From greenqueen.com.hk
By Anay Mridul
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Greggs’s vegan steak bake return, Savor’s carbon-based butter launch, and Coco Gauff’s Naked Smoothie collab.
New products and launches
British bakery chain Greggs has brought back its Vegan Steak Bake, now called Vegan Lattice (Steak-Free) and available in select stores for £2.10.
Italian vegan start-up Bridge Foods has launched two dairy-free Biogurt products at Esselunga and Alì in peach and coffee flavours, and a liquid vegan egg called VegEgg at Unicoop Firenze, both under its ViaMia brand.
Israeli 3D-printed meat producer Redefine Meat has rolled out its Flank Steak as a refrigerated product in Coop stores in Switzerland.
German start-up BettaF!sh has expanded into Portugal with its canned vegan Tu-Nah, which is now available at select Continente locations.
In Australia, burger chain Grill’d has collaborated with Beyond Meat to introduce the latest version of its plant-based burger, called Beyond IV.
Fellow Aussie fast-food chain Zambrero has added Fable Food Co‘s Pulled Mushrooms to the menu of over 300 of its restaurants across the country.
After being laid off from US vegan sushi chain Planta, which filed for bankruptcy in May, chef-couple Gabriel Lopez and Erica Marie Denis have started 2TheRootss, a plant-based private chef service in Miami.
In Brooklyn, New York, Impossible Foods held a pop-up at Rinsed Out Laundromat, where hundreds of attendees got a taste of its burger and nuggets.
New York-based dairy-free cheesemaker Rind has launched Vegan Bleu Crumbles, which uses spirulina and roqueforti cultures. The product will be available for $5 per 4oz container.
US plant-based dairy firm Tofutti has developed a tzatziki sauce using its Better Than Sour Cream offering, in partnership with vegan restaurant group Greens and Grains. It will be available at the latter’s 10 locations, and as a branded product for retail in the future.
Speaking of non-dairy innovations, Canadian startup Umyum has brought its soft cashew-based cheeses (in Ca’atar & Spices, Chutney & Saffron, and Coffee & Pepper flavours), camembert, and butters (in Salted, Truffle, Herb, and Slow-Roasted Garlic variants) to the US. They’re currently available at select retailers, including Bristol Farms, Town & Country Foods, and Chuck’s Fresh Markets.
Chicago eatery Alina, the longest three-Michelin-starred eatery in the US, served Aqua Cultured Foods‘s fermentation-derived tuna at its 20th anniversary pop-up residency at The Maybourne Beverly Hills (July 22 to August 16) as part of a vegetarian alternative to Wagyu.
Also in the US, Sunday Supper has introduced The Singles, a range of vegan Italian entrées in single-serve portions. These include an Italian Sausage Lasagna, Three Cheeses Lasagna, Fusi alla Vodka, and Eggplant Parm, which use products from Elmhurst 1925 and Abbot’s. They will be available at various retailers across the US.
Californian food tech start-up Savor is launching its carbon-derived butter as part of chocolate bonbons at One65 Patisserie & Boutique in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, Daily Harvest, now owned by Chobani, has added Strawberry Banana and Tropical Greens flavours to its GLP-1 supporting smoothie lineup. It partnered with US tennis Sloane Stephens‘s Doc & Glo brand to promote the range earlier this year.
In more tennis-related smoothie news, Naked Smoothies has teamed up with Coco Gauff to create a Protein Pineapple Orange Smoothie, which is available at select stores in the US.
California’s Virtuous Vittles has unveiled Bountiful Land, a line of shelf-stable plant-based meals for dogs, featuring morels in gravy. They were first debuted at Superzoo 2025.
Similarly, vegan pet nutrition brand PawCo Foods has launched Magic Cookie, a line of functional dog biscuits to target five health metrics: gut wellness, heart health, joint mobility, skin and coat vitality, and everyday wellness.
And in India, Bangalorean coffee shop Maverick & Farmer Coffee has joined forces with plant-based milk start-up Alt Co to launch the Vegan on Wednesdays initiative, offering the latter’s oat milk with zero surcharge alongside a specially curated plant-based food menu.
Company and finance developments
Amid its business restructuring, German plant-based holding company Veganz Group has announced that it would change its name to Planethic Group.
Berlin-based powdered oat milk start-up Blue Farm has raised €1.33M ($1.55M) in a crowdfunding campaign on Invesdor, at a pre-money valuation of €14M ($16.4M).
Phytolon, a start-up that uses precision fermentation to create alternatives to synthetic food colours, has secured an investment from Colorcon Ventures, the corporate VC fund of Colorcon.
Swedish startup Seaqure Labs has raised over five million kronor ($520,000) for its mycoprotein ingredient to replace soy and fishmeal in aquaculture feed.
UK molecular farming firm Bright Biotech has been awarded a £1.2M grant from the UK government’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency. The Phase One funding will enable the company to apply its advanced chloroplast technology to develop more productive, resilient and sustainable plants.
US dairy-free brand The Forager Project has kicked off The Cashew Project, a multi-year initiative to support cashew farming in the Ivory Coast. It will entail organic farming training, financial literacy programmes, and sustainable agricultural practices that benefit local farmers.
A week after closing a $31M Series A round, California’s The Better Meat Co has added Pamela Marrone, a 2025 inductee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, to its board of directors.
Fermentation startup MycoTechnology has appointed former Coca-Cola, Kraft Heinz and Abbott Nutrition executive Robert Scott as a board member.
Research, education and awards
Nutrition and public health organisation Balanced has teamed up with Humane World for Animals‘s Forward Food Collaborative to offer a free online plant-based culinary training for K12 school foodservice professionals.
Speaking of courses, ProVeg Czechia and the Physician Association for Nutrition Czech Republic have reintroduced their Nutrition in Medical Practice course to educate doctors about plant-based food. The online course will run twice a week from September 23 to October 23, and has already seen dozens of MDs and medical students sign up.
At the AgTech Breakthrough Awards, Australia’s Vow won the Cultured Meat Product of the Year for its cultured quail, and Meatable was awarded the Food Replacement of the Year honour for its cultivated pork.
Likewise, Singaporean food tech start-up Prefer has made it to Forbes’s Asia 100 to Watch 2025 list for its bean-free coffee and chocolate innovations.
A UK government survey has revealed that 8% of children drink plant-based milk as their main milk drink, including 2% who consume ‘growing up’ or toddler drinks.
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