ISTANBUL, TURKEY - NOVEMBER 6 : Robot waiters serve food to customers at the Robot theme restaurant ... [+]
Few industries are as inefficient and exploitative as the food industry. The ferocious demand to feed the 7.8 billion human population is wiping out life as species become functionally extinct on land and in the ocean: 60% of global biodiversity loss is due to land being used to produce farm animal feed. Marine bycatch, or fish waste, (fish hauled that are too small or not the target species and are sold to factory farms), accounts for 60% of the total global catch. And while species are driven to extinction to quench the human appetite, we throw away one-third of all food produced for our consumption. 1.3 billion tons goes to waste each year, releasing an estimated 3.3 billion tons of CO2 equivalent as it decomposes in landfill.
The planet is paying an astronomical price for our broken food chain, but an industry plagued with problems is one that’s ripe for disruption.
Digitization and new technical capabilities are blurring boundaries between once segregated, traditional industries. Mckenzie made a projection that 25% or more of revenue across sectors has come from cross-selling and merging several sectors, and this business model is set to grow. Add to this the drive to transition to a circular economy and the urgency of the climate crisis, and signs of a future food industry that’s significantly different from common practice today start to appear on the horizon.
Here are three disruptive greentech startups worth keeping an eye on:
Goterra
This Australian biotech startup is on track to dramatically upscale from managing 10 tonnes to 45,000 tonnes of food waste per week by 2021 - and it’s gearing up to go global.
Goterra has developed fully self-contained, automated capsules that are filled with black soldier fly larvae which can eat their way through food waste. As a by-product, a rich soil fertilizer, frass, is produced, and the maggots themselves become protein-rich animal feed.
These automated waste management capsules are installed directly at sites with high levels of food waste. Goterra’s clients range from farms, restaurants and hotels to supermarkets and hospitals, and it even services city councils for the Australian government.
“Our state government has been focused on innovating across industries, we’ve been overwhelmingly supported in that way,” says Founder Olympia Yarger, “for us, growth is steady, it’s ongoing - we’re going from zero to hero.”
Goterra is solving the food waste problem, reducing CO2 emissions, and producing protein-rich low-cost animal feed as an environmentally sound alternative to fishing and farming to produce food for animals.
Better Origin
Fotis Fotiadis, Co-Founder & CEO of Better Origin, is another greentech entrepreneur who believes insects are the answer to the broken food chain: “Without question, the missing link to the problem is insects as they provide the only way to convert all the excess nutrients into essential nutrient. We fundamentally believe that to live on a sustainable planet, technology and nature have to work together in harmony.”
The UK government-backed startup is developing AI-managed insect mini-farms to turn food waste into poultry feed. It takes just a couple of weeks for the insect larvae to grow to around 5,000 times their body weight, producing nutritious, high-quality insect animal feed. With an addressable market of £1 billion in the UK and £130 billion globally, Better Origin’s first route to market with layer hens has strong growth potential. The Cambridge University spin-out uses the larvae of black soldier flies to chomp through local food waste such as agricultural residues, second-grade grains and industrial food waste, enhancing the natural process with AI.
Like Goterra, it’s a sustainable feeding solution using excess waste for livestock and, ultimately, better quality food products for the consumer.
Apeel Sciences
Apeel Sciences is a unicorn startup to watch out for. Launched in 2012 with a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation startup grant, it’s a potentially game-changing innovator that has since attracted big-name backers including venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz and Oprah Winfrey.
The California-based startup heralds a sustainable alternative to plastic-wrapped groceries: it developed a tasteless edible coating made from plant materials, Apeel, which can make avocados and some fruit last twice as long. It’s a sophisticated solution ready to conquer supermarkets en masse with a different edible coating formula on the market for strawberries, mangoes, apples, bananas, citrus and asparagus.
To thrive in coming years, these startups will need to continue to win over investors, governments and industry collaborators and push hard to upscale. This uphill climb may be challenging in today’s climate – but greentech entrepreneurs who figure out the future of food will win big: the prize is not just an enormous economic win, but a huge societal and environmental impact. Win or lose, the stakes for the entire planet are high.
