Alternative protein from industrial emissions, canned fizzy drinks to boost your social skills, collagen-based beauty snacks. Feel like being on a Sci-Fi movie set yet?

If all that got you curious to know more, welcome to Forward Fooding’s Foods & Drinks of the Future Series, where we will explore a list of 3 ingredients to watch in 2020.

What’s on the plate?

Are you one of those FoodTechies who never miss a beat on the Food & Beverage sector’s latest trends? Do you love to stay on top of what’s hot when it comes to startups shaping the future of food? At Forward Fooding, we sure are. Stay tuned and keep reading, as this list of ingredients to watch in 2020 will literally fry your brain!

Air-Based Food

In today’s FoodTech scenario, it seems like everyone is on the lookout for alternative sources of protein. As a matter of fact, the protein of the future market has seen aggressive growth over the past few years.

As far as alternative protein is concerned, we are not going to tackle the plant-based and clean meat market, as we’re sure you’ve already heard a great deal about it. Instead, we decided to bring attention to the craziest protein seekers out there: let’s dive into thin air!

With so many actors in the scene seeking to find the perfect source of clean, sustainable and resource-conscious protein, the answer to the protein of the future might be just above our heads.

In fact, turns out the future meat replicates will not only be coming from plant-based proteins but will be sourced from the carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen naturally present in the air. As a matter of fact, these elements from the air can be aggregated into a powder and used as a supplement base for meat replicates. Pretty futuristic, right?

If you’re struggling to get a grasp of what this thin air protein business is all about, take a look at these startups.

Buckle up: Finnish startup Solar Foods are using only air, water, and electricity as their main sources of protein.

Now, if you think about it for a second, such protein format would revolutionize our entire food system completely. By using these new protein sources, we would switch to a food system that is no longer reliant on agriculture, the weather or the climate, and might produce a 100% clean, environmentally-revolutionary protein. Wow.

After being founded in Helsinki in 2017, Solar Foods closed two funding rounds in the next following years, for a total raised funds of $2.8M. Big up for these European superstars, and we’re rooting for them on their ‘Free from Agriculture, Ready for the Future’ mission!

At Air Protein, they say: ‘If plants can transform CO2 into nutrients, why can’t we do it too?’.

These guys have a point. Or at least, their question sets the grounds for what could be a crucial challenge for our future food system. The team behind U.S.-based startup Air Protein are on a mission to create a whole new food category, producing what they call Air-Based Meat. Envisioned to be produced not from breeding cattle but simply from the air we breathe, this product really sounds like the ultimate meat high-tech.

Founded in 2019, Air Proteins are a baby in the market, but they are literally aiming for the stars. In fact, the technology behind their air-based food is inspired by the 1960’s NASA’s quest for deep space travel. It is thanks to NASA scientists that the concept of microbes acting like plants and creating food from carbon dioxide was born. Since then, the sky’s the limit.

Finally yet importantly, another Venture-backed startup founded in 2018, Nottingham-based Deep Branch Biotechnologies, is taking the whole air-based protein business even further, retrieving carbon dioxide directly from industrial emission. Yes, you heard right, these guys are aiming at generating clean, sustainable protein from today’s polluters. Now, what’s greener than that?

Deep Branch claim that their protein is ‘nutritious’ and ‘acts as a more sustainable alternative to soy or fishmeal, the conventional protein sources for livestock and aquaculture feed’. Less pollution, cleaner nutrition? Sounds like a deal.

Although air-based protein may still sound like a very far-fetched idea, we, for our part, are all about it and will be first in line to see where these guys are heading!

See you in the next edition of Foods & Drinks of the Future Series, where you’ll learn about Edible Collagen and Adaptogens & Nootropics!

We really hope you appreciated the insights we shared about the 3 ingredients to watch in 2020. At Forward Fooding, we’re lucky enough to be able to see (and to some extent foresee) some of these trends thanks to our data intelligence platform from the global AgriFoodTech ecosystem, The FoodTech Data Navigator. If you wish to know more about it or are interested in giving this amazing tool a go and take advantage of our 7-day free trial, you’re welcome to book a free demo: just leave your details here.

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This article was written by Lorena Mastromatteo, Marketing Associate at Forward Fooding.