Staying ahead of the technology curve means strengthening your competitive advantage. That is why we give you data-driven innovation insights into the food industry. This time, you get to discover 5 hand-picked startups working on sustainable nutrition.
Global Startup Heat Map highlights 5 Top Sustainable Nutrition Solutions out of 945
The insights of this data-driven analysis are derived from the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, covering 2.093.000+ startups & scaleups globally. The platform gives you an exhaustive overview of emerging technologies & relevant startups within a specific field in just a few clicks.
The Global Startup Heat Map below reveals the distribution of the 945 exemplary startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research. Further, it highlights 5 food tech startups working on sustainable nutrition that we hand-picked based on criteria such as founding year, location, funding raised, and more. You get to explore the solutions of these 5 startups & scaleups in this report. For insights on the other 940 sustainable nutrition solutions, get in touch.
v2food produces Plant-based Meat
Meat consumption significantly contributes to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide. This is because the destruction of forest ecosystems needed for raising livestock leads to carbon emissions while the livestock itself also creates a large amount of methane as they digest food. These and more aspects further fuel global warming. To solve this problem, startups are producing plant-based alternatives for meat, thus enabling sustainable nutrition.
Australian startup v2food offers sustainable plant-based alternatives for meat. The products include burger patties named v2burger, v2mince, an alternative for minced beef, v2sausage, and v2sauce. v2food uses a natural process to replicate the flavor of actual meat by identifying and leveraging the amino acids that contribute to the same. Moreover, the base ingredient of the product is beans which are easily crushed into a mixture to extract protein. Then the startup adds fiber from bamboo, oil from sunflowers, fat from coconuts, and beetroot juice for color.
Willa’s provides Oats-based Dairy Alternatives
The dairy industry heavily contributes to climate change as cows reared in dairy farms and their manure emits greenhouse gases. Moreover, poor handling of this large amount of waste contaminates local waterways and the soil. Besides that, dairy farms use up a lot of water for various purposes including drinking water for cows, water used to produce food for cows, and cleaning the farms, among others. Hence, food tech startups are working on alternatives for dairy products made from plant-based ingredients.
Willa’s is a US-based startup that offers dairy alternatives made from oats. Its products include two variants of oat milk — Willa’s Unsweetened Original, with minimum sugar, and Willa’s Creamy, which is added to beverages or used in baking. The startup also uses non-GMO whole grain oats to extract protein, fiber, and minerals. Instead of sugar, the oat milk has organic vanilla to enhance the natural sweetness of the oats.
BRAVE offers Snacks made from Pulses
The production of animal-based protein such as beef, pork, chicken, and eggs contaminate water and soil, and also emit greenhouse gases in large quantities. Therefore, to reduce the adverse environmental impacts of these protein sources, food tech startups are offering protein-rich products made from plant-based sources like pulses, which emit very low GHGs and are healthier compared to animal-based protein sources.
British startup BRAVE produces sustainable snacks made from pulses, namely peas and chickpeas. Its snacks include roasted peas and chickpeas of different flavors such as dark chocolate, sea salt, sweet chili, sour cream, and so on. Besides providing a range of plant-based healthy snacks, BRAVE further promotes sustainability by growing the pulses locally, thus, reducing their carbon footprint. Additionally, the packaging of the snacks is recyclable, keeping the loop closed.
The Live Green enables Natural Ingredients Discovery
As consumers are becoming more and more environmentally conscious of the negative impacts of meat and dairy production and consumption, food tech startups are deploying machine learning to discover new natural ingredients for producing food. These ingredients are sustainable and at the same time offer the same flavor as actual animal-based proteins including beef, pork, chicken, and so on. For example, startups develop lab-grown meat to accomplish the same.
The Live Green is an Indian startup that develops a recommendation engine, Charaka. The engine uses biotechnology, data science, and deep learning algorithms to identify and profile animal-based as well as synthetic and processed additives in food products. It then maps them with other plants to discover new natural ingredients, their properties, and their uses. The products derived from the engine include burger mixes made from pulses, chickpeas, black beans, or mushrooms, pancake mixes with chocolate, apple, and peas flavor. The Live Green also offers dairy-free ice-creams made from banana, sugar-free allulose, sunflower oil, and cream extracted from avocado, linseed, and salt.
Human Improvement produces an Insect-based Protein Powder
Realizing the negative effects of livestock farming, food companies start to offer plant-based alternatives for meat and other animal-based protein. Apart from plant-based alternatives, startups are also working on extracting protein from insects such as crickets. These alternatives are more nutritious compared to plant-based protein as they contain amino acids that are absorbed better by human bodies. Additionally, they are a natural source of vitamin B12 and contain probiotics that improve gut health. From a sustainable standpoint, crickets use much less land and water than livestock.
US-based startup Human Improvement produces an organic protein powder extracted from crickets. The gluten-free powder comes in cashew or hazelnut flavor but does not contain any artificial flavors, sugars, gums, or fillers. Thus, the powder causes no irritation to the guts, unlike traditional whey protein powders. Additionally, Human Improvement uses recyclable packaging, which further increases sustainability.
Discover more Food Tech Startups
Food startups such as the examples highlighted in this report focus on plant-based and insect-based alternatives for meat, dairy, and proteins as well as healthy snacking options. While all of these technologies play a major role in advancing the food industry, they only represent the tip of the iceberg. To explore more food technologies, simply get in touch to let us look into your areas of interest. For a more general overview, you can download our free FoodTech Innovation Report to save your time and improve strategic decision-making.
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