๐ณ๐ฑย ๐ย Tyson Foods, the US-based meat giant, made a strategic investment in Protix, the Duch insect protein startup. This will help the startup increase its animal feed production and open a facility (the first โat scaleโ) in the US, turning byproducts into insect protein. This investment follows a handful of other partnership investments of large food players into startups scaling insects for animal feed.
๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟย ๐ Beta Bugs, a Scottish startup, raised โฌ1.46M to produce insects for animal feed.
๐ฉ๐ชย ๐ชย Lidl Germany announced that it will offer price parity for the plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy products under its private label brands. As price is one of the major limitations of growth for plant-based, it will be interesting to observe how this will affect sales over the more than 100 plant-based products sold by Lidl.
๐ฏ๐ต ๐ฑ DAIZ, a Japanese startup, raised $47M to build the countryโs โlargestโ plant-based meat factory.
๐บ๐ธ๐งช Liberation Labs, a US startup, raised $75M for its commercial-scale precision fermentation protein facility (startups and established companies will then use that to manufacture their precision fermentation ingredients). The move toward cloud bioreactors is something we have already discussed here and a solution to finance the transition toward synthetic foods.
๐บ๐ธ๐ค PickNik Robotics, a US startup, raised $2M for its robotic platform, which enables developers to create applications with robot arms.
๐ฆ๐ท๐ฑ Moolec Science, an Argentina-based startup using molecular farming to produce alternatives to animal ingredients, raised $30M to keep working on its R&D projects.
๐บ๐ธ๐ฟ Zordi, a US startup, raised $20M for its automated greenhouses. It uses both AI and robotics to cut labour costs by 80%.
๐บ๐ธย ๐ Salted, a US startup, raised $14M for its network of virtual restaurant brands. Its focus on โbetter for youโ brands is relatively new in an ecosystem dominated by unhealthy offerings and inconsistency (unlike most virtual brands, Salted cooks its products). Weโll see if delivery consumers are finally ready to move toward new types of food.
๐ฉ๐ฐย โ๏ธย Denmark announced the worldโs first national action plan to promote plant-based foods. It wants to bolster local consumption but also the exports of plant-based foods to make the country a leader in this field.
Denmark may be a small country, but it fights above its weight when we talk about FoodTech. You should have a look at the countryโs state of investments and top startups in our dedicated report published a few weeks ago.
๐ซ๐ทย ๐ VIF Systems, a French vertical farming startup using containers to grow leafy greens, raised an undisclosed amount of money from the French seed giant Limagrain.
