Venadar has tracked our favorite innovations in CPG throughout 2022, highlighting one startup per month that we felt was the best-in-class innovator. Out of those featured brands, we’re pleased to announce our first annual Venadar Innovation of the Year – CPG winner: Anina Culinary Art, which had the spotlight on Venadar.com in September. Anina is a food tech company creating ready-to-consume meal capsules that are made from “ugly” produce to reduce food waste.
Their patent-pending technology starts with that fresh “ugly” produce and turns it into a laminate, which is layered with other ingredients to create the Anina capsule. The patent application covers the process, the composition of the laminate, and the cooking process.
Food waste has been on our radar since roughly 2017 – when we worked with a Fortune 500 CPG company to identify the best startups working in the sector and helped illuminate the overall ecosystem around food waste initiatives.
According to a Crunchbase article, globally, approximately 30% of all food is lost or wasted. In the U.S., meanwhile, it’s estimated that up to 40% of all food produced goes uneaten. It’s an area rich in startup activity and funding. A Crunchbase sampling of companies with business models tied to cutting food waste shows $1.85 billion in investment to date for those who raised funding in the past couple years.
Anina is emerging as a top innovator in food waste and started distribution of their meal capsules in Israel. The brand initially targeted Millennials and Gen Z in a DTC and online capacity, eventually expanding to specialty and natural retail stores. They are currently scaling production with the goal of global distribution. The company raised $3.3M of seed funding in September.
We can’t wait to see what this brand does next as it rescues “ugly” produce from landfills and turns it into beautiful, healthful meal capsules.
For more about Anina, please visit the full post here.
Venadar is at the forefront of CPG innovation and trends, tracking emerging and growing new categories, and identifying the best-in-class startups for partnership, investment, or acquisition. Contact us today to see how we can support your external innovation practice.