One week in a post #48: 30 by 30, Food without Ag, Pineapples, Biomanufacturing.
One week in a post #48: 30 by 30, Food without Ag, Pineapples, Biomanufacturing.
Food and climate highlights on my radar!
[Three pieces of news]
🏆 Singapore: doubling down on being the best place in the world for food innovation
Singapore is developing a new Food Safety and Security Bill to clarify regulations for novel foods, including cultivated meat, which could enhance foodborne illness prevention. This move follows the nation's pioneering steps in approving the sale of cell-cultured chicken by Eat Just in 2020 and granting a food processing license to Esco Aster for cultured meat production in 2021. The proposed bill aims to consolidate food-related provisions, offering clearer guidelines and safeguarding public health. This goes hand-in-hand with Singapore’s 30 by 30 initiative, which aims to improve food security by producing 30% of all food consumed in the nation by 2030, and is reminding us how early movers are usually the ones who feel the strongest pain.
🍍 Crownless pineapples for waste reduction
Sainsbury's has introduced a crownless pineapple to its stores, aiming to reduce annual waste by about 700 tonnes. Research from Costa Rica suggests that removing the tops, before shipping can significantly reduce their carbon footprint, enabling ~25% more pineapples to be packed per box. Suppliers could save on packaging and increase profits; retailers could enjoy a revenue increase per box; and consumers might pay less for the fruit, benefit from the convenience, and appreciate the environmental angle. Let’s remember that crowns are used for replanting, animal feed, or to produce vegan leather — an obvious win-win that makes me wonder why we haven’t done it earlier!
💨 Food without agriculture
The foundational research behind Savor has been published! The paper shows that dietary fats could be synthesized with <0.8 g CO2-eq kcal, which is much less than the >1.5 g CO2-eq kcal now emitted to produce palm oil in Brazil or Indonesia. Although scaling up such synthesis could disrupt agricultural economies and depend on consumer acceptance, the enormous potential GHG, water and land reductions represent a realistic possibility for mitigating the environmental footprint of agriculture over the coming decade. After 19 months at Savor, I couldn’t be prouder to see such a foundational piece seeing the light!
[Three raises]
🌍 Systemic money / Singapore-based Clay Capital closes a $145M fund.
💰 Biomanufacturing / Triplebar raised a $20 million Series A, in a round led by Synthesis Capital. This is why biomanufacturing is an important topic to keep on our radar.
🇲🇽 Financing / Verqor secured $7.5 million to connect farmers with fast credit (+90% of Mexico’s farmers lack financing access).
[Three products]
🥓 Cocuus and Foodys: 3D bio-printed veg bacon, now in Carrefour!
🐶 The Pack: veg pet food, now B Corp certified!
☕ Pocket’s Chocolates + Blue Bottle: Almonds dipped in fair-trade cocoa butter, organic oat milk, coffee, raw cane sugar, chicory and monk fruit. (no climate focused, but fun!)