Caitlin Landesberg

According to Crunchbase, global food tech funding in 2024 hit just $6B—down from over $20B in 2021. But the real story? M&A is surging. From PepsiCo’s $1.95B acquisition of poppi to David’s purchase of Epogee , strategic buyers are back at the table, hungry for innovation with clear revenue paths. Consolidation is the name of the game as valuations normalize and capital tightens. This is a shift worth watching: visionary tech is no longer enough—now it’s about viability, profitability, and execution. Startups that can deliver are becoming prime acquisition targets. What do you think—is this the golden window for M&A in food tech? Read More: https://lnkd.in/ebgTwSxb #FoodTech #MergersAndAcquisitions #CPG #VentureCapital #SustainableFood #Protein #Innovation #Hospitality #EmergingBrands #FoodInnovation Hospitality Headline Newsletter Branded Hospitality Peter Rahal Mary Ann Azevedo Nathan Cooper Sam Polk, CFA Allison Ellsworth

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Consolidation is proving to be a viable alternative for some companies in the once-hot food tech space. David 🤝 Epogee PepsiCo 🤝 poppi Flowers Foods & Subsidiaries 🤝 Simple Mills The Hershey Company 🤝 LesserEvil Brand Snack Co. FoodYoung 🤝 MeliBio Big Idea Ventures 🤝 Vevolution Venture funding for food tech has fallen sharply in recent years, but M&A activity in the space appears to be on the rise. The funding and dealmaking trends indicate that in the face of declining investor interest, consolidation is proving to be a viable alternative for some companies in the once-hot food tech space. Nathan Cooper of Barrel Ventures shares, “Many of the companies that were funded were years, if not decades away from commercial viability. They were seeing tech valuations, and required substantial amounts of cap-ex, when at the end of the day what they were selling was a CPG (consumer packaged goods) product and should have been valued as such.” Andrew D Ive of Big Idea Ventures commented, “Valuations have normalized compared to two years ago, creating an attractive window for strategic buyers to acquire de-risked, well-funded companies with validated technologies — often at reasonable prices.” This is a great article by Crunchbase highlighting the consolidation activity of the foodtech space. My tip to startups who are struggling to fundraise. Start having serious M&A conversations because you might be surprised at the partnerships you may find! https://lnkd.in/gHVJ35nm

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Many people in the food tech ecosystem have reached out to me for my thoughts on Meati’s acquisition and what went wrong. There was real technology at Meati. Incredible work at the bleeding edge of fermentation tech. But Siddhi looked many times and consistently passed. Why? Because we uniquely understand both sides of this equation: deep tech and consumer. And here’s the truth too many overlook: Building a consumer brand is just as hard as building world-class tech. Trying to do both under one roof is nearly impossible. That’s why our strategy is simple. We invest in consumer brands without deep tech, and in deep tech platforms without brands. We call it our “do one thing” policy. Here’s the key insight. If no one wants to buy your tech innovation directly, you’re probably not solving an urgent enough industry problem. And the moment you sell to consumers, you are a consumer brand—and you should be valued like one. Why? • You will exit as a consumer brand • You will compete with other consumer brands • You ARE a consumer brand with a bad corporate cost structure relative to your peers Consumer investors use a different playbook, with different valuation logic driven by exit markets. By that logic, Meati’s brand today might have been worth $20–40 million based on revenue multiples. That they couldn’t get even that tells you how much infrastructure and R&D burn weighs down a brand asset when bundled together. I have nothing but respect for the team at Meati. They executed well on almost everything, except for the demand planning required to justify building at scale. That’s a brutal miss, and I’m sorry it happened to good people. To food tech founders: if you are serious about commercializing through a consumer brand, spin it out. Fund it separately. Let it stand on its own merits. If consumer investors aren’t excited, don’t assume they “don’t get the tech.” Reevaluate the entire strategy. This isn’t just about Meati. It’s a broader warning. Don’t let amazing science fail because you picked the wrong go-to-market path. Melissa Facchina Siddhi Capital

