San Francisco, January 17, 2020: For immediate release

From Whole Muscle Plant-Based Meat to Scent Digitization Using AI: 19 Food-Tech Innovators Shaping the Future

As consumers’ appetite grows for nutritious, healthy and sustainable food, coupled with the powerful trend towards plant-based alternatives, agile start-ups are leading the charge with breakthrough advanced technologies and transformative ideas ready to scale.

The team from the Future Food-Tech Summit has identified 18 food-tech start-ups with the potential to reshape the food-tech innovation landscape.

These selected start-ups offer game-changing technologies to solve a range of food-tech challenges, from cell-based milk to whole muscle plant-based meats and from AI-based digital scent detection to supply chain digitization.

Start-ups featured at Future Food-Tech in San Francisco include:

Amfora (USA) applies gene editing to enhance the nutritional profile of crops that are central to global food security. Its initial focus is to fuel the plant-based protein revolution by developing minimally processed raw materials for plant-based meat and other replacements for animal protein. Amfora will also develop high-protein food crops including legumes, wheat and rice, that provide more plant-based protein in the diet while enhancing wellness by helping to prevent cardiovascular disease and control blood sugar levels without relying on medication.

Atomo Coffee (USA) Founded by friends Jarret Stopforth and Andy Kleitsch, Atomo is a science and technology company recreating premium commodities in a sustainable fashion. The initial product focus is on coffee, made without coffee beans. Atomo uses naturally derived, sustainable ingredients to deliver the same taste and experience without the environmental harm.

Back of the Yards Algae Sciences (BYAS) (USA) is an industrial biotechnology company focused on innovative applications of microalgae to meet our planet’s food and agriculture challenges.  BYAS develops and commercializes natural colorants and alternative proteins (high protein, zero-odor, long-life Spirulina and Chlorella flours) for more nutritious and environmentally sustainable plant-based foods. BYAS algae-based bio stimulants reduce energy requirements in vertical agriculture, whilst increasing yield and BYAS is developing sera and media (including FBS replacement) to accelerate the development  of cellular agriculture.

BCD Bioscience (USA) is creating the world’s premier offering of prebiotic and functional carbohydrates by identifying, functionalizing and commercializing unique glycan structures from natural feedstocks. Its propriety food-grade process produces a wide variety of structurally diverse oligosaccharides for selective modulation of the microbiome and immune function. Through partnerships and internal programs, BCD Bioscience is developing solutions for food, clinical nutrition and pharmaceutical applications.

Connecting Food (France) is the first blockchain solution in the world to track and digitally audit food products in real-time from farm to fork, all on an interoperable platform.  Founded by agri-food experts, Connecting Food uses its industry knowledge to map food supply chains and improve internal traceability.  The company also helps brands and retailers improve their external transparency via a QR code and storytelling, restoring consumer confidence in food.

Creatus Biosciences (Canada) is a privately held industrial biotechnology company based in Vancouver, Canada. The company develops scalable, fermentation-based processes using a novel yeast platform with unique xylose sugar metabolism and robust environmental tolerances. Creatus’ first commercial strain, the Xylitol Bioproduction System, enables production of the major sugar alternative, xylitol, from xylose found in industrial hydrolysates. Valorization of abundant, renewable and less costly sources of xylose unlocks a highly attractive opportunity to break open growth of the xylitol market.

Eclipse Foods (USA) is a Y combinator-backed start-up making plant-based dairy products that are indistinguishable from conventional dairy in taste, texture and functionality. The company’s products are made without soy, nuts, coconut, gluten, GMO’s, gums or stabilizers, making them free from all common allergens and much cleaner than other products. Using sophisticated gastronomy and a unique blend of plants like ancient corn, oats, corn and cassava, the company has made an ice cream that is so creamy, even cows are jealous.

Emergy Foods (USA) was founded on the principle that finding the right protein should be easy and consumers should never have to choose between health, taste or the environment. Emergy produces its own nutrient-dense and sustainably made meat alternatives that deliver the enjoyment of animal-based meat while only using a few all-natural ingredients, marketed under the plant-based meat brand Meati Foods.

Hooray Foods is a plant-based meat company that makes delicious plant-based meats out of ingredients you can feel good about – hooray! Their first product is a plant-based bacon that looks, cooks, and tastes just like the real thing.

