Technology is changing the way we think about food. Where is it sourced? How is it created? What’s its carbon footprint? Will the choice of one food item over another help to save the planet? Are there health benefits?
Food “technology” has been around for centuries with canning processes for food preservation, Gregor Mendel’s genetic modifications and Louis Pasteur’s research and principles on preventing food spoilage as examples. In more recent decades, many consumers took for granted the ways in which food was grown, manufactured or delivered. With some 9.8 billion mouths to feed by 2050, more consumers are questioning food sources and looking for healthier and more compassionate and sustainably sourced alternatives, while food tech companies are challenging the status quo and using advanced technologies to change what we eat and how it is produced.
Food tech is huge, ranging from food and beverage, agtech and restaurant tech to food and beverage delivery, and even alcohol tech. One breakthrough segment involves new ingredients and new methods for food production, and includes foods like alternative proteins and lab-grown – also known as cultured, cell-based or cultivated – meats and meat products. According to CB Insights, funding of alternative protein startups quadrupled in the first half of 2021, as compared to 2020. It’s a hot market!
One of our food tech clients, MeaTech, is bringing a suite of advanced manufacturing technologies for cultured meat production to market.
But food tech for companies like MeaTech means more than just new ways for creating food. It’s a food manufacturing and supply chain story. How many articles have we all read recently about shortages of beef, chicken and pork? It’s also an environmental story. Methane-producing cows, for example, are contributing to climate change. It also can be a food shortage story, where technologies that can place food production virtually anywhere, can bring food to places where it is needed most, and without all the requirements of traditional animal agriculture, such as vast water and grain supplies, antibiotics and hormones as well as dealing with waste contamination.
In the MeaTech case, the company is blending cell biology with advanced 3D bioprinting to create real cuts of meat from umbilical stem cells. This method of producing meat is better for the environment and is for many consumers a more ethical option than meat from living animals.
In addition to solving the problems mentioned above, 3D bioprinting could eventually lead to “on-demand” food production, so only what’s needed is produced. It also offers a longer shelf-life than conventionally farmed and factory farmed meats since it is created in ultra-clean environments. These “clean” meats won’t contain the harmful pesticides and growth hormones many of us have been consuming unknowingly for decades. And they also eliminate the potential for bacteria responsible for food-borne illnesses like E-coli and salmonella that frequently dominate the headlines and send consumers frantically back to the grocery store to find alternative sources.
Lastly, production for cultivated meats can be increased regionally, based on demand, and meats on the grocery store shelves will no longer be dependent on the unpredictable influences on the markets, such as trucking strikes, worker health issues, droughts, limited crop yields or birthing seasons.
There’s a lot of food for thought here. What food tech interests you most, and why? Sustainability? Health reasons? Let us know. If you need a PR firm to drive awareness of your food tech company, check out the coverage we’re getting for clients and email us at info@rainierco.com.
Food photo created by DCStudio - jhdbh223-www.freepik.com