Image Credit: Green Queen

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.

In other news, we’ve wrapped the first season of our podcast in partnership with AgFunder: New Food Order, a nuanced investigation into the business of tackling our climate and social crises through food and agriculture. Read all about why we launched the podcast, and be sure to subscribe and share!

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1. Denmark to Impose World’s First Carbon Tax on Agriculture, with Each Cow Costing $100 Per Year – Green Queen

Denmark will introduce a tax on carbon emissions from agriculture later this year to meet its climate goals, becoming the first country to do so.

2. House Representatives Reintroduce Bill to Ban Federal Funding of Cultivated Meat – Green Queen

A group of lawmakers have reintroduced the REAL Meat Act, this time targeting federal investment in the cultivated meat industry.

3. Over 100 Organizations & Experts Ask FAO to Retract ‘Inappropriate’ COP28 Livestock Report – Green Queen

In an open letter, academics and organizations from across the world have asked the FAO to withdraw a livestock emissions report that they claim contains “significant methodological errors”.

4. AgFunder Assumes Management of Blue Horizon’s $100M Growth Fund – AgFunder

Taking on Blue Horizion’s growth fund elevates AgFunder’s assets under management to $300m and introduces a growth-stage portfolio to the firm.

5. Bezos Earth Fund Opens Alternative Protein Hub at Imperial College London, with Next Centre Set for Asia – Green Queen

A month after it unveiled the first Center for Sustainable Protein in North Carolina, the Bezos Earth Fund has opened its second alternative protein hub at Imperial College London. It plans to open a third centre in Asia soon.

6. The Race to Make Plant-Based Meat More Affordable – Green Queen

An often insurmountable price barrier is keeping many people from buying plant-based alternatives to beef, pork and chicken.

7. What Is Specialty Food? – The Checkout

Specialty foods, while “special”, still exist and depend on an industrial food system. The contradiction to specialty food, indeed that which is necessary to truly define it, is commodity food.

8. India: Zepto, a 10-Minute Delivery App, Raises $665M at $3.6B Valuation – TechCrunch

Zepto sells and delivers everything from grocery items to electronic gadgets to consumers in urban Indian cities within a short time frame.