritional profile. The texture needs to be on point too.
“With AI, you need to pose a new question where you’re saying: ‘I have this current formulation, and I need to achieve all these new properties,’” he says. “And you put them all together in the platform. Then you say: ‘Help me achieve those results,” and the platform will help you find the variables, optimise the process, rebalance ingredient proportions, [and] bring in new ingredients… to have the product at the level you need.”
Costs can be lowered, but that’s not the end game
Does the use of AI bring in cost savings and better returns on investment? “I think you need to extend the entire development time for every single process and project. So every single development would have cost exponentially higher. And on top of that, [it’s] very likely we will never reach a solution,” explains Pichara.
“We haven’t compared what it would have been doing an entire journey without AI, because we were, by design, an AI company from the very beginning,” he adds. “I don’t think a number can capture what would have happened if we were without [AI], because all our work streams were connected to the technology.
Courtesy: NotCo
“More than cost, it’s about the possibility of discovery. For example, when we launched the NotMilk, it was with pineapple and cabbage. If we didn’t use [the] technology, maybe we [would have] never ended up with that formulation.”
Pichara further notes that NotCo wouldn’t have any business in the B2B domain if it weren’t for AI, which it uses to find product solutions for other companies. “It’s a binary thing: you don’t have the technology, you don’t have a business,” he says.
Industry giants using NotCo’s AI for better products
Speaking of the B2B business, this is one of NotCo’s main areas of focus. “Today, we are working with most of the big players in the CPG industry, and all these companies need product improvement,” says Pichara. Among these are Mars, Mondelēz International, Nestlé, and, of course, Kraft Heinz.
“Usually, they need better nutritional labels, [and] more cost-efficient formulations. Regulations are changing all the time. Governments are pushing towards having better products from many aspects. That’s great for us, because these companies need to improve and renovate their portfolio,” he says.
These companies’ traditional R&D process can take three to five years to update products- NotCo’s tech cuts that time to just three to four months.
Courtesy: NotCo
“Now, we have several projects with all these companies that are related to reformulation and end-to-end product creation. So we have a few products with some companies in Latin America, and also in the US and in Europe, where we are building entirely new concepts for them,” Pichara says.
Submerging its AI tech in other companies is a “great vehicle” to grow its impact, since it isn’t just constrained to NotCo’s own consumer brand. “We’re doing that in two ways. Some companies are just coming to us and saying: ‘You just develop this product entirely, or you just take care of improving this, and we are not using your technology,’” he suggests.
“But we’re also offering the possibility to other companies to directly adopt our technology within their R&D processes, so they can improve their products.”,
More products in development with Kraft Heinz
While NotCo’s B2B business is seeing triple-digit growth globally, it’s just one part of its expansion plan. The company has its sights on its Latin American CPG division. “We are already the biggest player in the continent in the alternative protein category,” Muchnick tells Green Queen via email. “We are expanding into the snacking category, launching a fast-growing platform of functional snacks.”
The other growth focus is the joint venture with Kraft Heinz. NotCo handed over its CPG business in the US and Canada to the food conglomerate last year, with products like NotMilk now only available online. In these markets, NotCo’s retail presence now occurs in the form of the co-branded products with Kraft Heinz.
“Leveraging Kraft Heinz’s amazing capability to operate at scale is unmatched. Therefore, hopping on this operating system made total sense for our business and theirs,” explains Muchnick.
Courtesy: The Kraft Heinz Not Company
“The Kraft Heinz joint venture was able to launch eight categories of superior plant-based products (the timeframe from brief to prototype was three to six months),” he says. “We are working on some new products in the pipeline, but the immediate focus is on continuing to grow the eight categories we launched in less than two years.”
He adds: “Similar to other unicorns like Mercado Libre, Uber, and Airbnb, the focus is now on growing profitably across all our business units.”
As an example of its capabilities, Muchnick last week unveiled a new GLP Booster powder for people who have weaned off Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs, or those who can’t or don’t want to use them.
NotCo teases new versions of ‘iconic, famous products’ this year
Pichara, the CTO, spotlights the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model as one of the most important growth areas. “We deeply believe that companies are going to benefit [from] that technology if they adopt it internally,” he says. “We have a few companies, but now we want to expand that business by reaching out to more companies and rolling our technology within their R&D.
“There are several products – very iconic and famous products – that are going to be rolled out this year with a newer version, and we were the ones that reformulated those.”
“Today, our services are around any product improvement you need to do,” says Pichara. “You can improve a product in so many aspects, like process, cost-effectiveness, ingredient replacement, sugar reduction, cocoa reduction – because maybe their price is too high, [or] some of them want to… change the protein.
“But as far as there is an opportunity to make products better for people, we are going to have a business.”
Californian food tech startup Savor has launched its farm-free, carbon-based butter, which will appear on Michelin-starred menus this year, ahead of a Series B funding round.
“Life on Earth is carbon-based, meaning both we and the food we eat are made of carbon,” says Kathleen Alexander, one of Inc. Magazine’s 2025 Female Founders 500.
She is the co-founder and CEO of Savor, the Californian firm that made headlines last year with a butter made from carbon dioxide. The alternative fat has impressed figures like Bill Gates, a lead investor in the startup’s seed round in 2022, and in the coming months, it hopes to give diners across the US a taste of the future.
On its three-year anniversary, Savor has officially launched its animal- and plant-free butter, hosting special dinners in New York City and San Francisco to make the occasion. The fat ingredient – self-determined as safe to sell in the US – is molecularly constructed via a thermochemical process involving point-captured carbon dioxide, green hydrogen, and methane.
A host of establishments in California will introduce menu items featuring Savor butter soon, including Michelin-starred eateries SingleThread and ONE65, and beloved establishment Jane the Bakery. While the firm did not reveal the exact timing for each launch, or how the butter will be used, it confirmed that recipes will be rolled out throughout 2025.
How Savor makes its agriculture-free butter
Savor Founders Ian McKay and Kathleen Alexander. Courtesy: Savor
“We use carbon in its simplest forms – gases like carbon dioxide or methane,” says Alexander, who established Savor with Ian McKay in 2022. “These gases are transformed into carbon chains called alkanes, which are then turned into fatty acids (the building blocks of fats and oils) and eventually into fats. This process is achieved through a controlled combination of temperature and pressure.”
Savor’s raw ingredients are food-grade alkanes, which are themselves made from multiple primordial elements, like hydrogen and oxygen from water and carbon from gases like CO2 or methane.
“The fatty acids are then purified and assembled to produce high-quality short-, medium- and long-chain triglycerides (SMLCT) to replace conventional fats in a variety of food applications – meaning that we can make substitutes for any existing fats and oils. Where fluid oils are typically shorter-chain triglycerides and harder fats have more long-chain ones: we have a blueprint to make any of them,” she explains.
“By starting directly with carbon gases, we bypass the lengthy (but equally magical) process of carbon being captured by plants, for animals to eat those plants and for humans to harvest, transform and refine these fats. All of this uses huge amounts of land, with an extensive supply chain and releases more gaseous carbon in the process.”
Alexander says Savor’s fats are “chemically identical” to those we already eat, just in varying concentrations. The butter is its first commercial product. “The main ingredient is MLCT oil (medium- and long-chain triglycerides), which is 100% fat, and Savor’s dairy fat formulation,” she reveals. “Other ingredients are water, less than 2% of sea salt, sunflower lecithin, natural flavour and beta carotene (colour).”
Courtesy: Savor
Savor butter: a like-for-like replacement
Savor intends its fats to be used in ingredients just like conventional fats. “The finished products that use our fats as ingredients are indistinguishable from products that use animal or plant-based fats,” says Alexander.
