FoodTech is the future of food DigitalFoodLab

Deal: Rohlik, a Czech grocery delivery startup that just raised €100M  (after a €290M deal earlier this year)
Insight: Impossible Foods, known for its burgers and its key ingredient, heme, that make them bleed. The startup is considering the possibility to sell this key ingredient to other companies.
Startup of the week: Formo, a German startup using precision fermentation to create cheese without the cow. This week, it released a study on how consumers would accept its products.

Find more on DigitalFoodLab.com

Deal of the week: Enough (3F Bio) raises $51M to build a production facility for its fermented mushroom proteins -- Insight: Dija and other dark stores startups are already considering mergers -- Startup of the week: BarePack which announced a partnership with Deliveroo to test reusable packaging in Paris.

For this week's episode, we will talk about:


Deal of the week: Getir (Turkish Dark Store startup) has raised a new round of capital of $550M
Insight: The Protein Brewery, a Dutch startup using fermentation to produce proteins and that has just completed its pilot plant.
Startup of the week: Klimato, a Swedish startup helping restaurants and canteens to be more sustainable

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Nowadays, it seems that everyone is talking about alternative proteins. That's great, don't get me wrong. But, it also seems that there is a lot of confusions between:


what we mean by that and the various types of alternative proteins
who is doing what
when (or if) the products will reach the market
other non-technical factors that could fasten and threaten the progress of these alternatives, such as regulations (from market authorisations to the ability to "name" the products), acceptability by the consumer, etc.

In this quick episode, we deep dive into the six categories of alternative proteins that will compete in the coming years to replace meat and dairy.

More here: https://www.digitalfoodlab.com/alternative-proteins-talking/

So, who doesn't love a good ranking? DigitalFoodLab just released its FoodTech Europe TOP 50 for 2021 (https://www.digitalfoodlab.com/european-foodtech-top50-2021/). In this episode, we talk about why we did this ranking and what we can learn from it.

Agility and speed are often quoted as the key differentiators between a startup and a traditional company. While this is obviously also true in FoodTech, we were quite used to observe food startups moving at a slower pace than their counterparts in other tech ecosystems. It was analysed as a sign of the food market's rigidity, regulatory complications, or proof that the wave of disruption was still not there. However, since the start of this year, the speed of these agriculture, food and retail innovations has seriously increased. If it is particularly notable with the deployment of dark stores and grocery delivery options (almost €2B invested in 4 months, see below), it is also the case in multiple other segments. It's the best time to be an actor in this ecosystem!