The latest news, trends, analysis, interviews and podcasts from the global food and beverage industry

Advanced material company Mi Terro has closed a $1.5 million seed fundraising round from Astanor Ventures and others. Mi Terro has developed technology that enables it to upcycle agricultural waste into food packaging and textile fibres. The new funds will allow the company to scale up production, expand its team and research a new application of its technology: converting plastic waste into protein. Mi Terro uses big data and artificial intelligence to re-engineer food waste at the protein level – creating bio-based materials. "Our ability to manipulate nature's most diverse and abundant building blocks is going to change the way we think about sustainability and offer protein-based solutions to reduce our reliance on plastic across all industries," said Robert Luo, CEO and founder of Mi Terro. Christina Ulardic, partner at Astanor Ventures, said: “We are impressed by the speed and breadth of iterations that Robert and the team have demonstrated using different protein sources for different prototype applications”. The company has also signed paid pilots with AB InBev and Unilever to create detergent and laundry pods made from beer waste.