Honey comes from bees. But there's a startup who is aiming to change that.
What’s happening:
- Food technology startup MeliBio has landed a major distribution partnership in Austria and Switzerland for their plant based honey that is made entirely without bees
By the numbers:
- MeliBio’s new partnership with ALDI is worth $10 million across 4 years
- The partnership will enable ALDI to utilize MeliBio’s plant based honey in their own brands and reach 75,000 stores across all of Europe
The big idea:
- Producing honey from bees is becoming increasingly challenging due to the decline of bee populations which are a consequence of viruses, parasites and climate change
- Leveraging precision fermentation to produce honey without bees enables MeliBio to be highly competitive in terms of cost and scalability in comparison to traditional honey
Going deeper:
- There has been a acceleration of venture capital funding and cultural adoption for food being produced by precision fermentation and cellular agriculture, including the notable recent regulatory approvals for cell cultivated meat and animal free dairy
