Weekly Roundup: Marbled cultivated pork loin debuts, Ingredion touts tapioca starch

12 Aug 2022 --- This week in industry news, in a move pegged as a “world first,” US-based start-up Novel Farms unveiled a marbled cultivated pork loin. Ingredion is expanding support for high-performance tapioca starch as part of a corporate initiative to achieve 100% sustainably sourced waxy rice by 2030. Meanwhile, with Halloween fast approaching, Kellogg’s unveiled a spooky orange-colored cereal to mark the occasion.

In brief: Plant-based
Novel Farms has unveiled the first-ever marbled cultivated pork loin. While the vast majority of cultivated meat companies focus on making sausages or burgers, producing meat that mimics conventional meat cuts is currently extremely difficult – and only a handful of companies have been able to showcase pork or beef structured prototypes. Novel Farms now joins this select group by creating a cultivated pork loin that displays the marbling and texture of a real muscle cut. Novel Farms solves the structuring problem by developing a proprietary microbial fermentation approach to produce low-cost, edible, and highly customizable scaffolds.

Plant-based yogurt company Lavva has been acquired by lead operating partner Next in Natural, in concert with Lavva founder and chief growth officer Liz Fisher. The new alliance brings forth a team of strategic investors, including David Heller, Art Wrubel and David Blitzer. 

Ingredion is expanding its support for high-performance tapioca starch.In brief: Business moves
Ingredion has expanded support for its “next generation” of tapioca starches to meet manufacturers’ product development and (environmental) sustainability needs. The company has unveiled tapioca starch that addresses extreme food manufacturing requirements and supports sustainability trends. Ingredion is now adding tools to help product manufacturers leverage the ingredients. The company will also utilize its digital library to educate brands, from the ways tapioca differs from other ingredients and can help food manufacturers overcome flavor and texture challenges to the business benefit of using tapioca. 

Hormel Foods has revealed its latest strategic operating model, aligning its businesses to be more agile, consumer and customer focused, and market-driven. Effective October 31, 2022, the beginning of fiscal 2023, the company is transitioning to three operating segments – Retail, Foodservice and International. The One Supply Chain team will continue to oversee the company’s global supply chain.

Domino’s Pizza is closing its restaurants in Italy, after seven years of the US-based food chain trying to battle with local pizzerias. The company, which has 29 franchises in the European country, was planning to reach 880 outlets by 2030. However, according to Domino’s, it faced an “increased level of competition” with the COVID-19 pandemic when many traditional restaurants started delivering food to remain in business. 

In brief: Sustainability efforts
BASF has again reached its goal of sourcing all palm (kernel) oils certified from sustainable sources by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2021. The company purchased 242,946 metric tons of certified palm kernel oil in 2021, representing 100% of the total procurement volume. BASF also made further progress in developing transparent supply chains: Almost 96% of the company’s global oil palm footprint – a total of 441,107 metric tons – can be traced back to the oil mill it produced. 

In brief: Ingredient highlights
Ovāvo offers an ambient stable and scalable freeze-dried powder ingredient for F&B manufacturers looking to develop better-performing products with a point of difference. Ovāvo powder is made from “process grade” avocados – those that are too small or not “pretty” enough for retail sale – which accounts for around 10% of all industry-grown fruit. With Ovāvo’s high-fat content (70%), and predominantly healthy monounsaturated fats, the team has been validating avocado powder as a commercially viable, functionally superior substitute to oil and/or butter across a wide range of different food & beverage applications, including cookies, muffins, sauces & dips, snack bars, cereals, beverages and desserts. 

In brief: NPD
Kellogg’s is launching a shocking orange-colored cereal for the Halloween season. The company notes that this seasonal new twist on a classic cereal gives fans the perfect ingredient for Halloween treats and fall festivities. Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Shocking Orange Colored Cereal.

Rijk Zwaan focuses on high wire cucumber varieties with Powdery Mildew (PM) and Cucumber Green Mottled Mosaic Virus (CGMMV) resistance. This is the latest development in the company’s range of snack cucumbers in various sizes and colors. One of Rijk Zwaan’s new varieties is Quirk RZ, a unique bi-colored ‘baby apple’ snack cucumber with a sweet taste and good shelf life. 

In brief: Other highlights
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made its annual Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program Report for the Fiscal Year 2020 available, summarizing findings from the program’s monitoring of human and animal foods in FY 2020. From October 1, 2019, through September 30, 2020, the FDA tested for approximately 750 different pesticides and selected industrial compounds on 2,078 human food samples (316 domestic and 1,762 import samples) in its regulatory monitoring program. Agency staff collected domestic human food samples from 35 states and imported human food samples from 79 countries/economies. The findings show that the levels of pesticide residues measured by the FDA in the US food supply generally comply with US Environmental Protection Agency’s pesticide tolerances.

Urban Crop Solutions (UCS) and Siemens Financial Services (SFS) have launched a program whereby, under certain conditions, customers of Urban Crop Solutions can benefit from a financing option offered by Siemens Financial Services. UCS supplies end-to-end growth solutions in the fast-emerging global market of indoor vertical farming. The financing offer is currently limited to the countries where SFS is active today. However, this is expected to change as SFS is rapidly rolling out its services across the globe and is to reach all countries where UCS is active eventually.

By Elizabeth Green