Hello, it's me! You probably thought this podcast was dead and it kind of is, but I am back for a special episode and potentially a few more in the following months as part of a celebratory series of interviews for the 10-year anniversary of AgFunder as well as the $1bn Climate Corp acquisition by Monsanto, a deal that largely propelled the industry into being!

Hello Future Food listeners! Today I'm sharing a special preview of a new podcast I've been enjoying called What’s Your Problem? from Pushkin Industries. What’s Your Problem? explains the problems really smart people are trying to solve right now, from creating a drone delivery service to building a car that can truly drive itself. Jacob Goldstein, former host of Planet Money, talks with innovators about the future they’re trying to build – and the problems they have to solve to get there.

In this episode, I speak to Demir Vangelov, who’s the CEO of Soylent, the company many of you might know for making meal replacements drinks for busy entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. But the now-profitable company has shifted its target consumer towards middle America.

Before your eyes start to roll, fertilizers are cool! We wouldn't be able to eat what we do without them.

AFN chief editor Louisa Burwood-Taylor talks to Sandhya Sriram, co-founder and CEO of Singaporean cell-cultured seafood startup Shiok Meats.

Welcome to the fifth edition of the very popular Future Food News Review, with foodtech, agtech and food systems' leading journalists. This week's headlines covered the spate of cyber hacking experienced by the food sector including meatpacker JBS, the rise of cashierless checkout technology and its social impact, a deeper look at plant-based meat and dairy alternatives and their impact on the environment, how New York delivery workers are rewriting the rules of gig work, how food delivery behemoths like DoorDash and Grubhub appeal to small restaurants, often to their detriment, Tesla's recent restaurant license, and the future for vertical farming in the wake of Bowery's $300m raise.

Welcome to the fourth edition of the highly popular Future Food News Review, with foodtech, agtech and food systems' leading journalists. This week's headlines covered Restaurant worker exploitation and fast food's recruitment struggle, Farmworker exploitation and the dangerous journey Mexican farmworkers take each day during Covid-19, How recipe website Epicurious and high-end New York restaurant Eleven Madison Park dropped meat, then an in-depth conversation about alternative proteins including questions for cultured meat companies and UPSIDE Food's Whole Foods investment and partnership. We also covered how and why regenerative agriculture needs a reckoning and the emergence of right-wing coffee companies.

There's certainly been a fair amount of hype about vertical farming over the years. And while there's still a long way to go before this ag sector becomes a true alternative to outdoor farming, it feels as if we're reaching an inflection point where sci-fi dreams are becoming reality. Bowery is a case in point.

The pressure is on to find new ways for farmers to protect their crops from pests, disease and weeds. Not only is the environmental impact of conventional farming practices increasingly in the spotlight with consumers and lawmakers demanding change, but the number of options are running out; there's only so many chemicals you can create for the task. Step up microbes.

This week, Swedish startup Stockeld Dreamery launched its first plant-based cheese product, the Stockeld Chunk. I spoke to cofounder and CEO Sorosh Tavakoli about the launch and did a taste test during the Zoom call.

Welcome to the third edition of the Future Food News Review, with foodtech, agtech and food systems' leading journalists. This week's headlines were: Amazon's new private label food brand Aplenty, US government climate policies for agriculture, a $40bn SPAC for Southeast Asia delivery startup Grab, Increased funding to plant-based startups is not cutting meat consumption, Food workers are still getting Covid-19, Restaurants break up with single-use plastic, Mushroom-sourced bacon raises $40m, Hazard pay and grocery store closures.

Welcome to the second edition of the Future Food News Review! This week's top headlines included: plant-based meat maker Impossible Foods' rumored $10bn IPO, a Japanese company's launch of a gene-edited tomato, an in-depth look at vegan cheese, the potential for solar panels to improve the productivity of farmland, a major restaurant tech acquisition, celebrities investing in bottled water and the romanticization of America's agriculture history.

Roberta Barbieri is VP of Global Water and Environmental Solutions at PepsiCo. We dig into the corporate's January announcement that it will have net-zero emissions by 2040 and reduce its absolute emissions 40% by 2030.

The weekly Future Food News Review features leading journalists in foodtech and agtech sharing and discussing their top headlines of the week, hosted on Clubhouse.

Continuing on from the theme of what I missed while I was off on maternity leave at the end of 2020, the industry had a major announcement and that was when Eat Just, the company first known for its plant-based egg-less mayo, was the first company in the world to get regulatory approval for cell cultivated meat and to serve it in a restaurant. It managed to do this in Singapore with its cultivated chicken product, which it served to children in the form of chicken nuggets. So in this episode, I speak to Josh Tetrick, founder and CEO of Eat Just.

Indoor agriculture is a competitive space. While there is so much whitespace for vertical farms and hi-tech greenhouses to grow and sell produce into local food systems across the globe, those that are venture capital-backed have been fighting for investor attention for years with lots of big announcements often lacking substance. But who is really leading the race?

The time for automation in food and agriculture is now. But are the robots ready to be unleashed?

Covid-19 started in Asia, and the region was the first to feel the social and economic impacts of the disease as it spread worldwide. It’s also where businesses, entrepreneurs, investors, and governments have spent the most time dealing with Covid-19 and its effects. Their insights and experience – and the strategies they’ve adopted to ride out the pandemic – could prove invaluable to agrifood players not just in Asia, but elsewhere in the world, too. This is the recording of our second webinar.

In this episode of Future Food, which I co-hosted with my wonderful colleague Lauren Stine, our reporter and resident rancher, we talk to Lew Moorman and Nick Honegger of Soilworks, a newly-created investment group focused on regenerative agriculture. Nick and Lew founded SoilWorks after working together at Scaleworks, the B2B SaaS focused investment organization founded by Lew.

The importance of protein in our diets is hardly breaking news. When you combine the developing world’s desire for more meat, with the over-consumption of meat and protein in the developed world, alongside a growing desire in multiple corners of the world to eat fewer animal-based products, there’s clear pressure on the globe’s protein supply. Sara Eckhouse & Victor Friedberg from FoodShot Global speak about their hopes for a more precise protein industry.