“This is true whether our products replace existing fats, or are customised to meet a specific purpose, or if they are integrated into more complex products like butter,” adds Chiara Cecchini, VP of commercialisation at Savor. “Our butter formulation has properties that are amazingly close to dairy butter. It can ‘croissant’ and can be a 1:1 replacement in most baking applications.”
The vegan-friendly butter aims to tackle several fat pain points. Animal fats are revered for their flavour and functionality, but they’re terrible for the environment. Livestock farming may just be the leading cause of climate change, and take up vast amounts of land and water resources.
Courtesy: Savor
Plant-based fats are essential to the food system too, with saturated fats like palm and coconut oil providing form and functionality to legions of products. Palm oil alone is present in half of all supermarket items and is responsible for most of the deforestation in tropical regions.
According to Savor’s calculations, the production of animal and plant-based fats collectively generates 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That share will only increase as demand for these ingredients balloons. Compared to unsalted butter with 80% fat, Savor generates 67% fewer emissions per calorie.
For Savor to capture consumers’ wallets, the product needs to capture their palates. Does the taste match up? “Practically everyone who has tried our butter – including home cooks, consumers, chefs, and potential CPG partners – have remarked that from a sensory and performance standpoint, it is extremely close to conventional butter,” says Cecchini. “It also outperforms plant-based alternatives in taste and functionality.”
Savor in talks with CPG companies and pursuing FDA letter
Courtesy: Savor
It’s not just restaurants that Savor’s butter has managed to attract. “A number of CPG companies’ R&D teams are working on ingredient innovation projects that can leverage Savor’s unique ability to create customisable fats and oils and are excited about the potential,” says Cecchini.
The firm is negotiating joint development agreements with some of these companies now. “They have been particularly impressed by the versatility and tunability of fatty acid profiles that Savor’s platform can produce – capabilities that extend well beyond the company’s initial dairy-fat-mimicking formulation,” she adds.
In preparation for its commercial launch, Savor has expanded its R&D capabilities at its San Jose headquarters and opened a 25,000 sq ft pilot facility in Batavia, Illinois, which can produce several metric tonnes of fat.
The startup also self-affirmed its butter as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) last year – though with Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr calling this rule a “loophole” that needs closing, many firms are actively looking to notify the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to obtain its approval.
Courtesy: Savor
Savor is among them, having been in contact with the food safety agency for over a year. “We consulted with the FDA throughout the work on our GRAS determination and plan to submit our GRAS dossier and work toward a ‘no questions’ letter,” says Alexander.
“I’ve tasted Savor’s products, and I couldn’t believe I wasn’t eating real butter.” This was the consensus of Gates, who led the company’s $10M seed investment round through his VC firm Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Add to that its Series A round from 2023, Savor has raised $33M to date. “We expect to kick off a Series B fundraise in the second half of 2025 to pursue commercial scale-up,” reveals Alexander.
Longer term, the firm has its sights on more than just butter. “Scalability and flexibility make Savor’s fat solutions unparalleled in the industry,” she says. “Our ability to match the performance of animal fats, dairy fats, vegetable oils, tropical fats, as well as specialty oils used in the cosmetics industry – all with the same technological platform – sets us apart.”
In our 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.
Simon Newstead is a Founding Partner at Better Bite Ventures.
What future food technologies most excite you?
There are many that we’re excited about, a couple of examples are fermentation including for example new types of sustainable ingredients, also interesting coating technologies that help extend the life of food and more.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
We’re open to anything that brings down emissions within our food system. If it has an impact on making a better food system, we are open to it. That includes reducing food waste, lowering emissions from fertilizer and working on blends that can lower the meat footprint in existing large channels and form factors.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
During the past 5 years, the first cultivated meat was regulated and sold, and whilst there’s plenty of work to be done over the long term to bring the potential to the masses, it will go down as a major milestone and achievement.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
The basics – price, texture, taste, plus cleaner labels and improved consumer awareness. That said, we see the offerings are improving, and also feel blends are a compelling solution to lower meat emissions in the short term as well.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
Several: being open-minded, willing to take innovation risks and try something different, ability to learn (and track record of execution and learning), communicate and bring others along in the journey, build a team. There’s no one silver bullet – many things are important.
The One That Got Away: What is the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t?
Perhaps getting involved even earlier. As an early-stage investor, there are companies that we might decide are a bit too far along their journey, but otherwise we might want to have engaged with them even earlier.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
We have several very promising portfolio companies, but as an early-stage investor just a little over three years into our journey, it’s too early to proclaim winners.
What has been your most disappointing investment so far?
We try to follow good decision epistemics and judge our investment calls by the quality of the process we ran through (criteria, analysis, projecting possible scenarios). When we do our future reviews each year, we’re trying to understand if we did a good job with those. I’d say on a meta level, we expanded into other areas of the food system including agri and looking back we could have done that a bit earlier to take advantage of opportunities there.
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
That every VC is different in how they run, what their sweet spot is, and how they engage with startups. I’d encourage founders to ask and get to know what each VC they engage with is after, how they make decisions and run, etc.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
Probably the shredded pulled shiitake mushroom filling from Fable Foods in Guzman y Gomez’s taco bowl – that was great! About to travel some more in the coming months, so look forward to adding more entries to the list soon!
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
I haven’t tried yet some of the bioprinted or new fibre-spun whole-cut products (though my partner Michal has tried a bunch) – that would be fun to taste.
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
Personally, I’m driven by making a better food system for all – better for the people, for the animals, for the climate and for the planet. That’s why I got into impact investing and food projects many years ago. It’s a challenging but fun job, and getting to learn from and support all the founders innovating is the best part.
In our 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.
Martin Davalos is a Partner and Head of Food Tech at McWin Capital Partners.
What future food technologies most excite you?
Precision fermentation, AI-driven food tech, and sustainable packaging solutions. Precision fermentation, in particular, has the potential to revolutionise the production of alternative proteins and other food ingredients by making them more efficient and scalable.
Additionally, gene editing for crops is gaining traction as the market seeks improved crop resilience, yield, and nutrition while reducing environmental impact.
What are the future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
For 2025, I am actively looking at the following four future food verticals:
Alternative fats and oils: Fats and oils have seen substantial inflation in the last year. I think that long-term demand growth will run up against decreasingly predictable crop yields and other environmental challenges, adding to the inflationary pressure on this category. Additionally, Robert F Kennedy Jr has specifically designated seed oils as a category that he intends to attack.
Gene editing for crops: Gene editing for crops is gaining traction as the market seeks improved crop resilience, yield, and nutrition while reducing environmental impact.
Food as Medicine: I remain optimistic about this trend, and our investment in Nuritas may cover part of it. We see more value here and possibly an opportunity in functional drinks. There’s potential for hyper-personalisation, particularly with AI-powered recommendations. However, this area may face low barriers to defensibility.
Precision spraying: It seems like startups have understood they need to propose actionable solutions to retain customers. Reducing and regulating the use of pesticides are major pillars of RFK Jr’s plan for the FDA. We think precision spraying companies are well positioned to benefit from the advances in AI and machine vision over the past couple of years, and can offer meaningful cost savings to customers.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
The greatest achievement in the food tech sector over the past five years has been the commercialisation of cultivated meat and precision fermentation products. Companies like Upside Foods and The Every Company have made significant strides in bringing lab-grown meat and animal-free egg proteins to market, which are monumental steps towards a more sustainable food system.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
The top trait I look for in a founder is resilience. Building a startup is incredibly challenging, and the ability to persevere through setbacks and adapt to changing circumstances is crucial for success.
