Future

sweetgreen to Acquire Boston-based Spyce to Scale the Future of Healthy Fast Food | Business

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug 24, 2021–

sweetgreen, the mission-driven brand serving healthy food at scale, announces today its plans to acquire Spyce, the Boston-based restaurant company powered by automation.

The acquisition will allow sweetgreen to reimagine healthy fast food with even better quality, consistency, and efficiency.

“Spyce and sweetgreen have a shared purpose,” said Jonathan Neman, co-founder and CEO of sweetgreen. “We built sweetgreen to connect more people to real food and create healthy fast food at scale for the next generation, and Spyce has built state-of-the-art technology that perfectly aligns with that vision. By joining forces with their best-in-class team, we will be able to elevate our team member experience, provide a more consistent customer experience and bring real food to more communities.”

Sweetgreen is determining when and where they will introduce Spyce’s technology into its restaurants. The main drivers for the acquisition are:

  • PEOPLE:
    • sweetgreen team members will be able to focus more on preparation and hospitality moments, while having the opportunity to work with state-of-the-art technology
    • Invest more in training and development to support team members to become Head Coaches. Interested team members will be able to develop technology-facing skills to operate and maintain Spyce technology
  • CUSTOMERS:
    • Generate faster and more consistent orders, creating an even more seamless customer experience and furthering sweetgreen’s position as a forward thinking, fast casual restaurant
    • sweetgreen to further enhance their menu of healthy options beyond warm bowls, salad, and sides, all the while maintaining the same craveability and convenience that
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The Future is Fat: The Startups Looking to Fatten up Vegan Food – vegconomist

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Research shows vast swathes of the global population are turning to plant-based for a healthier diet, with vegan food associated with a wide array of health benefits. On the other hand, however, researchers have concluded that many consumers simply find processed animal-based foods too tasty to give up. 

According to Phil Morle from plant-based industry investor Main Sequence; to “unlock the mysteries of fats and create animal-free fats” is “essential for the future of the industry”. Fat holds the key to flavour, and creating viable, healthy and tasty vegan fats is the latest innovation frontier.

With this in mind, vegconomist takes a look at the fattiest players in the alt meat sphere:  

77 Foods 

After being named by Unilever as the winner of its Innovation Challenge, French startup 77 Foods has continued to develop its plant-based fat using sunflower oil to create an adipose tissue that closely resembles pork fat. Through this development, 77 foods have created a “mind-blowing” plant-based bacon which 92% of participants in a blind test preferred to conventional pork bacon, according to the brand. 

77 Foods bacon
© 77 Foods

Hoxton Farms

Hoxton Farms, the UK’s first cell-cultured fat startup, raised £2.7 million of seed round funding this year. Combining cell biology and mathematical modelling, Hoxton Farms is making cruelty-free and sustainable fat to replace conventional vegetable fats used by plant-based producers. 

“We wanted to bring together our skills to address a pressing problem: how to satisfy a growing demand for meat without compromising on

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Trending: Could Food Waste Be the Future of Fashion?

A recent study analyzes agricultural waste streams in Asia and charts a roadmap for establishing alternative textile value streams at scale; while Lenzing puts this into practice with a lyocell fiber made from orange pulp and wood
fibers.

Ag waste-based textiles a sustainable fashion solution poised for growth


A farmer gathers rice straw | Image credit: DoDo Phanthamaly/Pexels

As the circular apparel market is projected to reach $77
billion
in the next five years and new circular textile
innovations
seem to pop up weekly, a recent study shows that there are enough usable
agricultural residue streams from South and Southeast Asia alone for
widescale production of upcycled natural fiber textiles.

Spinning Future
Threads
— a joint report from the Institute for Sustainable Communities, the World
Resources Institute (WRI) and Wageningen University and Research
(WUR), commissioned by the Laudes Foundation — analyzed large quantities
of agricultural residues in eight countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia,
India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and
Vietnam. The research focused on South and Southeast Asia, because these
regions are known for both their production of crop waste and textiles.

As the report points out, current textile production processes have disastrous
effects on the environment. More than 60 percent of fibers used in apparel are
oil-based and place a burden on natural resources due to unchecked,
unsustainable production. Similarly, natural fibers such as conventional
cotton
— the second-most widely used textile fiber — rely on intensive agrochemical

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