Courtesy of Oxfam
The venture capital party is over. Or at least, it’s moved to a much smaller venue.
AgriFoodTech funding totaled $12.6 billion in 2025, almost equal to 2023 levels. With roughly 80% less funding than in 2021, the sector has entered a new equilibrium: fewer bets, fewer illusions, and for many companies that couldn’t become profitable or raise additional cash, the end of the road.
According to PitchBook, VC fundraising for AgriFoodTech funds has dropped 65% since the 2022 peak, with the average new VC fund size falling from $72.9 million to $35.4 million. In the alternative protein sector alone, more than 40 companies were acquired, fell into insolvency, or shut down over the course of the year.
But while VC retreated, M&A stepped in to fill the gap. Corporations that once waited for startups to scale are now buying innovation rather than building it. Private equity, which was repositioning AgriFoodTech as a defensive asset class, stayed active. The result is a sector that looks very different today than it did 18 months ago; more consolidated, more strategic, and, for better or worse, more in the hands of established players.
Why M&A Dominated 2025
The conditions were almost designed for consolidation. Interest rates began easing from recent highs. The new US administration was far less likely to block big deals. And a generation of startups that raised aggressively in 2020–2021 was now running out of runway, with VC nowhere near as forthcoming as it used to be.
And so, corporations that had been spending tens of billions on M&A annually were now looking at a pipeline of distressed or capital-starved startups with real IP, real brands, and real consumer traction, at much more attractive valuations than three years ago. The “barbell effect” that defined 2025 M&A tells the story clearly: on one end, a handful of mega-deals reshaping category dynamics, including Mars’s acquisition of Kellanova for $35.9bn. And on the other end, a steady stream of tuck-in acquisitions, distressed sales such as Meati Foods, and quiet bolt-ons that drew less attention but were no less significant.
Private equity played a notable supporting role. While VC fundraising in AgriFoodTech collapsed, PE held steady, repositioning the sector as a defensive investment: resilient demand, predictable cash flows, and a pipeline of under-capitalised operators ripe for professionalisation. PE deal volume in Agtech specifically jumped from three deals in Q1 2024 to six in Q1 2025.
The Mega-Deals: Big Food Goes Shopping
At the top end of the market, 2025 closed with some of the biggest food M&A in years, and a clear message about where corporate appetite sits.
The headline was Mars completing its $35.9 billion acquisition of Kellanova on December 11, after finally clearing 28 regulatory hurdles, including a months-long EU Phase II review. The deal brings Pringles, Cheez-It, Pop-Tarts, and RXBAR under the same roof as Snickers, M&M’s, Twix, and KIND. The combined Mars Snacking unit is expected to generate around $36 billion in annual revenue across 145 markets. It’s a bet on snacking scale, distribution leverage, and the enduring power of portfolio breadth.
Courtesy of Mars, Inc.
Meanwhile, Ferrero acquired WK Kellogg for $3.1 billion, adding Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, and Special K to a portfolio already heavy with Nutella, Kinder, Keebler, and Butterfinger. And PepsiCo closed its $1.95 billion acquisition of prebiotic soda brand Poppi, a deal that signals exactly where Big Bev thinks growth lives: gut health, functional beverages, and Gen Z brand loyalty. Celsius followed with a $1.8 billion acquisition of Alani Nutrition, reinforcing the same thesis from a different angle.
These aren’t impulsive deals. They’re evidence of a calculated pivot: 76% of food and drink deals in H1 2025 were strategic according to Kroll, with acquirers buying into brand momentum, distribution infrastructure, and consumer demographics they couldn’t build fast enough internally. The message to startups is clear: if you’ve built something real, there’s a buyer for it. The catch is proving it first.
The Alternative Protein Reckoning
If Big Food’s mega-deals tell one story, the alternative protein sector tells a very different one.
Between September 2024 and August 2025, more than 40 major alternative protein ventures either shut down, merged, fell into bankruptcy, or were acquired at discounted valuations. Plant-based companies accounted for 32 of those events. Europe bore the brunt, with 23 incidents, particularly in the UK and the Netherlands, compared to 16 in North America.
Three stories capture the range of outcomes.
