Future Food Quick Bites: Plant-Based Lidl, House of Lords & Powdered Oat Milk


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Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Lidl’s new plant-based range, a vegan workplace canteen, and the UK House of Lords’s nod to cultivated meat.

New products and launches

Discount retailer Lidl has unveiled 28 new affordable plant-based products in the UK, which include Meat Free Cordon Bleu, Barista Oat Milk, and Smoked Tofu. The range starts from £1.09.

lidl vegan
Courtesy: Lidl

Also in the UK, plant-based milk brand Mighty has added caramel and chocolate flavours to its oat milk powder range.

British foodservice wholesaler Brakes has extended its plant-based range with nearly 40 new products and created a Vegan Hub for Veganuary.

London-based Tofu Vegan, a popular Chinese restaurant chain, has opened its fifth location on Gloucester Road.

Across the Atlantic, tofu maker Hodo has announced a retail expansion into Meijer, Harris Teeter, and Giant Martin’s.

New York-based Edenesque has launched a barista edition of its pistachio milk, which is available at Whole Foods Market, on its webstore, and at Joe Coffee for $7.99 per carton.

AI-led ingredient discovery company Shiru has put out a partnership call to beverage manufacturers for the development and scale-up of a natural sugar replacer.

Popular fast-food chain Slutty Vegan has opened a new Bar Vegan location in Baltimore’s Rye Street Market, which is part of the Baltimore Peninsula District development.

Ingredients giant Griffith Foods has launched an Alternative Proteins Portfolio to complement its range of plant-based seasonings, sauces, dressings, binders, coatings, and all-in-one mixes.

Dutch vegan food distributor GreenPro International has rebranded to Plantitude to solidify its role as the “connecting factor in the protein transition”.

Crafty Counter has introduced Eggless Salad under its vegan Wundereggs brand, which is available at all Safeway and Albertsons stores across Idaho and Washington state.

Meanwhile, Emirates Airlines has introduced a range of vegan meals for children, including pizza, vegetable fajitas, cauliflower bites and strawberry crumble. It adds to the carrier’s 300-plus plant-based options.

Aussie plant-based player v2food has unveiled a new identity for Soulara, the ready meal brand it acquired in January.

soulara
Courtesy: Soulara

And in India, vegan startup Blue Tribe Foods – backed by cricketer Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma – has rolled out sweet potato fries, which are available at online retailers like Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, and Blinkit.

Company and finance updates

Belgian agrifood company Arvesta has opened Nuverta, a plant-based protein facility in Mettet, which will initially produce pea protein concentrate.

British green energy innovator Ecotricity, owned by Dale Vince, has opened what it says is the country’s first fully vegan workplace canteen.

The University of Nottingham has partnered with UK plant-based food company Jampa’s and Canadian manufacturer Tartistes to develop next-gen vegan products, receiving funding from the UK-Canada Innovate UK scheme.

heura
Courtesy: Heura

Spanish vegan meat startup Heura has opened a new innovation lab in Barcelona’s 22@ tech district, and plans to register six more patents over the next nine months, adding to the innovations it announced late last year.

Slovenian plant-based food producer Narayan Group is set to be acquired by Edible Garden AG Incorporated, having signed a letter of intent to enter a share purchase agreement.

In the US, animal-free component producer Nexture Bio has acquired Matrix Food Technologies, which makes plant-based, edible nanofibre scaffolds and microbeads for cultivated meat.

tender food
Courtesy: Tender Food

Boston-based Tender Food‘s co-founder Christophe Chantre has announced that he stepped down from his role as CEO last fall.

Tender Food also received $5.1M as part of the US Department of Energy‘s Technologies for Industrial Emissions Reduction Development (TIEReD) Program, while fellow Boston company Ginkgo Bioworks earned $2.4M.

Superlatus, the parent company of The Urgent Company, has been sued by Eat Well Investment Group, which has accused the former of fraudulently selling its plant-based food tech platform to avoid contractual obligations and cheating it out of $10M.

Research and policy developments

In the UK, the House of Lords has recognised cultivated meat as a key engineering biology opportunity and is calling for improved regulation of these products in a report published by its Science and Technology Committee.

Bezos Earth Fund‘s Centre for Sustainable Protein at Imperial College London has officially opened with a two-day scientific event.

Vegan seafood startup BettaF!sh and upcycled apricot kernel company Kern Tec have each won a €5,000 award as part of EIT Food’s Marketed Innovation Prize.

kern tec
Courtesy: Kern Tec

The University of Galway in Ireland has introduced a 12-week course on Animal Law for undergraduate law students, which starts this month.

In their attempt to bring vegan cheese closer to what consumers expect, researchers from the University of Guelph and Canadian Light Source have found that blending coconut oil with pea protein provides better melting and stretching, and mixing it with sunflowerr oil lowers the saturated fat content without compromising functionality.

Finally, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has approved a motion to ramp up the procurement of plant-based foods to lower emissions and improve public health, with county food services now encouraged to adopt a 2:1 ratio of plant- to animal-based mains.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

Author

  • Anay Mridul

    Anay is Green Queen's resident news reporter. Originally from India, he worked as a vegan food writer and editor in London, and is now travelling and reporting from across Asia. He's passionate about coffee, plant-based milk, cooking, eating, veganism, food tech, writing about all that, profiling people, and the Oxford comma.

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