Morning Folks,

It’s been a minute, and a sun-drenched, lake-and-sea-dip-filled minute at that! My holidays were exhausting in the best way. I spent all my time with my kids, in the kitchen and in the water. Between the bad WiFi and zero childcare, I was away from my phone for most of the trip, which was glorious.

That said, I spent far less time outside than I should have because…well, climate change! The heatwaves in Europe are out of control. I have spent most summers of my life in southern France - the idea of air conditioning (A/C) in a holiday house was unthinkable. Now, it’s close to unbearable without. I spent a few days at a rented Airbnb in Italy without A/C, and we could not sleep for the heat. When I booked the house, I had asked about the heat and the lack of A/C. The host assured me that A/C was unnecessary given the cooler evening temps. Hogwash! It was 36°C+ during the day and close to that at night, with no wind, and humidity that felt like Hong Kong, where I had just flown from and where A/C is the norm. We were with our best friends, who live in Vienna, and they told us about the miserable weeks of the heatwave they endured in in June (40°C++) without A/C. They couldn’t even buy one because units were sold out nationwide (hence the queue memes).

After Italy, we drove (BYD hybrid!) to my in-laws’ in France, where they (who are extremely anti-air-conditioning, like lots of older Europeans) had finally caved and installed an A/C unit in the living room (they put it in the bedrooms 4 years ago) because it has become that uncomfortable! For too many of the days of my trip, I was indoors from 11 am to 4 pm because being outside was simply not possible. And then, the raging fires started, approx 30km from where we were: over 55,000 people have been evacuated, and more than 42,000 homes have burned. It’s the worst wildfire season the country has seen since satellite records started in the early 2000s (and the season ain’t over). And I haven’t even talked about the mosquitoes (all day long in Italy) and the wasps (we couldn't eat breakfast or lunch outside in France because there were so many) that are proliferating due to warmer temps.

The whole world wants a piece of Europe’s good life. Every summer, millions flock to the continent in search of its beautiful vistas, charming culture, and (mostly) excellent food. But global warming is disrupting the middle-class European dream, and it feels like Europeans are sleepwalking through it. Not to mention their infrastructure is not up to the task (only 20% of homes have A/C, compared to 90% in the US and Asia). Eventually, tourists will stop wanting to go (see: the rise of coolcations).

Meanwhile, all this A/C means more energy use, and adaptation is too slow (except for France, which backed nuclear power decades ago).

And finally, what of food? (What this newsletter is about!) It remains absolutely shocking to me that throughout the past few weeks, as I pored through news coverage of all the above, there was NO mention of the importance of adapting our food choices in a warming world, NO link made for readers between the emission toll of our beef-and dairy-heavy diets and rising emissions, NO reminders about why we need to invest in a future-proof global food supply chain. I find myself heartbroken and at a loss for words. We are so very far from where we need to be…

Below is an extra-long edition as we’ve packed in two weeks’ worth of news, so be sure to scroll to the end…and take solace in the fact that all these startups and founders are working to build a better food future for us all. To quote this brilliant climate journalist, I don’t need to be an optimist to fight for a better world.

-Sonalie

Sidenote: One major “adaptability” thought I had is that the Northern hemisphere needs to rethink school holidays. It makes zero sense for kids to be out of school during the hottest months of the year. We are still using a 300-year calendar based on an agrarian society. It’s nuts. The longest school holiday stretch should be in March-April or October-November, so kids can actually enjoy being outside and stay cool indoors during the hottest months.

 💰 Future Food Funding

🍚 Singapore’s Rize closed a $31 million Series B investment to aggressively expand sustainable, low-methane rice farming across Southeast Asia.
💡Rize will also open its platform up to input and services players and agritech providers to help producers grow more and better.

🇨🇦 Canadian firm Phytokana Ingredients raised C$25 million ($17.8 million) in equity funding to construct a plant-based protein dry fractionation facility.
💡It will produce plant-based protein concentrates and flours for both local and international food and beverage manufacturers.

🧀 Israeli startup Plantopia secured $9 million to establish a molecular farming facility to produce casein proteins within sprouted oats.
💡It is positioned to deliver its ingredient at $15-20 per kg, which it says is on par with cow-derived casein.

♻️ Singapore’s National Environment Agency has awarded S$5.3 million ($4.1 million) to three food waste upcycling projects.
💡Food waste accounted for 11% of the island nation’s total waste last year.

🍅 US-based SCO2 raised $2.65 million seed funding to advance its supercritical carbon dioxide extraction tech which recovers valuable compounds from food waste.
💡The tech can turn $3-per-tonne into dietary fibre worth over $2,000 per tonne and tomato seed oil worth nearly $1,000 per tonne.

 ✅ Must-Read Headlines

🇪🇪 Estonian state-owned national metrology institute Metrosert and its Applied Research Centre are constructing a €2 million ($2.3 million) pilot plant to help biotech companies validate alternative protein and material production.
💡The plant removes a ‘serious bottleneck’ for the country’s biotech industry.

🇮🇳 The Indian government has published a 10-year roadmap to boost the national bioeconomy sector.
💡The plan includes building the alternative protein sector through manufacturing and regulatory progress.

