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Stray Dog Capital

Stray Dog Capital, LLC is a mission-oriented Venture Capital firm that supports plant-based businesse

Stray Dog Capital, LLC is a mission-oriented Venture Capital firm that supports plant-based businesses, products and services.

07/29/2026

Big news from our portfolio company MyForest Foods 🥓

MyBacon just landed at Wegmans — one of the most selective grocery chains in the US — and the momentum behind that placement is real.

MyBacon grew nearly 75% over the past year and now holds 35.5% of category dollars, making it the top-selling plant-based breakfast item in the natural channel. All while the broader plant-based breakfast meat category is contracting.

What sets it apart: MyBacon is made from whole-cut organic oyster mushroom mycelium with just five ingredients. No protein isolates, no binders — grown through a solid-state fermentation process that completes its cycle in under two weeks. It's a genuinely different kind of product, and shoppers are noticing.

With Whole Foods, and now Wegmans, in the distribution mix, we couldn't be more excited about where this team is headed.

🔗 Full story: https://vegconomist.com/retail-e-commerce/mybacon-enters-wegmans-mycelium-brand-reports-category-leading-growth/

MyForest Foods is placing its mycelium-based MyBacon on shelves at Wegmans Food Markets this month, adding one of the most selective grocery chains in the

07/20/2026

Our portfolio company Chunk Foods just got a fantastic profile in Green Queen — and the CEO's take on the plant-based meat category is worth sharing. 🥩

Amos Golan's diagnosis: "Plant-based meat doesn't have a demand problem. It has a repeat-purchase problem."

Too many products over-promised and under-delivered. Consumers tried them once and didn't come back. As those brands consolidate or disappear, the companies with genuinely great products and healthy unit economics are the ones left standing.

Chunk is one of them. Approaching $10M in annual revenue after 140% growth in 2025, profitable on a unit basis, and targeting company-wide profitability in the second half of 2027. Their whole-cut steak — 25g of protein, 160 calories per 4oz cut, clean ingredient list — is now in 3,000+ US locations and growing.

"Our job isn't to convince people to eat differently. It's to give them one less reason not to."

So proud of this team. Great read 👇

https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/chunk-foods-vegan-steak-plant-based-meat-sales-profitability-funding/

US plant-based meat startup Chunk Foods expects to double its sales and reach profitability next year. Its CEO explains why demand isn’t the main problem.

07/16/2026

ICYMI — our portfolio company NuCicer just launched a new chickpea variety called Nuchi, and it's a meaningful step forward for plant-based protein ingredients. 🌱

Here's the short version: chickpea protein has long been held back by processing complexity and cost. Nuchi addresses that directly — it delivers 50% more protein and 25% less fat than a standard chickpea, which eliminates an expensive processing step and makes it far easier for food manufacturers to work with.

It comes in four formats (flour, concentrate, isolate), works in existing pea protein processing lines, and has a neutral flavor that sidesteps the masking agents that make pea and soy so tricky to formulate with. NuCicer has already tested it across crackers, pasta, pancakes, snacks, and cereal.

With whey protein prices up over 50% this year, the timing couldn't be better. Nuchi is designed to drop into infrastructure manufacturers already have — and deliver cleaner, higher-protein results.

So proud of the NuCicer team. 🍲

🔗 Full story: https://vegconomist.com/ingredients/nucicer-debuts-nuchi-reworked-chickpea-built-high-protein-formulation/

NuCicer, a US crop genetics company, has launched Nuchi, a new chickpea variety designed to address processing barriers that have limited chickpea protein's

07/08/2026

A new analysis worth reading if you follow global food systems 👇

Analysts are warning that a powerful El Niño — potentially one of the most intense on record — is converging with ongoing fertilizer price volatility, energy market disruptions from the Iran conflict, and drought conditions across key growing regions to create a fragile outlook for global food production.

Food price impacts from crop shocks typically take 6–12 months to reach consumers. That means any yield losses from the 2026/27 crop cycle are likely to show up as food inflation in 2027.

The EIU's takeaway says it best: threats to food systems often originate outside agriculture itself — in energy markets, geopolitics, and trade policy.

At Stray Dog Capital, we invest in companies working toward a more resilient and diversified food future. These are exactly the kinds of systemic risks that make that work matter.

🔗 Full story via AgNavigator: https://www.agnavigator.com/Article/2026/07/02/el-nino-threat-raises-risk-of-fresh-fertiliser-price-volatility-analysts-warn/

A powerful El Niño is developing, raising concerns about renewed fertiliser price volatility due to its impact on agricultural yields, supply chains, and farmer behaviour, though a crisis like 2022 is considered unlikely. Analysts emphasize that the primary risk comes from changes in fertiliser dem...

06/24/2026

What if Europe’s declining beer industry held the key to feeding the continent with sustainable protein?

That’s exactly the insight behind our portfolio company Pacifico Biolabs — and Vegconomist just published a fascinating interview with CEO Zac Austin that explains how they’re making it work.

Pacifico grows mycelium protein inside existing brewery tanks — the same fermentation vessels that European breweries have spent decades building, and that are increasingly sitting idle as beer consumption falls. The result: production CapEx that is over 95% lower than competitors, and a path to cost parity with conventional chicken that they’ve already reached.

The headline stat? In theory, idle European brewery capacity alone could produce enough mycelium protein to replace all of Europe’s chicken consumption.

With a retail launch planned for later this year and a fresh €7M Series A behind them, Pacifico is turning that insight into a real business — and we’re proud to have backed them.

🔗 Full interview: https://ow.ly/C2k350ZgcfE

Zac Austin is co-founder and CEO of Pacifico Biolabs. After graduating from the University of Cambridge, he began his career at McKinsey in London, working as

06/15/2026

When Meati — one of the most well-funded alt-meat companies in the US — collapsed last year after pouring hundreds of millions into fermentation infrastructure, it raised an obvious question: is whole-cut plant-based meat even viable?

