Future Food

From the heady days of the dot com boom -- and subsequent bust -- Eric Archambeau cofounded Astanor Ventures with George Coelho in 2017 as an impact venture capital fund for food and agriculture."We founded it with a vision that the agrifood market was going to go through a deep disruption that was needed to move from a system that was delivering cheap calories, to a system that would be able to deliver affordable nutrients," Archambeau tells AgFunderNews on a new episode of the Future Food podcast.Fast forward to today and the European firm has made around 40 investments across the suppy chain and recently announced the closing of its second fund on €360 million.Hear Eric talk about when and where exits will come to the industry -- something so many of us are wondering! How agrifoodtech fits into the impact investing world, and much more!

In this preview, Jacob talks with Katherine Sizov, founder of Strella Biotechnology. Her problem: Tons of food is wasted before it ever gets to the consumer. Katherine started working on this problem in 2018, when she was a junior in college. Her idea: imitate the natural world and build a device that detects when fruit is ripening. It worked. Now some of the biggest apple and pear packers in America use her device. You can hear more from What’s Your Problem? at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/wypfuture.

A somewhat controversial category, during my hot or not rounds on this podcast, most guests have responded negatively to the concept of replacing meals with a drink - and perhaps Soylent took this on board as  in more recent years it's started calling itself a nutrition company with a small but growing number of product lines not just focused on meal replacement but all made from plants. Demir has been the CEO for nearly two years now and it's been a bit of a turnaround story as the company turned profitable in mid-2020. With a background in food and media, and having worked at one of the first almond milk companies out there, I jumped at the chance to chat to Demir about the future of plant-based foods as well. Enjoy!

Amy Yoder is CEO of Anuvia Plant Nutrients, a company that's converting waste to help crops uptake fertilizers more efficiently, and even help them to sequester carbon in the soil. She is a trailblazer being one of the best-funded women in agtech on record, raising $103 million in Series D earlier this year.For those of you who aren't knowledgeable about the fertilizer industry, Amy gives a great description. Enjoy this episode with a powerhouse of agtech, Amy Yoder.

Since Sriram co-founded Shiok Meats three years ago, the startup has gone from strength to strength. According to AgFunder's most recent ASEAN Agrifoodtech Investment Report, it was Southeast Asia’s highest-funded startup in the ‘Innovative Food’ category in 2019.It raised $4.6 million for its April 2019 seed round, which saw Y Combinator make its first-ever investment in a ‘clean meat’ company.Last year, Shiok Meats netted $3 million in bridge funding from investors including UK firms Agronomics and Impact Venture, US trust VegInvest, and UAE-based Mindshift Capital, before closing a $12.6 million Series A round led by Dutch aquaculture-focused fund Aqua-Spark.

The Future Food News Review is part of a collaboration between AgFunder and Food+Tech Connect to host meaningful conversations about the future of our food system on Clubhouse and other platforms.The Future Food News Review features leading journalists in foodtech and agtech sharing and discussing their top headlines of the week, hosted on Clubhouse.See below for a list of participating journalists and the articles they introduced; some of them joined purely for the discussion and debate. We always strive for diverse voices on Future Food News Review, so if you're a journalist covering food systems, agtech or foodtech, or know someone who is that would make a great edition, please reach out to danielle@foodtechconnect.com or louisa@agfunder.com.Sonalie Figueiras - Green Queen MediaArticle: Food System Change: ‘Who’s Making Decisions, Who’s Benefiting, Who’s Gaining The Wealth?’ Errol Schweizer’s Got QuestionsErrol Schweizer - Forbes/TheCheckOut Article: How New York City Delivery Workers Are Rewriting The Rules Of Gig WorkArticle: Not Just Junk: Why We Need To Re-Think Food ProcessingLouisa Burwood-Taylor - AFNArticle: Bowery bags ‘biggest-ever’ vertical farming raise with $300m Series CPodcast: Up, up and away! Irving Fain on building Bowery's biggest vertical farm yetChloe Sorvino - ForbesArticle: JBS Cyberattack Shines A Spotlight On The Biggest Risk To Big Meat: ConsolidationJenn Marston - The SpoonArticle: Tesla May Soon Open Its Own RestaurantSam Silverstein - Grocery DiveArticle: Amazon to open its first Fresh supermarket with checkout-free technologyKristen Hawley - EaterArticle: Delivery Apps Are Making Concessions to Restaurants. But Who Pays?Thin Lei Win - ThinInk