Courtesy of LIVEKINDLY Collective
Trubar: Exit from a Position of Strength
Not every acquisition is a distress sale. Trubar’s C$201 million deal with Turkish consumer goods giant Eti Gıda is the kind of exit the sector needs more of. The Vancouver-based protein bar brand posted $50 million in revenue in 2024, surpassed $49 million in the first nine months of 2025, and cut losses by 61% year-on-year. Eti Gıda, operating 9 facilities, 300 product lines across 45 brands, and posting $1.3 billion in annual sales, is acquiring scale, not saving a sinking ship. Trubar’s clean-label positioning—free from dairy, soy, gluten, and seed oils—hit the RFK Jr moment perfectly. That’s not luck, but brand-building with the exit in mind.
Miyoko’s Creamery: What Liquidation Looks Like
On the other end of the spectrum, Miyoko’s Creamery entered an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors process in October 2025 after being unable to meet its debts, and was ultimately acquired out of liquidation by Prosperity Organic Foods, owner of the Melt Organic plant-based butter brand. Miyoko Schinner, the founder who was removed as CEO in 2022, tried to reacquire the brand she built, even running a GoFundMe, and lost the bid. The aftermath turned messy when the new CEO reportedly referred to Schinner as a “failed businessperson” in leaked messages. It’s a cautionary tale about what happens when the brand outlasts the financial model, and the human cost that consolidation rarely shows on a slide deck.
TiNDLE and Livekindly: The Pivot Play
Then there’s the pivot. TiNDLE Foods announced in November 2025 that it was abandoning its US-branded operations to focus entirely on private-label production for the European market. The plant-based category, said CEO Timo Recker, had “become increasingly price-driven” and private label was where growth lived. Livekindly Collective immediately stepped in to acquire TiNDLE’s US and European foodservice operations, adding to a B2B business that had grown 48% in 2024 and was tracking toward 120% growth in 2025. Livekindly, backed by Blue Horizon, has built its entire growth strategy around M&A and is now projecting 200% B2B growth in 2026. As CEO, David Suarez, put it bluntly: “There’s still too many small brands. There will be consolidation.” He’s not wrong.
AgTech: The Quieter Consolidation
While alt protein grabbed headlines, precision agriculture went through its own consolidation: less dramatic, more structural, and arguably more durable.
AgTech deal volume jumped 19% in Q1 2025 versus Q1 2024, with 25 transactions announced or completed in a single quarter. After three consecutive years of declining deal flow, the rebound was driven by falling interest rates, recovering farm income, and a PE market actively looking for scalable operators in a fragmented sector.
The strategic logic is consistent: acquirers are buying data, efficiency, and supply chain intelligence. CoStar Group acquired agricultural data platform Ag-Analytics, merging its AcreValue platform, with 1.5 million registered users, into Land.com to build a comprehensive agricultural land marketplace. It’s not glamorous, but it’s exactly the kind of infrastructure play that underpins long-term value chains.
A clear illustration of what intentional AgTech consolidation looks like in practice is CropX. What started in 2017 as a precision irrigation startup has, through seven acquisitions in five years, become a broad “digital agronomy” platform, acquiring tech, customers, data, market access, and talent along the way. CEO Tomer Tzach describes the company simply: “We are an M&A machine.” Most of the companies CropX acquired were profitable, and the model is full integration of tech stacks, back-office systems, and teams before moving on to the next deal. Tzach says CropX has now spoken to more than 200 companies about potential M&A, and expects future acquisitions to take “bigger bites” as deal targets grow in size.
The broader pattern, as DelMorgan & Co noted, is that M&A has expanded well beyond farmland into vertical farming, aquaculture, soil diagnostics, and carbon marketplaces. Precision agriculture assets like GPS-guided machinery, smart irrigation, and drone analytics are commanding double-digit revenue multiples due to recurring revenue streams and hardware-software synergies. The fragmentation of the sector, characterised by family-owned, under-digitised regional operators, presents a long pipeline for professionalization.
A note of caution, though, these are the same arguments made about vertical farming five years ago. History suggests that operational complexity in agriculture consistently exceeds the models. Due diligence here needs to be genuinely operational, not just financial.