The One That Got Away: What is the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t?
It involves a company that has made significant strides in precision spraying technology. Their innovative approach leverages AI and machine vision to offer meaningful cost savings to customers, while also aligning with broader goals of reducing and regulating pesticide use.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
CookUnity. They have revolutionised the meal delivery space by connecting talented chefs with consumers, creating an elevated at-home dining experience. Their growth and market penetration have been impressive. Most recently, they have announced their upcoming launch in Toronto for the next quarter.
What has been your most disappointing investment so far?
It’s a company that did not meet its growth projections and struggled with market adoption. Despite the initial promise, the company faced significant challenges that hindered its success.
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
One common misunderstanding is that securing funding guarantees success in itself. While funding is crucial, other factors are equally important, such as building a sustainable business model, a solid team, and a compelling value proposition.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
A dish made with precision-fermented egg protein from The Every Company. It was fascinating to see how closely it mimicked the taste and texture of traditional eggs.
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
Pink Mamma, one of the Big Mamma Group restaurants in Paris. They focus on using locally sourced, sustainable ingredients to create delicious and innovative dishes.
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
My motivation comes from the desire to create a more sustainable and equitable food system. I believe that through innovation and investment in food tech, we can address some of the most pressing challenges facing our planet and improve the health and well-being of people around the world.
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.
Daniel Skavén Ruben is the Founding Partner at Solvable Syndicate.
What future food technologies/solutions most excite you?
Our modern food system was built to deliver high yields and cheap calories, and it has been highly successful at that; we now need to transition to a nourishing, environmentally sustainable food system. Any technology or solution that can get us closer to that goal – in a big way – is exciting to me.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
Regenerative agriculture, supply chain data/digitisation, and sustainable alternatives to agrochemicals.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
Frankly, I think the sector to some degree has overpromised and underdelivered both in terms of financial returns for investors, but also in terms of the real world impact these new technologies have had so far. So from this perspective, perhaps the greatest achievement is that we haven’t given up on the sector, and the potential it holds.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
Make it truly craveable and irresistible on all key aspects; taste, texture, convenience, and nutrition.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
I’m not sure it can be distilled to a single trait. It seems to me that top entrepreneurs are obsessed with solving real problems for real customers, and generating revenue and eventually profit throughout that process.
They are often great storytellers, and can successfully sell the company vision to customers, employees, investors, and other key stakeholders. They don’t let perfect stand in the way of good; they act, they execute, they get things done. They are curious and humble, and can push through the sea of rejection and uncertainty that comes with being a founder. They are honest and transparent; they deliver on their promises.
The One That Got Away: What is the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t?
Have you heard the story of the Zen master and the little boy? Just a few years ago, some food tech companies and verticals raised billions, leading many people to think they’d take over the world; today, many of these companies are gone.
Sometimes, we have FOMO for missing out on investing in companies that eventually turn out to be nothing-burgers; sometimes we invest in things that we later regret. So, as the Zen master says: We’ll see.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
From a ROI or MOIC perspective, there are a couple of companies that look great so far – on paper. But it’s all air guitar until there’s an exit event. I’d like to hope it’s possible to balance profitability with purpose, and we only invest in purpose-driven startups.
One example is Nilus, which brings affordable groceries to low-income people in Latin America while cutting food waste in the process. Last year, the company served 250,000+ people and helped them save 21% on average on their daily grocery expenses. This allows people in these vulnerable communities to spend more of their precious money on essential resources like medical care or educational supplies for their children.
If that’s not a successful investment, I don’t know what is.
What has been your most disappointing investment so far?
Most startups fail, for various reasons. It’s tuition money for the future. It’s disappointing whenever a startup fails, and I haven’t learned enough around why that startup failed. Then I risk making the same mistake twice.
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
VCs don’t necessarily look for good businesses; they want to find scalable businesses tackling big markets where there can be outsized financial returns. You can have a great company that is growing profitably, but it may not be a fit for the VC model. And that’s okay!
Another important thing to remember is that raising VC money is not the same thing as achieving success. I’ve seen companies raise huge amounts of VC money and eventually fail because they focused on growth at all costs. They would likely have been better off not raising money from VCs.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
I was once lucky and privileged to be part of a small group that was served some fantastic, sustainable dishes prepared by Chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, New York. We also got to experience the farm and tour the Stone Barns Center, a world-leading hub for food innovation, research, and sustainability. It was truly special.
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
The food system has a massive impact and is tightly linked to some of the greatest challenges facing humanity (e.g. climate change, environmental degradation, pandemics, diet-linked disease). We can and must solve these challenges in our lifetime; technology and innovation are part of the answer, and it feels incredibly meaningful to get to support the entrepreneurs and scientists that are building the future we want to see.
A recognition of its regenerative agriculture and farmer-centric model, US food startup GoodSam Foods has raised $9M in Series A funding to expand its range of healthy snacks.
Regenerative agriculture may be in the spotlight thanks to the appointment of Robert F Kennedy Jr as US health secretary, but for one farmer-centric food brand, this government doesn’t fully get it.
“I don’t think this administration understands the cost of regenerative farming or how much investment is needed to make it successful at a federal level,” says Heather K Terry, CEO and founder of GoodSam Foods. And while Terry says she is “cautiously optimistic” about RFK Jr’s involvement in the Trump government, echoing the thoughts of many fellow food leaders, the future is not without its challenges: “I see this as a huge mountain to climb, and I don’t think they’re prepared to spend what it takes to make it happen.”
Terry is speaking to Green Queen after her company closed a $9M Series A round for its range of healthy snacks, built on a business model that champions smallholders and regenerative farming, and cuts out the middleman.
The round was led by Alive Ventures and Desert Bloom, with additional participation from LATAM Impact Fund, Promotora Social Mexico, One Small Planet, and Connecticut Innovations. It takes GoodSam Foods’s total raised to $10.5M since its establishment in 2019, reflecting investors’ faith in “patient capital models that prioritise long-term impact over short-term gains”, according to the firm.
Courtesy: GoodSam Foods
The company – which sells nuts, fruit chips, chocolate and coffee – plans to use the capital to expand its product offerings, build its team, and continue direct trade support for smallholder and Indigenous farmers in nine countries, including Colombia, Mexico and Kenya.
Back in GoodSam Foods’s own country, Terry isn’t “super excited” about what the Trump administration is going to do about agriculture, or how it will do it.
“This administration hasn’t prioritised climate action or research that could help farmers adapt to climate change. They’ve cut key resources that farmers rely on – information that tells them when to plant, how to adjust, and how to work within shifting conditions. That was vital for farming communities, and now it’s gone,” she points out.
VC farm buyouts and farmer age gap are immediate threats
“I’ve seen some of what America’s most innovative, regenerative farmers are doing today. They can literally green deserts. They rebuild depleted soils, wells that have been dry for 30 years start flowing again.” These are RFK Jr’s words, part of his long-held belief that regenerative agriculture is key to fixing America’s food system.
The problem? He doesn’t “fully understand the costs”, according to Terry. “I watched his confirmation hearing, and it’s clear that neither Congress nor the Senate grasps what it takes to bring a regenerative product to market,” she says.
Regenerative farming isn’t just an abstract concept, rather it is “essential for our survival,” she explains. “Indigenous farmers and smallholder communities have been practising regenerative methods for generations, particularly in remote regions. But this model is breaking, and the climate crisis is accelerating that breakdown.”
Courtesy: Ben Curtis/AP
“This isn’t just a threat – it’s happening now. Farmers, especially in the Global South, already feel the effects of climate change firsthand. Unpredictable weather, soil degradation, and economic instability are pushing many to the brink. And yet, there’s still no systemic commitment to supporting them at scale.”