The Future Food News Review is part of a collaboration between AgFunder and Food+Tech Connect to host meaningful conversations about the future of our food system on Clubhouse and other platforms.The Future Food News Review features leading journalists in foodtech and agtech sharing and discussing their top headlines of the week, hosted on Clubhouse.See below for a list of participating journalists and the articles they introduced; some of them joined purely for the discussion and debate. We always strive for diverse voices on Future Food News Review, so if you're a journalist covering food systems, agtech or foodtech, or know someone who is that would make a great edition, please reach out to danielle@foodtechconnect.com or louisa@agfunder.com.Esther Honig - The NationArticle: The Story Behind Your Salad: Farmworkers, Covid-19, and a Dangerous CommuteSonalie Figueiras - Green Queen MediaArticle: Cell-Cultured Meat Pioneer Memphis Meats Is Now UPSIDE Foods, First Chicken Product To Launch This Year Pending Reg. ApprovalErrol Schweizer - Forbes/TheCheckOut Article: What Questions Should We Be Asking about Cultured Meats?Article: How Fast Food Workers Are Finally Getting $15 an HourElaine Watson - Food NavigatorUSAArticle: Brave New Animal Free WorldJoe Fassler - The CounterArticle: Regenerative Agriculture Needs a Reckoning Luke Winkie - VoxArticle: Right-wing coffee companies want to make coffee great againLouisa Burwood-Taylor - AFNArticle: Ginkgo Bioworks to go public at $15bn valuation as agrifood SPAC frenzy continuesChloe Sorvino - ForbesBettina Makalintal - VICE

Bowery has just launched FarmX, its new vertical farm for R&D that's 300 times larger than the first. It's also building a new, bigger than ever commercial farm in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania which will enable it to sell over 20 million clamshells of leafy greens and produce each year. While that's still the equivalent of just 115 acres of outdoor farmland, it's certainly a turning point and year-over-year growth is significant; since January 2020, the company has increased its brick-and-mortar grocery sales by 750%.Challenges lie ahead. Energy efficiency and costs are still battles to contend with and other vertical farming groups have struggled to live up to their promises of international expansion. But Bowery founder and CEO Irving Fain has an answer for everything.If you're a vertical farming enthusiast, or a newbie keen to learn about this exciting industry, this episode will take you on a journey of Bowery's founding, why they decided to build all their technology in-house, their growth plans, how they're breaking into new crops and digging into crop genetics to do so, and the overall mission and hopes for the industry at-large. Enjoy!

Crop protection is a serious business; each year a farmer battles a range of different pests, weeds and diseases trying to kill their harvest.  It's complicated too, with timing and weather other forces to contend with. Since the Second World War and the Green Revolution of the 1960s, the playbook for managing pests, by and large, has revolved around a combination of chemical applications at various point during the year together with synthetic fertilizers, and in the US, genetically modified seeds. Leaving the negative connotations of using chemicals on farmland aside -- and there are many -- weeds and pests are becoming resistant to these chemicals and farmers' options are starting run out. The pressure from consumers and lawmakers to use fewer chemicals and move away from GM crops is also growing. Agrichemicals companies can't ignore the cancer lawsuits, health and environmental concerns and hefty settlements they've faced either."At some point, most of the compounds have been made, have been tested and it becomes harder and harder to really introduce new products that are significantly better than what's already there," says Dr. Marijn Dekkers, the former CEO of the world's biggest ag chemicals and seeds business Bayer."New ways of controlling diseases and insects have dropped off a cliff over the last 20 years," adds Eric Ward, the CEO of AgBiome, a startup working on creating crop protection products using naturally-occurring microbes.Microbes, they say, are the next frontier for crop protection.Listen to this podcast (or read the transcript) to find out why Dekkers joined the board of AgBiome, his views on the agchemicals industry today, and how AgBiome is approaching this challenging space with backing from high profile investors like the BIll & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Stockeld Chunk will be the first in a series of cheese products from Stockeld Dreamery this year and I really enjoyed it! Listen in to hear my thoughts about the cheese, why Sorosh Tavakoli, an advertising tech entrepreneur got into foodtech, how to build the most ambitious cheese company in the world (his phrase, not mine), without cows, moving beyond nuts as the key ingredient in plant-based cheese, and creating a simple, healthy alternative to dairy cheese with just a few ingredients. 

