Morning Folks,

This week’s note is a bit of a hodgepodge of observations and reflections from my time at the Bridge2Food Europe conference in Copenhagen last week.

Firstly, the event itself was genuinely high quality. Bridge2Food really brings it, particularly on the content front. It is very much a B2B event, and a highly R&D-focused one at that and the main focus is plant-based food. What stood out most was how un-salesy most of the talks and panels were. I’m not sure whether that is down to the curation, the speaker quality, or just the expectations Bridge2Food sets, but the difference was obvious.

It felt very different from many of the foodtech events I usually attend, which tend to be startup-heavy or investor-led. There were not many innovators or people on innovation teams either. Instead, the room was full of Big Food R&D folks. And while investors are not the target audience, there were so few in attendance that it was a stark reflection of how few investors are seriously dedicated to the plant-based food tech space, and that the center of gravity in this category has clearly moved toward B2B, ingredients, and supply chain.

One of the other things that really struck me was how different the mood felt in Europe compared with the US. In America, there is this very definitive narrative that plant-based meat is over, or at least culturally dead. I didn’t feel that in Europe. It’s certainly not winning big here, and the people I spoke to were very aware of that, but it still feels like a product category that exists on shelves and in conversation, rather than one that has been buried under a cloud of failure. (NB: in Asia, the category remains very niche.)

The GLP-1 conversation was also more muted than I expected, especially given that Novo Nordisk is a Danish company and one of the most valuable companies in Europe. I thought there would be a stronger connection between GLP-1s and plant-based meat, but that link did not really come through in the room. To me, that still feels like a missed opportunity, and not just in Europe but globally, too. Just as plant-based is missing out on the protein boom, we are not taking advantage of the GLP-1 moment.

Another fascinating thread came out in private conversations. I heard several times that in big food companies, the R&D and innovation teams are often completely separate, and sometimes don’t even sit together. One consultant told me that a surprising part of his job is literally organising workshops so those teams can be in the same room. They are often just thrilled to be there together. That says a lot about how siloed this space still is.

Policy was another area that felt oddly absent. Given what is happening in Europe more broadly, I expected more of it on the agenda. But the connection between policy and product innovation still feels very tenuous here. That fascinates me because in Asia — especially in China and, to some extent, Singapore — policy often drives and seeds innovation. In Europe, by contrast, the regulators seem to be doing their thing in Brussels while innovators are doing theirs elsewhere. The two worlds still feel quite far apart.

As I mentioned last week, there was a startup competition curated by the French open innovation platform ShakeUp Factory. The room was full, the pitches were solid, and unsurprisingly, the AI company won. More than the winner, what struck me (as noted above) was how much of the real value and innovation in plant-based has shifted to the B2B side. That is where the business is. That is where the revenue is. And that is where a lot of the interesting work is happening now.

The first day’s technical workshop format was, honestly, excellent. We had technical presentations in the morning, and in the afternoon, we were split into smaller groups and rotated through eight stations or rooms, each featuring a large food R&D team presenting two or three of their latest plant-based meat/dairy innovations. Everything from yeast extract alternatives to off-taste blockers to protein powders. It’s a good setup because everyone had to visit every station, so every company got an audience, and the smaller groups made for much better Q&A and a real exchange. I could easily have done another full day of that format. It would be a brilliant event format for startups, because instead of just a pitch or a panel, you get engagement through show-and-tell/taste action, which is so much more useful when you are trying to explain a product.

I found it very curious and noteworthy that some of the big food R&D teams are innovating ingredients that are very similar, if not identical, to what some of the pitching startups are working on. I’m not sure if that is good news or not, but it was definitely interesting.

And then there is the culture piece, which remains one of my biggest takeaways. I think the industry (including the folks in the room last week) has a blind spot when it comes to the cultural environment. I still think the industry is building products in a vacuum and not really seeing how they relate to broader culture. Food products exist inside norms, habits, and shifting cultural expectations and I’m not sure the industry is truly addressing that yet.

One person observed that it’s really hard to go to an event where essentially all the parts of the value chain are in one room. I thought that was such an interesting comment. Difficult, yes — but also maybe exactly the kind of space the industry needs more of.

-Sonalie

 💡 Only on Green Queen

🤓 No Whey: How Future Food Startups Are Plugging the Protein Shortage
Whey is everywhere, but relentless demand puts it at risk of being nowhere. To address the shortage, manufacturers must turn to alternative protein sources.

