LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (January 31, 2022) Today, the $15M XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion competition is thrilled to announce three more teams earned semifinalist status, raising the total to 31 teams. The semifinalists are competing to produce chicken breast or fish fillet alternatives that replicate or outperform conventional chicken and fish in: access, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, nutrition, as well as taste and texture.
The three new teams to join the XPRIZE Feed The Next Billion semifinals include:
Aqua Cultured Foods, New School Foods, and UPSIDE Foods filed their technical submissions within the Late Registration window (June 7, 2021 – December 15, 2021), which provided all interested teams a final opportunity to enter XPRIZE Feed The Next Billion.
“The three new semifinalists bring appealing and unique concepts to XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion,” said Caroline Kolta, XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion Program Lead. ”We can’t wait for teams to share their prototypes by the end of year, and we’re confident this competition will lead towards a more environmentally sustainable path to meeting emerging demand for meat products.”
All 31 semifinalists were selected by the competition’s independent panel of judges based on their technical submissions. To learn more about the initial semifinalist announcement and meet the rest of the teams, visit here.
In addition to the new semifinalists, XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion recently partnered with Blue Horizon, Future Food-Tech, Seeker, and World Central Kitchen to aid competing teams in a variety of forms, ranging from awareness building, mentorship to gratis or discounted services.
Over the next year, semifinalists will work closely with the competition’s ecosystem and sponsors, which include ASPIRE and The Tony Robbins Foundation, as they begin to develop the first iteration of their products. From the semifinalist teams, up to 10 Finalist teams will be chosen based on the merit of their technical solution prototypes towards the end of 2022 and will split a milestone award of $2.5 million. Finalist teams will enter one last round of solution development before final judging which will award one grand prize team a prize of $7 million, second & third place prizes of $2 and $1 million respectively, and a bonus prize of $2 million. The winning teams will need to create consistent cuts of structured chicken breast or fish fillet analogs of 115 gram or four ounces that replicate the sensory properties, versatility, and nutritional profile of conventional chicken or fish.