8 Takeaways from Future Food Tech, Veggie Thai Curry & Siddhartha
Synthesizing a week of conversations in SF, an aromatic dish to celebrate Spring, and the only book I've reread 4 times (#61).
💥 8 Takeaways from Future Food Tech
Future Food Tech last week was a whirlwind. Gathering 1,700 attendees from around the world, I’m grateful to have met so many inspiring leaders, VCs, and founders.
I left SF feeling energized after a slew of great conversations, tasting events, and social gatherings.
The food & climate space has evolved a lot since I attended FFT last year. Here are my 8 reflections:
Part I: Food Trends
1. 🍄 Same ‘shrooms, new tasty formats
Consumer expectations are shifting for plant-based products, shifting towards nutritious and clean label alternatives.
Mushroom and mycelium based products can more readily achieve the meatiness and juiciness consumers expect with fewer ingredients and less processing.
Here are four types of fungi-based products gaining traction:
Whole mushroom blended products 🍄 , like Mamu by Sempera Organics
Whole muscle mycelium cuts 🍗 , like Nosh Bio
Mycelium ingredients to blend with meat 🥩, like Mush Foods
Whole plants fermented with mycelium 🍔, e.g. MATR Foods
2. 🐝 Functional & animal-free alternatives
To reduce biodiversity loss, animal cruelty, and the negative externalities of our food system, we need to reduce our reliance on animal-based products.
However, consumers still care about the taste and nutrition of animal-derived products – so start-ups are getting creative.
Dairy proteins without the cow and cultivated meat have been around for a decade, though new approaches are arriving:
Meli Bio makes honey without bees using precision fermentation 🐝
New School Foods makes salmon from mycelium co-cultivated with microalgae, which give fish its fats and flavor 🍣
3. 🌊 A new wave of marine proteins
The oceans currently provide half of the world with 20% of their animal protein. It makes sense the oceans would also be a promising source of alternative proteins.
Here are two examples I got to try:
🍃Lemna protein: also called duckweed, lemna can grow quickly on ponds with nutrients from agricultural run-off. microTERRA developed a lemna protein isolate, Flora, to make dairy-free ice cream with superb texture and slower melting. Each scoop avoids contaminating 20L of water.
🦠 Chlorella protein: New Fish is developing ‘marine whey’ from microalgae. I got to try it in a snickers and brownie format and can’t wait to add it to my snack arsenal 🍫
4. 🧀 Vegan cheese and butter get an upgrade
Climax Food’s cheese and Savor’s butter blew me away. They were so good I don’t feel the need to label them as ‘vegan’ – they just happen to be.
As a French food enthusiast who has long considered butter and cheese irreplaceable, these products make me rethink.
🧀 Climax Foods uses AI to combine ingredients to reach target flavors, cultures, and textures.
🧈 Savor synthesizes real fats mixed with thyme & rosemary infused oil and salt to reach a convincing alternative.
Part II: Industry Trends
5. ♻️ Co-location & industrial symbioses
There are tens of millions of tons of nutritious food-waste waste streams coming from food processors. Much of it can be used as inputs for biomanufacturing.
For example, mycoprotein start-up ENOUGH is co-locating with a Cargill facility as of earlier this year grow mycelium protein from lost nutrients.
6. 🏭 Low CapEx production methods
Capital expenditure (CapEx) like steel in the ground or FOAKs (First Of A Kind facility) rarely yield the 10X returns investors want. It’s not the kind of initiative VCs are best suited to fund.
Especially in this funding environment, start-ups must get creative. Companies that can use or adapt existing infrastructure like breweries, mushroom growers, or food manufacturers can achieve lower unit costs.
7. 🤝 Off-takes require collaboration
Per dollar invested, scaling meat and dairy replacements shows a 3X GHG reduction than green concrete and 11X GHG reduction than EVs.
Our food system accounts for 22% of GHG emissions, but solutions only receives 6% of funding.
The issue isn’t that food technology is receiving too much funding: it’s not nearly receiving enough.
And for many start-ups, the technology to make alternative proteins has already been proven at scale. The challenge now becomes commercial off-take guarantees so that start-ups can produce at the right volumes to reach the right costs.
Doing so requires sector-wide collaboration from corporates, governments, and philanthropic organizations to shape new markets.
