Source: Sebastian Nevols / Eleven Madison Park [Official]

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.

This week’s headlines were consumed in the world of faux meat – from news of Eleven Madison Park’s decision to go completely vegan to the approval of Impossible Foods’ key additive, heme, by the FDA. The topic even became a bipartisan conflict when Republicans accused President Biden of banning meat.

In the media, Civil Eats countered the New York Time’s opinion piece on launching a moonshot for meatless meat, and Alicia Kennedy questions what it means to be a conscious meat-eater in the age of an industrial and faux meat war.

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

1. Chef Daniel Humm Is Relaunching Eleven Madison Park as an All-Vegan Restaurant – Eater

No other white tablecloth restaurant of the same caliber in the city serves a menu that’s completely meat free, and of the 132 restaurants worldwide with three Michelin stars, none are vegan.

2. Impossible Foods Wins Ruling to Continue Use of Key Additive – Bloomberg

The 2019 decision removed a hurdle for Impossible in extending its burger sales from restaurants to grocery stores. It may be a sign of how questions about bioengineered food will be handled in the future.

3. Biden’s Fake Burger Ban and the Rising Culture War Over Meat – Vox

Biden’s not taking away your meat, as Republicans claimed. But partisan conflict over eating animals is just getting started.

4. We Don’t Need a ‘Moonshot’ for Faux Burgers—We Need To Hold ‘Big Meat’ Accountable. – Civil Eats

A recent opinion article called for massive government investment in plant-based and cellular meats. Here’s a smarter approach to reducing meat’s impacts.

5. Omnipork Gears Up for Nationwide US Launch of Plant-Based Pork – Food Navigator

The nationwide launch comes after its debut in restaurants in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Honolulu.

6. On Meat – Alicia Kennedy

In her process of writing a book about what it means not to eat meat in Western, meat-obsessed, settler-colonialist cultures, Kennedy questions what it means to be a conscious meat-eater in the age of an industrial and faux meat war.

7. Regenerative Agriculture Needs a Reckoning – The Counter

Why avoiding uncomfortable conversations about equity, race and access threatens to spoil a nascent movement’s environmental promise.

8. Hard-Hit Restaurant Rush for a Lifeline As $28B in Grants Go Up for Grabs – CNBC

The National Restaurant Association estimates that from March 2020 through April of this year 110k restaurants have closed either permanently or long-term.

9. Personalized Nutrition Startup Zoe Closes Out Series B at $53M Total Raise – TechCrunch

Zoe’s first product is a home testing kit that enables participants to learn how their body responds to different foods and get personalized nutrition advice, with the goal of improving gut health.

10. France: Taster Grabs $37M for Its Native Online Restaurants – TechCrunch

The company operates dozens of restaurants across 40 different cities that only exist on food delivery platforms. It now wants to partner with existing restaurants that don’t get a lot of online orders.

11. Denmark: Too Good to Go Expands Its Food Waste App Nationally Across the US – The Spoon

The first stop is San Francisco, with 200-plus food businesses participating. Users can browse surplus food options through the app from participating restaurants, bakeries and grocery stores at the end of every day.

12. Biden Quietly Preparing for Food Stamp Increase Without Congress – Bloomberg

The Biden administration is quietly laying the groundwork for a long-term increase in food aid for tens of millions of Americans, without going through the ordeal of a fight with congressional Republicans.

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