Plus, the median age of a farmer is 65, and younger generations – especially in the Global South – don’t see the profession as a viable future. “The current system is already breaking, and if we don’t build bridges, create fair opportunities, and ensure equity in the food supply chain, we risk creating an unstable food system,” she says.
“We’re also seeing a troubling trend of large VC and private equity firms buying up farmland, pushing small farmers further into debt and displacement,” she adds. “No one wants this. If farmland consolidates into the hands of a few, food security becomes fragile. The future of food depends on fair, transparent models that empower farmers – not exploit them.”
This is where GoodSam Foods’s direct trade model comes in. “It’s easier to rely on middlemen and aggregators – they scour for the lowest price, resulting in a cheaper product. But that model comes at a cost. It drives down wages, weakens local farming economies, and prioritizes short-term gains over long-term sustainability,” explains Terry.
“This approach requires a dedicated team willing to build long-term relationships, invest in local communities, and ensure farmers are paid fairly,” she adds. “GoodSam is committed to this work. It’s not the easiest model, but it’s the right one.”
Courtesy: GoodSam Foods
Investors have ‘unconscious biases’ against women-led businesses
GoodSam Foods has been successful in raising funds at a time when VC interest in climate tech, and food tech more specifically, is on the decline, with investment dropping by 38% last year. Terry ascribes part of this trend to “investor skittishness”.
“In 2022, a lot of capital was lost due to inflated valuations that weren’t sustainable. Many companies simply didn’t have the fundamentals to justify their high valuations. When those valuations collapsed, VCs and private equity firms had to shift their focus to stabilising their existing portfolios,” she argues.
“This created a ripple effect. Capital that would have gone to new businesses dried up. Food tech, in particular, is a capital-intensive sector that often requires longer timelines for profitability, which makes it even harder for startups in this space to secure funding. We’re still seeing the aftershocks of that reset today. Investors are more risk-averse, looking for proven models rather than innovative ones.”
Courtesy: GoodSam Foods
Nevertheless, food innovation is crucial, says Terry, and necessitates investors to take a long-term outlook. In addition, VCs must ramp up investment in startups founded and led by women, which commanded just 0.4% of US climate tech funding in the first nine months of 2024. And Pitchbook data from 2022 revealed that only 16% of VC decision-makers are women, while 96% of VC firms have a majority male population of decision-makers.
This is despite women-founded startups offering investors a much better return – 78 cents for every dollar, compared to 31 cents for male-founded businesses – and securing an exit faster (7.2 years versus 8.1 years for the overall average).
“The reality is that women have always struggled to raise capital. This isn’t new. We’ve been talking about it for over 15 years in the natural products industry, and yet nothing has changed,” says Terry.
“Investors still have unconscious biases and often don’t understand how female-driven companies operate or that they consistently outperform in terms of financial management, sustainability, and realistic growth projections.
“At the end of the day, it’s easier to default to the existing systems. Hiring operators and middlemen who already fit into current structures is easier. It’s easier for investors to back founders who reflect the status quo than those who are building something different. But building something new – something more equitable, something more sustainable – requires a different mindset and approach. It’s a challenge worth taking on.”
Amid chocolate and coffee volatility, US government needs to step up
Courtesy: GoodSam Foods
The new funding will help GoodSam Foods build on what was a strong 2024, with the business now expecting to double its revenue this year. This growth will be propelled by new product offerings, including vegetable chips and more nuts, with a focus on local producers.
In addition, GoodSam Foods will launch a New Day Coffee SKU at Whole Foods Market in July, a result of a project that prioritises the next generation of coffee growers. And it’s rolling out a new range of chocolate products with reduced cacao content, like chocolate-covered macadamias.
Cocoa and coffee have felt the full force of the climate crisis over the last few years, with prices breaking all-time records in recent months, after becoming the two fastest-growing commodities of 2024.
Terry calls it a “Wild West scenario” right now. “These commodities are not scalable in the US. They come from other places. The communities that produce them are working in tough conditions to ensure their crops remain healthy and productive. We don’t prioritise that enough,” she explains.
Courtesy: GoodSam Foods
“Climate change is hitting these crops hard – too much rain, not enough rain, extreme heat – all of it impacts supply. But people don’t think about it until it becomes a crisis and prices spike,” she adds. “Unless we raise prices in a way that reflects the real cost of production, we’ll see even steeper price increases down the line.”
She urges the US government to prioritise these issues to create a sustainable future, though is yet to see that level of government. Again, while she remains cautiously optimistic, the financial and policy structures on hand do not yet support that optimism.
“Regenerative farming works. It’s not about perfection – it’s about taking steps, at any scale, toward restoring soil, improving ecosystems, and ensuring food security for future generations. If we don’t act now, we risk pushing farming communities past the point of no return,” Terry says.
“The transition to regenerative agriculture must be a priority, not an afterthought. Governments, investors, and industry leaders need to step up with real financial commitments, policy alignment, and investment in the farmers on this crisis’s front lines.”
Christine Wong, author of plant-based cookbook The Vibrant Hong Kong Table, talks about our meat-eating culture, vegan alternatives, and marrying tradition with future-forward cooking.
With roots in one of the world’s most meat-eating cities and a home in one of the US’s most-eating cities, being a plant-based chef must be hard work.
Or so you’d think, but for Christine Wong, it comes easy. The chef’s new plant-based cookbook, The Vibrant Hong Kong Table, is an homage to the city she grew up in, written from her home in New York City.
Over 88 recipes – ranging from pineapple buns and curry puffs to milk tea and steamed eggs – Wong showcases how local classics from Hong Kong can be futureproofed with animal-free ingredients. The book, in her words, is a “love letter to the city’s culinary heritage”, and an “opportunity to create longevity for these nostalgic dishes”.
We spoke to Wong about the ideas behind her recipes, what vegan food means to a meat-loving culture, why meat alternatives took a backseat in her cookbook, and the things her pantry will never run out of.
This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.
Green Queen: Having lived in New York for the last two decades, what sparked the idea for the book, and how long did it take you to write it?
Courtesy: Chronicle Books
Christine Wong: Ever since I left Hong Kong, whenever I was homesick, I would head over to Pearl River Mart (where I now work part-time as their creative manager), an iconic Asian emporium in Manhattan that has been around for over 50 years.
I would eat dim sum or some of my favourite dishes, like bitter melon and rice, and go to the Asian markets to load up on Chinese groceries, observing the Chinatown aunties scrutinising produce before making their selections – from these daily life moments to festive Lunar New Year celebrations, Chinatown has become my home away from Hong Kong.
During the pandemic, not only was the Asian American community suffering from xenophobia and Asian hate, I watched from afar as Hong Kong was also changing… with unrest and strict lockdown, and iconic restaurants and landmarks disappearing. There was a point when I thought I might never be able to return home.
My book, The Vibrant Hong Kong Table, was inspired by my desire to encapsulate and honour the history and culture of the city that has been home to my family for four generations, and to celebrate all of our iconic foods. The dishes are nostalgic, yet future-forward with a sustainable plant-based twist.
Having embraced a plant-predominant diet since 2014, it’s hard to find vegan versions of these dishes, so it’s also for selfish reasons to have written this book. It took me two years to thoroughly research and create all the recipes.
GQ: What was the inspiration behind the recipes in your book?
