Happy Year of the Snake 🐍

A new year has begun for the approximately a billion people who celebrate the lunar calendar and in the Chinese Zodiac, it’s now officially the year of the snake. The wood snake to be exact.

Luckily for all of us, the year of the snake is all about shedding bad energy, which I think we can all agree we desperately need to do.

Those born in this zodiac year are associated with cunning and resilience, but also ruthlessness and secrecy. Fun fact: Mahatma Gandhi, Pablo Picasso, Xi Jinping and Taylor Swift are all serpents so it’s a varied bunch and a good depiction of the Chinese Zodiac’s in-built nuance. Nothing is ever all good or all bad.

A newsletter I love, Sightline (formerly known as CTVC) just raised $5.5 million (hugely deserved and congrats to the team) for its business analytics platform which provides data about the climate tech economy. But they don’t call it that anymore. They refer to it as the transition economy.

While I’ve been reading op-eds by climate activists arguing that we need to dig in our heels and fight even more and continue pushing the climate angle, the pragmatist in me—I grew up in the bastion of pragmatism that is Hong Kong—is inclined to agree with Sightline.

The need for us to transition does not change according to political cycles. Even autocrats realize that. And that is just as true in the energy world as in the food world. It’s why all the big food CPGs are rethinking their supply chains. And why China just launched a new protein innovation centre. And why EU supermarkets are committing to plants.

That’s where the future food opportunity is, folks: solving for that transition.

-Sonalie

💡 Green Queen Exclusives

🍗 SCOOP: Upside Foods’s New Chicken Shreds: We got all the juicy deets on the Californian cultivated meat pioneer's second product which they plan to launch in the US by year-end as a blended meat product; plus: Upside talks about navigating legal bans.

💰 Op-Ed: How Does The Food Tech Sector Reset After A ‘Funding Winter’
Nourish Ingredients CEO James Petrie explores the decline of VC investment in food tech, and how the sector can chart a course forward.

🗺️ Op-Ed: To Keep Sustainability On The Map, We Need To Go Beyond Climate
Klaus Mitchell, environmental advocate and co-founder of Plant Based News, writes about how to create a green future in a divided era.

❓Deep Dive: Which Countries Will Benefit From Cultivated Meat Bans In The US?
With Donald Trump having returned to office, 2025 could be a bumper year for cultivated meat bans in the US – we report on the countries that stand to benefit from these policies.

🏷️ Industry Insights: C-Label
Swiss certification body V-Label has rolled out C-Label, a new accreditation for cell-based products like cultivated meat. But what we’re wondering is: does the industry really need it?

📈 Must-Read Headlines

☕️ Seattle startup Atomo Coffee raised $7.8 million Series B funding to ramp up sales of its 50:50 beanless coffee blend.
💡So far, the startup has raked in nearly $59 million in investment and built several key international partnerships.

🍫 Israel’s Pluri secured a $6.5 million investment and entered the cell-based chocolate space with the impending purchase of a majority stake in Rehovot-based Kokomodo.
💡The acquisition adds another string to Pluri’s bow, as the former health tech has expanded into several avenues of food tech in recent years.

🧀 Dutch-Belgian startup Those Vegan Cowboys is raising €15 million for its recombinant casein as it prepares to enter the US this year.
💡It also announced a partnership with German dairy giant Hochland Group to test the protein in a variety of hard and soft cheeses on a larger scale.

🇫🇷 The French government’s proposed labelling ban on plant-based meat products has been cancelled by the Conseil d’État, echoing a similar decision by the European Court of Justice.
💡France is far from the only country targeting vegan product labels; in fact, these legislative proposals are common across the world. This ruling marks a landslide victory for the industry.

📝 Over 130 organisations, including the European Public Health Alliance and Greenpeace, have written an open letter to the EU agrifood commissioner, imploring him to develop a plant-based action plan by next year.
💡An EU-wide action plan, they suggest, would help boost the bloc’s strategic autonomy, since it currently relies on imports for two-thirds of its high-protein livestock feed.

✅ Hot Topic - Government Funding

🇨🇳 China has opened its first alternative protein center for cultivated meat and fermentation-derived products, with $10.9 million in support from both the public and private sectors.
💡The center is designed to bring “unlimited possibilities” to Asia’s largest economy’s alt protein industry’s development.

🇺🇸 The US Department of Energy has invested $9.7 million in three alternative protein projects to decarbonise the food sector and improve industrial productivity.
💡This was among the last instances of federal finance flowing into the sector under the Biden-Harris administration; developments like these could stall now Trump is back in office.

🍔 Everything Else in Future Food

🧈 Dutch vegan giant Flora Food Group is partnering with Gordon Ramsay to promote its flagship plant-based butter.

📉 Nearly four years after it was first introduced, Nestlé’s vegan KitKat is going off the market in every country except the UK amid poor sales, a setback for both the plant-based industry and Nestlé’s climate goals.

🏷️ The Non-GMO Project, one of the most well-known consumer verification bodies in the US, is rolling out a new label to help shoppers identify ultra-processed foods.

🌱 New analysis from green consultancy Quantis and climate advocacy group Madre Brava reveals that rebalancing protein offerings to support plant-based diets can help supermarkets reach their climate goals quickly and inexpensively.

🌱🍔  Future Food Quick Bites 

IIn 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 two new dairy-free coffee creamers, Hellmann’s social media prank, and Oato’s launch of fresh oat milks at Sainsbury’s.

📆 Scene & Heard

Supply Change Capital Is Looking For Female Entrepreneurs

👩🏻‍🏫 Are you a female early-stage entrepreneur working to make the future of food and agriculture healthier and more sustainable? Supply Change Capital is holding a pitch event on 13th-14th March; apply here.

🇨🇭Don't miss your chance to apply to MassChallenge Switzerland’s 10th accelerator! The program is designed to help startups scale, connect with world-class mentors, and make a meaningful impact on the environment and society. Learn more and apply here.

🇺🇸 Join global leaders from CPGs & retailers, ingredient and technology providers to cutting-edge innovators and investors for strategic networking, exclusive industry insight and startup discovery at Future Food-Tech San Francisco, happening 13th-14th March 2025. Find out more here.

🇬🇧 In partnership with the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency, 5050 is coming to the UK. The first UK cohort runs from March to June ‘25. Sessions are held in London and online. Find out more and apply here.

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