5@5: JBS buys lab meat firm | Online shopping environmental toll | Cell-based seafood growth

Brazil's JBS agrees to buy Spanish lab meat firm in $100M push into sector

JBS is officially a player in the cultivated meat market. The Brazilian meatpacker recently revealed it had agreed to buy Spanish company BioTech Foods, while also creating a new research and development center in Brazil for lab meat as part of a $100 million push into the fast-growing sector. It added the Spanish deal would include $41 million assigned to building a new plant there to scale up production, and the accord was still reliant on regulatory approval. Reuters reports.

Shopping online surged during COVID-19. Now the environmental costs are becoming clearer

Cities, climate scientists and companies are beginning the slow process of quantifying the pandemic-related sharp rise in e-commerce's environmental impact. For many brands and retailers, third-party suppliers and customers account for the majority of their climate pie, and most emerging research suggests that ordering goods for delivery is more beneficial for the environment because it means people are making fewer individual shopping trips. However, the number of items purchased in a single visit, the amount of packaging and the efficiency of last-mile delivery could all easily tip the scales in the other direction, per Politico.

No bones, no scales, no eyeballs: appetite grows for cell-based seafood

Will it ever make economic sense to produce cell-grown seafood products? Nature explains that while growth in the lab seafood sector is accelerating, only one startup is anywhere close to bringing its products to market. But because global demand for protein is set to skyrocket as the population increases, experts say that the cell-based seafood market will play a significant role in preventing future overfishing and will also help shoppers avoid contaminants in their fish such as microplastics and pollutants from environmental contamination. Currently, of all the seafood consumed in the world, about half is raised in aquaculture and the other half is wild caught.

Amazon unveils ‘curbside recyclable’ grocery delivery packaging

The vice president of Amazon Grocery this week revealed that perishables deliveries from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market now will come in “curbside recyclable” insulated paper packaging. According to Supermarket News, the shift to all curbside-recyclable insulated packaging will cut back on material waste, replacing about 735,000 pounds of plastic film, 3.15 million pounds of natural cotton fiber and 15 million pounds of non-recyclable mixed plastic annually. The company's ultimate goal is to send less material to landfills and more back into the circular economy loop.

CVS to close 900 stores over 3 years

CVS plans to close 900 stores over the next three years, a number that amounts to almost 10% of its U.S. locations, while adding more health services at remaining locations. “The company has been evaluating changes in population, consumer buying patterns and future health needs to ensure it has the right kinds of stores in the right locations for consumers and for the business,” CVS said in a recent statement. The largest U.S. pharmacy chain also revealed that retail and pharmacy chief, Neela Montgomery, is leaving the company a year after taking the post, and that it plans to offer jobs elsewhere in the company to employees affected by the forthcoming closures. Learn more at The Wall Street Journal.

Editor's note: Thanks for reading today's 5@5 news curation! We're taking a break over Thanksgiving week but will be back with your favorite daily natural news curation on Monday, Nov. 29.