CULT Food Science Corp said it has made a strategic investment into Compound Foods, a San Francisco, California-based company working to produce a cell-based coffee alternative that tastes, smells and looks just like traditional coffee.
The investment platform focused on cellular agriculture said it is aligned with Compound in its quest to increase global food security by providing more stability to the production of key food commodities like coffee.
“It is essential to our future as humans on Earth to invest and support companies that not only have innovative ideas but also are motivated to make the world a better place, which we believe Compound encompasses fully,” CULT CEO Lejjy Gafour said in a statement.
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“The daily coffee ritual in most places around the word is extremely taxing on the planet, which causes wild price fluctuations in the commodity from time to time. At the same time, coffee is culturally important for many people. Compound’s solution is expected to help mitigate commodity fluctuations and help the environment, while still allowing us to enjoy coffee every day,” Gafour added.
The coffee industry is worth billions of dollars but it is known to cause many environmental and ecological problems, CULT said, noting that one square inch of rainforest is destroyed for every cup of coffee that is consumed.
“Chemical build-up in soils and rainforest canopy loss are consequences of mass coffee production, which lead to chemical run-off that pollutes rivers and land, and also cause aquatic wildlife to die and arable land to degrade. With such a negative impact on the environment, the quest for alternative methods of coffee production has begun,” it added.
Compound was founded in San Francisco in 2020 by Maricel Saenz, who grew up in Costa Rica, and is on a mission to find a solution for the negative aspects of coffee production. Saenz has raised more than $5.3 million and has also been featured on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 – Social Impact for 2022, CULT noted.
To address climate change and ethical coffee farming practices, Compound is dedicated to reducing water use and carbon emissions in its production process, as well as preserving the coffee industry,” the company said.
“CULT’s management team is excited about the company’s investment in Compound. Similar to CULT, Compound is driven to find solutions to improve our current food situation, while decreasing the environmental impact and daily demands of the global food supply chain,” CULT CEO Gafour added.
CULT is advancing the development of novel technologies to provide a sustainable, environmental, and ethical solution to the global factory farming crisis. The first-of-its-kind platform in North America, CULT aims to provide individual investors with unprecedented exposure to the most innovative start-up, private or early-stage cultivated meat, cell-based dairy and other cultured food companies around the world.
Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com