Xprize, a non-profit that leverages innovation and incentivises radical breakthroughs benefiting humanity, has announced the list of semifinalists for their competition – Feed the Next Billion.
The competition was launched in December 2020 with the support of partners including, ASPIRE, The Tony Robbins Foundation, The Good Food Institute, Foundation for Food and Agriculture, District 3, New Harvest, and Proveg International.
The $15 million Feed the Next Billion competition aims to reinvent the future of food by focusing on the production of plant-based, cultured based, and fermentation-based alternatives that outperform traditional animal derived products. The performance is ranked according to environmental, ethical, and nutritional parameters.
Amongst the 28 finalists are two India-based companies – Myoworks and Brew51.
Based in Maharashtra, Myoworks Pvt. Ltd. is currently developing scaffolds to cater to players in the cultivated meat space. Scaffold is an edible mould that allows the animal cells to attain structure in order to replicate the texture and shape of certain animal derived meat formats, such as steak. Spearheaded by Nihal Singh and Shubhankar Takle, the company aims to facilitate all entrepreneurs dabbling in conventional meat to replace their products with the cruelty-free sustainable option of cultivated meat.
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Brew51 from Bengaluru, founded by Ravali Amba, boasts of a group of passionate food scientists and engineers determined to eliminate unsustainability from our food systems by harnessing latest scientific developments and techniques. They are creating plant-based alternatives to whole cuts of meat, starting with fish fillets.
The complete list of 28 startups that have made it to the semifinals include:
- Air Protein, United States
- Another Fish, Canada
- Atlast Food Co, United States
- BlueNalu, United States
- Boston Meats, United States
- Brew51, India
- CELL AG TECH, Canada
- CellX, China
- DiverseFarm-Structured Meat, Japan
- ENOUGH – NO LIMITS , United Kingdom
- GOOD Meat, United States
- IntegriCulture, Japan
- Kernel Mycofoods, Argentina
- Kuleana, United States
- MeatOurFuture, South Africa
- Meati Foods, United States
- MyoWorks, India
- Novel Farms, United States
- ProFillet, Canada
- Revo Foods, Austria
- SeaSpire, New Zealand
- TFTAK, Estonia
- The Better Meat Co, United States
- The PlantEat, South Korea
- Umami Meats, Singapore
- Umiami , France
- Whiteboard Foods, Canada
- Wildtype, United States
Over the next year, semifinalists will work closely with the competition’s ecosystem and sponsors, which include ASPIRE and The Tony Robbins Foundation, to develop the first iteration of their products. Towards the end of 2022, 10 finalist teams will be selected and they would split the $2.5 million prize money. The finalists would face a last round of competition after which the winner and two runner-up teams would be awarded $7 million, $2 million, and $1 million, respectively, with a further bonus of $2 million.
