How to Position Food Tech for B2B Buyers

Aspyre Foods grows duckweed to produce functional proteins for food producers, starting with casein and Rubisco. We worked on its positioning, website and investor deck in 2025, and our case study tracks four versions of the deck's opening line. Its deck from 2024 to May 2025 opened “Cheese is comfort, culture, connection… and a climate catastrophe”. The first teaser, in August 2025, widened the frame to “The molecular farming platform powering the future of functional proteins.” By September 2025 interest from food producers had moved towards Rubisco, and the problem in the story moved from the product to the producer. That repositioning opened “Food producers are under pressure”. The full investor deck of October 2025 opened “Functional proteins are the weak link in today’s food system”, and the products changed places, with Rubisco as the entry point and casein as the larger strategic opportunity.

The science stayed the same across all four openings. Each version moved closer to the reader it was written for, and food producers reordered the products before the company did. The production technology remains the reason Aspyre exists, and the food producer still starts from a recipe, a process line, a qualification plan and a supply requirement.

Begin inside the buyer's product

An R&D lead wants to know what the ingredient does in the finished product. They care about taste, texture, shelf life, inclusion rate, processing conditions and whether reformulation is required. Procurement cares about supply, specification, qualification and price. Regulatory teams care about where the ingredient can be sold and which uses are covered.

The positioning has to meet those questions in the order the buyer encounters them. The site we built for Aspyre gives each protein its own case in the buyer’s terms. Casein answers melt and stretch, and Rubisco offers a route beyond soy, pea, egg white and whey. Each case names a job inside somebody else’s product. The technology earns its place after that, because it explains why the ingredient can deliver the function or the supply advantage. De Novo Dairy, a precision-fermentation dairy protein company, chose its first product the same way, starting from a dairy company’s description of a protein it struggled with. Our industrial biotechnology guide tells that story in full.

Application evidence has to match the application

A phrase such as next-generation sustainable ingredient platform describes a company and leaves the buyer with the translation work. A stronger claim names the product format and the job. The ingredient may improve texture in a particular application, replace a specific input, hit a target protein level at a defined inclusion rate or maintain performance under a process condition the buyer already uses. Algae and fungal protein companies can differentiate their ingredients the same way, by comparing functionality, formulation behaviour and supply with the protein the buyer uses now, under defined conditions.

The evidence needs to come from conditions close enough to support that claim. Bench data in water does not establish performance in a baked product or an extrusion line. Internal trials, customer pilots and production-scale data can all be useful, and each should be labelled for what it is. Give each result its inclusion rate, comparator and processing conditions, and keep measured results, modelled expectations and work in progress under separate labels.

Brighter Future will not write an application claim from bench data when the test conditions would change the conclusion in the buyer's product. The boundary belongs in the same paragraph as the claim.

Cost in use is broader than price per kilogram

A new ingredient can carry a higher unit price and still improve the buyer's economics. It may reduce dose, raise yield, remove a process step, cut waste or extend shelf life. A cheaper ingredient can become expensive if it adds handling, allergen controls, equipment or another supplier to qualify. The useful commercial case maps what changes in the buyer's bill of materials and line operation when they switch, and states the assumptions so the buyer can replace them with their own numbers. Build the comparison in the buyer's own recipe, and compare each ingredient at the dose that delivers the same function. Label indicative figures and projected performance, so the buyer's technical and commercial teams can check each input.

The environmental case belongs in that account at the right weight. It can strengthen the decision for companies with climate or sourcing targets, and it still has to sit beside an economic and operational route to adoption. On Aspyre’s site the environmental claims moved down the page, where they support the case. They stayed on the page, and the buyer meets them after the function and the economics.

Integration costs belong in the same calculation. A food-tech product can work technically and remain hard to adopt, because the customer may need to reformulate, run consumer tests, buy equipment, change handling, qualify a supplier or redesign packaging. Those costs arrive before the benefit, so the story has to include them. A product that drops into the existing line at a known inclusion rate may be commercially stronger than a more novel one that requires the buyer to rebuild its process. The page should state what changes on the customer's side, who does the work and what a first qualification step involves.

