Chef’d Shuts Down Abruptly, Lab-Grown Meat Debate Heats Up + More

Source: Chef’d

Every week we track the business, tech and investment trends in CPG, retail, restaurants, agriculture, cooking and health, so you don’t have to. Here are some of this week’s top headlines.

Meal kit company Chef’d officially shut down on Monday evening, laying off more than 350 employees. Despite the news, shares of Blue Apron have more than doubled since hitting a record low in April.

The debate over lab-grown meat is heating up again, this time between the USDA and the FDA. Meanwhile, Mosa Meat has raised $8.8 million with plans to launch in restaurants by the end of 2018.

Check out our weekly round-up of last week’s top food startup, tech and innovation news below or peruse the full newsletter here.

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1. Meal Kit Company Chef’d Suddenly Shut Down and Laid Off Its Hundreds of Employees – Business Insider

The company’s more than 350 workers have been laid off. News of the shut down came as a surprise after a series of major announcements and recent raise of $35m in 2017.

2. US Food Regulators Are Fighting Over Who Gets to Oversee Cell-Cultured Meat – Quartz

There’s a turf war unfolding between the USDA and the FDA.

3. Startup Producing Cell-Grown Meat Raises New Funding – The Wall Street Journal

Mosa Meat raised $8.8m from German drugmaker Merck KGaA and top European meat processor Bell Food Group.

4. McDonald’s Pulls Salads From Thousands of Restaurants as Parasite Outbreak Escalates – Fortune

McDonalds has stopped serving salads at 3,000 restaurants in 14 states following reports linking the dishes to an outbreak of intestinal parasites.

5. Sensient Technologies Acquires Mazza Innovation Addressing Growing Demand For Clean-Label Ingredients – Food Navigator

Sensient Technologies has acquired Mazza Innovation Limited, a botanical extraction technology firm based in Vancouver, Canada, strengthening its “seed to shelf” business strategy to innovate across the value chain for natural and organic ingredients.

6. Private Label Sales Dip For Grocers as Other Channels Threaten – Food Dive

Private brand performance across retail dramatically increased last year, posting sales of $138 billion in the US. Grocers took in $68b, a .1% decline compared to the prior year.

7. Blue Apron Makes a Comeback But the Street Isn’t Ready to Eat – Bloomberg

Shares of the subscription meal kit company have more than doubled since hitting a record low in April, and reached a five-month intraday high on Friday.

8. Israel: Trigo Offers Shoppers a Checkout-Free Experience Like Amazon Go – VentureBeat

The computer vision startup aims to bring checkout-less experiences to existing brick-and-mortar stores. It emerged from stealth last week with $7 million in seed funding from Hetz Ventures and Vertex Ventures Israel.

9. Kroger Rolls Out App to Spur Healthier Grocery Shopping – Supermarket News

Called OptUP, the free app provides users with a score indicating a product’s nutritional and/or health attributes to help consumers make better-for-you purchase decisions.

10. Giant Indoor Vertical Farm Backed by Chinese Firm Launching Just East of Las Vegas Strip – CNBC

Oasis Biotech plans to start deliveries next week and said it can produce about 9.5k servings of mixed salad per day for local restaurants and casinos.

11. Microbiome Start-up Nextbiotix Nets €7m to Address Gut-Related Disorders – NutraIngredients

French-based biotech start-up Nextbiotix has successfully raised €7m in a Series A financing round to develop microbiome-based approaches that address inflammatory bowel disease. Investors include Auriga Partners, Sofimac Innovation Innovation and more.

12. MatchaBar Closes Celebrity Backed $8M Funding Round – BevNET

The round was led by Diplo, Von Miller, Ansel Elgort and Billie Eilish. Funds will go towards expanding distribution, sales and the company’s marketing team as well as supporting the launch of its new energy drink, Hustle.

13. The Founders of Baby Food Startup Yumi Dish How to Get Funding When You’re Pregnant – Moneyish

An inside look at starting a business and raising capital while pregnant.

14. Spain: AmRest Invests in Spanish Delivery Startup Glovo – Bloomberg

AmRest, the Polish restaurant group, will invest $29m for a 10% stake in Spanish startup Glovo. The funding round offers the company the resources to seek further expansion abroad amidst growing pressure from the likes of Uber Eats and Deliveroo.

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