CW: Hong Kong is known for so many incredible dishes, but I went back in time to focus mainly on the culmination of the city’s unique West-Meets-East cuisine, or Soy Sauce Western, that sprung out of bing sutts and cha chaan tengs, which met the demand for affordable Western-style dishes using inexpensive shelf-stable ingredients and Chinese techniques.
The recipes in The Vibrant Hong Kong Table use plant-based ingredients with traditional techniques, and are structured on a timeline of eating throughout the day in Hong Kong, from a dim sum or congee breakfast to siu yeh (late-night snacks).
GQ: In the book, you grapple with the idea of using meat alternatives – can you give us an insight into your thinking, and why you chose to spotlight vegetables for the most part?
Courtesy: Chronicle Books
CW: I prefer to use whole ingredients and vegetables as meat replacements, as mock meats tend to be overly processed. There’s so much that the plant world has to offer like cabbage, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and young jackfruit. I made sure to include these, rather than only subbing meat with tofu and mushrooms.
GQ: Many local restaurants in Hong Kong tend to use traditional soy- or wheat-based meat analogues (which, to many, taste better than their western counterparts). What’s your view on them, and do you think there’s a place for these centuries-old alternatives in helping people cut back on meat?
CW: The key to cutting back on meat is to keep an open mind and not to scrutinise and compare plant-based dishes with the original. It will never quite be the same, though most modern meat replacements try to – some western plant-based meat brands even bleed!
Traditional soy- and wheat gluten-based alternatives are tasty, and less processed – however, even as a kid, seeing the Buddhist vegetarian foods my Maa Maa (paternal grandmother) would eat, I never understood why all the dishes were brown, and not colorufully vibrant. The focus should be on integrating more vegetables into your diet rather than only replacing the meat.
GQ: Do you think Hong Kongers – who love their meat – would be receptive to a vegan cookbook and its non-traditional recipes?
Courtesy: Chronicle Books
CW: Whenever I tell people about my book and mention that The Vibrant Hong Kong Table is plant-based, I can see/hear “approval” and know that I’ve captured interest in the book.
I think Hong Kongers are more open to vegan cookbooks these days, especially this one, since many of the recipes are iconic Hong Kongese dishes. People glancing through my book often don’t realise that the dishes are vegan.
GQ; What do you think people get most wrong about vegan cooking?
CW: Vegan food does not always equate to rabbit food and isn’t limited to salads and smoothies. It can be culturally nostalgic and satisfyingly flavourful, with the added benefit of being nutritiously good for you – and good for the planet.
When prepared with the same attention and care as other dishes, one would not even miss the meat. Protein can be found in plant foods with the benefit of a plethora of nutrients and fibre, which lends to being satiated.
GQ: What are some of your favourite recipes from the book?
CW: My Steamed ‘Egg’, Black-Pink Pepper Cabbage Steak, Jackfruit ‘Brisket’ Noodles and Grandma’s Hong Kong Curry bring me comfort, satisfying some of my most poignant food memories.
GQ: What was the most difficult dish to veganise in the book, and why?
Courtesy: Chronicle Books
CW: Fishballs! I really wanted to capture that distinct bouncy texture, and played around with countless variations of flours and combinations. It was the first and last recipe I tested, with multiple iterations in between.
GQ: What are three things that you recommend people always have in their pantry, and why?
CW: Rice is a pantry staple that complements any dish, especially saucy and soupy ones. Whether it’s freshly steamed, fried with chopped ingredients, boiled into a congee, or even soaked, blended and steamed to make cheung fun (rice noodle rolls), rice is a versatile grain – especially if you include glutinous rice too.
Dried mushrooms are full of umami and a perfect substitute for meat both in terms of flavour and texture. They are one of the most convenient pantry items, only requiring water to soak and rehydrate them.
Soybeans are not only a great source of protein – these dried legumes are so versatile that making soy milk and tofu is easy. And if you have the time and patience, tofu skin.
GQ: Your book is an ode to Hong Kong – what do you hope readers take away from your book?
Courtesy: Benjamin Von Wong
CW: I would like The Vibrant Hong Kong Table to preserve and celebrate Hong Kong’s culture and identity. It is a culinary exploration for the vegan community who want to “travel the world” through food while opening up the mindset of meat-eaters that vegan recipes can be culturally appropriate, satisfyingly delicious, and equally nostalgic.
The Vibrant Hong Kong Table by Christine Wong (Chronicle Books) is available online and at bookstores worldwide for $32.50.
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.
Nadav Berger is a Founding General Partner at PeakBridge.
What future food technologies most excite you?
AI applications in food tech, but not just for the reasons you might expect. The food industry has relatively low gross margins – it’s not even in the ballpark of software, pharma and biotech. Artificial intelligence applied right has potential to make all the highly complex (and sometimes archaic) processes in the food system far more efficient and accurate.
That means a huge potential change, from a better topline, to better processes across the value chain to more precisely-tailored products. And bigger margins mean more money to put into innovation. Into food tech. Right now, that’s a hurdle.
Solid-state fermentation is another technology I’m excited about, already being used by MFL for example to create thousands of taste and aroma molecules from real food ingredients. SST requires less capex and production is more efficient, but does deal with complex ingredients so you need the knowhow to master the composition.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
I’m excited about health & nutrition, specifically the intersection of health tech and food tech. That includes several directions, like AI for fully personalized nutrition and natural GLP-1 inducers. I’m also always looking at companies that address food security, because that’s a massive issue that nations around the world are grappling with and will only become more urgent – climate change, population growth, geopolitical tension and more are all at play. Scalable agri-food technologies are absolutely key in addressing that.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
It might surprise you, but I’d say alternative proteins – no question. The alt-protein market was around $8B in 2016, and worth around $80B seven years later. And I think it’s not just here to stay, but will always grow, because there’s simply not enough water and land to sustain the animals we raise for our food. That’s without mentioning the ongoing shift in consumer preferences around health and our food.
Think about just alternative dairy; plant-based milk is a $17B market that’s growing, and add to that fermentation and now cell-based technologies to replace real milk proteins. It’s not about if a particular company fails or succeeds. It’s about the greater shift in tech that’s undeniable, and critical given the reality we face.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
Easy. I’d make it 20% cheaper than real meat. If it’s a really magic wand? 40% cheaper. Texture and flavour are the other keys, but that’s already well on its way. The technology is there.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
I’d say the ability to raise money, because you simply can’t survive without it. What’s behind a founder who’s great at fundraising? At the core, it comes from selling something they wholeheartedly believe in, and are deeply invested in themselves.
The One That Got Away: What is the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t?
InKind, an Austin-based company doing financing solutions for restaurants. Restaurants are ultimately small, risky businesses that struggle for backing – banks aren’t interested in that risk. They have an interesting model with a lot of potential.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
Since you’re limiting me to one here, I’d say BE WTR. It’s a company with an exceptional, mission-driven founder (and two-time unicorn builder); a worthy mission of taking plastic bottles out of the equation along with global shipping of water; a killer application, IP, and beautiful design; JVs and partnerships all over the world, and a deep understanding of what the customer is looking for. PeakBridge was their first investor.
What has been your most disappointing investment so far?
Prenexus Health, the only company in our portfolio that’s had to file for bankruptcy. They had a great team, great tech, and strong backers, but we failed to understand the magnitude of scale-up costs, especially capex. But of course, there’s a lesson in everything, and that one was valuable. We’ve since been far more cautious with capex-intensive investments because at the end of the day, you need to scale.
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
Founders often don’t understand a VC’s agenda and thinking: that there are specific multiples that need to be achieved, according to a specific timeline. Founders need to do due diligence on their investors just as much as investors do on them.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
I got a chance to taste Forsea’s unagi, or cultivated eel, for the second time – and it did not disappoint. The taste of real (endangered) eel that you find in Japan is something chefs are really looking for, and they’ve done it. Incredible taste, a breakthrough technology behind it and soon at price parity.
