All you need to know to love the Food industry 2.0
McDonald's new tray made from food waste
The Chicken in Tel Aviv is the world’s first lab-grown meat restaurant offering a cultured chicken burger, for free. The chicken, grown in a bioreactor next to the dining tables, is produced by early-stage Israeli startup SuperMeat, which is using the restaurant as a testing ground for their innovative, cultured meat.
“Not doable”, “needs research”, “too expensive”... In 2021, once-ridiculed lab-grown meat will make its way onto consumers' plates while accelerating the overhaul of the traditional livestock industry.
💡 How can you tap into nascent markets before they catch up to you?
Collaborative enterprise, specifically ‘co-opetition’, is another positive symptom of the pandemic with frenemy concepts – rival brands partnering up for a greater good – witnessing a welcome revival for a solidarity-appreciating consumer mindset in 2021.
Answering the swelling desire for brands that can step up to numerous eco-ethical marks (far beyond virtue signaling) it’s most overt in ads. In November 2020, a Burger King UK ad featured the provocative call-to-action ‘Order from McDonalds’ (plus numerous other fast food brands in the smaller print) as a rallying cry to support Europe’s beleaguered hospitality industry. Just a few months earlier its Finnish division had unveiled a poster to celebrate the Helsinki edition of Gay Pride featuring the two adversaries’ male mascots kissing, creating a heart-shaped silhouette above the mantra ‘Love Conquers All’. Notably, both brands are in US teens’ top five fast-food choices.
It’s reflective of a deep-seated desire for more kindness also illustrated in Netflix Brazil’s April (tweet) recommendation of content from competitors for locked down viewers running out of Netflix options, but it’s far from a one poster/social post salve. It’s also becomingly increasingly critical to the sustainability mission; H&M and Adidas recently jettisoned old grievances to join the New Cotton Project global consortium (a multinational group straddling waste management, recycling, retail, manufacturing and academia) in a three-year project to create a trial at the scale needed to catalyze major change.
Yes, the sourdough obsession is real. Several people wrote to me in glowing terms about their starters.
“I believe I’ll be keeping my sourdough starter. It’s like another family pet at this point,” said Matthew Schreiber, who lives in New Orleans.
In addition to baking bread, people also mentioned that they plan to keep fermenting things like sauerkraut and generally cooking more of their own meals so they can eat less processed food.
Specifically, people want to cook more vegetarian meals and lean away from meat-eating. The impulse seems to be coming not only from the fact that there are meat shortages in some US grocery stores, but also from the knowledge that a live-animal market in China may have given rise to the coronavirus and that the giant factory farms that supply 99 percent of America’s meat are a pandemic risk, too.
Many also told me they’re enjoying growing herbs like mint and cilantro on their patios, or growing vegetables like celery and scallions in little glasses on their windowsills.
It’s not really surprising that the coronavirus crisis has prompted this reaction. It’s reminiscent of World War I and II, when Americans grew their own fruits and vegetables in “victory gardens.” The back-to-nature impulse offers psychological comfort at a time of great uncertainty, as well as a practical safeguard against supply-chain problems: If the stores run out of food, at least we’ll have our vegetables!
For the former, everyone from mainstream players (Wagamama) to Michelin-starred gastro gods (Massimo Bottura) have been getting involved with live-streamed cook-a-longs to upsell their culinary connections. For the latter, 2020’s hamstrung Holiday season offers inspiration; FAO Schwarz’ Academy of Wonder microsite hosted virtual magic or science class centered on its STEM and magic toys, guided by a ‘professor’ or ‘magician’. At $60 a pop (toys included) it exemplifies the rising power of the product + (remote) experience brand package.
Les startups de nutrition personnalisée sont en plein boom. Viome (USA, $70,5M levés) est le leader du marché en proposant un test d'ADN et intestinal à faire tous les 6 mois. En fonction des résultats, Viome propose des recommandations d'aliments sur son app (produits à éviter et à privilégier) et fournit des probiotiques alimentaires adaptés.
