5@5: Investors get bullish for food delivery | What will happen to lab-grown seafood?

Investors are craving food delivery companies

The market for food delivery is exploding, and investors are taking notice. Companies such as DoorDash, UberEats, Blue Apron, Grubhub and Instacart are all pillars in the $3.5 billion food delivery industry, with many restaurant executives and big grocers viewing delivery as a critical sales driver down the road. Which players will come out on top remains to be seen, but as investor Brita Rosenheim explains, there won’t be much room for smaller players. Read more at The Wall Street Journal ...

Lab-grown seafood and lab-grown meat aren’t that different—so why might they end up with very different regulations?

Cell-cultured fish, poultry and beef could be available for purchase in only a few short years, but the FDA and USDA have thus far completely neglected to include the former in their many conversations regarding the labeling and policing of this emerging industry. This is troubling because lab-grown seafood will take up an equal part of the territory, and many startups have already secured funding for the manufacturing of products such as lab-grown tuna and salmon. Read more at Slate …

Walmart forms plan to battle Amazon

Walmart foresees a 35 percent growth rate for its online business by 2020, and hopes to position itself in the meantime as a formidable competitor of Amazon’s low price and fast shipping model. The battle plan includes the use of a crowd sourcing grocery and goods delivery model, free shipping for “Plus” members and a wider variety of goods available for online grocery pickup. Read more at Food Institute  …

5 major crops in the crosshairs of climate change

These five crops, along with their growers, manufacturers and retailers, will be forced to contend with the effects of climate change in the near future. Potential solutions have included moving crops to higher and cooler locales, but even that kind of extraneous effort may not save some of these major agricultural staples from dying off should climate change progress at its current rate. Read more at NPR …

Beyond Meat vegan food company taps investment banks for IPO

The uncanny realness of Beyond Meat’s meat alternative products has been a huge boon for the 40 percent of American omnivores that are trying to incorporate more plant-based options into their diets. Now the company has hired J.P Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse for an initial public offering, making this IPO the first public stock offering in the recent history of the carnivore-friendly meat product industry. Read more at CNBC …