Best of the Web - January - Future Food Finance

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Our monthly round-up of the best sector articles from the rest of the internet.

This really matters…..you probably missed this, but ignore at your peril

Impossible Meats slashes prices by 15%. Second time in 12 months, focus on wholesale markets. Read more HERE and HERE
Guess who’s the biggest owners of farm land in the US ? Answer – the Gates. The Gates’ own an estimated 242,000 acres of farmland as part of a broader 269,000-acre land portfolio across 19 states, with the largest holdings in Louisiana (69,071 acres), Arkansas (47,927 acres), and Arizona (25,750 acres).

IPOs and market talk…..food meets the investing community

Oatly might be going for an IPO. Milk alternative is is expected to record US$400 million in sales for 2020, doubling its figure in the previous year, and is expected to be profitable this year. More HERE
Israeli yeast business lists on local exchange. NextFerm Technologies. To date the company has had limited revenue with sales of $27,000 in the first nine months of 2020 in the US and a net loss of $2 million.

New products?......coming to a high street near you

Omnipork hits UK restaurants. Read more HERE
Beyond’s breakfast sausages in Us restaurants. Beyond Breakfast Sausage® Patties are designed to taste like pork breakfast sausage patties, have 50% less total fat and 35% less saturated fat and sodium than a leading brand of pork breakfast sausage patties. Additionally, the patties have no GMOs, bioengineered ingredients, cholesterol, hormones, antibiotics, soy or gluten. Read more HERE
Latam based FutureFarms launches burger sin the UK. Read more HERE
US chain Trader Joe moves into plant alternatives, seafood. Read more HERE
Taco Bell introduces Pulled Oats alternative in UK. The filling is made with a combination of oats, faba beans, and yellow peas. More HERE
Beyond Meat does deal with Taco Bell. Stock price rises as a result. More HERE
Australian firm Sprout Organic launches infant formula with only plant ingredients. We think this is potentially a big market ! More HERE
Lewis Hamilton vegan restaurant Neat Burger launches Filet-no-Fish burger. More HERE

The Next Big Thing…..what we believe might become the ‘new new ‘thing

Cultivated Fats will be crucial…time for Hybrid products. Red more HERE
Algae ; food of the future? Qualitas claims to offer be a “proprietary, clinically proven, high-absorption” source of omega-3 fatty acids which are vital in the nutrition of humans and other animals Read more HERE
Food out of air pioneer Air protein gets $32m funding line. Read more HERE
Psychedelic revolution comes to supplements via NeonMind Biosciences, a potential treatment to improve eating habits and aid weight loss. Read more HERE
EU allows earthworms for human consumption. Read more HERE

Wider AgTech space….farming is digitized and food revolutionised

India AgTech digitalized over 13 million acres gets funding. Read HERE
Robotics firm Bear Flag gets $7.9m. Read HERE

Market Growth? …the helicopter view

Watch out as Japanese market is growing. The Japanese market for meat alternatives using vegetable protein is forecast to grow about 2.3 times in the coming decade to ¥78 billion in 2030, according to Tokyo-based research company Seed Planning Inc. Read more HERE

Watching the VCs

Blue Horizons snags extra EUR183 million in funding. Read more HERE

Also HERE

Worth noting…..details that matter

Beyond Meat moves into new 30,000 square foot plant in LA near airport. Read HERE
Impossible Meat gets new director, Christiana Figueres, an architect of the Paris climate agreement

Podcast Alert

The World Economic Forum’s very own podcast asks is this the end of meat ? Listen HERE

Dealflow…..funding news from the last month

Consolidation starts – Iceland sells its meat alternatives business to LiveKindly Collective. More HERE
Another seafood alternative – New Wave Foods – bags $18m. More HERE
Exotic meats from Vow (anyone for Kangaroo alternatives) get extra funding. More HERE
China will be big. Hey Maet is one start up. Just raised RMB 10 million in pre Series round. They claim the team is the first inventor and practitioner of plant protein high-moisture extrusion technology in China. Read more HERE
China matters and Chinese AgTech really matters…Kebai Sciences gets $6m in part from Creadev, the investment firm of France’s Muillez family — which owns superstore chain Auchan and sports retailer Decathlon. The start-up provides a customizable precision ag solution for farmers and agribusinesses which can be used in both open-field and controlled environment settings. Read more HERE
Clara Foods snags extra debt funding for its programme of developing animal-free proteins as ingredients for food and beverages. More details HERE
Food giant MondelÄ“z International snaps up Hu (as in “Human”) Master Holdings, the parent company of Hu Products, a fast-growing US-based snacking company offering high-quality snacks made from simple plant-based ingredients. Business boasted 2019 net revenues of approximately $26 billion. Hu has become a category leader in premium chocolate in the United States. More info HERE
Seafood space gets more competitive as Dutch plant-based seafood brand Novish announces closing of a funding round including QSRP Funding and Kharis Capital, the owner of German seafood restaurant chain Nordsee. Novish produces a range of vegan seafood products for global retail and foodservice markets. More details HERE
Perhaps warming up ahead of its putative IPI (?) Blue Nalu raises $60 million in convertible note financing. More info on the fund raising here. Plus UAE-based KBW Ventures has increased its stake in US-based BlueNalu, participating in its newly-raised $60 million convertible note financing round. KBW Ventures previously invested in BlueNalu’s $20 million Series A round. Established in 2018, BlueNalu has been on a mission to use fish cells to produce various seafood products. With the new capital injection, BlueNalu will be able to open a 40,000 square foot pilot production facility, complete Food and Drug Authority (FDA) regulatory review for its first products, and embark on a marketplace testing in a variety of foodservice establishments throughout the US. More on that second story HERE