Future Food Finance launches FoodTech and AgTech index

By John Reynolds on Thursday 14 October 2021

Future Food Finance launches FoodTech and AgTech index
Image source: Future Food Finance launches FoodTech and AgTech index
CommentaryFood DeliveryGrocery DeliveryAlternative proteinPlant-Based FoodTech

The Future Food Finance FoodTech Index is an essential tracking service for both retail and institutional investors looking to invest in a targeted manner into the best performing public companies.

Future Food Finance has launched the most comprehensive index, tracking businesses innovating within the FoodTech and AgTech space.

The Future Food Finance FoodTech Index provides an invaluable tracking service for both retail and institutional investors looking to invest in a targeted manner into the best-performing public companies.

David Stevenson, Future Food Finance co-founder, said: “Our focus is on the next food and agricultural revolution underway over the next two decades, powered by two, inter-related forces, the need to combat climate change as well as the digitisation of the food chain. This index is specifically designed to track the most active companies within this broad spectrum.”

The index is being launched amid a societal shift towards technology disruptors in the FoodTech and AgTech space, characterised by rising consumer demand for zippy delivery services or the shift towards eating healthier, more sustainable, alternative proteins.

Meanwhile, governments around the world are acutely aware of the pressing demand for new eco-friendly agriculture and food production methods, amid the ticking time bomb of climate change.

Included in the index are some of the world's most talked-about publicly listed companies, such as Swedish alternative milk provider Oatly, US plant-based meat company Beyond Meat, and DoorDash, the largest delivery firm in the US.

It also includes arguably less well known companies, such as US-headquartered Kalera, one of the fastest-growing (and largest) vertical farming firms in the world as well as Oisix ra Daichi, the Japanese organic and additive-free food provider.

Amid the investor frenzy surrounding these sectors, some of the companies in the Future Food Index have enjoyed recent jumps in share prices.

For example, in the six months to October 1 this year, shares in DoorDash have surged by more than 50 per cent while shares in HelloFresh, the Berlin-based meal kit firm, have risen by over 20 per cent in the same period.

In all, Future Food Finance estimates that already something close to $100 billion has been invested in over 1,250 private, venture capital-based deals in this space in the last few years – and that number is growing all the time.

However, this opportunity has now broadened out beyond the private market with Oatly and Deliveroo recently listing on the public markets, plus an uptick in FoodTech related SPACs.

With the Alternative Protein market already valued at nearly $300 billion and the Vertical Farming market forecasted to reach $300 billion by 2030 and both set to continue to grow exponentially beyond, the scale of the opportunity is vast.

Alternative Protein and Vertical Farming are just two of the subsectors tracked by the Index. The other subsectors are Food Delivery, Grocery Delivery, Retail Delivery Meal Kit Services, Ingredient Producers, FoodTech investment, Cloud/Dark Kitchens, Digitised Agriculture and Food Waste.