Future Food Quick Bites: Indian Vegan Nuggets, Airline Sushi & Non-Dairy Grilled Cheese

In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers a vegan nugget campaign with Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli, Japan Airlines’s plant-based sushi offering, and a precision fermentation communication guide.

New products and launches

Indian plant-based meat brand Blue Tribe Foods has revamped its vegan chicken nuggets, accompanied by a new ad campaign featuring its celebrity ambassador couple, actress Anushka Sharma and cricketer Virat Kohli.

Canadian startup Milk Depot Inc. is the latest brand in the at-home plant-based milk category, launching a non-dairy Milk Maker for $279.95 (currently on offer for $149) on its website.

Belgian precision fermentation startup Paleo has teamed up with Austria’s Revo Foods on a trial to infuse the latter’s 3D-printed salmon with animal-free myoglobin.

Vegan fast-food chain Mr Charlie’s has opened a pop-up in Melbourne’s CoConspirators Brewpub, which will run for two months.

Korean startup Pensées has begun selling its first food-grade culture medium for cultivated meat producers, which has a similar cost to the industry standard when used on a development scale.

And Japan Airlines is serving up vegan sushi in the air, thanks to a partnership with local food manufacturer Azuma Foods.

Company and finance updates

Singapore-based precision fermentation player TurtleTree is raising a $15M round for its animal-free lactoferrin.

Dutch vegan ingredient company GNT has set up a VC arm called GNT Ventures, which will focus on colouring solutions across the raw material and fermentation, processing, food ingredient, and upcycling verticals.

A month after opening its Armored Grilled Cheese foodservice venture in Brooklyn’s Dekalb Market Hall, South Korean dairy-free cheese startup Armored Fresh has announced that 70% of visitors have been non-vegan. It also recorded a repeat customer rate of 24% in this period.

Bangkok-based agrifood giant Thai Wah Public Company has teamed up with Japan’s Fuji Nihon Corporation to advance the manufacturing, sales and distribution of tapioca-based foods.

Two months after entering voluntary administration, New Zealand hemp meat maker Sustainable Foods has been placed in liquidation.

Denver-based vegan restaurant Meta Burger – once named the world’s best burger by HappyCow – has closed its two remaining locations, leaving the city with no fully plant-based eateries.

Speaking of the world’s best, Qatar Airways has partnered with food waste digester company Power Knot to install a biodigester on its planes, which can process and convert up to 1,500kg of food waste into greywater.

There’s change at the top at Israeli cultivated seafood startup Wanda Fish, where James Amihood is taking over as CEO from Dafna Heffetz, who will stay as a board vice-chairman.

US cell-based collagen maker Jellatech has welcomed biotech experts Matthew Kane and Dr. Bill Polacheck to its advisory board.

Research, policy and awards

A judge in Los Angeles has ruled in favour of the USDA on a 2022 case brought by a vegan student who argued that her school was violating the First Amendment rights by blocking her ability to raise awareness about plant-based milk. The courts decided that the student lacked standing to sue because she has already graduated.

In Sweden, the Chalmers University of Technology has established a four-year future food consortium with agrifood giants Lantmännen and Arla to advance fermentation research and develop hybrid foods.

At the University of Waterloo in Canada, scientists are feeding bacteria on food scraps to produce fully biodegradable bioplastics that break down in garden composts, agricultural fields, and both fresh and seawater, while causing no harmful plastic pollution or leaving any chemical residues behind.

Spanish plant-based meat leader Heura has called on the national government to take a more urgent approach to climate action and “prioritise sustainability and global health over political interests” in a new awareness campaign.

Students at the University of Reading have won the second prize in EIT Food‘s ‘Pea-Licious’ programme for their pea-based drink PeaChata and yoghurt YogiPot.

Alternative protein think tanks the Good Food Institute APAC and Cellular Agriculture Australia have worked with several Asia-Pacific stakeholders to produce an in-depth communication guide for precision fermentation.

Also in Asia, non-profit Charity Doings Foundation is hosting the first-ever Pakistan International Animal and Environmental Rights Conference in 2025 at the Pearl Continental Hotel, Lahore (January 18-19).

Finally, the state-owned Emirates Foundation has published a food waste guide for event organisers and food businesses, which can help them lower waste by up to 60%.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.