The Future Food News Review is part of a collaboration between AgFunder and Food+Tech Connect to host meaningful conversations about the future of our food system on Clubhouse and other platforms.The journalists joining this week are:Ximena Bustillo - POLITICO (https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-agriculture)Sam Silverstein - Grocery Dive (https://www.grocerydive.com/news/amazon-unveils-aplenty-its-newest-private-label-food-brand/598223/)Leah Douglas - FERN (https://www.motherjones.com/food/2021/04/a-year-later-conditions-for-many-food-workers-at-high-risk-of-covid-19-remain-the-same/)Jenn Marston - The Spoon (https://thespoon.tech/restaurants-breakup-with-single-use-plastics-has-begun/)Lela Nargi - The Counter (https://thecounter.org/funding-investment-plant-based-proteins-meat-consumption/)Chloe Sorvino - Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2021/04/15/maker-of-mushroom-sourced-bacon-raises-40-million-to-reach-grocers-at-scale/?sh=498070b472d1)Louisa Burwood-Taylor - AFN (https://agfundernews.com/grab-confirms-record-breaking-40bn-spac-deal-archrival-gojek-nears-18bn-merger.html)Errol Schweizer - Forbes/TheCheckOut (https://www.thecheckoutradio.com/podcast/episode42-ufcw)Elaine Watson - Food NavigatorUSAMegan Poinski - Food DiveSign up for the Food+Tech Connect newsletter hereSign up for the AgFunder Weekly newsletter and research here

The journalists joining us this week were:Joe Fassler - The Counter (https://thecounter.org/agrivoltaics-farmland-solar-panels-clean-energy-crops/)Sarah Mock - freelance (https://sarah-k-mock.medium.com/no-your-great-grandfather-did-not-know-how-to-fix-our-food-system-83775d4f1852)Larissa Zimberoff - Bloomberg and freelance (https://technicallyfood.substack.com/p/gene-editing-our-precious-tomato)Sonalie Figueras - Green Queen Media (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-impossible-foods-m-a-exclusive-idUSKBN2BV2SF)Alicia Kennedy - Eater and freelance (https://www.eater.com/22315684/vegan-cheese-history-ingredients-process-grocery-brands)Kristen Hawley - Expedite (https://www.expedite.news/p/tock-to-squarespace-for-400-million)Elaine Watson - Food NavigatorUSA (https://tinyurl.com/35sa4rv3)Ximena Bustillo - POLITICOMegan Poinski - Food DiveErrol Schweizer - Forbes and TheCheckout Podcast

PepsiCo started the year with a bang by pledging to more than double its climate goal, targeting a reduction of absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across its value chain by more than 40% by 2030. It also pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040, one decade earlier than called for in the Paris Agreement.But how exactly is the company going to achieve this? And what role does technology play across its convoluted supply chain globally?

We're mixing things up here at Future Food and have partnered with Danielle Gould from Food+Tech Connect to host deep discussions about the future of our food system and we're going to be bringing those conversations to the Future Food podcast. Expect fireside chats, book clubs, and the format for this episode, the Future Food News Review. The weekly Future Food News Review features leading journalists in foodtech and agtech sharing and discussing their top headlines of the week, hosted on Clubhouse. This was our second edition and featured:~ Kim Severson, The New York Times~ Chloe Sorvino, Forbes~ Greenaway, Twilight, Civil Eats~ Megan Poinski, Food Dive~ Kate Cox, The Counter~ Cathy Erway, New York Magazine~ Kristen Hawley, Expedite~ Monica Watrous, Food Business News~ Brett Anderson, NYT~ Sonalie Figueiras, Green Queen Media~ Leah Douglas, The Food & Environment Reporting Network~ Jennifer Marston, The Spoon~ Errol Schweizer, Forbes~ Elaine Watson, FoodNavigatorExpect a nuanced conversation about alternative proteins, picking up on news about Eat JUST's $200m funding round and consumer survey, the approval of the organic label for hydroponically-grown produce, how farmers are responding to the pandemic-induced restaurant industry shutdown in choosing what to plant, how states are rolling out Covid-19 vaccines for food system workers,  how junk food companies are using TikTok to advertise to young people, and many more!We're still testing out this format and would love to hear your suggestions for great journalists for us to include to ensure we're bringing diversity of thought to the headlines discussed.👋 Join us every Friday at 7a PDT on ClubhouseFeatured articles this week:https://agfundernews.com/eat-just-raises-200m-from-qatar-sovereign-wealth-fund-microsoft-cofounder.htmlhttps://agfundernews.com/just-how-this-startup-became-the-first-to-serve-cell-cultured-meat-in-a-restaurant-podcast.htmlhttps://www.fooddive.com/news/7-in-10-us-consumers-would-substitute-cell-based-chicken-for-that-from-an-a/597298/ ​https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2021/03/24/Alternative-proteins-will-account-for-11-of-global-protein-market-by-2035-predicts-report https://thecounter.org/farmer-spring-planting-palisade-peaches-colorado-california/ https://agfundernews.com/hydroponic-produce-can-be-certified-organic-us-federal-court.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/dining/independent-restaurant-coalition-stimulus-money.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytfood https://civileats.com/2021/03/22/are-junk-food-companies-using-tiktok-influencers-to-target-kids/https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/22/deliveroo-ipo-food-delivery-app-seeks-valuation-of-up-to-12-billion.htmlhttps://thespoon.tech/gopuff-raises-1-5-billion-to-deliver-you-goods-in-under-a-half-hour-around-the-clock/https://www.grubstreet.com/2021/03/philip-chong-canal-street-market-chinatown.htmlhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/errolschweizer/2021/03/23/how-new-york-city-is-revolutionizing-good-food-policy/?sh=301b5d43779e

