Future Food Quick Bites: Hi Chloe, Cards Against Humanity & Vegan Airports

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 Chloe Coscarelli’s comeback to the restaurant world, vegan hits at UK airports, and Canada’s plant-based egg labelling guidelines.

New products and launches

Vegan chef Chloe Coscarelli has opened eponymous restaurant Chloe on New York City’s Bleecker Street (to rave reviews), eight years after she was ousted from her first restaurant chain, By Chloe.

On the other coast, vegan seafood company Impact Food served its sushi-grade tuna in nachos and a rice bowl by the Da Poke Man food truck at the Outside Lands music festival last weekend.

If you’re a fan of the adult party game Cards Against Humanity, vegan gaming company This Is Not A Game has released a vegan-focused version called Plants Against Veganity. There’s apparently a Monopoly-style game in the works too.

Israeli alt-seafood player Oshi has partnered with Lewis Hamilton-backed vegan chain Neat, which has added three dishes using the former’s vegan salmon. It comes shortly after the startup relocated production to California, spotting a bigger market for its vegan fish in the US.

US airline JetBlue has launched Lakeland Dairies‘ Milk in a Stick Oat Milk, a plant-based creamer for the in-flight Dunkin’ coffee and tea offerings.

Alt-dairy giant Califia Farms has announced its fall and winter lineups: the former features pumpkin spice barista oat milk, caramel apple crumble oat creamer, and maple waffle almond creamer; and the latter has a holiday blend black iced coffee, holiday nog, and peppermint mocha almond latte. These and other flavours are rolling out across grocery stores now.

Blue Zones Kitchen – the company based on the world’s blue zones highlighted in Netflix’s Live to 100 – has rolled out its debut breakfast product line. The vegan, gluten-free, steel-cut oatmeal SKUs come in blueberry-walnut and peach-pecan flavours, and can be found at Whole Foods stores nationwide.

Fast-casual chain Veggie Grill has debuted its largest menu update since being acquired by Next Level Burger in January. New items include quinoa-mushroom burgers, crispy chicken sandwiches, and an avocado Cobb salad with tempeh bacon.

In the UK, VBites owner Heather Mills is sponsoring The Big Green Clash, an eco-focused rugby match between Richmond Rugby Club and the all-vegan Green Gazelles Rugby Club at London’s Richmond Athletic Ground on September 8.

Meanwhile, bottled oat milk maker Oato has launched a Caffè Latte variant exclusively for British milk round Modern Milkman, with notes of caramel and vanilla, 7g of sugar per 100ml, and a price tag of £1.50 per pint.

And restaurant chain Wagamama, which aims to make half its menu plant-based by 2025, has introduced a vegan brunch menu at 22 locations across the UK. A national rollout will follow soon.

Financial updates

Australian precision fermentation startup Cauldron has been awarded an A$4.3M ($2.8M) grant by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources Industry Growth Program to scale up its manufacturing platform for high-value ingredients.

Brazilian mycoprotein producer Typcal has received R$250,000 ($45,000) in grant funding from the government’s Paraná Anjo Inovador programme.

UK mycoprotein player Adamo Foods has closed a $2.5M seed funding round to bring its “ultra-realistic” five-ingredient steak – which lowers emissions by 93% compared to conventional beef – to market.

In South Korea, meat-producer-turned-vegan-startup Sujis Link has secured a ₩3B ($2.5M) investment from Samyang Foods, as part of a collaboration to advance the country’s plant-based sector.

Since last summer, sales of vegan breakfasts and brunches have hiked by over 20% at Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands airports in the UK.

Policy and research developments

In Chile, the agricultural committee has passed a bill that would see plant-based meat, dairy and egg products as “simulated food”. The proposed legislation is now being debated in the Chamber of Deputies.

Canada is developing guidance on the labelling of plant-based egg products, in what it says is an effort to help companies avoid being ‘misleading’ and comply with regulations. The proposed guidance is predictable.

Speaking of Canada, cellular agriculture platform Cult Food Science‘s subsidiary Further Foods has submitted a design protocol for feeding trials of its cultivated pet food, which it aims to launch under its Noochies! brand. As we reported last month, the goal is to receive US regulatory approval and sell cultivated chicken in early 2025.

University of Georgia startup CytoNest has introduced an edible 3D fibre scaffold for cultivated meat and seafood, which is made from Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) materials.

Finally, in the UK, West Yorkshire’s Calderdale Council is the latest to go vegan, having approved the proposal to only serve plant-based food at future meetings and catered events.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.