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11 FoodTech news to know this week (2025 – week #30)

Published on July 21, 2025

Startup news

🇦🇺 🍼 Eclipse Ingredients, an Australian startup, raised $4.6M to scale its production of human lactoferrin (made through precision fermentation).

 

🇨🇦 🍫 Awake, a Canadian startup, raised CAD $8M to fuel the expansion of its functional chocolate brand (the chocolate contains caffeine, hence the name).

 

🇪🇸 🌾 Odos, a Spanish startup, raised €680K for its sustainability tracking and data collection platform targeting the agri-food sector.

 

🇬🇧 🧃 Goodrays, a British startup, raised €5.7M for its CBD beverages.

 

🇮🇹 🌱 Plantvoice, an Italian startup, raised €500K to develop its sensor technology that monitors crop health in real-time.

 

🇩🇪 🐶 Hey Holy, a German startup, raised €5.7M for its pet food products, which are customised to match the needs of dog breeds.

 

🇮🇳 🌿Eeki, an Indian, raised $7M to scale its controlled-environment farm operations across India.

 

Leading Companies & Macro Trends

🇺🇸 🥤 Coca-Cola’s sugar has become a policy topic. After facing criticism for its use of high-fructose corn syrup from the new administration, it is now Donald Trump himself who is pressuring the brand to use cane sugar instead in its products.

 

🇬🇧 🦄 This article follows the quite fascinating financial story of BrewDog. Often presented as a success story and valued at over $2 billion, it could be worth much less (between $200 to $400M), meaning that thousands of crowdfunding investors could have lost money in it.

 

🇺🇸 💪 Once seen as a byproduct, whey is now a key ingredient for the food industry, notably used to enrich the amount of protein in CPG products from functional drinks to snack bars. The article’s leading example is quite striking: a US cheesemaker is now

making more profits from whey than from cheese.

🇨🇭 🍫 Barry Callebaut announced a R&D partnership with a Zurich-based university to look into plant-cell culture applied to cacao production. As many other players in the space have already teamed up and/or invested into startups, this move seems quite noncommittal.

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