Recently, we have attended the startup event in Lausanne to take a deep dive into the FoodTech sector.
It was quite a fantastic event with startups from all over the world working on changing people’s habits and creating a more sustainable food system. These are our main takeaways from the summit:
- Cultured meat technology is expanding fast and across the whole food ecosystem. Several startups are leveraging the process to go beyond beef patties and help us reduce our overall carbon footprint, particularly in two key areas: seafood and pet food.
- Mycelium-based meat alternatives look impressive in terms of both texture and taste. Such products can be scaled relatively quickly and provide a viable alternative to bacon and chicken.
- Israel is a leading ecosystem in the food space, with extensive knowledge across the value chain, from infrastructure to technology and bringing the product to the end customer.
- Precision fermentation will play a pivotal role in producing new proteins and using more land and resources more efficiently.
- Even though the markets are down, particularly when it comes to recent food IPOs (Oatly, Beyond Meat), startups are still looking to raise at large valuations, which do not yet reflect a potential market downturn.
- We are just at the beginning of a change of paradigm in the industry, and there is still time for Switzerland to catch up with the Netherlands and Israel and become one of the leading innovation countries in this space.