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Lower than 'Other': AI in CPG...read on for context. Super fun and fascinating discussion yesterday at Naturally New York's and JPG Resources - Food & Beverage Innovation's first Scaling Series workshop of the year around a sane approach to AI that’s tailored to food & bev CPG. Stefani Bardin, founder of Unstuck Innovation, NYU prof, and overall bad ass lady, gave us all permission to pursue #SlowAI, which doesn’t mean put your head in the sand and carry on business as usual. It means be smart about using AI tools, consider exactly where your business is at and where you want to be, then find the specific tools that will get you there and, critically, create clear boundaries and protocols for your team on how they're expected to use them. My JPG Resources - Food & Beverage Innovation colleague and top-notch food scientist, Robin Puskas, talked through insights that she’s gathered from a couple of years now delving into the implications of AI platforms for the CPG industry. A truth bomb Robin reported: Food & Beverage ranks below “Other” on a list of rates of AI adoption by industry. But, in the context of an idea like Slow AI, maybe that’s not a bad thing. Our industry is too important--too human?--to follow a “move fast and break things” ethos. We make food. And we’re all trying to figure out how to make it a little better, healthier, more available. Fix it. Don't break it. We wrapped with examples of AI tools designed to specifically address CPG pain points: compliance paperwork collection and maintenance (BruceAI), original product development (Starday Foods), DTC customer service (ChekOut.AI), and turning all your various manually managed spreadsheets into a right-sized ERP system (Kaizntree). Each of these companies is addressing work that is 1) 100% necessary (dare I say, mission critical), but 2-5) boring, prone to human-error, time consuming, and occasionally might involve faxing or handwriting (remember, we’re below 'other'). Sounds like perfect fodder for AI to me. Bottom line IMHO: for our industry, AI means opportunity. Free up human headspace to get more creative, offer more options, and push more boundaries. Your thoughts? (DM me if you’d like to join our next Scaling Series workshop, Feb 11, PR & Comms in a Noisy World | Shark Tank, Press Releases & Influencers: Which Route to Choose & How Far to Go? The Scaling Series is created by Naturally New York and JPG Resources - Food & Beverage Innovation for leaders of growth-stage food & bev CPG companies at ~$10M+/- revenue. Topics: all highly relevant and current, oriented toward problem solving with experts and peers. Logistics: monthly, in person, NYC.)

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Lessons learned from 5-10 turbulent years of VF. VF (Vertical Farming) is a niche part of CEA, but was/is often used as a synonym for it. With all the consequences that entails. This excellent article by Henry Gordon-Smith in The Food Institute illustrates this once again. VF was marketed as an ICT solution for sustainable food production by smart people with a good marketing background, but often with little or no cultivation experience, let alone a well-thought-out sustainable business case. The bottom line is that the investment per square meter of growing space is often far too high in combination with the very high energy consumption, due to the failure to utilize sunlight and heat. This article shows that VF has a future for certain high-value crops in specific market conditions and/or regions where people are willing to pay the extra price. We have been seeing good examples of the propagation of high-value greenhouse vegetables and fruit plants for some time now. Companies such as Logiqs, Artechno, and, more recently, TTAxISO show that VF does indeed have a future. For the time being, however, we see VF as a niche market and not yet ready for large-scale production of fresh greenhouse vegetables and fruit. The lessons learned from this article are, 1. Focus on high-margin, short-shelf-life crops like strawberries, herbs, and microgreens – especially in markets with high willingness to pay. 2. Explore VF-pharma and nutraceutical applications, where environmental control translates into IP and regulatory advantage. 3. Blend greenhouse and VF tech in modular, hybrid systems designed for climate and cost variability. 4. Avoid going too big, too fast. Start with lean, modular operations that validate assumptions before committing to capital-intensive expansions. Invest in market intelligence, not just equipment. Success will come to those who deeply understand crop margins, regional demand, and distribution complexity. Ultimately, it's all about the business case and, within that, a thorough knowledge of growing and marketing the products. ICT helps, of course, but it's often not the deciding factor. #horticulture #sustainability #food #agri #vf #cea #foodinstitute #cea

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Fellow agtech fund managers - we're competing on metrics that don't matter in agriculture while LPs walk away from agtech entirely. Deal count. Celebrity advisors. Media coverage. None of it correlates with farmer adoption or sustainable returns. Sarah Nolet and I just published a piece on what actually moves the needle: building shared credibility in the asset class instead of fighting over slivers of pie. Let's work together. Agtech's next phase of maturity depends on it. Full article in the comments ⬇️

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The food value chain represents more than $9T of market value, yet much of it still runs on paper and pencil passed from one stakeholder to the next. Every year, I put together my thoughts on what I'm specifically excited about in this space, defining food tech as everything from on-farm robotics through the future of food retail. This crucial part of our lives and economy represents enormous opportunity for technological transformation. We've already made investments in several of these specific areas and are on the lookout for more. Three key areas we're particularly focused on: 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 & 𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 - It's not just what's in a truck — we're looking at the entire ecosystem, from product origin & compliance to infrastructure intelligence. The real investment opportunities lie in platforms that connect production capabilities and delivery commitments while modernizing ownership and payment transfers that still operate on antiquated technology. 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 & 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 - The most promising solutions aren't just about selling more product — they're about fundamental improvements in efficiency. We're looking for innovations that maximize resource utilization, create faster feedback loops, and deliver cost-effective customer acquisition while addressing persistent labor shortages. 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 & 𝗥𝗼𝗯𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 - Labor has always been a challenge for the food system, an issue that is currently intensifying. Rather than pursuing complete automation, we prioritize targeted solutions that excel at specific, high-value steps with clear ROI. We seek AI-driven robotics with superior unit economics, computer vision quality assurance, and intelligent distribution systems that solve concrete labor challenges. Food Tech is tough. But here at Bread and Butter Ventures we love it. If you're working on innovations that address any of these challenges, we're always eager to connect and learn more about your vision for the future of food. #LIPostingDayApril

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