Intello Labs (India / Singapore) digitizes quality in fresh produce supply chains, reducing food wastage by detecting variance from specifications and matching output to needs. It uses images of food commodities generated by either smartphones or mounted cameras and Computer Vision to make quality-digitization solutions that are scalable, non-destructive and low cost in nature. The images are processed by its proprietary deep-learning algorithms to extract useful features for each unit of food visible in the image. The information is aggregated into real-time calls to action and quality reports available to both the store staff and management with trends and insights.

Nourish Ingredients (USA) knows that the best alternative protein foods need alternative fats: dairy, meat, and fish fats are unique. The company creates healthy, animal-free fats that taste and perform better than plant fats like coconut and palm. Even better, Nourish Ingredient’s synbio tech is not locked by existing biology so we can explore new function and flavor spaces. Nourish is building tailored fats that are healthier for your customer and taste like the real thing. Cleaner, tastier, healthier fats.

NutriLeads (Netherlands) is a pre-commercial health ingredients company that develops crop-derived food ingredients with clinically proven health benefits for specific patient and consumer groups. The company’s natural and proprietary ingredients support human physiology and beneficially modulate the gut microbiome. NutriLeads’ most advanced food ingredient Xtramunetm, a unique fibre under development to support immune function, is expected to be launched early 2021. Other benefits in the pipeline are gut health and metabolic health.

ONO Exponential Farming (Italy) is the first “Seed-to-Pack” vertical farming platform, a patented lean technology for hydroponic cultivation. All claims have been recognized for novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability: no human for operations, flexible use (vegetables, insects, algae), scalable and hyper efficient. Crops, insects and algae move automatically inside the ONO module according to the growing requirements managed by ONO AI Engine. It changes the current VF paradigm, from product to process.

Trusted by national brands, Qbit is an experience insights platform that provides the fastest and most credible way to understand consumer decision making. Qbit captures real-time experiences via audio or video ensuring in-the-moment authenticity. Qbit’s AI rapidly crunches open-ended data into crisp actionable insights based on both context and sentiment. Brands use Qbit to grow sales with SKU-level competitor intelligence, de-risk new offerings, measure in-situ experiences and accelerate growth by proving purchase intent to retail buyers.

Stable (UK) protects food and farming businesses from the risk of volatile commodity prices. With over 3,000 indexes available on the company’s global platform, clients can create an insurance policy that corresponds to their physical risk exposure, in their local currency. Stable is built by farmers, powered by AI and backed by Lloyd’s of London.

Stratuscent (Canada) has developed a breakthrough portable, real-time, and low-cost electronic nose which leverages chemical sensing and artificial intelligence (AI) to detect, digitize, and catalog simple and complex everyday scents. The technology enables its customers to improve food quality and freshness, prevent food spoilage, improve yields, and monitor greenhouse air quality.

Suggestic (USA) is a personalized nutrition platform used to create and distribute AI-powered dietary programs. A Silicon Valley-based digital health company, Suggestic empowers organizations in the food, health, and wellness spaces to create personalized food and nutrition experiences at lower costs and faster go-to-market times. Suggestic’s patented technology enables the creation of proactive and actionable food suggestions by linking context with nutrition-related scientific evidence to guide users toward optimal health.

TurtleTree Labs (Singapore) is the first biotech company in the world with the ability to create milk from all mammals. Using its proprietary cell-based methods, the company will shape the future of not just how we produce dairy milk but how humans will feed their infants. To maximize impact, the team will work with industry leaders to adopt its sustainable and safe methods to create milk. TurtleTree Labs is able to achieve a 98% reduction in carbon footprint and as a result will help to save the world by replacing dairy cows in the future.

Zymtronix (USA) packs and deploys enzymes as green catalysts, making ingredients more efficiently and precisely than chemistry or fermentation. The breakthrough enzyme immobilization platform improves the activity, stability and reusability of any enzyme. This internationally patent-protected technology bridges the gap for better use of enzymes across industrial sectors, allowing customers to use any enzyme at full activity to tackle the complex production of novel ingredients while developing efficient processes and lowering costs.

Hundreds more innovators will be among the 1,000+ delegates at this year’s Future Food-Tech Summit in San Francisco as the summit offers a crucial platform to showcase fresh and cutting-edge solutions to a global audience of food brands, technology providers, entrepreneurs and investors.

The Future Food-Tech summits are held three times per year in San Francisco, New York and London, generating valuable opportunities for networking, collaboration and partnerships across the global food innovation ecosystem.

The full program, speaker faculty and registration are online at www.futurefoodtechsf.com with  the early bird price available until the end of January, and special rates for start-ups, academics, NGOs and government.