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Weekly Digest

• 🇮🇱 Together with Daniel of FoodTech Weekly we've put together a list of '10 Israeli FoodTech Startups To Watch'. Check out the list here and comment to let us know which country we should cover next.
  Bonus: 50+ other Israeli foodtech startups to watch
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• 🌵 Discover: Ever wanted a nice refreshing glass of cactus water? Well, we never knew we did until we discovered Pricklee, one of the top 3 startups of the week on FH Discovery. Find out who else came out on top this week.
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• 💰 New In Funding: All the latest funding rounds of the week, summarized for you in a few digestible bullet points. Including Mycowork's celebrity backing & the dark-grocer that just raised $8M.
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• ❄️ Could frozen be the new fresh? Throw away all your preconceptions about frozen food. Forget floppy pizzas and microwavable meals. The frozen foods category has been getting a makeover, and with the industry set to reach $404.8 B by 2027, it's easy to see why. From frozen meal delivery services to rapid freezing appliances, take a deep-dive into the freezer aisle(FoodHack+)
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• 👋 Founders need to network.Our meetups make that happen. With online meetups coming up in Bern, London, Zurich, Valais, make use of them to connect with like-minded folks around you. Or start a chapter of your own.
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• 💸 Fundraising?Fill out the form & upload your deck to get in front of 100+ top investors in the food space. Next Deadline: Thursday 27th November.
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• 📈What’s Up: The pandemic has driven up sales in premium foods, with a 1.7% increase year on year, probably because imposed limitations on spending in other categories (such as travel...remember travel?) means some consumers may have a portion of income available to experiment or ‘treat themselves’ at home. Dollar sales of Oatly are also up a staggering 212% year on year, as consumers stock up on plant-based staples, making it now the second most-popular oat milk brand in the US.
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• 📉What’s Down: Overfishing and Brexit mean that the UK’s cod industry is in a “truly unsustainable position”, as years of setting quotas above scientific advice means stocks are struggling.

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• 🇳🇱 Essential weekend reading: How the Netherlands became a plant-based powerhouse and what other governments can learn from the Dutch.

• 🌱 Unilever has set itself a €1Bn sales goal in the next 5-7 years for its plant-based product ranges, which currently make up around one third of its portfolio. This commitment is a strong indicator of the company’s approach towards sustainability and its own impact on the climate crisis.‍

• 🍄 Marks & Spencer is launching a new specialist team called The Innovation Hub to focus on ‘disruptive innovation’, and is partnering with tech firm 3F Bio to develop a mycoprotein-based vegan range.

• 🍪 Good news for those restricting gluten, which apparently will be a market worth over $5Bn by 2025: gluten-free Oreos are coming in January, and will be a permanent addition to the Oreo range.‍

• 🎄 Christmas (no it’s not too early to talk about it):
  

1. Mondelēz is ditching the plastic packaging in its adult selection boxes, the equivalent of 33 tonnes of plastic waste, and replacing it with cardboard, as part of its effort to make all its packaging recyclable by 2025.
2. Mars is launching limited-edition sugar cookie-flavoured M&Ms, which have a white chocolate, sugar cookie flavoured shell and a crispy centre.
3. PepsiCo is introducing a (not strictly Christmas, but ‘tis the season) Apple Pie Cola, inspired by the autumn dessert. Mmm....?

🚀 Plant-based launches:

• Beyond Meat launched two new versions of its plant-based burger, one which is ‘meatier’ and another which is ‘more nutritious’ than its original product, rendering the current option ‘obsolete’. The brand is also launching Beyond Pork, which it has specifically designed for the Chinese market, to help address the country’s enormous pork consumption.
• Ecovative is launching a mushroom-based bacon alternative further to its $7M seed funding round earlier this year.
• India’s first ‘hyper-realistic’ vegan meat products have arrived, courtesy of Greenest Shami Kebabs by plant-based startup Upstablish Food Technologies.
• Philippines-based Century Pacific is launching UnMeat, the country’s first vegan meat brand, as plant-based demand in Asia continues to rise.
• Hong Kong tech company Avant Meats just unveiled Asia’s first cultivated fish fillet, in response to the region’s demand for fish and seafood.
• UK Vegan brand Wicked Foods is travelling across the pond in 2021, to launch its chef-created plant-based products in the US.
• The Collective is launching a range of plant-based yoghurts in the UK, made from a base of oats, coconut and rice.
• British bakery institution Cooplands is launching a vegan Violife cheeze & vegetable bake at 160 of its locations in the UK.
• NotCo is launching two new flavours of plant-based Noticecream, Dulce de Leche Sensation and Banana Split, in Argentina.
• British brand LoveRaw is launching what it claims is the ‘world’s first’ plant-based hazelnut cream wafer bar, coated in ‘milk’ chocolate.

🇨🇦 The Canadian government is launching a consultation on the guidelines for meat alternatives, as rising consumer demand drives a need for better support with understanding and application of regulatory industry requirements.

Plant-based meat brand Heura just launched a controversial marketing campaign in Madrid, with a billboard which reads “one beef burger pollutes more than your car”, to draw consumer attention to the food and environmental choices they’re making.

🥩 Israeli tech startup Aleph Farms will be unveiling its prototype of its first commercial cultivated steak at the Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit in Singapore on November 20th. Its founder believes that lab-grown meats will reach ‘cost parity’ with conventional meat quicker than plant-based alternatives, so watch this space.

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🤖 Tech & Robotics:

• Tech startups around the world are working on solutions to reduce food waste. Among them is British startup Roboscience, whose sensor technology sniffs out spoilage or disease in crops or livestock, alerting farmers before the infection becomes rife.
• News of further restaurant restrictions means that restaurants need their tech to be on point if they wish to maintain any kind of business during periods of forced closure.
• The Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is bringing in Miso Robotics’ Flippy Robot to create a ‘zero human interaction’ experience in its premises.
• Tech startup Bobacino has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise $3M and help bring its boba tea-making robot to market in 2021.
• KFC is currently road testing two new restaurant designs: an ‘express’ store format with no indoor dining space, and a format with a fully digitised, much larger drive-thru facility, as contactless collection is an accelerating market.

🥬 Indoor smart farm producer Rise Gardens has launched a countertop version of its at-home growing system, designed for city dwellers in small apartments, which can grow 8+ plants at any given time.

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