Lessons learned from 5 years of food tech investing

Enough with vertical farming, AI platforms and sugar replacements. Here are the startup pitches actually capturing venture capital’s attention, according to PeakBridge's Yoni Glickman.

What happened

After some $8 billion deployed, wild overvaluations and countless high-profile bankruptcies, the easy money era of food technology is over. Good riddance. What we need isn't more capital-chasing science projects; it's frameworks that separate real opportunities from expensive experiments.

I've spent north of 20 years in the food industry, involved in over 50 transactions both as a corporate leader and a PE investor. Reflecting on the past five years of food tech investing leads me to one conclusion: If we look past the wreckage, we now seem to be set up for some of the most significant opportunities this sector has ever had.

Why it matters

Let's walk through the Good, the Bad and the Ugly when it comes to food tech investing over the past five years to understand what got us here and, more importantly, where we go next.

The Ugly: Billions burnt on predictable failures

Let’s do this out of order and start with the carnage, because we need to learn from it.

This news brief is based on reporting published by Food Dive on 2025-12-01. The original report is linked below.