Future Food Quick Bites: HBO Max, Vegan Raclette & Shark Tank India
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers a new vegan docuseries on HBO Max, Lasso’s protein fruit snacks, and PepsiCo’s plant-based soup bet.
New products and launches
Thai Street Food: Best Kept Secrets, a six-part vegan docuseries by Climate Cats Studios, has landed on HBO Max in East and Southeast Asia, with more countries to follow soon.
In the US, Califia Farms has launched its first soy milk as part of its Simple & Organic range, alongside sweet crème and salted caramel creamers, and almond-milk-based cold brew and matcha.
In more non-dairy news, Força Foods has expanded the availability of its Milkish brand of watermelon seed milk, which can now be found at Mollie Stone’s Markets, Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op, Berkeley Bowl Produce, Oliver’s Market, Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, and more US stores.
US food tech startup Lasso, known for its fibre-spun plant proteins, has launched two new snack brands. One of them, called Froobies, is plant-based, offering sugar-free fruit chews in strawberry and citrus-mango flavours with 4g of chickpea protein and 5g of fibre per 30g pack. They can be found on its website for $17.99 for an eight-pack.
Parisian plant-based meat pioneer La Vie has teamed up with RichesMonts to offer a limited-edition vegan raclette and sliced sausage promotion at Carrefour’s hypermarkets in France.
French food giant Roquette has launched Nutralys Pea 850F, a pea protein isolate designed to reduce vegetal off-notes in plant-based products.
In Spain, PepsiCo has entered the ready-to-heat plant-based soup category with its Alvalle brand, launching vegetable cream and pumpkin cream soups. It will be followed by a rollout in Spain and other Western European markets.
And Dutch theme park Efteling has replaced all mayonnaise on its menus with a plant-based alternative from Remia, following a successful trial last year.
Company and finance updates
Nūmi, a French startup making breast milk from cell-cultured mammary glands, has scaled up in-house production to 50-litre bioreactors.
Fellow French cellular agriculture firm Gourmey (part of Parima) hosted a consumer showcase of its cultivated meat to expand awareness and gather feedback about these proteins, as part of the EU-backed FEASTS initiative.
Also in France, organic food brand Bjorg has become the newest member of local plant-based coalition InterVeg, joining five other companies.
Swiss plant-based meat startup Planted has notched a partnership with popular vegan food blog Fitgreenmind, fronted by influencer Maya Leinenbach, to expand awareness about its products through online content.
The founders of Climate Cats Studios, Joanna and Max Hellier, have launched a non-profit called Who Let the Docs Out, which has kicked off the 2026 Coexistence Documentary Fund for films about animal advocacy, plant-based diets, and food system change. It will award $15,000 in development grants and $8,000 in research grants.
Hindustan Unilever, the Indian arm of the CPG giant, has acquired the remaining 49% stake in Zywie Ventures, the company behind plant-forward nutrition brand OZiva, for ₹824 crores ($90.6M).
Also in India, plant-based meat startup Mister Veg appeared on Shark Tank India, impressing the investors but leaving with no deal in place.
The owners of New Zealand plant-based pioneer Little Bird Organics and its cafe Little Bird Kitchen have listed the business for sale after over 15 years in operation.
Months after announcing its closure, Future Meat Technologies, the US arm of Israeli cultivated meat company Believer Meats, has been placed into general receivership, paving the way for its assets, factory and equipment to be liquidated to repay its creditors.
Fellow Israeli startup Gavan Technologies, which makes a zero-waste vegan fat alternative from plant proteins, has appointed former ChickP chief Liat Lachish Levy as its new CEO.
Didier Toubia, CEO of Israeli cultivated meat startup Aleph Farms, visited the Science Museum in London, where its Aleph Cuts brand is featured in the Future of Food exhibition.
In China, ZhongGu Junchuang has signed a deal with the Xinjin District Government in Chengdu to establish a 43,000 sq ft mycelium R&D and production facility, backed by a $22M government investment.
Research and policy developments
After US fast-food chain Wendy’s reported a 5-6% slowdown in its early 2026 sales, animal rights charity Peta sent a letter to its interim CEO, urging him to add a vegan chicken sandwich or wrap, arguing that it could help the company attract young consumers.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) held an Innovative Fermentation at its Rome headquarters, convening experts from academia, the private sector and public institutions to explore the technology’s potential to boost food security and sustainability.
In the UK, the Southampton University Students’ Union has voted to make plant-based menus the default option at all campus dining facilities starting from the 2026-27 academic year.
Finally, researchers at Ohio State University have developed a two-step fermentation process that can remove 95-99% of the unwanted odours that typically form during the cultivation and extraction of plant-based proteins.