How does an environmentalist become an aerial imagery data analytics and A.I. entrepreneur? Find out in this episode with Al Eisaian, a serial entrepreneur from the mobile apps and software space. Al's company IntelinAir uses images captured from airplanes to help farmers identify problem areas in their fields and make decisions that can reduce the burden of their activities on the environment, such as reducing pesticide or fertilizer usage. It can also importantly help the bottom line of...

Covid-19 is the first big crisis for agrifood investing, an investment area that largely emerged in the wake of the global financial crisis. How will investors respond and what does it mean for the future of investment across the sector? This is part of a new series of webinars AgFunder is hosting to navigate the crisis. This first episode features Dave Friedberg, founder of agech's first unicorn, and Blake Stevens, principal at Alexandria Ventures.

Covid-19 is the first big crisis for agrifood investing, an investment area that largely emerged in the wake of the global financial crisis. How will investors respond and what does it mean for the future of investment across the sector? This is part of a new series of webinars AgFunder is hosting to navigate the crisis. This first episode features Dave Friedberg, founder of agech's first unicorn, and Blake Stevens, principal at Alexandria Ventures.

Oatly co-founder on scaling alt milk and the need for local food production

In this episode, I speak to Bjorn Oste, who cofounded Oatly, the dairy alternative company that recently saw its flagship oat milk product fly off the shelves during the first weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic due to its shelf-stable nature. Bjorn is such fun and candid and tells a great story of the founding of Oatly with his brother and the fantastic, ESG-oriented company it is today complete, with quirky and bold branding often seen adorned on the side of buses. Bjorn is such fun and candid....

Amanda Weeks is converting food waste into a natural house cleaner. With her startup Ambrosia, that recently re-branded from Industrial/Organic, Amanda has been recycling food waste for many years and after an initial focus on making fertilizer, almost accidentally came across the byproduct's cleaning properties. I catch up with Amanda nearly 5 years after we first met to find out more about the re-brand, the new product line Veles, and the challenges she's faced in building this business.

I sat down with yogurt giant Danone and dairy tech startup Connecterra on Earth Day to discuss how they're sustainability initiatives are progressing and how Covid-19 is impacting their business. Covid-19 is having a devastating impact on the dairy industry after food service demand dried up and you may have seen upsetting videos of large amounts of milk being dumped in the countryside. Hollander and Khokhar offer some fascinating insights there. Enjoy!

Climate scientist, inventor and founder of two sustainable businesses, Adam Lowry is currently CEO of Ripple Foods, a dairy alternative products company. His first company Method is a sustainable cleaning products brand that's now a household name in the US - I use it! But why get into food now? What mistakes did he make at Method? Why pick pea as the key ingredient for his products? You can hear Adam speak in-person at the Future Food-Tech Summit next month: https://futurefoodtechsf.com/

 In a world of African Swine Fever, increasing scrutiny of the meat industry and consumer demand for transparency, the pork industry needs to modernize. But according to Chris Bomgaars, founder of EveryPig, a software platform for pork producers to track pig health, moving away from the pen + paper records that still dominate, many in the industry are reticent to do so. Find out why -- and what they think of the growing number of meat alternatives on the market -- in this episode.

Why work in the foodtech and agtech investment space? Which category of this emerging venture capital industry are most exciting? These are some of the questions I asked two of my teammates Yanniv and Quinten who joined AgFunder in 2019. Also find out who their favorite team member is - hint - it's me!

This episode is perhaps a tad awkward as I interview my boss Rob Leclerc, founding partner of AgFunder, but Rob was as insightful as ever, sharing his thoughts on working in and around the agriculture sector for the past decade. We talk about agtech acquisitions, food trends, the impending shift to look at food as medicine, lessons he's learned since starting to invest and who is favorite team member is - hint, it's me!

In this episode, I speak to Bruce Friedrich, the co-founder of the Good Food Institute (GFI), a nonprofit that promotes plant-based alternatives to meat, dairy, and eggs, as well as those using cellular agriculture to produce replicas of animal-based products at the cellular level. We catch-up and go back to questions I asked him back in 2016: https://agfundernews.com/whats-next-for-alternative-proteins-an-interview-with-good-food-institutes-friedrich.html

In this episode I speak to Jack Bobo, founder of Futurity, a consultancy firm for startups and established food brands to consider the future of food and what it means to them.  "I'm very optimistic and excited about what the world will look like in 2050 but I think it is helpful though to think about where we've come from in order to think about where we're going."

