Apr 23, 2021
SoilMate’s Weekly News Digest #11
Hello there! We just collected some AgriTech and FoodTech News of the week!
On Earth Day 2021, Climate Neutral announced that it had signed 230 brands for its zero certification.
Yesterday, a non-profit organization from San Francisco announced that since its launch in 2019, it has certified 230 brands as «carbon neutral” to date — 14% of which are in the food and beverage industry. Each certified company must then compensate its emissions according to climate-neutral standards and develop an action plan to reduce its exposure within the next one to two years.
It is more than double the number of brands certified by Climate Neutral to date, which he estimates provides carbon offsets of 700,000 tons. It states that an additional 125 brands intend to achieve the certification by the end of 2021.
For the first time, the potato was planted with a field robot in the Netherlands.
The trial was conducted with the Agrointelli Robotti, an autonomous tool carrier that can perform various actions independently.
Robotti has just been able to pull out a partially filled seeder that weighs approximately 2.4 tons. The robot had some difficulty with the seeder, especially in a resting state, said Bram Weldhuisen, a robot specialist from Wageningen University.
It was a part of a research project to find out if it is possible to grow potatoes more efficiently with less heavy machinery.
Scientists convert soy biomass into batteries.
Scientists at the Kansas Polymer Research Center have invented a new, more sustainable kind of battery. The equally good news is that they invented it by transforming a product — abundant in the heart of the country: soy. It is the residue from the soybean harvest.
“We were using the stems, the leaves, the shells — things that would otherwise have no commercial value — to produce activated carbon material, and suddenly that has tremendous value,” said Associate Professor of Chemistry Ram Gupta, the chief researcher for the project. «Soybean is an incredibly universal culture, and the development of new ways of using all parts of soybean is an exciting opportunity, providing a bright future, which we know is coming».
Cell-cultured meat from EatJust is now available for takeout.
We have mentioned EatJust in our earlier digest as the first company in the world to get regulatory approval to produce cell-grown meat in Singapore. Today, the Singaporeans will be able to use the Delivery Hero-owned app Foodpanda to order takeout from 1880, which became the first restaurant in the world to serve cell-based meat from EatJust as a regular menu item late last year.
In recognition of the anticipated environmental benefits of cellular-level meat, Foodpanda will pack the dishes in «green» boxes made of bamboo fiber and resin from environmentally friendly sources.
