With the food-tech landscape evolving rapidly, trailblazers worldwide are transforming how we produce, process, and enjoy our food. Here’s a quick round-up of some of the most exciting updates making waves this month:

🛒 Joyn Foods Joins Blended Meat Category on Retail Shelves

FoodNavigator-USA explores the rapid growth of the blended-meat category, highlighting how this hybrid segment—mixing conventional meat with plant-based ingredients—is attracting fresh investment and new brands.

☀️ Arborea's Large-scale microalgae plant powered by ‘biosolar leaf’ tech will be operational in 2027

Arborea is gearing up to build a 20‑hectare Biosolar Leaf™ microalgae plant, set to be operational by 2027, that mimics photosynthesis to capture CO₂ and sunlight, producing carbon-negative, protein-rich biomass without relying on farmland or fresh water.

🥩 Albert Heijn Joins Blended Protein Push with Hybrid Meat & Milk Range

Albert Heijn, the leading Dutch supermarket, is launching a range of "hybrid" or blended meat products—such as burgers and minced mixes combining chicken and beef—that mix animal meats with plant-based proteins. These new offerings reduce CO₂ emissions by about 37% compared to traditional beef options, are more affordable, and aim to help consumers transition toward lower-impact diets without sacrificing taste

🚀 EU Backs 16 Future Food Startups Tackling Climate Crisis

The European Union’s EIT Food RisingFoodStars 2025 cohort features 14 standout scale-ups tackling key food system challenges—from sustainable palm oil alternatives like NoPalm Ingredients, to precision-fermented dairy and egg proteins from companies such as Bon Vivant and Those Vegan Cowboys.

💡 Clever Carnivore’s Path to Cultivated Meat Profitability

Clever Carnivore, a Chicago-based cultivated meat start-up, has secured a $7 million seed funding round led by Lever VC and supported by international investors to scale the production of its low-cost cultivated pork sausage, including the upcoming “Clever Bratwurst” prototype. Their serum-free growth medium—free from bovine or fetal serum—is reported to be 10 to 100 times cheaper than competitors', addressing the primary cost barrier in cultivated meat.

✨ Savour, Alamance and Thimus Create a First-of-its-kind Product in 3 Weeks

An unlikely trio - Savor, Alamance and Thimus - used applied neuroscience, novel fats and agile frameworks to create a sustainable whipped topping and an innovation model other companies can use to fast-track product development

✅ Vow gets FSANZ Regulatory Approval in Australia and New Zealand

Sydney‑based food tech company Vow has secured ground-breaking regulatory approval from Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) to sell its cultured Japanese quail products—such as foie gras, parfait, and tallow—in Australia and New Zealand, pending final ministerial endorsement after a 60-day review.

🚫 Kraft Heinz Commits to Remove FD&C Colours from its US Portfolio Close of 2027

Kraft Heinz has announced that it will remove all artificial FD&C (Food, Drug & Cosmetic) colors from its U.S. product portfolio by the end of 2027. Effective immediately, no new U.S. product launches will include these synthetic colours.

🔬 Inside the Success of the Cell-Cultivated Sandbox

The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA), alongside Food Standards Scotland, has launched Europe’s first regulatory “sandbox” for novel foods—particularly cell-cultivated meat and seafood—backed by a £1.6 million Engineering Biology Sandbox Fund.

🔍 What Synthesis Capital Look for in Investment Opportunities

Synthesis Capital invests in innovations reshaping the global food industry—especially in alternative proteins—across four core technology verticals: plant‑based, single‑cell fermentation, precision (recombinant) fermentation, and cultivated meats, along with enabling technologies like synthetic biology, machine learning, gene editing, 3D printing, and tissue engineering

🍖 Gourmey Teases Cultivated Meat That Costs $3.40 Per Pound

Gourmey, a Paris-based cultivated meat startup, has revealed that its lab-grown foie gras can now be produced at just $3.43 per pound (€7/kg), making it the most cost-effective cultivated-meat product yet—according to a third-party techno-economic analysis by Arthur D. Little.

🥛 Better Dairy Looks Beyond Casein to a New Protein in Precision Fermentation Dairy

UK-based Better Dairy has used precision fermentation to produce osteopontin, a bioactive milk protein rich in human breast milk, via genetically engineered yeast. This breakthrough overcomes past challenges of extracting it from cow’s milk, enabling scalable, animal-free production with correct phosphorylation.

🆕 Liberation Labs Rebrands as Liberation Bioindustries

Liberation Labs has officially rebranded as Liberation Bioindustries at Future Food-Tech Chicago, to reflect its expansion from a lab-based startup into a fully-fledged, global-scale precision fermentation contract manufacturer.

🐶 Big Idea Ventures and Mars Petcare Launch Global Next Generation Pet Food Program

The Next Generation Pet Food Program, launched by Big Idea Ventures in partnership with Mars Petcare, AAK, Bühler, and now Givaudan, invites startups—especially from the Asia-Pacific region—to develop sustainable pet nutrition solutions using novel proteins, fats, ingredients, and processing technologies like upcycling food waste.

🐟 Wildtype Cultivated Salmon Gets FDA Approval

Wildtype, a San Francisco–based cell‑cultivated seafood company, has achieved a major milestone by receiving FDA approval—the first ever for lab‑grown fish—to sell its sushi‑grade cultivated coho salmon (“saku”) in the U.S.

🐔 Dutch Poultry Co Acquires Plant-Based Meat Maker

Plukon Food Group has acquired local vegan manufacturer Vega Insiders, known for its plant-based bacon, mince, kebabs, and falafels, to boost its alternative protein operations.

🍄 NoMy Secures €1.25M to Commercialize Mycoprotein Technologies Using Resources From Beet Sugar Manufacturing

Norwegian Mycelium (NoMy) raised €1.25 million—led by Nippon Beet Sugar Manufacturing and backed by investors like EIT Food—to scale its fungus-based mycoprotein platform using sugar‑beet side‑streams, aiming to bolster sustainable protein supply in Europe and Japan.

🌍 Global Alt Protein Sector Slowly Makes Progress

The Good Food Institute (GFI) reports that while the global alternative protein sector is making progress, it faces challenges in scaling to meet the projected 50% increase in global meat demand by 2050. Consumer awareness is rising, with 69% of U.S. adults familiar with plant-based meats, but taste and price parity remain obstacles.

📦 50% Tariff on Aluminum Packaging Could Begin Early June

President Donald Trump announced a 50% tariff on imported aluminum and steel, effective June 4, 2025. This move aims to bolster domestic manufacturing but has raised concerns among U.S. food companies that rely on imported metals for packaging.

🧬 Meatly's Bioreactor Could Cut Cultivated Meat Costs by 95%

Meatly has developed a novel, in-house 320-liter bioreactor that reduces production costs by approximately 95%. Priced at £12,500, this bioreactor offers scalability and biocompatibility comparable to traditional £250,000 biopharma reactors.

👏 REWE Group Joins Food Fermentation Europe Association

REWE Group, one of Europe's largest retailers, has become the first retail member of Food Fermentation Europe (FFE), an association representing the fermentation-enabled food and ingredients sector. This move underscores REWE's commitment to diversifying protein sources and supporting sustainable food systems.

📈 What Do 2025’s Investment Trends Tell Us About Alternative Proteins?

In the first quarter of 2025, investment in alternative proteins declined by 28% compared to the same period in 2024, totaling $235 million. This downturn is attributed to factors such as the rise of artificial intelligence, high production costs, and sluggish sales.