The Geographic Picture
Geography matters in this consolidation wave, and the patterns are worth noting.
The US led in deal value, driven by the functional beverage and better-for-you boom. Poppi, Alani, and the broader health-wellness M&A wave were predominantly North American stories. Europe, by contrast, experienced the most closures and distress; 23 of the 40+ alternative protein events tracked by Green Queen between September 2024 and December 2025 occurred in Europe, particularly in the UK and the Netherlands. The brands that rode the plant-based hype wave are the ones struggling most, as consumers have moved on and supermarket own-brands have made it very hard to justify a premium price.
Africa represents a different kind of opportunity. Coca-Cola HBC’s $2.6 billion deal for 75% of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, entering 14 new markets including Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa, signals how international capital views population-growth-driven food demand.
What Makes a Startup Acquisition-Ready
Looking across 2025’s deals, a pattern emerges about what separates acquired from abandoned.
- Revenue traction with a credible path to profitability. Trubar’s story is the benchmark: $50M revenue, sharply declining losses, and a clear trajectory to $100M. In 2025, acquirers bought demonstrated performance, not potential.
- Brand equity that moves independently of category trends. Poppi wasn’t just riding the gut health wave; it had built a genuine cultural cache with Gen Z before PepsiCo showed up. Alani Nu had done the same for female-focused wellness. Brand loyalty, not brand awareness, is what commands a premium.
- Operational efficiency and price competitiveness. The companies that survived 2025 are the ones that stopped treating price as a secondary concern. TiNDLE’s pivot to private label is the clearest illustration: when the branded premium collapses, you either find a different model or you disappear. Margins matter more than mission statements in a price-driven market.
- B2B readiness. TiNDLE’s pivot and Livekindly’s 48% B2B growth highlight a broader trend. Foodservice, private-label, and ingredient supply channels are often more stable and more acquirable than direct-to-consumer plays.
- Strategic fit with the acquirer’s portfolio gaps. The best exits happen when a startup solves a specific problem for a specific acquirer: a channel they don’t own, a consumer demographic they’re not reaching, a technology they can’t build. Know your strategic buyer thesis before you need one.
The Bigger Picture: Consolidation’s Double Edge
Consolidation has a good story to tell about itself: distressed assets finding new homes, innovation getting the distribution it always needed, capital being redeployed efficiently. It’s a tidy narrative to read, and in 2025, it was largely true.
But there’s another reading too because history has a habit of complicating tidy narratives. Consolidation, as some economists and thinkers have noted, concentrates power as much as it concentrates efficiency. Schumpeter, who gave us the concept of creative destruction, worried in his later work that once companies grow large enough, they stop destroying and start defending. Bigness breeds bureaucracy. Bureaucracy kills the instinct that created the value in the first place. Mariana Mazzucato would add that financialised consolidation is very good at capturing value, but less reliable at creating it.
When Kraft Heinz, Keurig Dr Pepper, and Unilever simultaneously announce structural splits while Mars absorbs Kellanova and Ferrero absorbs WK Kellogg, the net effect is a reshuffling of incumbency, not a democratisation of it. The brands being acquired are, for the most part, being subsumed into larger portfolios that really just compete on distribution scale rather than innovation velocity.
The food system’s own consolidation history isn’t reassuring either. Each wave has narrowed the field: fewer seed companies, fewer processors, fewer bets on genuinely disruptive ideas, more investment in line extensions and margin optimisation. Philip Howard has spent decades mapping this pattern. The conclusion is consistent: concentration tends to optimise for what large acquirers value, which is not always the same thing as what food systems need.
None of this makes M&A the wrong strategy for founders navigating a VC drought. It may be the only strategy available. But it’s worth being clear-eyed about what consolidation produces and what it doesn’t, especially what consolidation produces at scale.
For the alternative protein sector specifically, the consolidation has a bittersweet quality. The category grew because it promised to change food systems. What’s emerging from 2025 looks more like the same food system, with some of its more innovative ideas not making it through, which might have changed things to make the food system better. Case in point: Miyoko Schinner not getting her company back. In acquisitions, the founder’s vision doesn’t always survive.
That’s not an argument against the deals. It’s an argument for asking harder questions about what comes after them.
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