Thrive Market Raises $111M, Inside a Robot Pizzeria + More

Every week we track all the business, tech and investment trends in agriculture, CPG, retail, restaurants, cooking and health, so you don’t have to. There were a few major funding headlines last week: Online grocer Thrive Market raised $111M and Anheuser-Busch and Techstars launched a new accelerator focused on the food and beverage sector. Other top stories include an inside look at Zume’s robot pizzeria, Perdue’s sweeping poultry welfare reforms and Brexit threatening to cause food prizes to rise. Check out our weekly round-up of last weeks top food startup, tech and innovation news below or peruse the full newsletter here.

Want more? We can’t fit all the news in our round-up, so feast your eyes on last week’s newsletters here and here.

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1.New Accelerator Launched in Conjunction with Anheuser-Busch – FoodBev Media

Techstars Connection will support startups that are building technologies that that bring people together or connect them with products and experiences. The accelerator is focused on the food and beverage sector and beyond.

2. Inside Silicon Valley’s Robot Pizzeria – Bloomberg

Take a look inside Zume, a secretive food delivery startup trying to make a more profitable pizza through robotics.

3. Elon Musk’s Entrepreneur Brother Reveals 4 Predictions for the Future of Food – Tech Insider

More plant based meat, more local food, new incentives for farmers and increased eater transparency top the list.

4. What Will Brexit Mean for Food In the UK? – Eater 

From subsidies on immigrant farm labor to increased grocery prices, here’s how Brexit may impact the UK’s £11B food industry.

5. Barnes & Noble’s New Comeback Plan: Alcohol-Serving Restaurants – Bloomberg

Facing mounting competition from Amazon, Barnes & Noble is seeking more creative ways to get customers in the door. Its new plan to launch restaurants is part of a broader shift among brick-and-mortar retailers toward offering experiences, rather than just goods.

6. Thrive Market, an Online Grocer, Raises $111 Million – New York Times

The funding came from Invus, Greycroft Partners, E-Ventures and Cross Culture Ventures. The company has 5M registered users and more than 300k paid members, and ships more than $200k worth of goods a day.

7. Brexit Will Cause UK Food Prices to Rise, Farmers Warn – Independent

A significantly weaker British pound and dependence on imports is likely to increase food prices, the National Farmers Union president has warned.

8. Perdue Rolls Out Sweeping Poultry Welfare Reforms – FoodDive

The overhaul includes windows installed in chicken barns, more spacious barns for chickens to move around, putting chickens to sleep before slaughter and breeding changes that slow growth speed or decrease breast size.

9. How Design Thinking and Lean Startup Approaches Are Fostering Agtech Innovation – AgFunderNews

Rob Trice, founder of The Mixing Bowl, shares his thoughts on how agtech entrepreneurs are building their businesses and how it compares to other sectors.

10. Food Will Not Save Media, but Right Media Might Help to Save Food – Civil Eats

Many traditional media sources are looking toward food for new revenue models, but will it ever go beyond recipes and pretty photos?