Agtech - So What?

We’re digging back into waste in the food system this week, but to narrow the focus, we’re zooming in on Australia. Australia is a country that has set specific targets on waste reduction, but so far, is largely on track to miss them, and companies all along the value chain are contributing.

Alongside our broader discussion of overall waste targets in the country, we take a more focused look at a food system case study: a meal kit delivery company that deals with a diversity of waste streams– from ingredients to packing to fuel.

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Waste in the food system is an incredibly big challenge. Whether the aim is to reduce food loss, to curb packaging that ends up in landfills, or even to ensure food that’s grown makes it out of the field, there is waste at every link in the chain that continues to contribute to food and ag’s outsized climate impact. The good news is, there are plenty of startups, and many investors, that are tackling these thorny problems. But the problem is, it’s really complex.
Our internal grappling with why waste is such a hard nut to crack has taken us on a journey to better understand the barriers in the food system waste space. Today, we’re talking with Aly Bryan and Anne-Marie Kaluz from Closed Loop Partners about what they think is holding us back in addressing our waste problems, and then we turn to Olympia Yarger from Goterra (a Tenacious Ventures portfolio company) for more from an entrepreneur’s perspective.

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The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness is given, except for liability under statue which cannot be excluded.

There’s a common misconception in the alternative protein space that continues to hold back innovation: the idea that conventional and alternative products are direct competitors. In general, the idea that consumers are dropping conventional milk for soy milk, or eschewing chicken in favor of plant-based nuggets just isn’t reflected in the data. More often then not, consumers buy both conventional proteins and alternative proteins, often at the same time. Acknowledging this, we have a lot of conviction that the future of alt-proteins writ large offers a lot of opportunities for conventional protein producers as well.
Michael Hampson, CEO of Norco Cooperative Ltd., agrees. Since taking over leadership at one of Australia’s largest, farmer-owned dairy coops, he’s helped lead a change journey that has led recently to a new partnership with Eden Brew, which created a precision-fermented milk alternative that can be produced in conventional dairy facilities.

For more information and resources, visit our website.

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness is given, except for liability under statue which cannot be excluded.

Deep tech– or the world of technology companies beyond those that make software– is often seen as a bridge too far for the world of venture capital investing. A key challenge; the tried and true strategies around growing high-value companies quickly that were the hallmark of the 2000s and 2010s don’t often translate when a company is moving atoms and molecules instead of bits and bytes.
But from our perspective, deep tech is likely the most important component of our future food system. We have conviction that deep tech advances, from robotics to distributed input production, will actually be the most important advances driving the industry forward during the next 100 years.

For more information and resources, visit our website.

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness is given, except for liability under statue which cannot be excluded.

When it comes to phosphorus-- the second most prominent fertilizer component– a big problem today is that it is simultaneously too rare on earth overall and too abundant in the landscapes where it's used. The vast majority of the world’s phosphorus reserves are found in just two countries, Morocco and China. And phosphorus runoff, largely originating from agricultural uses, leads to toxic algal blooms (and associated greenhouse gas emissions) all over the world.

Hunter Swisher, founder and CEO of Phospholutions, hopes that his technology offers a piece of the solution to this problem: enhancing phosphorus use efficiency. The team at Phospholutions has been working on their fertilizer additive product since they spun out of Penn State in 2016, and have been filing patents and winning pitch competitions ever since.

For more information and resources, visit our website.

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness is given, except for liability under statue which cannot be excluded.

The question of how to make commodity crops more valuable is a perennial one in agriculture, and over the years there have been a lot of good-- and bad-- answers. Recently, one strategy has emerged that we find particularly intriguing, though it's safe to say it comes with plenty of challenges.
Today, we’re exploring molecular farming– which, in this case, involves the production of dairy proteins in a genetically modified plant. Growing protein this way offers a lot of potential benefits, from avoiding the environmental impact of animal production to enabling plant-based dairy products that are quite true to the original.

For more information and resources, visit our website.

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness is given, except for liability under statue which cannot be excluded.

When people in ag think about fertilizer, nitrogen -- or N -- is usually the first thing that comes to mind, whether thinking about yields, costs, or environmental impacts. But phosphorus is another concerning element of the crop nutrient mix, due to the declining mineable supplies, and the fact that those supplies are almost exclusively located in Morocco and China.
But natural deposits aren’t the only source of phosphorus on Earth: livestock manure also contains meaningful quantities of the valuable mineral. The challenge is in transforming a complex, liquid, and highly concentrated waste product into the fertility input with which most farmers are familiar.

For more information and resources, visit our website.

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness is given, except for liability under statue which cannot be excluded.

Global geopolitical disruptions first put fertilizer center stage as farmers around the world struggled with price and supply swings. But that was just the beginning of the conversation– as fertilizer tech begins to step into the spotlight, offering alternatives not only to traditional products, but to our whole way of thinking about the crop nutrients sector.
Today, Tim Hammerich of the Future of Agriculture Podcast joins Sarah to dig into the “so what?” of the nitrogen tech we’ve discussed here on the podcast and the fertilizer innovations Tim has recently covered. Along the way, we discuss key quotes from our recent fertilizer episodes and offer theories on what the future will look like.

For more information and resources, visit our website.

Disclaimer: Tenacious Ventures is an investor in Jupiter Ionics
The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness is given, except for liability under statue which cannot be excluded.

Breaking news in the agtech world abounds here at the beginning of 2023, and as we've tracked the latest announcements, we've been thinking a lot about a few tech updates, especially from major brands, and what they might mean for the agtech landscape in the near future.
Today, teammates Komal Patel and Matthew Pryor join Sarah to discuss a few pieces of news from the past few weeks that stood out. We dig into the details, read between the lines, and argue why we think they're worth paying attention to.

For more information and resources, visit our website.

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness is given, except for liability under statue which cannot be excluded.

Agtech has long had an interest in shortening the supply chain between farms and consumers. And yet after years of effort, relatively little progress has been made beyond a proliferation of farmers markets and some new “local” tags at supermarkets. There are a lot of challenges in this space that go beyond a simple technical fix, and overcoming them often requires rethinking the entire business model.
Enter Michael Bosworth, farmer and founder of Next Generation Foods, a California-based food brand and distribution company that's reinventing how food moves from the fields to chefs and home kitchens alike, with a special interest in sustainability, science, and transparency. Michael’s not only growing rice in a highly water-vulnerable region, he’s also growing a valuable food business to market his products and those from nearby farms to ensure that his model is both environmentally and economically sustainable.

For more information and resources, visit our website.