Veggie Digest #11

Shoes that turn into apple trees, plant-based fish, how Gen Z will save the world, and much more!

Welcome to the latest installment of the Veggie Digest, the newsletter that keeps you on top of the latest in sustainable food innovations. 

Headlines and Trends

A curated roundup of interesting food tech news from the past week.

📰 The Next Big Frontier In The Plant-Based Industry: Vegan Tuna (Green Queen)

The next frontier in the plant-based industry seems to be vegan seafood, and leading the pack is vegan tuna. Below are 6 brands of plant-based tuna that have already landed on the market: 

1. Fish Peas: Made from protein isolate derived from yellow peas grown domestically in Latvia and was launched by the Latvian canned seafood giant Karavela. 

2. BettaF!sh: A German startup that makes its flagship product, “TU-NAH”, out of organic fava beans and seaweed.

3. Sensational Vuna:  A vegan tuna alternative made with pea protein, developed and launched by Nestlé

4. Future Tuna: The latest Brazilian food tech product from Future Farm. It contains pea protein, chickpea protein, sunflower oil, and algae oil, which gives its fishy taste and texture, as well as providing a good source of omega 3s. 

5. OmniTuna: Developed by Hong Kong-based OmniFoods, and has been launched as part of the brand’s new OmniSeafood range which includes other seafood alternatives such as crab cakes and fish fillets.

6. Hooked Toonish: Launched by the Swedish food tech Hooked Foods, the brand currently sells three flavors of Toonish made from soy protein, wheat protein, sunflower oil, and algae.

📰 Scientists Genetically Modify Plants to Grow Meat Protein (The Byte)

Researchers in Iceland are growing genetically engineered barley plants inside a greenhouse using high-tech hydroponic cultivation methods to cultivate lab-grown meat. The altered barley gets harvested and purified to extract “growth factor” proteins, which are extracted from the barley’s seeds to play an important role in the maintenance of stem cells.

📰 Toronto Company Is Making Shoes that Turn into Apple Trees (BlogTO)

A Toronto designer, Luc Houle, created a pair of shoes that will eventually grow into an apple tree. Houle got the idea while working in the fast fashion  industry, which churns out shoe soles made of cheap plastic that takes hundreds of years to biodegrade. Once the shoes are worn out, they can be buried underground, which will activate a dormant compound in the shoe. Once activated, they attract naturally occurring microbes to break down the outsole. Halfway through the process, an apple seed coated with a natural fertilizer is released and begins to take root.

🎙️ Soylent’s CEO On The Future Of Plant-Based Food (Future Food)

Soylent is a company that makes innovative, plant-based, sustainable meal replacement drinks. They contain plant protein, healthy fats, and essential nutrients that are both good for you and the planet. In an interview with the CEO Demir Vangelov, Demir says that Soylent is “doubling down on the sustainability part of soy.” The agricultural practices being used minimize the impact on the land, reduce soil erosion, increase efficiency to lessen greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce water usage. Soylent is also looking for better ways to till and maintain the land. 

📰 This Utah Greenhouse Grows 750 Acres Worth of Tomatoes with a Fraction of the Land and Water (The Salt Lake Tribune)

Longvine Growing Co. greenhouse in Mona, Utah produces a million pounds of tomatoes year-round in its state-of-the-art 23-acre greenhouse. The newly installed LED lights along with the high-pressure sodium light act as artificial suns and allow for 18 hours of growing time per day. These lights also cause a reduction in energy use of 10 million kilowatt-hours per year. Below the green canopy, water and fertilizer filter through the growing medium, and any water that isn’t absorbed is filtered and recycled so no water is wasted. Underneath the plants, giant tubes are providing the plants with CO2. This kind of hyper-efficient agriculture may become increasingly important in the age of climate change.

Thank you to newsletter reader J.S. for sending me this super interesting article.

Food Lingo: “Carbon Farming”

There’s a lot of jargon in the food technology and sustainability space. Each week I highlight an important concept to improve your food lingo literacy.

Carbon Farming is an agricultural method that sequesters atmospheric carbon into the soil and in crop roots, wood, and leaves. Common agricultural practices, such as driving a tractor, tilling, over-grazing, using fossil fuel-based fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides result in significant carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon sequestration benefits the soil by storing carbon long-term. It improves the rate at which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and converted to plant material or soil organic matter.

📰 Here’s What You Need To Know About Carbon Farming (Green Queen)

• Carbon farming on a large scale could result in a food system that pollutes less and boosts the Earth’s ability to remove emissions from the atmosphere while producing more to feed the planet.

• The EU has included carbon farming within its European Green Deal plus its Farm to Fork strategy, and Australia has promoted carbon farming through its Carbon Farming Initiative.

• Although carbon farming is good for the planet, it isn’t the solution to fight climate change. It is just a measure the world should use to bring down its emissions. 

Sustainability Beyond Food

A handful of non-food-specific pieces to keep you abreast of other environmental items of interest.

📰 A Half Mile Installation just Took 20,000 Pounds of Plastic out of the Pacific (Business Insider)

The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit organization that aims to rid the world's oceans of plastic, created a new plastic-catching device. The device was launched in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and  hauled nearly 20,000 pounds of trash out of the Pacific Ocean. The installation is basically an artificial floating coastline that catches plastic, then funnels the trash into a woven funnel-shaped net. Two vessels tow it through the water, and the ocean current pushes floating garbage toward the giant net. 

📰 Wooden Knives as Sharp as Their Stainless Steel Counterparts? (Ars Technica) 

Steel and other nonrenewable hard materials that are commonly used in engineering applications are expensive to make due to the extreme, energy-intensive conditions needed. Luckily researchers at the University of Maryland have developed a simple, affordable method to create natural wood materials that are 23x harder than typical woods by removing its weaker components. After running many tests, the finished wood nails proved to be just as sharp as commercial steel nails, and are also resistant to rusting.

📰 Gen Z on How to Save the World (The Guardian)

Greta Thunberg might be the most visible young environmental activist in the news, but an entire generation of motivated and engaged young people are set to tackle the daunting challenge of climate change. This article profiles 20 young activists from around the world (between the ages of 16 and 24) to learn about the projects they’re engaged in and the one change they’d make to solve the climate crisis. If you could use a healthy dose of optimism about our leaders of tomorrow, this is a worthwhile read.

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