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5 Important Food Tech Developments in 2022

As we approach the end of the first quarter of 2022, it is fair to say that things are already looking bright in the food tech and alternative protein sector. New ideas are being developed and exciting products are coming to market. As the industry enters a new stage of maturation, we’ve taken a look at 5 exciting trends to watch.

1. Precision fermentation – animal derivatives without the animals

Fermentation has long been used in human food production. It is used in various ways, from improving the shelf life of products or bringing out individual flavors and textures. It is used in everyday products, such as cheese, yogurt, bread, sauerkraut, and kimchi.

The fermentation process allows microbes (yeast or bacteria) to work on sugars, breaking them down to create complex molecules, such as proteins, fats, or enzymes.

However, precision fermentation is a new food technique that leverages the power of genetic engineering to produce microbes capable of producing specific types of molecules. While the current implementation of this technology for the food scene is new, this method of genetic engineering has been around since the 1980s, when a strain of E. Coli was used to produce insulin.

After years of research and design, numerous start-ups use precision fermentation to produce molecules traditionally derived from animal farming.

Perfect Day, a recent Californian start-up, uses precision fermentation to create whey protein for their animal-free range of products, including ice cream and cake mix, removing the historical involvement of the milk industry.

Perfect Day works with food giant General Mills to bring animal-free cream cheese to customers keen to enjoy foods free of animal products – a great example of an innovative precision fermentation start-up partnering with a well-established traditional consumer food brand.

Other notable innovative food-tech startups that are recreating animal derivatives using precision fermentation include Impossible Foods and Motif FoodWorks, which are both producing beef-like proteins responsible for the flavor of the meat.

Each is expanding its reach with a range of new products. Precision fermentation may hold the key to producing a range of meat-like flavors without the corresponding need for animal exploitation at a price and quality level, which revolutionizes the market.

2. Cultivated meat for food will soon be approved globally

To date, only Singapore has given the go-ahead for factory-grown meat. Factory-grown meat focuses on producing real meat, grown from animal cells in lab conditions, to make animal-free food that still satisfies the public demand for authentic meat tastes.

When first unveiled in 2013, the cost of a cultivated beef burger was an enormous $330,000 (US). Of course, as with most technologies, the process has been refined and improved over time, with prices coming down considerably.

Costs for animal-free chicken have now dropped below $10 per pound of meat. This will continue to drop as companies successfully scale pilot-stage facilities to produce thousands of kilos of this animal-free product.

Examples of such companies include UPSIDE Foods, which launched its Engineering, Product & Innovation Centre (EPIC) in November 2021. It is the first production facility to scale past 24 metric tonnes of product per annum. Aleph Farms and SuperMeat also launched pilot schemes in anticipation of regulatory approval beyond Singapore.

With the lowering production cost and growing demand for the product, all eyes are now on the regulators to clarify the legality of animal-free meat. If the USDA and FDA in America can lead the way and approve such products for their home market, global approval may begin to trickle through.

The UK launched the Alternative Protein Association in March 2022 to represent alternative protein producers and provide regulatory policy and support. Companies are waiting on the side-line for official endorsement by leading economies. This looks like it could happen in 2022, which would be a huge turning point for the production of animal-free real meat.

3. Whole-cut analogs arrive through technological advances

The first generation of alt-meat substitutes used a technology called extrusion, a process of heat, pressure, and moisture, which created an altered texture that somewhat mimicked meat.

It is a method that has been widely used for several decades for many uses, including pet food. There is certainly no shortage of options on the supermarket shelves today, differentiated only by their packaging and price points, particularly plant-based chicken alternatives.

Extruded plant proteins can display some of the texture of unstructured meats, such as sausages and burgers.

However, when it comes to mimicking whole cuts of meat, such as a chicken breast or a juicy steak, they fall short by some distance. The complex fibrous nature of meat, how it tears, feels on the tongue, and tastes, is hard to copy.

Whole cut analogs are seen as the holy grail of alternative protein production. Over the next few years, look out for an increase in meat-free producers concentrating on producing whole-cut options. There is, after all, significant demand for this with 50% of meat consumed of the structured variety and manufacturers will surely be following the money.

One such manufacturer is Redefine Meat. Using a proprietary 3D printer, Redefine Meat is producing ‘printed’ cuts of beef with never-before-seen levels of texture and functional properties. Founded in 2018, the company has already launched multiple products across Europe and Israel.

Redefine Meat is part of a wave of start-ups that were launched to solve the problem of creating structured meats. With brands such as Juicy Marbles and Meati launching whole-cut products direct to consumers soon, we anticipate there will be a lot of interest and growth in this area.

4. Synthetic biology research is creating innovation

We are at the beginning of a revolution in biomanufacturing. Thanks to considerable growth in synthetic biology, and the process of applying engineering principles to biology, cells can be designed to perform specific tasks. The DNA within cells is similar to computer software, with code required to allow for the successful propagation of information. For cells, this code instructs them on what to grow and how to do it.

Historically, we have achieved this through selective breeding; producing crops, livestock, and pets that suit our needs and are optimized for such factors as size, strength, or yield. These days, advancements in DNA and RNA tech mean that we can alter, redesign, or completely write genetic code from scratch.

Israel-based Equinom has built a platform that matches desired food traits to the genetic make-up of altered seed varieties, using machine learning to locate the exact specification needed.

Hoxton Farms and Kingdom Supercultures are two more examples of companies applying Big Data to their industry, optimizing how they source ingredients for their products, such as choosing the perfect microbes from billions of alternative options.

5. Global threats push alt-food proteins to ever greater heights

At present, animal agriculture accounts for most greenhouse gas emissions globally, with an estimated total of between 51% and 87% contributed. It is now widely recognized as the single most destructive activity occurring on our planet. Meat production is also incredibly inefficient with massive amounts of land and water required per tonne of product.

Governments and organizations have woken up to the damage caused by animal agriculture and have come to understand the need for change in today’s food systems.

Among them is the governing authority of China, the world’s most populous country. In a recent installment of its “Five Year Plan for China,” the Chinese government committed to alternative protein sources, such as cultivated meat, egg analogs, and the recombination of proteins.

China is committing itself to make progress in these areas in the future. This is a critical acceptance of alternative proteins globally by the largest consuming nation of eggs and meat.

China’s acceptance of alt-protein sources may aid global policy development. The US Department of Agriculture made considerable investments last year in cell-based meat research. Furthermore, the UK’s Alternative Protein Association, set up in 2021, is working hard to promote the value of alt-proteins in the food-tech sector, in order to aid policy development.

Supply-side shocks from events like the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit, and the war in Ukraine, have led both the public and private sectors to realize how fragile our food supply chains are.

Companies and countries are looking at how they can change processes to remove this risk factor with responsibly created alt-proteins likely to improve food security. If China, the US, and the UK continue to lead, other countries will follow.

Prepared By The Food Tech Trends Team

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

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Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.

Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.

The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.

Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.

Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.

shkreli

He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.

“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.

Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.

SOURCE | AP