In this episode of Future Food, I speak to Klaus Kunz, head of Sustainability and Business Stewardship at German agro-pharma giant Bayer. We talk on many topics including smallholder farmers, biodiversity, and of course pesticides. The company has come under serious fire for its glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup, which is accused of causing cancer and bee deaths. This episode, though heavy, is full of important insights from Klaus, who addresses pertinent issues across agriculture. Don't...

Did you know one of our most common drugs was derived from plants, and that just 15 of the 50,000 edible plants on the earth provide 90% of our calories?! In this episode, I speak to Sofia Elizondo, cofounder of Brightseed, a Silicon Valley startup unearthing the bioactive compounds in plants that can have positive impacts on our bodies using artificial intelligence and computational biology. Tips for female founders too! Enjoy! (Disclosure, Brightseed is an AgFunder portfolio company)

In this episode of Future Food, I speak to Jennifer Betka, the chief marketing officer of Indigo Agriculture. Jennifer is an expert marketer with a career spanning many different industries, most recently at StubHub, so it's really interesting to hear about her transition into agriculture. "When I look at our brand, I think it's a really curious brand that's asking really important questions. If growers can be incentivized to put carbon back into the soil, do consumers care?" Turns out...

The UK is the most active ecosystem for foodtech and agtech startups in Europe and Nadia El Hadery has played a role in it from London since 2015. Nadia is founder and CEO of YFood, an event and media company focused on the industry. London FoodTech Week is next week - find out more about the event, Nadia's vision for the future of food -- including drones and personalized food delivery -- her love of avocados, and some of the challenges startups have faced in the UK and beyond.

Hear former co-CEO of Whole Foods Walter Robb, a proponent of whole and natural foods, talk about the advent of new technologies from robotic retail to his contrarian views of plant-based meat. He also talks about how Amazon came to acquire Whole Foods and the importance of big data. I hope you enjoy the second installment of Future Food!

For entrepreneurs and investors in the agtech startup space, David Friedberg is a major celebrity. When he sold his startup The Climate Corporation for $1 billion in 2013 - achieving that elusive "unicorn" status - he put the category on the map. David now has an investment company The Production Board. David is a visionary - the insights he offers on what & how we will be eating in the future are inspiring, exciting, if perhaps a little scary. I hope you enjoy this special first edition...

In this podcast, Louisa talks to Nick Fereday, a consumer foods analyst at Rabobank, about how the large food and agriculture companies are reacting to new innovation and working with startups. They also talk about the acquisition of Whole Foods by Amazon, and consumer trends around natural, simple food as well as alternative meat products.

Women still make the majority of food decisions in the home -- around 65% according to some estimates but are underrepresented in leading roles at food companies globally. In this week’s podcast, Louisa discusses the impact of this and how tech innovation is adapting to consumer demands with Beth Robertson-Martin from General Mills, Kellee James, founder of Mercaris, an organic commodities trading platform, and Sanjeev Krishnan, partner at S2G Ventures, an agrifood tech venture capital firm.

Blue River Technology is a Silicon Valley startup bringing robotics to the farm. In August 2017, Blue River was acquired by John Deere, the world’s largest tractor company, for $305 million. This was extremely exciting news for the agtech industry as exits for the venture capital firms backing the sector have been relatively few and far between. In this episode, Louisa speaks to Jorge Heraud, founder and CEO of the company about the startup's journey to success.

In this episode, Louisa speaks to Sam Kass, former chef and nutritional policy advisor for the Obamas, about food tech innovation. Kass is now venture partner at Acre Venture Partners, the agrifood tech venture capital firm. He launched the Let's Move campaign with Michelle Obama. Here he speaks about investing in food technology and the importance of access to nutritional food.

After a few years in stealth mode, vertical farming group Plenty hit the public domain with a bang, raising a record-breaking $200m from Japanese banking group SoftBank over the summer. Louisa talks to CEO Matt Barnard to hear more about the company's growth and future plans.