Topics covered include: how EAT JUST managed to get regulatory approval ahead of other cultivated meat startupsfrom plant-based to cell culturinghow investors reached a $1bn valuation for the companynew formats in the pipelineadvice for entrepreneurs Josh's moonshot idea

When I returned from maternity leave in January, I reached out to my good friend Henry Gordon-Smith from Agritecture to find out what I'd missed and what sort of traction the highly funded startups were really getting. When thinking about which company was making the greatest strides, Henry highlighted Infarm, the Berlin-based vertical farming group with more than $300m in funding under its belt. Infarm's global footprint has expanded rapidly in recent months with its in-store units cropping up across the globe and even in Japan, one of the most developed indoor agriculture nations globally.So we decided to co-host an episode with Infarm's two cofounders, and brothers, Guy and Erez Galonska, to dig in to this growth.Expect to hear about their surprising commitment to sustainability, focus on their core customer -- the retailer -- expansion of their plant science team and evolution of their differentiated business  model.

Labor shortages are nothing new to the agriculture industry and COVID-19 has excerbated this already existing problem.  Is it sustainable and efficient to import labor from other countries like the US and the UK do?The time for automation in the food and agriculture industry is now. But are the robots ready to be unleashed?Our recent webinar with Josh Lessing from RootAI and Igino Cafiero Bear Flag Robotics tackles the inherent challenges of the space, and how to improve it forward in a post-COVID19 world.Learn more about how these 2 trailblazers are automating harvests in greenhouses (RootAI) and retrofitting existing machinery with autonomous tilage equipment (Bear Flag Robotics), and how they are preparing agriculture as we know it for the new normal. 

Covid-19 started in Asia, and the region was the first to feel the social and economic impacts of the disease as it spread worldwide. It’s also where businesses, entrepreneurs, investors, and governments have spent the most time dealing with Covid-19 and its effects. Their insights and experience – and the strategies they’ve adopted to ride out the pandemic – could prove invaluable to agrifood players not just in Asia, but elsewhere in the world, too.That’s why we focused the second episode of our new What The Fork?Digitalks by AgFunder series on Asia, and how agrifood businesses and investors here are tackling Covid-19. AgFunder’s hand-picked lineup of thought leaders also shared their thoughts on where the region’s investment landscape is headed as the pandemic eases.Joining AgFunder founding partner Michael Dean were:Anuj Maheshwari, managing director, agribusiness, at Temasek – a Singaporean sovereign fund and top tech investor with close to $222 billion assets under management;Suresh Sundararjan, managing director and group head, global corporate services, at Olam – a Singapore-based agribusiness corporation which is a major player in the global food commodity trade;Matt Kovac, executive director at Food Industry Asia (FIA) – an advocacy group representing the interests of food manufacturers, producers, and retailers across the region.

In this episode of Future Food, which I co-hosted with my wonderful colleague Lauren Stine, our reporter and resident rancher, we talk to Lew Moorman and Nick Honegger of Soilworks, a newly-created investment group focused on regenerative agriculture. Nick and Lew founded SoilWorks after working together at Scaleworks, the B2B SaaS focused investment organization founded by Lew.We talk about how they moved into the very different world of regenerative agriculture, what regen ag means to them, their first investment – the acquisition of livestock management app PastureMap -- and more generally about where they see the future of our food systems.Lew and Nick are driving for a more mainstream adaption of regenerative agriculture. They believe it could be the key to remodeling our existing food systems in a healthier and more sustainable way. There are a lot of aspects that need to come together to make the shift to a more regenerative system, so stay tuned to hear about how Lew and Nick believe we can facilitate the change.

The importance of protein in our diets is hardly breaking news; demand for high-protein diets is increasing globally.When you combine the developing world’s desire to replace staple grains — that have dominated their diets for centuries — with increasing amounts of animal-based protein, with the over-consumption of meat and protein in the developed world, alongside a growing desire in multiple corners of the world to eat fewer animal-based products, there’s clear pressure on the globe’s protein supply.In this episode, I speak to Sara Eckhouse and Victor Friedberg from FoodShot Global, an investment platform focused on Moonshots for Food. Precision Protein is their new focus area.They always have a unique take on issues and their view on the protein debate is certainly refreshing and a break from the simplistic meat vs plants take that many have entered into in recent years.So I hope you enjoy!