Lotte Ventures Completes Selection of 'Future Diet' 1st Batch Startups... "Supporting Food Tech Innovation"

Participants are taking photos at the Future Diet Phase 1 orientation. (Photo by Lotte Ventures).

Selection of Companies with Innovative Technologies such as Cultured Meat, Alternative Meat, and Natural Plant Bodies

[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Kim] Lotte Ventures announced on the 21st that it has selected six startups as the first cohort of 'Future Diet (未來食團),' an accelerating program specialized for food tech startups.

Future Diet is a food tech specialized accelerating program jointly operated by Lotte Group, the F&B business platform 'WeCook,' and the Korea Agricultural Technology Commercialization Foundation. Since opening applications on April 14, Future Diet selected food tech startups in four fields: ▲Future Food (current food and beverage alternatives) ▲Medi Food (food medicine, functional foods) ▲Alternative Ingredients (solutions for ingredient supply and environmental issues) ▲Packaging (environmentally friendly and sustainable packaging).

'Pangse,' which develops high-end cultured meat that reproduces texture using advanced 3D bio-printing technology, 'WeMeat,' which produces mushroom-based fully plant-based chicken alternative meat using high-moisture meat analog (HMMA) technology, 'Lafique,' which develops food and beverages utilizing core technologies such as natural plant body softening technology (SofTech), 'Newcher,' which produces stickers that monitor cumulative temperature during distribution and storage of fresh foods, 'NT,' which provides a seasonal vegetable curation service (Namultoday) based on shared farms, and 'Hanwooyeon,' which has smart meat aging technology that uses big data and artificial intelligence to turn lower-grade Korean beef into low-fat aged beef, were selected.

The six selected companies are expected to attract investments ranging from 50 million to 200 million KRW from Lotte Ventures and will be able to utilize the research and development (R&D) infrastructure of Lotte Central Research Institute through a 12-week nurturing program. They will also receive support for product commercialization and mass production from Lotte Group affiliates such as Lotte Confectionery, Lotte Chilsung, Lotte Foods, and Lotte GRS. Lotte Central Research Institute plans to significantly alleviate startups’ shortages of food resources and cost burdens. It will provide free access to expensive basic scientific equipment necessary for initial development, as well as nutritional component analysis, physical property analysis equipment, and packaging testing for quality control of products.

Youngmin Jeon, CEO of Lotte Ventures, said, "Through Future Diet, Lotte aims to move away from the traditional R&D approach centered on large corporations within the existing food and beverage industry and create new models and success stories through a C&D (Connect & Development) approach where startups and large corporations seek coexistence and innovation."