Il existe de la place pour se concentrer sur les compléments alimentaires spécifiquement. Par exemple, Nourished (UK, $2.6M levés) permet d'imprimer en 3D des vitamines adaptées à ses besoins sous la forme d'un petit stack de bonbons à ingérer.
Enfin pensez à l'inclusion des objets santé connectés qui pourraient venir renforcer la précision du régime alimentaire en fournissant des data en temps réel (mesure du pouls et du glucose avec les smart watches).
Par exemple, la Kwatch de PK Vitality (France, $2.3M levés) permet de mesurer la glycémie instantanément et de suivre l'évolution sur l'app (très pratique pour les diabétiques).
The UK restaurant sector is in trouble. The number of restaurants going bust went up by a fifth in 2017, and popular high street chains such as Strada, Jamie’s Italian and Byron are all set to close around a third of their sites in 2018. High on the list of restaurateurs’ grievances are rising wage costs, unavailability of staff, and the increased cost of food due to the fall in the value of the pound. Add to this the ever rising levels of competition in the market, and things are beginning to look distinctly pear shaped for our restaurant businesses.
As a result of unfavourable market conditions for bricks and mortar restaurants, dark kitchens, also known as ghost restaurants, are becoming more common. These delivery only establishments have no physical restaurant premises in the conventional sense, where diners can walk in, sit at a table and enjoy a meal. Instead, their food is only accessible online or through a mobile app, and solely via home delivery. The benefits of this model are clear, and offer a much needed efficiency boost to restaurant businesses. The elimination of customer seating and waiting areas – which are often underused or even simply vacant - slashes rent costs, and there is no need to employ serving staff. Reducing overheads whilst simultaneously catering to an increased consumer preference towards home delivery appears to be a win win for all concerned.
Possibly Rover is already hoovering up the occasional spider or beetle in the garden, but we mean eating insects on a more regular basis as insect-based protein becomes a more mainstream pet food option.
Insect protein much more eco-friendly than meat, as producing a kilo of insect-protein takes just 2% of the land area 4% of the water that producing a kilo of beef produces. With pets estimated to be consuming 20% of the world’s meat, many owners are becoming concerned about the carbon pawprint. Insect protein may also be healthier for pets — a surprisingly high percentage of dogs, for example, have an allergy to beef.
Ynsect, the French mealworm farming company which raised an eye-popping $372m funding round this autumn, already sells its insect protein to makers of hypoallergenic doga and cat food, but now says it is in talks with several large pet food brands too. Ynsect is building a huge production plant in Amiens that will allow it to produce 1,000 times more mealworm protein than it does today.
Signs of insect-based pet food’s popularity are around at the grassroots level too. Aardvark, the UK-based startup selling insect-based dry pet food, ended up raising some £300,000 in its recent crowdfunding campaign, six times more than the £50,000 it had initially sought. The Aardvark team planning to start selling direct to consumers in early 2021.
Searches for “vegan collagen” have increased by 97% since we first covered it back in June. So we thought we’d take another look at this exploding topic.
Vegan collagen is a collagen alternative that's derived from non-animal sources.
While “vegan collagen” is technically impossible, products are starting to crop up to meet skyrocketing demand for vegan-friendly collagen supplements.
Some contain micronutrients (like silica) that support healthy skin and nails.
Others use synthesized “plant collagen” that attempts to recreate the molecular structure of bovine collagen.
Growing brands in the vegan collage space include PowerGym, Naturelo, and Ojio.
What’s next:
Vegan collagen is part of the “Veganification” of everything meta trend. 7.3 million Americans consider themselves vegan or vegetarian. And they’re increasingly on the lookout for vegan products. Other examples of this trend include vegan meal kits, vegan jerky, vegan vitamins, pea milk, and vegan shrimp.
Replacement of meat with alternative proteins could extend to the fabrication of a leather replacement and the development of new, bioplastics to replace chemicals currently used today. eg. MycoWorks
For Tony Fadell, the future of startups is connected and sustainable
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