May 22, 2025

Twenty quarters of value-creating growth

Investing in the Green Transformation of Agrifood: Five Years of Progress, and a Call to Action

This year marks five years since we launched the Re:food partnership, building on a decade of experience investing in the green transformation of agrifood. Our journey began with early bets on Swedish pioneers like Oatly and Nick’s. Since 2020, we’ve expanded internationally, backing both B2B and B2C ventures across Europe and the US that are driving real change in how food is produced, consumed, and valued.

Closing the books on 2024 gave us a moment to reflect. Despite a tough climate for agrifood investment, our portfolio companies have sixfolded their revenue while expanding gross margins by over 1500 basis points. That’s twenty consecutive quarters of value-creating growth—proof that investing in sustainable food isn’t just impact-driven, it can also be high-performing.

Yet, agrifood remains severely underfunded. This sector sustains all life and drives 12% of global GDP, but lags far behind in capital allocation. We believe this mismatch represents one of the most overlooked opportunities in the investment landscape today.

At Re:food, we see powerful signals that the agrifood system is becoming increasingly investable:

  • Company valuations are fair.
  • Regulatory and consumer tailwinds are strengthening.
  • Technologies that once seemed far off are scaling up and driving cost-efficiency.
  • And most importantly, the need for change is undeniable. You cannot negotiate with Mother Earth.
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    • One of our core values is ‘positive’. We’re optimistic that more investors will recognize this moment for what it is—a chance to back a better food system that delivers both financial returns and planetary resilience. The transformation is not only necessary. It’s investable.
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    Read more and download our report Food is Investable.

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    Keep exploring

    May 27, 2025

    Ag-Robotics: The Next Frontier in Farm Automation

    Ag-robotics holds tremendous promise for the green transformation of food systems by enhancing sustainability and productivity. Innovations such as robots with advanced sensors and AI enable the precise application of fertilizers and pesticides, while robotic weeders and laser systems minimize the need for herbicides, protecting biodiversity. Advanced robotic irrigation can cut water use by over 90%, and autonomous electric machines reduce carbon emissions. Autonomous machines can also be lighter, reducing soil compaction. Robotic systems support soil health through reduced tillage and enable data-driven, sustainable farm management. As labor shortages and sustainability demands intensify, ag robotics is poised to unlock a $100B+ market by 2035. However, despite these significant benefits, widespread adoption faces serious barriers, and the true potential will only be realized by understanding where automation truly creates value.

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    April 16, 2025

    Irrigation: Addressing Water Stress in Agriculture

    Wait, hasn’t irrigation already been solved? After all, it was invented by Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, around 6000 BCE. They developed one of the earliest known irrigation systems using canals, dikes, and reservoirs to manage water from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, enabling large-scale agriculture in an otherwise arid region. This innovation played a crucial role in the growth of early civilizations. Still, there are massive investments in irrigation ahead of us, providing opportunities especially for private equity and infrastructure funds.

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    February 3, 2025

    AgreenaCarbon Project registered on Verra: A Landmark Achievement in Regenerative Agriculture

    In January 2025, the AgreenaCarbon Project reached a significant milestone by becoming the first large-scale agricultural cropland project registered under Verra's Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) VM0042 methodology for Improved Agricultural Land Management. This achievement marks a pivotal moment for the regenerative agriculture movement and the soil carbon sector, steering much-needed carbon finance to European farmers.

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    November 13, 2024

    Upcycled Food: Making the most of what we already have

    In recent years, upcycling has emerged as a promising avenue to combat food waste, offering innovative ways to turn discarded food into new products. As the global population grows and resources become scarcer, finding solutions to food waste is essential. Upcycling addresses the problem by repurposing food that would otherwise be wasted, creating triple benefits of reducing environmental impacts, improving food security, and creating value from waste. However, while the potential benefit is vast, the journey toward widespread production and adoption of upcycled food faces significant practical challenges. During 2024 Gullspång Re:food, Novax, and PolarVentures collaborated on project Stardust to map global technologies for upcycling with Nordic side streams.

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    November 7, 2024

    Food is Investable: Here's how

    Read our report, Food is Investable, on why venture capital, private equity, and infrastructure funds should consider agrifood in their investment strategies. Despite the agrifood sector’s critical role in sustaining life and driving 12% of global GDP, it punches below its weight in capital allocation. In 2023, agrifood was only 2% of private equity’s total assets under management and received only 5.5% of global venture capital. From a climate perspective, it’s even more underinvested. Agrifood emits 26% of GHG emissions but attracts just 1.3% of climate-focused private capital. This is concerning, given the sector’s potential for massive impact and financial returns. Food Is Investable, developed with ADAM Partners, gives you a Treasure Map as an overview of relevant investment segments in agrifood across different asset classes.

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    August 30, 2024

    Controlled Environment Agriculture: Opportunities and Challenges for Investors

    Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA): a few years ago, Vertical Farms was one of the hottest segments for food & ag venture investors. Companies like Bowery Farms and AeroFarms closed late-stage growth rounds with hundreds of millions of dollars of VC funding, AppHarvest went public at $1bn+ valuation via a SPAC merger, and global scale seemed all but inevitable for the segments’ leaders. However, as inflation and interest rates rose in 2022 and 2023, investors turned away from the sector, and companies began to struggle and even go bankrupt. The narrative shifted. Now, profitability is at the top of investors’ minds, not growth, and questions remain about the fundamental viability of the space. We dug into the segment to understand where value might lie today.