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
The first that comes to mind is one of my favourite spots in general, Au Père Lapin just outside Paris. Au Père Lapin was one of the first restaurants to fully integrate Mediterranean Food Lab’s SHO stocks in all kinds of dishes – meat, fish, vegetables. Their stocks are super flavorful, those kinds of meaty flavours that stick with you – but are plant-based and made from real food without all the junk.
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
Where do I begin? Think about where we gather with the people we love most: around the table. Food is a fundamental language, and also one that’s brought me to meet the most inspiring people to whom I’ve become closest to.
On a broader level, the food industry is the only one in the world that touches literally everyone on the planet, in one way or another. And there’s so much to improve. All of that combined gives me (so far!) endless energy to do what I do.
Lusaka, February 26, 2025—CPJ calls on Zimbabwean authorities to free broadcast journalist Blessed Mhlanga, who has been in detention since February 24 on charges of incitement in connection to his critical interviews with a war veteran.
“It is absolutely shameful that Blessed Mhlanga has been thrown behind bars simply because he gave voice to a war veteran’s criticism of Zimbabwe’s government,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator, Muthoki Mumo, in Nairobi. “Zimbabwean authorities should free Mhlanga unconditionally and respond to their citizens’ concerns, rather than punishing the messenger.”
Mhlanga, who works with the privately owned Heart and Soul TV, said on the social media platform X that three armed men came to his office searching for him on February 17, soon after which the police phoned him to ask him to come in for questioning. On February 21, the police issued a statement seeking information about Mhlanga’s whereabouts.
Mhlanga responded to the police summons on February 24 and was arrested on two counts of transmission of data messages “inciting violence or damage to property,” according to the Zimbabwe chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights network, and Mhlanga’s lawyer Chris Mhike.
On February 25, prosecutors opposed Mhlanga’s bail application, arguing that he was a flight risk, Mhike told CPJ. The court is due to decide on his application on February 27.
Authorities allege that the offenses were committed in Mhlanga’s November 2024 and January 2025 interviews with Blessed Geza, a veteran of Zimbabwe’s war for independence from white minority rule, who called on President Emmerson Mnangagwa to resign, accusing him of nepotism, corruption, and failing to address economic issues.
Mhlanga was previously assaulted and arrested in 2022 while covering the attempted arrest of an opposition politician.
CPJ’s phone calls and messages to Zimbabwe’s National Prosecution Authority communications officer Angelina Munyeriwa and police spokesperson Paul Nyathi went unanswered.
Dairy is making a comeback in the US, with sales of whole milk outpacing plant-based alternatives. Can pecans turn things around?
The almond may be America’s favourite nut – especially when it comes to milking it – but its popularity seems to be waning a little. In the 12 months to August 2024, almond milk lost more sales than any of the other major alt-milks.
It’s reflective of a larger dietary shift in the US, where whole milk consumption was up by 3% last year, while intake of plant-based alternatives fell by 6%, a third consecutive annual decline, according to Circana.
Despite nearly half (49%) of households buying plant-based milk, a third of Americans still haven’t found a non-dairy product that meets all their needs. The established order of almond, oat, soy and coconut milk isn’t doing it for them – they want something more.
It’s why we’re seeing a new crop of brands using new crops to make non-dairy milk, from pistachios and peanuts to sunflower and watermelon seeds.
Some startups, however, are taking things back to the country’s roots with pecans. This is the only major tree nut that grows in North America and has been called the US’s “third-favourite nut”, with two-thirds of households purchasing it on the regular.
The US produces 80% of the world’s pecan crops, growing over 1,000 varieties. In the last decade or so, new product launches featuring pecans have risen by 54%, while extensions of existing lineups to include the nut have increased by 141%. And at a time when Made in America is all the range under President Donald Trump, these products are bound to find success.
So if there’s one nut that can reinvigorate America’s thirst for non-dairy milk, it’s the pecan. And PKN, a Texas-based startup, is banking on it.
Courtesy: PKN
Upcycling pecans saves waste and benefits farmers
PKN’s pitch is big on sustainability. It works with pecan farmers who use regenerative agriculture practices, utilises water in an efficient manner, and upcycles what the industry deems ‘imperfect’ pecan pieces, thus saving food waste and generating a new revenue stream for growers.
“Our mission is to build food brands that cut a path toward sustainable agriculture for the decades ahead,” says PKN founder Laura Shenkar. “For us, sustainability means delicious foods that provide healthier nutrition using natural resources more efficiently and supporting our local economy. We’re working in partnership with pecan farmers and shellers to upcycle pecans.”
She explains that pecans are sold based on their quality, size, colour and oil content. The larger the pecan, the higher the price. “Perfect half-shell pecans are the ones you see in the supermarket or on the top of a pecan pie,” she says. But pecans can get nicked or cracked during their shelling process, exposing more of their surface area to oxygen and making them go rancid faster.
“Larger pieces are sold as fresh nuts, or to confectioners for trail mix and other health foods. Smaller pecan pieces are often thrown away or sold for animal feed. Today’s pecan shelling means that we’re wasting valuable food. That’s where the upcycling of pecans comes in,” says Shenkar.
“By capturing smaller pecan pieces during the shelling process and hermetically sealing them, we can recover more pecan meats and preserve their fresh taste and nutrition. That means that we’re building a new revenue stream for pecan growers to fund their investment in water-smart irrigation and sensors that replace chemical pesticides,” she adds.
“We are also working with the Upcycling Association to learn from food recovery techniques for other grains and nuts to make our pecan recovery methods more efficient.”
Courtesy: PKN
Pecan milk shines on the nutrition front
Shenkar is speaking with Green Queen just as PKN has launched its newest product, Zero Pecan Milk. While its current range contains ingredients like inulin, gellan gum, and cane sugar in addition to pecans, this latest offering is stripped back.
The ‘Zero’ is meant to signal that the milk contains zero sugar, gums or other additives. It comprises just four ingredients: water, pecan butter, vanilla extract, and sea salt. These are enough to give the product a butterry flavour that rivals cow’s milk, according to the brand.
“We’ve developed proprietary roasting and grinding techniques to bring out the roast pecan taste reminiscent of pecan pie,” says Shenkar. While she wouldn’t be drawn on details of the process, she adds: “We spent months working with University of Georgia researchers on evolving the technique.”
The short ingredient list plays into consumer demand for clean-label products – more than a quarter of Americans who buy plant-based milk want simpler ingredients, or at least ones they can understand.
In addition, pecans come with nutritional gains – they have the highest flavonoid levels and antioxidant ratios of any tree nut, while also being rich in omega-3 fatty acids, polyphenols, manganese, mono- and poly-unsaturated fats, and fibre. That said, the protein content of 1g per cup leaves a little to be desired for Americans looking to amp up their macros.
Courtesy: PKN
PKN sales set to double amid fundraise
Despite the downturn in sales, Shenkar believes non-dairy milk will be just fine. “Most of the people choosing plant-based milks are not lactose-intolerant, so we see a rise in consciousness towards dietary restrictions, natural sources of sweetness, a pull away from artificial sweeteners, and pull towards new flavours,” she says.
“Pecan milk brings in flavours that have natural synergies with the coffee and tea flavours,” says Shenkar. “Pecan is a particularly popular flavour for coffees and teas, so we are seeing that coffee and tea are one of the primary applications for PKN products.”