It was great to meet representatives from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Bezos Earth Fund – with a recent $60M pledge towards sustainable protein – at FFT exploring solutions with industry.
8. 👩 It’s all about the people
This is what I find missing from a lot of career advice: surround yourself with people that inspire you.
Are you working with mentors you want to become more like?
Are you collaborating with peers you want to grow with?
Are you enjoying working with the customers you serve?
Finding your tribe makes work that much more fulfilling and rewarding. I’m grateful to have been able to grow it in SF.
The increase in the variety and quality of products since last year’s FFT is worth a round of applause 👏
The bar for plant-based products is getting raised across the board. I believe this will get us closer to acceptance and adoption of products that benefit both human and planetary health.
Kudos to all the innovators fighting the good fight 💪
What I’m reading this week:
How Food and Farming Will Determine the Fate of Planet Earth by Jonathan Foley
Financing and Developing Infrastructure for the Bioeconomy, interview by Eshan Samaranayake with Synonym founder Joshua Lachter
Beyond Steel Tanks by Elliot Hershberg & Niko McCarty
🥘 Recipe: Veggie Thai Curry
Spring is coming – let this warm and spicy curry guide your transition to light and fresh summer meals.
Curries are one of my go-to weekday meals, especially for a nourishing lunch without the afternoon slump. This one bursts with flavor, veggies, and aromatics from the coconut, carrot, and ginger.
It comes together in half an hour – how many portions you make is up to you :)
PS: If you make it, please send pictures! :)
📚 Book: Siddhartha
This is a book I reread every year. I’m a slightly different person each time I read it and new things resonate. One of my all time favorites.
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse narrates the eponymous character’s journey of self-discovery through the virtues and vices of life. It is deeply mindful, spiritual, and poignant read. Each sentence flows like poetry, ripe with meaning, in a tale concisely packed in 110 pages.
After reading it for the 4th time a few weeks ago, new elements came into focus.
Siddhartha is a reminder that wisdom cannot be taught, it must be experienced; that time does not exist outside of the present moment; and that we exist within the oneness of everything.
“And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life.”
It’s one of my favorite books of all time – a source of reflection on my professional, romantic, and personal life and goals.
I hope you enjoy it – and perhaps reread it a few times, too.
A few favorite quotes as food for thought:
“When you throw a rock into the water, it will speed on the fastest course to the bottom of the water. This is how it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolution. … His goal attracts him, because he doesn't let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal.”
“Nothing was, nothing will be. Everything has reality and presence.”
“You seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”
“Gentleness is stronger than severity, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than force.”
“Your soul is the whole world.”
Thank you for reading – BRB next week ✌️
🥘 Recipe: Thai Veggie Curry
Recipe adapted from: Bene Bono
Ingredients (4 portions)
1 red onion
2 potatoes
2 large carrots
1 Pepper
1 clove garlic
1 piece fresh ginger
1 lime
Olive oil
A few stems coriander
7oz or 200 mL coconut cream
1 tbsp Thai red curry paste (or other curry spices to taste)
1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
400 mL vegetable broth
Rice
Instructions (30 minutes)
Peel the onion, potatoes, carrots. Cut the onion into strips, the potatoes into cubes, the carrots into wedges. Seed the pepper and cut it into cubes.
In a wok or stewpot, heat the oil then brown the onion for a few minutes. Add the potatoes and brown for 5 minutes. Add the carrots and cook for 5 minutes. Add the pepper, curry paste and fry for a few more minutes. Cover everything with vegetable stock and leave to simmer.
Peel and chop the garlic and ginger then add them to the cooking with the honey. Cook for 15-20 minutes over low/medium heat, stirring regularly.
Once the potatoes are cooked, add the coconut cream and the juice of half a lime and cook until the sauce thickens (between 5 and 10 minutes).
Meanwhile, remove the coriander leaves. Cut the stems and add them to the curry.
Accompany the curry with a little rice, a few coriander leaves, and a small wedge of lime.
About Me
Hi there! My name is Nathan Paumier – I’m an avid reader, food enthusiast, and climate optimist.
BRB w/ Nathan P, your 5-min weekly dose of information to inspire climate action. I started this newsletter after frequent questions on food tech, reading recommendations, and my secret recipes.
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Thanks for sharing the takeaways from Future Food Tech! Love to see so many promising breakthroughs happening in food tech. Also, thanks for reading my interview with Synonym!