Morning All,

We’ve put together a Green Queen Wrapped series, with the top 10 funding rounds of the year, the 10 most read stories, the 10 best interviews we published, the top 10 policy wins of the year and the top 10 food tech wins overall. It’s been fun to put these lists together, especially because seeing all the data in one go is heartening. Though far smaller, leaner and hype-free, the food tech industry has prevailed against some seriously tough odds. Worth a read (or a skim) to get an energy boost.

Now it’s time to say goodbye to 2025, and what a year it’s been. It’s hard to overstate just how tough it’s been in the food tech trenches over the past twelve months. I’ve struggled to stay hopeful at times and spent hours thinking about just what we need to fix to make 2026 better.

I don’t have the answers…but a provocative SSIR essay titled “There Is No Such Thing as Impact Investing” really hit home. The author torches the hybrid model as a fantasy: real change demands concessionary capital (grants, cheap debt), which is just philanthropy by another name, while market-rate “intentionality” fools no one.​ In our sector, impact funds have mostly dried up or pivoted to AI hype, leaving startups scrambling for commercial VCs who want 10x returns yesterday. Founders must rethink: bootstrap to profitability, target philanthropists via PRIs/SAFEs for de-risking (à la Hello Tractor or Pula), or prove unbreakable profit-impact alignment before seeking equity. Not all founders have accepted this new binary, but in 2026, it may be time to do so. Your Climate ‘Why’ is no longer getting you funded.

I want to say a massive THANK YOU to my incredible team: Anay, who truly is unmatched in terms of reporting volume and quality; Nicola, who makes this newsletter so good; Jenny, who expertly runs our social team and channels; Marlana, our Climate Feed Program Manager who helped make an idea in my head real and globally impactful; and Vikram, our long-serving dev with whom I build out all our tech. I am so grateful to them, without whom running this tiny, mighty impact media platform would feel all but impossible.

Here’s a quick overview of what we accomplished in 2025:

• Published 985 stories incl. 22 exclusives

• Amassed over 6 million visits to our site

• Sent 50 newsletters to 31,500+ subscribers

• Grew our LinkedIn audience to 22,000+, a 5.2K increase since last year

• Completed a brand and digital refresh

• Launched Green Queen Wire to democratize industry releases for the AIO era

• Debuted and ran the inaugural Climate Feed 2025 Fellowship to train up a new generation of food x climate journalists (got 400 applications from 6 continents, selected 6 superstars)

On my side, I completed the Asia Global Fellowship, which was truly life-changing, I continued working on Climate Kitchen, I did a range of strategic comms consulting for companies across the globe, said goodbye to my Future Food Weekly LIVE podcast (with props to my wonderful co-host Steve Molino) and my climate tech startup Source Green (if foodtech is going through troubled times, alt plastic and materials is in dire straits…still I miss working with the best of the best Luc Des Vallieres).

I used to cringe at lists like the ones above. Now I know better. Taking stock is important, necessary and empowering. Seeing everything we have achieved, I am energized. There’s so much more to do. But I take solace in the fact that I am doing it. I show up every day, even on the days when it feels futile.

Wishing you all a merry holiday with your loved ones, wherever you are, and peace and good health for the new year. See you on the other side.

Note: This newsletter is coming to you a day early as the team is taking a break over the holidays. We’ll be back in your inboxes on January 8th.

-Sonalie

💡 Green Queen Special: 2025 Wrapped!

💸 The Top 10 Future Food Funding Rounds of the Year
Plant-based companies have witnessed a spike in investment this year, despite declines for cultivated meat and fermentation. Here we highlight the 10 largest future food funding rounds of 2025, featuring animal-free eggs, yeast proteins, and Beyond Meat.

🏆 The Top 10 Food Tech Wins of the Year
The future food industry has seen plenty of victories this year, spanning regulatory approvals, supermarket pledges, and women’s wellness. Here are the 10 biggest wins for food tech in 2025.

💬 Green Queen’s 10 Top Future Food Interviews 2025
Our top 10 interviews of the year feature an EU lawmaker, a former White House advisor, and the queen of plant-based dairy herself. Our exclusives with these heavyweights are a must-read.

