Lausanne company Beelong has made it easier than ever for shoppers to make informed and environmentally sound decisions about the foods they buy. Their system, run by 15 staff members, has already analysed more than 150,000 food products and categorised them based on their eco credentials. Now Beelong’s carefully developed Eco-score, based on the environmental impact of food, has been applied to over 2,000 Coop products online, and will soon also be available on food packaging in store.

The Beelong Eco-score – developed by the Vaud startup of the same name – evaluates the impact of products on the environment. By using a uniform set of criteria, the classification system is designed to simplify the shopping process for eco-conscious consumers who want to make the best possible choices for the planet. Now available on more than 2,000 own-brand goods on the Coop website, consumers can use the simple scale, which runs from a maximum of A+ to a low of E-, to make informed purchasing decisions. 

Previously, the implementation of eco labels in supermarkets has been hampered by a lack of reliable information. “There’s a lot of information available on food products, but it’s not displayed in a uniform way,” says cofounder Charlotte de La Baume. “With different labels for each product, it has historically been very difficult to compare them. The Beelong Eco-score makes it possible to compare all food products on the same basis, while enhancing existing labels.” Beelong’s joint cofounder Mathias Faigaux added: “Because Beelong evaluates all products using the same scale regardless of their category, our system enables the comparison of both similar products with one another, and the comparison of products from totally different categories.”

Analysing multiple criteria 

Using a reliable and stringent method of analysis – which is constantly evolving and updated by Beelong’s experts in real time – the Eco-score evaluates multiple criteria related to a food’s ingredients: from the carbon emitted in their cultivation and transport to a crop’s water usage. Other criteria include the quality of the soil a crop is grown in and/or the welfare of animals involved in its manufacture, alongside many more. Further criteria are then applied to the finished product – these vary from the impact of the packaging to the sustainability policy of the processing company.

A turning point for Beelong

The introduction of the Eco-score at Coop brings Beelong new visibility, a boost for the Swiss company founded in Lausanne eight years ago. Beelong is already well established with professionals in the Swiss catering and food ecosystem; the company works with around sixty partner brands, including Hero, Narimpex  and Ditzler, as well as with several hundred private and public restaurants. It also advises private companies, municipalities, cantons and the federal government on the development of sustainable food strategies. 

Visit the Beelong website to find out more, and view the Eco-scores currently online at coop.ch. 

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Valley Partner PowerAPI, a tech-enabled hospitality startup, has raised $5.5 million (CHF 5.25 million) in a seed round led by Prediction Capital. The team is now building its most sought-after feature, ‘Intelligence’, which will push smart notifications & actionable insights to allow F&B merchants to seamlessly manage their business based on their tech stack, goals & growth plans.

The backstory

Launched in 2019, PowerAPI co-founders Andrea Tassistro and Edouard Thimon, who have been lifelong friends since secondary school, noticed the increasing demand for digital tools leading merchants to use an average of 18 apps & softwares to manage their business. These tools are all independent, leaving managers with the challenge of decentralised operations and fragmented data across their systems. The solution was to build a single operating system and unified API.

Merchants must first connect their systems and tools through a click-and-connect Integration Hub, where over +250 integrations are now available. This data, centralised and presented on an analytics dashboard, equips them with precise insights to seamlessly manage their entire operations from reviews to orders, reservations, suppliers, stocks, marketing and much more. The new Intelligence feature offers a new way of making informed decisions, decreasing admin time, and increasing revenues, through actionable insights and notifications.

Next steps

The funding received will enable the company to further develop its technology and IT team, and to start the implementation of machine learning algorithms to provide merchants with intelligent push notifications & actions to reduce inefficiencies and improve their processes. Businesses that use analytics can boost their profits by 8% to 10%, but only 12% of companies currently leverage the power of data. PowerAPI hopes that with the new Intelligence feature, more merchants will now be able to do so.

Andrea Tassistro, Founder & CEO, said: “By opening our API we provide any software, platform, or marketplace with a fully integrated, automated, and now Intelligent, infrastructure. This fulfills our mission to empower restaurants and merchants with a single tool and interface to manage their entire tech stack, operations and marketing seamlessly.”

Find out more in our feature article or visit the PowerAPI website.

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Mirai Foods, the Swiss cultivated meat startup from Zurich, has partnered with Rügenwalder Mühle, the sustainability pioneer and meat alternatives market leader in Germany, to develop a hybrid product. 

Rügenwalder Mühle plans to build on their positioning as an innovation leader in the area of vegetarian and vegan meat alternatives by incorporating cultivated meat into their portfolio. The family run business from Bad Zwischenahn (Germany) will partner with the Swiss cultivated meat startup, Mirai Foods to create a new, hybrid product including plant-based proteins and cultivated fat.

Pooling knowledge and skills for sustainable innovation

The two partners will combine their respective knowledge and skills to develop this innovative product. Rügenwalder Mühle will provide its know-how in the area of plant-based meat alternatives, while the Mirai Foods team will share their knowledge around cultivated fat. Mirai has already developed technologies that enable the production of high quality muscle and fat tissue by utilizing bioreactors.

The final product will be a combination of plant-based proteins and cultivated beef fat – a real innovation. The cultivated fat will replace coconut oil, an ingredient currently used in many vegan and vegetarian meat alternatives, and will significantly enhance the taste of the final product. 

“It’s the fat in a burger that gives beef the distinctive taste of grilled meat. Until today, it has not been possible to recreate this taste with plant-based fat alternatives,” says Patrick Bühr, Head of Research and Development at Rügenwalder Mühle. The new product will be designed for environmentally conscious flexitarians and meat lovers. The cultivated beef will be completely free of fetal bovine serum (FBS).

“The partnership with Rügenwalder Mühle underscores our claim to leadership in the area of cultivated beef. We are delighted that Rügenwalder appreciates our innovative power and we are looking forward to developing new products together, which will convince even the greatest meat lovers,” says Christoph Mayr, CEO and co-founder of Mirai Foods. 

“Through the collaboration with Mirai, we will expand our vegan protein competence with the area of cultivated meat. By combining plant-based proteins and cultivated fat, we close the last remaining gap in terms of taste and continue to defend our claim to co-shape the change in nutritional preferences and to be ‘open for innovation’,” elaborates Patrick Bühr.

Long journey ahead for cultivated meat in Germany

The development of one of the first hybrid products in Germany is part of Rügenwalder Mühle’s journey towards more sustainable meat consumption. Cultivated meat is grown outside of the animal’s body, meaning that no cow has to be slaughtered to produce the product.

“Cultivated meat is one of the largest levers for sustainable meat consumption. The approach significantly reduces the drawbacks of conventional meat production like land usage, water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions,“ explains Patrick Bühr. “However, the necessary regulatory frameworks and approvals still need to be set in Germany and also in the EU. We expect our product to come to the market in 2025 at the earliest. Nevertheless, we are starting with the development today, so that we are ready to act when the regulatory approval is granted.”

Find out more by visiting the Mirai Foods website.

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