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Source: Unsplash/LikeMeat.
There’s yet another Australian plant-based meat startup on the scene, with Harvest B securing $4.5 million in combined venture capital and grant funding.
SmartCompany had a chat with co-founder Kristi Riordan to find out a little more about the new kid on the alternative proteins block, and to find out how the infrastructure around plant-based meats is developing.
What is Harvest B?
Harvest B develops and produces animal-free ingredients, and distributes them to the brands cooking up plant-based meat products.
Founded last year by Kristi Riordan, Alfred Lo and Werner Fuggersberger, it’s intended to serve the emerging plant-based industry by creating a local supply chain of high-quality ingredients.
As firms such as Motif FoodWorks have
observed, hard fats such as coconut oil - which are typically added to plant proteins post extrusion - are not distributed throughout plant-based burgers in the same way that fat is distributed in animals, plus they have a tendency to leak out during cooking and impart a coconutty smell.
“Specialty fats such as coconut are being added to plant-based meats for particular functional or mouthfeel purposes, said Dr. James Petrie, co-founder and CEO at
Nourish Ingredients, which is based in Canberra, but plans to target the North American market. The problems is, they don t resemble animal fats closely enough, in terms of their performance, mouthfeel, flavor and aroma, Petrie told FoodNavigator-USA.
v2food s plant-based burgers. Source: Supplied.
Humanity is faced with one of its greatest challenges to date. The reality is this: we need to make a lot more food and we’re running out of planet to do it. According to the World Resources Institute, there is a 56% food gap between what we make today and what we will need by 2050.
Agrifood is a US$7.8T global market that employs 40% of the working population, which is impossible to scale using current methods. The ‘inconvenient truth’ is that humans have run out of planet. As our population grows, the resources we need are shrinking. Sweeping changes to farming and how we produce food is required, and technology and science hold the key to helping us find new solutions to feed us all.
The Startmate leadership team. Source: supplied.
There’s been no shortage of startup funding flying around this week. We’ve seen mammoth raises from the likes of Linktree, which secured $60 million, and Baraja which bagged $40 million.
Then, Lumary secured $17 million for its tech designed to help businesses navigate the NDIS, and Nourish Ingredients raised $14 million to develop its animal-free fats for the plant-based meat market.
But, there’s been plenty going on at the smaller end of town, too. Here are some of the startup funding stories you might have missed.
Batch Brewing
In the latest equity crowdfunding success story, craft beer business Batch Brewing has smashed its $500,000 equity crowdfunding target within a matter of hours.