📈 Oatly recorded a 15.2% hike in year-on-year sales during Q2 2026.
💡It’s growing faster than both the dairy and plant-based milk segments in North America.

🇦🇺 Australian dairy and plant-based milk manufacturer Noumi has entered an A$737 million ($518 million) buyout deal with its largest shareholder, Arrovest.
💡The company has had a tumultuous few years on the Australian Securities Exchange, following an accounting scandal in 2020.

👎🏼 Brazilian meat major JBS has scrapped its net-zero emissions goal for 2040 and omitted mentions of its earlier target of eliminating supply chain deforestation.
💡To note: JBS emits more greenhouse gases than 81% of the world’s countries, and these newly-abandoned climate goals helped it become a public company.

 🪸 All Things Algae

🌍 The Salina project scored €7 million from the EU to create scalable macroalgae cultivation systems and develop high-value products for food and other sectors.
💡Currently, Europe produces only about 300 kilotonnes of seaweed annually, accounting for less than 1% of the global total, with 32% still harvested from the wild. 

🇪🇺 The EU has also pumped €5.7 million into Alganova, which will establish a biorefinery for the production of proteins and functional ingredients from microalgae.
💡The idea is to decrease the bloc’s reliance on imported protein ingredients.

🇺🇸 US biotech Kuehnle AgroSystems secured Series B funding to expand the sustainable production of its algal astaxanthin via dark fermentation.
💡The global astaxanthin market is valued at $2 billion and set to grow by 15% annually over the coming decade, with premium nutraceuticals a major growth driver.

 🥗 Nutrition Wins

🧆 Californian agtech startup NuCicer introduced Nuchi, a new class of chickpeas with 50% more protein and 25% less fat than conventional varieties.

✅ The EU has added inulin-propionate ester, a fibre ingredient that can stimulate the body’s natural GLP-1 response, to its list of approved novel foods.

🧁 MycoTechnology has teamed up with Adorvia Biotechnology to offer manufacturers a new tool for sugar reduction.

🥛 Danone’s Kate Farms has launched a new flavour of its plant-based nutrition shake and broadened its distribution to reach more GLP-1 users across the US.

🍫 Italian cocoa-free chocolate maker Foreverland has expanded its portfolio with a no-added-sugar, fibre-rich lineup to align with current consumer nutrition trends.

🥞 Orkla has given a facelift to six popular breakfast products under its MTR Foods brand in India, which now feature 10g of plant-based protein.

🤔 The Trump administration is finding it difficult to land on a standardised definition of ultra-processed food, according to the FDA’s acting deputy chief, who reiterated that the agency doesn’t plan to ban these products.

 🌱 Plant-Based News

🇩🇪 Germany’s Bauer Group has opened a production and innovation hub for plant-based dairy products in Bavaria to bring its manufacturing in-house.

🚫 Canadian plant-based meat startup No Meat Factory has shuttered its $19 million facility in Stanwood, US.

🏫 California’s 2026-27 budget includes a $500 million school kitchen provision that enables educational institutions to purchase plant-based meals and milk alternatives.

🏨 The Global Sustainable Tourism Council released a new standard that directs certified hotels and restaurants to make at least 30% of their menus plant-based.

🚀 Everything Else In Future Food

📝 Californian startup BMC Ingredients secured a letter of no objection from Health Canada, enabling it to sell its Rhiza mycoprotein in the country.

🇺🇸 Australia’s All G launched its precision-fermented bovine lactoferrin in the US, expects to bring its human lactoferrin ingredient to market within six months.

🤖 Singaporean startup ImpacFat has teamed up with M3triq to use AI-powered ingredient discovery to fast-track the commercialisation of its cultivated omega-3 fish fat.

🧫 BioCraft Pet Nutrition published a publicly available regulatory dossier for cultivated meat ingredients in pet food, proposing a minimum safety disclosure standard for the industry.

📚 Key Research & Consumer Insights

🍎 A global transition towards healthy diets rich in plant-based foods could bring significant benefits, with an analysis published in Nature calling on governments to “rise to the challenge” and “make difficult decisions” for public and planetary health.

🫘 A new survey by The Harris Poll shows that around three in five consumers in the US are open to the idea of eating less meat and replacing it with beans.

📊 A study led by Tufts University has revealed that young populations are consuming low amounts of plant-based food, pointing to a critical nutrition gap among children.

🥩 Data from the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture suggests that consumers in the US and Germany are more accepting of cultivated meat when labelled with that term instead of ‘lab-grown’.

🌱🍔  Future Food Quick Bites 

In our weekly column, Future Food Quick Bites, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Daiya’s protein mac and cheese, Nueva Pescanova’s aborted octopus farm plan, and Wildtype’s crowdfunding success.

📆 Scene & Heard

🚀 The Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein and Imperial College London has launched a future food accelerator to help startups reach commercial scale.

🌱 The Fall 2026 Plant Futures Challenge Lab is looking for partners for an applied learning experience at UC Berkeley that brings together values-aligned organisations and high-achieving student teams. Learn more here.

🇪🇺 The first European Hybrid Foods Conference will connect leaders from across the value chain - retail, food service, food brands, manufacturers, ingredient and machinery suppliers - to accelerate the journey from innovation to large-scale adoption. It’s happening 14th-16th September; register here.

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