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    June 7, 2024

    The Sweet Revolution: Exploring Sugar Replacements for a Healthier Future

    In a world where sweet treats are almost impossible to resist, the overconsumption of sugar has become a significant public health issue. Linked to numerous health problems that impact a quarter of the global adult population, sugar is more than just an indulgence—it's a health hazard. We don’t need to go completely sugar-free – limiting sugar intake to the World Health Organization's recommendation of less than 10% of total energy intake, with further benefits from reducing below 5%, would significantly reduce the negative impacts of sugar-induced health and dental diseases. However, average sugar consumption is about 22kg per year, which is twelve times higher than the 5% recommendation – and it is rising. Breaking the sugar habit is easier said than done, but don’t despair just yet. With sugar replacements, it is possible to create indulgences to die for that don’t kill us.

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    April 26, 2024

    Greening Ammonia Production: There are No Silver Bullets in Systems Transformation

    The production of synthetic ammonia, a precursor to nitrogen fertilizer, generates two tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per ton of usable ammonia and is responsible for 1-2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, greening this production process could benefit industries beyond agriculture. However, there are negative impacts associated with nitrogen fertilizers that green ammonia does not address, and we must be cautious that ammonia production doesn’t become a red herring in the sustainable fertilizer transition. We dug into the green ammonia space and summarized our key findings and takeaways.

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    March 6, 2024

    Save the Bees: Harvesting Insights from our Deep Dive into Pollination Tech 

    Pollinators are essential to the food system, but modern agricultural practices threaten wild pollinators and domesticated honeybees alike. Innovative startups are addressing this with smart technologies in an attempt to guarantee our future food supply. But do any of these innovations hold promise? We did a deep dive to find out. Read on for some more background information, three insights from our research, and our thoughts on the future of pollination. 

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    September 7, 2023

    Karl-Henrik Robèrt on the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development

    The Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) underpins Re:food’s approach to investing. It is the structure we used to plan out where to focus our sourcing and investing efforts. We caught up with Karl-Henrik Robèrt, a world-renowned sustainability pioneer, the founder of The Natural Step, and one of the creators of the FSSD. He gave us his thoughts on the framework (which he describes as the Operating System for sustainable development) and his guidance for organizations applying it to develop or improve their sustainable development programs.

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    September 7, 2023

    Our Theory of Transformation

    When pioneering startups secure backing from seasoned, long-term investors with experience in crafting robust businesses, they have the potential to reshape entire value chains radically and become category leaders in a more sustainable industry. When those same investors build an investment approach that incorporates deep research and systems thinking, and invest in companies at multiple systemic leverage points, they have the potential to transform entire industries and even the global economy.

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    September 4, 2023

    Balancing impact and sustainability to transform food systems

    Impact and sustainability are frequently used interchangeably. In theory these concepts jointly create the foundation for a responsible business. In practice they are implemented through policies and procedures often managed by the same people and communicated via the same documents. Re:food invests in companies with high impact potential. As we refreshed our sustainability framework, we realized how important it is to distinguish between sustainability and impact and to act with intention where they overlap (and where they don’t), especially when supporting, partnering, and investing in companies with impact at their core.

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    September 4, 2023

    Segment Scoring Methodology

    We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about innovations in the food system and their potential to both drive transformative shifts within our four investment themes and generate returns. Following the guidelines laid out in the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, we developed a methodology to rank these innovations, which we call segments, so we can focus on those with the greatest potential.

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    August 28, 2023

    Healthy Soils

    At the root of the food system is soil health, but modern agricultural practices are disrupting the soil food web and destroying precious topsoil. We believe that the Fourth Agricultural Revolution is happening now — a revolution that prioritizes soil health, that relies on biological processes, and that celebrates biodiversity above and below ground. We are investing in innovations that will help us preserve and build topsoil, the cornerstone of our food system, and will ensure that we can produce food in the future without sacrificing yields today.

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    August 28, 2023

    Sustainable Proteins & Fats

    Animal-based protein consumption has risen drastically in the modern era, enabled by new industrialized farming practices. In addition to creating serious animal welfare violations, these practices have contributed to systemic challenges like antibiotic resistance and deforestation. The fact is, we need to invest in and scale more resource-efficient, animal-free production methods that can meet the growing demand for protein while reducing pressure on our planetary boundaries.

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    August 28, 2023

    Healthy Diets

    The world currently produces enough food for everyone to consume more than enough daily calories, yet one in three people lack regular access to adequate food. We believe that addressing rising malnutrition is both an ethical imperative and a tool to address the negative environmental impacts of our food system. Because of the many complex forces affecting our diets, a systems-based approach is the only way to really achieve a transformative shift from empty calories to nutrient-dense foods for all. 

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    August 28, 2023

    Sustainable Supply Chains

    Modern food supply chains are long, linear, and wasteful. They depend on numerous stakeholders and middlemen, with little transparency or ability to track the flow of goods, emissions, and financial returns through the system. These supply chains have enabled urbanization and introduced new foods and flavors to our palates. But they have also decreased visibility into where our food comes from, increased food, nutrient, and plastic waste, and yet fail to ensure that nutritious foods are available to all people around the world. And the growth of these depletive supply chains is unsustainable. The alternative is short, circular supply chains that help us stay within our planetary boundaries while still moving food and resources to where they need to be, even as our population and economy continue to grow. Investing in this alternative is a key focus for us. 

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    June 22, 2022

    Gustaf Brandberg discussing patient capital

    Building a sustainable food company takes time and requires patient capital. That's why we've structured Re:food to operate with an evergreen structure, allowing us to invest for the long term without posing time constraints

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    June 10, 2021

    The science behind our guiding principle

    Over the next decade, Re:food will help fund a professorship in sustainable science at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Why?

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    April 24, 2021

    The Re:food circle

    We developed The Re:food circle as a framework defining the boundaries and ethical foundations of a sustainable food system to help guide transformative investments.

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