PKN’s milks are available for $44.99 for a six-pack on its website – that comes out to about $7.49 per 32oz. It’s a steep markup, much higher than the $1.88 you pay at Central Market (one of PKN’s stockists) for twice as much dairy milk. It’s also more expensive than Oatly ($4.24) and Almond Breeze ($2.91), but on par with smaller and more premium offerings like Three Trees ($7.59 per 28oz) or Elmhurst almond milk ($6.48), and cheaper than brands like Taché’s pistachio milk ($9).
The self-funded company maintained stable revenues while introducing its second generation of products last year, when it rebranded from THIS PKN. It is set to launch its suite of non-dairy milks and creamers in hundreds of new stores nationwide, and is planning on raising funds in the second half of the year.
“Overall, the market is expected to grow and we’re seeing a lot of interest in pecan creamers and milks, so we are expecting a doubling of our sales this year,” says Shenkar. “As the first pecan milk creamer on the market, we expect to grow rapidly over the next three years to rival coconut plant-based milk creamers in the US.”
Milkor, a global defence solutions provider had a strong showcasing during IDEX and NAVDEX 2025. With this edition marking their 4th time exhibiting during the show, Milkor presented new additions to their land and Naval solutions, manufactured in UAE. http://www.milkor.ae/
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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.
Heather Courtney is General Partner at Alwyn Capital.
What future food technologies most excite you?
Technologies that can be applied across multiple markets. Many early-stage companies in alternative protein have struggled to raise funding over the last 18 months, as investors have shifted from prioritizing growth at all costs to focusing on revenue.
If companies have technology that can be applied to existing industries while keeping an eye on serving frontier industries as they scale, they can generate early revenue while capturing the upside of future innovations.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
Technologies that reduce COGS and improve quality in plant-based, fermentation, and cultivated products (e.g., media recycling in cultivated meat, continuous bioprocessing in fermentation).
Advanced manufacturing machinery and techniques for alternative proteins.
Precision fermentation—yes, this is probably a popular answer right now, but there’s a good reason. There is immense opportunity in strain engineering, cheaper feedstocks, more efficient bioreactors, and continuous bioprocessing to drive costs down and yields up. One of our portfolio companies, Sunflower TX, is developing precisely this kind of technology. Sunflower has created the first microbial perfusion fermentation system designed for continuous protein production, enabling more protein to be produced with less space and lower costs.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
Bringing truly “future food” products to market – Upside Foods’s cultivated chicken filet, Perfect Day’s precision fermentation whey, GOOD Meat’s cultivated chicken, and EVERY’s hen-less egg, to name a few. Yes, there is still much work to be done, and no, these products aren’t perfect yet. But let’s take a moment to appreciate them for what they are: significant milestones in food innovation.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
A serious magic wand? I’d abolish subsidies for animal agriculture so that plant-based meat could compete on a level playing field.
Beyond that, plant-based meat has a messaging problem. We’ve spoken to Sonalie [Figueiras, Green Queen’s founder and editor-in-chief] about this at length, and I agree with her—our industry has forgotten that women, specifically moms, make the majority of household purchasing decisions. We need to focus on what moms care about: their family’s health, saving time, and making life easier. We need to fix our messaging.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
Tenacity. (There’s a lot more than one, but you only wanted one.)
The One That Got Away: What is the deal you wish you had gotten into but didn’t?
The one we missed knows who they are—we’re still in touch and tracking the company. We were deep in diligence when the lead investor decided they wanted the entire round.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
It’s too early to tell with most of our portfolio, but Cultured Decadence was acquired in 2020, so that was a clear win! We have other high-performing portfolio companies, but we’ll only know they’re real successes when they achieve an exit. Ultimately, true success will come when the industry takes off across all verticals, creating a win for people, the planet, and animals.
What has been your most disappointing investment so far?
We had a company shut down in 2022. It was one of our favourite products, and the founder had a great work ethic and the right team, but COVID wreaked havoc on them, and they couldn’t recover. Robert and I did everything we could to create a better outcome for the company, but in the end, they folded. That one still hurts.
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
Not every business is a good fit for VC dollars, and that’s completely fine. We look for companies that, if everything goes to plan, could return the entire fund through that one investment—not every company is built for that kind of trajectory. You might have a solid business that could grow into a very large enterprise, but if it can’t do that within 10 years or less, VC funding might not be the right fit.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
It wasn’t this month, so maybe I’m cheating a little here, but a few months ago, Robert and I tasted the latest iteration of New School Foods‘ plant-based salmon filet. It was so spot-on that it was unsettling. I even heard a fish eater say they thought it was virtually indistinguishable from conventional salmon. Seafood has been notoriously difficult to replicate with plant proteins—until now. New School Foods has changed the game.
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
There’s a great spot near my mum’s house in St. Petersburg, FL, called Good Intentions. They make a plant-based dish called Crab Fries—a pile of fries with shredded hearts of palm and jackfruit, Old Bay, garlic butter, parsley, shredded parmesan, and aioli. I didn’t know I needed Crab Fries in my life until I had them, and now I’m obsessed.
It’s a tough time for restaurants right now, especially those sourcing local, sustainable ingredients. So many of my favorite plant-based restaurants in NYC and beyond have closed. If there’s a spot you love, please support them.
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
My love for animals drives everything I do. I envision a future where they are no longer treated as expendable. At Alwyn Capital, we are working to make that vision a reality—one that benefits animals, people, and the planet.
I began my career as a pharmaceutical researcher—I loved working in a lab and learning how biological systems function. Now, I have the privilege of collaborating with founders operating at the frontiers of biotechnology to build a more sustainable future.
Bridget Shirvell, author of Parenting in A Climate Crisis – which grew out of her eponymous newsletter – talks raising eco-conscious children, making the food-climate connection, and the importance of going outside.
SF: How did you end up on the climate beat?
BS: From a young age, I was always really aware of it. My parents had rental properties down in the outer banks of North Carolina when I was a kid, and so from a young age, I was very aware of the impact. We would see the beach eroding. We would pay very close attention to hurricanes because that was important to know what was happening to the house. So I was very aware of the earth-human connection from a young age.
And then as I got older, I initially got into food systems reporting, and that expanded into overall climate. I would talk to different farmers and they would mention things that were happening with the weather, that they were having to harvest their food earlier; or chefs would be worried that they couldn’t get certain ingredients. And so that really made me think about everything else. And after I had my child, it expanded to: how are we living?
SF: Who did you have in mind when you wrote the book?
BS: I think I started writing this book really for me because I was like: how do I do this? There’s a lot of information right on how we talk to our kids about the climate crisis. And I think, because I’m somebody whose job is to communicate, that wasn’t my concern.
My concern was more the day-to-day of: What do I do? What is she [my daughter] going to need? And so I really wrote this book for me. And then for people who have asked me questions over the years. Should the kids go outside in this temperature? What type of laundry detergent do you use? Not that the book gets into those specific, nitty-gritty details, but I think it gives people the ability to figure out how to make those decisions for themselves and to think more broadly about the types of skills that people are going to need.
SF: A lot of the book feels very much geared towards an American audience. Is that intended?
BS: I think so. Some of it was also geared towards a British audience. When you read the book, you’ll realise I actually did a lot of the writing when I was spending a summer in England. And my literary agent is based in England, so she kind of pushed me to make it a little broader.
But I would say because the politics of climate change are so different in the US compared to a lot of Western countries, I do think it trends a little more American.
SF: Do you feel that in Europe, people are more climate-literate?
BS: I think they are more climate literate. I also think there’s more of an acceptance that we should just be doing these things because they’re the right thing to do.
