Tender Food Rebrands, Expands Processing Technology With $6.5M In Fresh Funding

Tender Food is rebranding and expanding into additional categories following a new $6.5 million funding round. Under its new name Lasso, the Boston-based startup will commercialize its patented food processing technology for applications in high-protein snacks and pet food.

The new funding was contributed by existing investors Rhapsody Venture Partners and Safar Partners, alongside a handful of individuals and family offices, bringing the startup’s total funding to-date to $26.5 million, CEO Mike Messersmith told Nosh.

Lasso will use the cash to develop and launch new products to demonstrate proof of concept for the technology, which he described as an “industrial cotton candy machine” that spins plant fibers and protein to create clean label food products, eliminating the need for gums, binders, additives, excess sugars and high-heat methods that strip nutrients.

“We’re going to launch some small, targeted brand launches, just to show what we can do, because we think that that creates the market understanding of what’s possible with the technology,” Messersmith said. “Ultimately, our goal would be to partner with really innovative and forward-looking consumer packaged goods companies, both in the United States and around the world, and those conversations are already underway.”

Lasso SpinTech was developed by a team of doctoral students at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute and initially used to create plant-based meat alternatives at a fraction of the cost of commercial extrusion. That led to the launch of Tender Food, which will remain a brand under Lasso’s broader platform, continuing to serve its takes on pork, beef and chicken products in Boston-area restaurants.

Messersmith, previously president of Oatly North America has also held various marketing and commercial roles at The Nature’s Bounty Co., Chobani and PepsiCo; he joined the company last year as it prepared to broaden its technology into new, higher-growth product categories.

According to the company, Lasso SpinTech consumes less energy than a toaster oven and operates at room temperature, with the capacity to produce 1,000 lbs of finished product per hour or more than 2 million lbs per year. Lasso’s team, which has demonstrated more than 1,000 ingredient combinations to-date, claims its technology can shorten product development cycles from more than a year to several weeks.

“We believe that we can quickly make food that is potentially more affordable because of two main factors,” Messersmith said. “One, the capital expenditure is really low. Typically when you’re having to buy a new machine, they’re several million dollars. Our machine we’ve engineered from the beginning to be small and nimble and affordable.

“The second factor is that it’s incredibly resource efficient. So it uses less electricity, it uses less water, which both allows us to be able to make the food in different locations, both in the United States and around the world, and it uses less energy to make the equivalent pound of food.”

He added, “In all of my history in CPG, I have never seen a machine that can do this.”

Lasso’s business model is similar to that of other novel technology startups, partnering with food manufacturers to shorten innovation cycles while creating opportunities to meet heightened demand for minimally processed foods with shorter, simpler ingredient decks. Messersmith pointed to “antiquated processing machines” that are ill-equipped to satisfy today’s consumer needs, amplified by the growing Make America Healthy Again movement and the influence of weight loss drugs on consumption patterns.

“What we’re trying to do with this machine that is really flexible, high-throughput, low-cost, is enable really innovative new products that we might come up with or that other companies might come up with that deliver on the expectation from consumers of something that is really delicious, incredible texture, the nutrients that they want, more protein, more fiber, and clean label, while also being affordable,” he said.