Regulation and supply sit beside the buying decision

Food buyers need dependable inputs and permission to use them. In the European Union, novel foods are authorised under Regulation (EU) 2015/2283. In the United States, companies have been able to rely on self-affirmed GRAS status (generally recognised as safe) and can submit a GRAS notice to the FDA. In August 2026 the FDA published a proposed rule that would make notification mandatory and end the self-affirmed route, so a company relying on it should say which route it is on and what changes if the rule is adopted. The important commercial facts are which markets are open, which uses are covered, what remains pending and what the finished product can claim.

Supply deserves the same precision. Current capacity, commissioned capacity and planned capacity should remain separate. A buyer can like the sample and still refuse to qualify a supplier whose next plant is only a plan.

Procurement usually qualifies the product and the supplier separately. Ask the team which requirements govern each review, and give it a route to your technical lead. It may need the product specification, quality and safety documents, supply status, proposed volumes, delivery arrangements and commercial terms. Record the status of each regulatory and customer approval, so procurement can see what is available now, what remains conditional and which documents it needs.

Solar Foods, which makes a protein ingredient called Solein, shows readiness as a sequence. It has published several distinct milestones for Solein. The company announced self-affirmed GRAS status in the United States. It later announced a GRAS notification intended to obtain a no-questions letter, the FDA's formal response that it has no questions about the company's safety conclusion. Separately, it reported that its production plant, Factory 01, had reached its productivity targets. Those statements answer different buyer questions, about regulatory position, the formal FDA process and manufacturing performance. Keeping them separate lets a buyer see the stage reached without treating one milestone as proof of the others. Application, performance, economics, integration, regulation, supply and evidence then appear as one connected account, with each claim attached to its own proof.

Position the decision available today

Early food-tech companies often describe the full future relationship before the buyer can take the first step. If commercial capacity is two years away, the immediate decision may be a qualification trial, paid pilot, co-development project or offtake discussion, an early agreement on future purchase volumes. The website and deck should name that stage plainly and state what the buyer receives from it. When a trial has already passed and no order has followed, map the gates still open inside the manufacturer before you rewrite the deck.

Founders who sell ingredients learn to count a commitment only once it has happened. Paul Shapiro, CEO and co-founder of The Better Meat Co. (BMC Ingredients since 2026), which sells a mycoprotein ingredient to food companies, described promised investments, orders and projects falling through in a March 2023 interview. “I’ve learned only to expect something to happen once it’s already occurred rather than assuming it will happen based on verbal commitments.” That is one founder’s lesson from his own company. Positioning can use the same rule. A first step a buyer can take and complete gives both sides something that has occurred.

A useful handover test is to give the current material to somebody who works in buyer-side R&D. They should be able to explain the application, the evidence, the regulatory position, the supply state and the first commitment without the founder in the room. If they can describe the science and still cannot describe what happens next, the positioning is not ready yet.

A sales deck for an ingredient carries the same account. It names the ingredient, the target application, the functional benefit and the evidence from relevant tests. It sets out the specification, regulatory status, supply stage, qualification requirements and proposed evaluation, and shows where the ingredient fits the customer's process and where it still needs testing. The deck closes on one request that product development and procurement can take forward together.

When a food tech team needs its readiness case set out for buyers, our positioning work helps it decide the first application, the evidence behind it and the step a buyer can take today.

Sources and further reading

• Aspyre Foods case study
• Paul Shapiro, The Better Meat Co., founder interview, 2023
• What Is Industrial Biotechnology?
• Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 on novel foods
• FDA GRAS notification programme
• FDA proposes mandatory GRAS notification requirement, Arnold & Porter, August 2026
• Solar Foods self-affirmed GRAS announcement
• Solar Foods GRAS notification announcement
• Factory 01 productivity update