🇲🇾 Malaysia Explores Cultivated Meat to Battle Climate Change & Food Insecurity
With a “super” El Niño set to raise temperatures to extreme levels, countries need safeguards in place to protect their populations. Malaysia, whose crop yields could fall by 8-10% this year due to extreme weather, is now assessing the feasibility of cell-cultured foods, such as cultivated meat, as a weapon against food insecurity.

 ✅ Must-Read Headlines

🇨🇦 Canadian startup NS/TX Industries secured $10.5 million to construct an automated assembly line for its whole-cut plant-based meat and seafood products.
💡The company’s unique scaffolding tech solves a number of issues commonly found in extruded plant proteins and enables the production of whole cuts as well as formats like burgers and strips, all in the same assembly line. 

🇫🇮 The Finnish government has invested €1.8 million in local food producer Raisio for a project to create functional fibre ingredients from grain byproducts, with the latter investing a further €2.7 million.
💡Raisio noted that fibre-rich and functional food ingredients are among the fastest-growing categories in food innovation. 

🧫 Tufts University spinout Deco Labs has developed a plant-derived replacement for albumin, the most expensive component of culture media used in the production of cultivated meat.
💡It’s made from the byproduct of canola oil production, costs $0.02 per litre of cell culture media, and has already been tested across multiple cell lines.

🗽 The New York City government has increased its plant-based protein purchases by 130% and lowered meat and dairy volumes by 15% to reach its 2030 climate goals four years ahead of schedule.
💡New York City has spearheaded food policies that promote both public and planetary health, and inspired similar action across the country.

 🤝🏼 Partnerships, Acquisitions & Liquidations

🥚 US animal-free egg protein maker The Every Company has expanded its partnership with pharma manufacturer Huvepharma to scale up production fourfold amid skyrocketing demand.
💡The move will enable The Every Co to leverage Huvepharma subsidiary Biovet’s nine-million-litre fermentation facility in Bulgaria, one of Europe’s largest and most flexible sites of its kind.

🤖 Molinos Río de la Plata, Argentina’s largest branded food company, has agreed to purchase 100% of Chilean AI-led plant-based food firm NotCo’s operations in Argentina and Uruguay.
💡NotCo’s strong technology base enabled it to raise more than $400 million over the years and to cross the $1 billion valuation threshold to achieve unicorn status.

📉 Parisian plant-based whole-cut meat maker Swap Food (formerly Umami) has entered liquidation and ceased activities in France, with a closure of its US operations imminent unless a buyer is found.
💡One of the major factors behind Swap’s struggles was its production facility, which struggled to scale up, leading to delays in commercial developmen; it has been operating at less than 10% of its capacity.

🚀 Everything Else In Future Food

💊 US supplements brand Vital Nutrients has launched a multivitamin gummy for kids featuring effera, a precision-fermented human lactoferrin protein by Helaina.

🥛 A judge in Québec has authorised a class-action lawsuit against coffee chains over excessive plant-based milk levies, with Starbucks admitting it charged six times more than the cost.

🇨🇳 Swedish oat milk giant Oatly is reportedly considering selling its business in China, where it has struggled for years. A potential deal could be completed this year.

📝 Product-scanning app Yuka and watchdog group Consumer Reports have petitioned the US FDA to better regulate food additives and scrap the self-affirmed GRAS pathway.

🥩 A new analysis published in Obesity Reviews finds that research linked to the livestock industry is 16 times more likely to report the benefits of meat consumption than independent studies, which the authors say is “concerning”.

🌱🍔  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 Oatly’s FIFA World Cup café, Alpro’s brownie-flavoured yoghurt, and Time Magazine’s GreenTech list.

📆 Scene & Heard

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🏅 FoodTech Weekly just published its 300th issue and announced its evolution from a newsletter into a global community for founders raising, scaling, and selling their businesses. Find out more here.

🌍 Food Ingredients Europe, taking place 17th-19th November, will bring together over 24,500 attendees and 1,500+ exhibitors from more than 135 countries to showcase industry advancements, network, and discover emerging trends. Sign up here.

🇸🇪 This year, The Drop is happening in Malmö, Sweden on 15th-16th September. It’s focused on four themes: infrastructure, labour, nature, and geopolitics. Learn more here.