This week’s eye-catching figures feature precision fermentation funding, coffee prices, a (big) vertical farm and the logic behind net-zero.
3x. Companies working on precision fermentation, which uses organisms such as yeast to develop ingredients bringing the familiar flavour and texture of foods like meat, eggs and cheese to plant-based products, raised $130 million (£98m) in 2024 – more than three times the amount they attracted in the previous year. Data analysis by the Good Food Institute also showed public and philanthropic funding of alt-proteins companies has increased significantly.
25%. Coffee prices are up nearly 25% this year, following a surge of 70% in 2024. Reuters reports that Brazil’s coffee farmers, severely impacted by last year’s drought, are “turn[ing] to costly irrigation” to maintain their farms this year.
20,000sqm. The size of the growing area in the £25m vertical farming facility being built in the UK by Planet Farms. The Italy-based company will begin construction of the ‘farm’ later this year, with the high tech systems designed to reduce chemical inputs and water usage. Planet Farms last month started supplying Waitrose stores from its site in Italy. Further facilities are planned following a new joint venture with Swiss Life.
(Net) 0. As net-zero (rather inevitably) becomes the new Brexit, ECIU offers a response to the question: what’s the logic behind a net-zero target? “In many sectors of the economy, technologies exist that can bring emissions to zero. However, in industries such as aviation the technological options are limited; in agriculture too, it is highly unlikely that emissions will be brought to zero. Therefore some emissions from these sectors will likely remain; and in order to offset these, an equivalent amount of CO2 will need to be taken out of the atmosphere – negative emissions. Thus the target becomes ‘net zero’ for the economy as a whole,” the briefing explains.