Our portfolio company Chunk Foods is answering that question with results.

Chunk just landed at Whole Foods, Sprouts, and H.E.B., grew revenues 140% last year, and is projecting another 100% growth this year — all while building toward company-level profitability in late 2027. Their products are now in 3,000+ US locations.

The key difference: Chunk uses solid-state fermentation, which is dramatically cheaper to build and operate than the submerged fermentation approach Meati used. The soy flour being fermented is the product itself — no expensive downstream processing, no massive upfront facility investment. Capacity scales with demand.

The result is a 25g protein whole-cut steak with no binders or gums, retailing at ~$16–24/lb — getting closer to price parity with conventional beef as beef prices continue to rise.

AgFunderNews just published a fantastic deep-dive on the Chunk story. Worth a read. 🥩

🔗 https://agfundernews.com/after-meatis-collapse-chunk-foods-pitches-capex-light-path-to-whole-cut-alt-meat-eyes-profitability-in-2027

Chunk Foods grew revenues by 140% last year and recently secured listings at Whole Foods Market, Sprouts, and H.E.B.

06/10/2026

Here's a question worth sitting with: if plant cell culture technology has been used to manufacture cancer drugs for decades, why hasn't it transformed the food industry yet?

The short answer is cost. Pharmaceutical-grade stainless steel bioreactors can cost up to $1 million per vessel. That math doesn't work for food.

Our portfolio company California Cultured is changing that equation. They've just completed their first successful production run in a custom-built, reusable plastic bioreactor that costs about $3,000 to build — enabling them to grow flavanol-rich cocoa in regular food-grade industrial space, without the capital overhead that has held the category back.

The results are already translating commercially: Puratos (a global bakery and chocolate leader) is launching B2B products with California Cultured's cocoa later this year, and they have an offtake deal with Meiji, Japan's largest chocolate company.

AgFunderNews featured California Cultured in a wide-ranging deep-dive on the future of plant cell culture — well worth the read.

🔗 https://agfundernews.com/from-taxol-to-cocoa-can-plant-cell-culture-make-the-leap-from-drugs-to-food

Could plant cell culture unlock a new category of "precision botanicals"? AgFunderNews caught up with a handful of key players.

05/21/2026

Big news from our portfolio company SuperMeat 🎉

The Israeli cultivated chicken startup has raised $6M in fresh funding — part of a targeted $10M Series A4 round — and has filed for regulatory approval in Switzerland, with plans to launch its cultivated chicken there through a distribution partnership with Micarna Group, a subsidiary of Swiss retail giant Migros.

What makes SuperMeat's progress especially notable is the technical ground they've covered on cost. Their product is 100% cultivated chicken — no plant-based filler — and they've brought production costs down to $11.80 per lb at commercial scale. A 2024 lifecycle analysis also found their chicken produces roughly 50% fewer carbon emissions than conventionally raised chicken.

With over $24.5M raised to date and a clear path to a European launch market, SuperMeat is one of the companies demonstrating what a credible route to market looks like for cultivated meat — even in a tough funding environment.

We're proud to back this team. 🐔

🔗 Full story: https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/supermeat-funding-lab-grown-meat-cultivated-chicken-switzerland/

Cultivated meat startup SuperMeat has raised $6M in fresh financing, as part of a targeted $10M Series A4 round, and filed for regulatory approval in Switzerland.

05/15/2026

Here's something worth knowing: the global chocolate supply is in trouble — and one of our portfolio companies is working on the solution.

California Cultured, a Sacramento-based food-tech company, just announced a research partnership with UC Davis, funded by the National Science Foundation and BioMADE, to bring cultured cocoa closer to commercial reality.

Instead of harvesting cacao from trees threatened by climate change, California Cultured grows cacao cells directly in bioreactors — no farmland, no weather risk, no deforestation. The resulting cocoa is chemically identical to conventionally grown cocoa.

The partnership is focused on making the technology affordable at scale. They've already proven the concept works in 1,600-liter bioreactors, and they're targeting the start of commercial cocoa powder production in early 2027 to fulfill an existing purchase order from a chocolate company.

In a world where cocoa prices have spiked dramatically due to crop failures, this kind of innovation isn't just exciting — it's necessary.

So proud of the California Cultured team. 🍫

🔗 Full story: https://engineering.ucdavis.edu/news/could-cultured-chocolate-unlock-next-food-revolution

With cocoa crops increasingly threatened by climate change, UC Davis engineers are helping develop cultured chocolate grown directly from plant cells. The burgeoning technology could transform how chocolate is produced while making the treat more sustainable and resilient.

05/07/2026

We love a story where a founder says something bold — and then actually does it. 🙌

In 2021, Chunk Foods CEO Amos Golan predicted that within five years, Chunk would be on the shelves at Whole Foods.

This week, five years later, Chunk Foods officially launched at Whole Foods Market locations across the Northeast US — with a nationwide rollout coming in June.

Chunk makes fermentation-based whole-cut meat alternatives: steaks, pulled, and now a new Moroccan Cubes variety with 19g of protein per serving. This isn't a reformulated burger — it's a genuinely different approach to plant-based protein, built to satisfy in ways the first generation of alt-meat products often couldn't.

We're incredibly proud of Amos and the Chunk Foods team. This is what the long game looks like.

🔗 Full story: https://vegconomist.com/retail-e-commerce/chunk-foods-lands-whole-foods-listing-northeast-us-nationwide-rollout-set-june/

Chunk Foods has secured shelf space at Whole Foods Market locations across the Northeast United States, with a nationwide expansion planned for June, founder

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