🤝🏼 The Biggest Alt Protein Policy Stories of 2025
From product labels to school lunches to regulatory progress, 2025 has seen a lot of wins and losses for alternative protein – here are the 10 standout developments.

🆕 Green Queen’s Top 10 Future Food Stories of the Year
In a year full of economic uncertainty and consolidation, our readers were most interested in funding and policy stories. Here are our 10 most-read future food stories of 2025, featuring Trump’s tariffs, Beyond Meat, and Michelin stars.

✅ Must-Read Headlines

🇳🇱 Dutch cultivated meat pioneer Mosa Meat secured €15 million ($17.6 million) from a number of existing investors to support its regulatory progress and market entry.
💡The fresh capital extends Mosa Meat’s runway into 2028, and it also announced that it has now reduced its production costs by 99.999% compared to its initial set of burgers unveiled in 2013.

🇸🇪 Ikea’s VC arm, Ingka Investments, has bought a majority stake in Sweden’s The Green Dairy, which makes plant-based products from oats and fava beans, with an 80 million kronor ($8.6 million) investment.
💡The Green Dairy has counted Ikea as an investor since 2012, and hopes that this latest investment will further propel its growth.

🇺🇸 US Senator Adam Schiff has introduced a new bill to allocate over $500 million in federal R&D funding and create a national strategy for alternative proteins.
💡The legislation directs the USDA to set up a grant programme to ensure the US’s biomanufacturing capabilities can meet global protein demand - without damaging the planet further.

🚫 Dutch cultivated pork maker Meatable is terminating its operations after failing to secure funding.
💡To date, Meatable has secured $95 million from investors, and was pursuing regulatory clearance in multiple geographies.

🚀 Precision Fermentation News

🤠 Dutch-Belgian precision fermentation startup Those Vegan Cowboys successfully closed its first funding round with €6.25 million ($7.3 million) to scale up and commercialise its cow-free dairy protein. 
💡The startup is already working with 10 industry partners on a range of applications for its casein, and has self-affirmed the ingredient as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) in the US.

🇪🇪 Estonian startup Äio secured a €1.2 million ($1.4 million) grant from the country’s national innovation agency to produce its yeast-derived Flavoured Fat on a commercial scale.
💡Äio’s Series A funding round is expected to kick off in Q3 2026, and will help it notch large-scale tech licensing deals; it’s already in talks with over 120 partners worldwide.

🏭 Switzerland’s Yeastup has opened an industrial-scale facility to repurpose 4,000 litres of spent brewer’s yeast per hour into proteins and functional ingredients.
💡Yeastup is now preparing to raise an additional Series A round to further accelerate production and international market development.

🇫🇮 Solar Foods has teased Solein Cream as one of many applications for its gas-derived protein, with a three-ingredient solution that could solve the bottlenecks for non-dairy products.
💡The ingredient is set to debut in the US early next year, as part of a line of ready-to-mix protein powders under Pothos’s PRVL brand, and a range of gluten-free protein bars by Fermenta.

🌱🍔  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 Waitrose’s mushroom wellington, Offbeast’s plant-based ribs, and Typcal’s new mycelium factory.

📆 Scene & Heard

🚀 Apply Now For Cohort 9 of the Climatebase Fellowship

💥 Applications are now open for the next cohort of the Climatebase Fellowship — Climatebase’s flagship program designed to help talented, mission-driven professionals accelerate their careers in climate. Learn more and apply here.

🇺🇸 Join CPGs, retailers, ingredient and technology providers, cutting-edge entrepreneurs and investors at Future Food-Tech San Francisco on March 19th-20th and connect for targeted networking, exclusive industry insights and startup discovery. Sign up here.

🇬🇧 Plan ahead for Food Matters Live, returning to London on 3rd-4th June. The event will bring together hundreds of the UK and Ireland's innovators and product developers, technical managers, food innovators, and nutritionists across brands, manufacturers, retailers, QSRs and foodservice, including start-ups and scale-ups. Learn more here.

🇯🇵 Since its debut in 1976, FOODEX JAPAN has become the premier international F&B business platform, connecting over 80,000 exhibitors with 4,000,000 buyers. Don’t miss the next one, taking place 10th-13th March. Get more details here.