The report, ‘Future Insights: The Food Tech report 2021’, found that 2021 was set to become an all-time record year for investment in vegan companies.
More than £90m in funding has been secured by vegan food tech companies in 2021, racing ahead of the £64m raised from equity funding in 2020 – via 51 deals.
The report also looked at specific sectors within food tech, outlining the number of active, high-growth companies per sector.
Agriculture in focus
Top of the list was precision agriculture with 35 companies, followed by services-on-demand (26), artificial intelligence (23) and Urban Farming (13).
This industry focus on agriculture reflected the use of food tech to combat climate change and resource wastage, according to Huckletree. The report highlighted a number of companies creating novel ways to access food or new and more sustainable production methods.
Leo Medley, general manager at Huckletree White City, commented: “With the world’s population predicted to hit nearly 10bn by 2050, food tech innovation is becoming a moral necessity.
Guided by consumer attitudes
“From the rise of meat alternatives and groceries-on-demand to AI-powered agritech, the food tech sector’s future is increasingly guided by consumer attitudes towards conscious consumption, climate, and convenience – and our report highlights the companies and trends that are leading the way.”
Huckletree also looked into the regions in the UK that could be considered hubs of food tech activity by measuring the amount of active high-growth food tech startups per region.
London had the highest density of companies (234), with Westminster, Islington, and Camden emerging as the most prominent boroughs. Outside of London, Edinburgh came in second place with 20 companies, followed by the City of Bristol (10), Birmingham (9), Glasgow (8) and Leeds (8).
Meanwhile, Givaudan innovation director Thomas Ullram discussed alternative protein trends and the launch of a new Protein Hub in our exclusive podcast interview.