SF: The book’s subtitle is ‘a handbook for turning fear into action’. Why the term handbook?
BS: All the chapters build on each other, but I think the book is designed so that if you’re really into food, if that’s what you think is most accessible to you, you could just read that chapter on food, and then you could focus on that and maybe pick up the book again when you’re ready to tackle a different subject. Or if you’re getting a new dog, there’s a whole chapter on pets and animals – you could pick up that chapter and then go on to something else.
SF: So this is a book that people might pick up and put down. It’s not necessarily a ‘read it from beginning to end’? Almost like a cookbook?
BS: I wanted it to be something that people could refer back to, especially as their children grow. Different things are geared towards different ages. Or, you might end up having a kid who’s interested in food or really wants to become to join a youth protest so you might think: “I’m gonna go back and read that chapter and see if there’s anything else I should be thinking about or doing.”
I really wanted the book to be designed so that people can refer back to it, write in it, like, highlight whatever stands out to them and hopefully share it with other people. That’s a big focus of the book, talking to other people about why you’re taking these climate actions, and that’s kind of how we move everything forward, especially here in the US.
SF: A lot of the book features quotes from many parents who work in climate, especially mothers. Whose responsibility is it to educate kids about the climate? Is it the mom’s responsibility?
BS: I think that’s a good point because there’s so many things going on, and then it’s kind of like, oh, but the world’s also on fire. Is anybody doing anything about that? And what should I be doing about that? And so this is kind of coming from a place of, it’s not necessarily your responsibility, but a lot of parents, especially moms, have this worry about what is happening, even if it’s something they don’t always voice out loud to others.
So I hope that what people take away is that there are a lot of things that they’re already doing in their everyday life, that it’s just changing slightly the way you talk about things, or changing one little thing at a time that will help you raise kids who are more climate literate than most of the current adult population.
Courtesy: Workman Publishing
SF: Is there a worry that we will depress kids with these conversations? A pushback I get a lot is that climate is not fun.
BS: Maybe this isn’t the right way to think about it, because I think there’s this trend to be very protective of childhood, for it to be this magical world and in some ways, I am protective of that. But I also see my job as a parent is to raise a child who’s going to be able to face things that come her way, whatever they are, and so in that sense, I don’t really worry about depressing her, because this is the reality, and I think when I’m presenting it in a way that hopefully isn’t scary – not that I always get it right – she sees that this is just something that’s happening. And these are the tools that I have to get through whatever this is. I’m teaching them how to live in the world, and bad things are occasionally going to happen, and they need to see us handle that.
SF: It’s very embarrassing to admit but I sometimes feel that my older child is not that interested in the climate cause despite everything I have tried to do, from raising him plant-based to exposing him to nature as much as possible to talking to him about all the things. What can you do if your kid isn’t interested?
BS: I think for some people, it just probably takes a little longer. And I also think you have to pick your battles with kids. My [six-year-old] daughter doesn’t eat any meat, and that actually was her choice. But she does love dairy, and I struggled a lot with cow’s milk, as she calls it, versus oat milk. And she just will not drink the oat milk if we only have oat milk at home – she refuses, and she understands why, she understands the environmental differences. We’ve talked about that, but for her, it’s like: “You know what? I just don’t like the way alternative milks taste, and I do a lot of other things that are good for the planet.”
I think part of it is letting kids gravitate towards their own interests. At a certain point, your son will find other things that light him up and that you can connect to the environment. Maybe it hasn’t happened yet for him. I think you keep going back to: “These are our values, and this is why we’re doing these things, even if other people don’t do them.” And as they grow up, they learn what their own values are, too, and they might be slightly different from yours, but I think, in the long run, they will end up there.
SF: Do you ever feel hopeless? And if so, how do you deal with it?
BS: I feel hopeless lots of times. Just being in the supermarket and seeing all that plastic gives me a lot of anxiety. When my daughter comes home from school on Valentine’s Day with bags of plastic toys, I will also feel a little hopeless. I think I just try to take it one moment at a time, but also, the more I talk to other people, the better I feel.
Sonalie Figueiras: What was the hardest part of writing this book?
Bree Shirvell: I think the hardest part was really kind of narrowing down the experiences of the people working in climate that I spoke to because while I really wanted this book to be obviously from my perspective, I wanted somebody picking it up to see themselves and the other parents that I spoke to in the book. And so I think it was hard for me to curate that group, there are so many people doing this work, and I think they all should be celebrated and applauded that that was kind of hard to like winnow down the information.
SF: What’s the most powerful lever for getting people to act on climate change, and is it different for kids and adults?
BS: Oh, that’s a good question. I don’t know if I would say it’s the most powerful, but I think the most accessible one is really thinking about food and where your food is coming from, just because we all have to eat. I think it’s very easy for both kids and adults to make that food-climate connection in a way, even if you think just like thinking about something simple, such as food waste. That’s something that you can see every day. So once you understand those emissions, I think that’s a good first step to thinking about how I’m going to reduce my food waste.
The food system is a third of all climate emissions. There is a lot of movement we can make there. Thinking about it from a food perspective just kind of builds on other things because it’s also an easy way to talk to other adults. Everybody has to make dinner for their kids or make school lunches, right? There are so many things you can talk about like trying to reduce the single-use plastic in my kid’s lunch or thinking about snack ideas… it’s such an easy way to talk about these issues.
SF: One of the topics that come up again and again in the book is the link between spending time outdoors in nature and developing climate awareness – or what I call climate literacy. What do we do for kids who have very limited access to nature?
BS: I think it’s a very different type of nature, but I still think getting them outside, there are still lessons you can learn. You can talk about the temperature at different times of the year or the urban heat island effect, so they can start to understand: “Oh, it’s hotter here. It’s a little cooler here, because there are some trees.” You can look into growing some plants on your windowsill, some herbs or some flowers – anything that gets you in some way connected to all your senses so you can touch it and can feel it, or taste it.
I wish more schools would make that a priority. I think that’s slowly starting to shift. I know here [in the US] at least, more schools are thinking about: “Oh, we’re going to take a long hike on a Wednesday as part of our curriculum.” And that’s been really cool to see that shift starting to happen, and people realising that outdoor time is important.
SF: It feels like we are in a new reality where you’ve got a new US administration that is scrubbing climate from the rhetoric and from government websites. Whose responsibility is it to create change and to keep people informed about the climate crisis?
BS: In terms of whose responsibility is, I would love to say it’s our institutions, right? It’s schools, it’s government, it’s news media. But even before this new administration started, mainstream media so often doesn’t make that connection between climate and natural disasters, or with air travel.
We had stories about turbulence, and people weren’t talking about how this is also an effect of climate change – the world heating up makes turbulence worse.
I just think that for so long, nobody’s been doing it. So it really is up to everybody, especially those who are more concerned and more focused on climate education to talk about it in their day-to-day lives with their neighbours and their kids. And I think that does eventually trickle down and make it more mainstream.
SF: Do you buy this idea that we need to ‘rebrand’ climate? For example, a lot of people in climate tech now calling it the transition economy instead.
BS: You know, that’s a hard question. I am kind of against this whole idea of transition. To me, it feels a little bit like giving up. But at the same time, I’m also kind of at the point where, whatever works. If that gets more people on board that we’re calling it a transition economy, then, let’s do it. As long as it doesn’t turn into greenwashing, I think I’m okay with that.
Parenting In A Climate Crisis: A Handbook for Turning Fear Into Action by Bridget Shirvell (Workman Publishing/Hachette Book Group) is available now at bookstores across the US and Canada for $17.99.
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?
HHMI Tangled Bank Studios
HHMI Tangled Bank Studios
