Your pasta box is 50% air 💨

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Read time today: 2:24 min

Hey - It's Lia.

It’s Friday, and you’re reading VITAMIN C 🍋.

Spring finally showed up in Berlin - and honestly, not even current politics can steal the sunshine today.

So grab a moment, and enjoy this week’s hit of food and climate insights:

1. [Science] 🍝Your pasta box is 50% air. This team fixed it.

Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University (USA) just gave pasta a sustainability upgrade:

Flat-packed noodles that spring into 3D shapes when cooked – from spirals to flowers to even boxes.

Why this matters:

↳ 60% less packaging waste

↳ No more shipping boxes full of air

↳ Less plastic, lower CO₂, same al dente perfection

The trick? Tiny grooves engineered into the dough that control shape transformation when heated.

It’s part food design, part physics – and it could reshape how we think about food logistics and waste.

Read more here.

2. [Food for Thought] 🥩 Why alt protein is still a hard sell

Consumers don’t think there’s a problem with meat.

That’s the problem.

The 2025 Consumer Trends Report by The New Consumer & Coefficient Capital shows it clearly:

Steak, chicken, and eggs top the list of foods people say make them feel healthiest and happiest.

So, all these awesome alt-protein products from Impossible, Beyond, Tindle, Planted and Co. aren't struggling because their quality is bad.

Alt-protein products are struggling because they are solving a problem most people don’t feel they have.

How do we get people to associate alt protein with joy? Hit reply and let me know your thoughts.

Here is the full report.

3. [Science] 🚗🍌2 million cars off the road? That's the impact of less banana waste.

Biotech startup Tropic Biosciences has developed a banana that stays yellow for up to 12 hours after peeling — using CRISPR gene-editing.

The secret? A tweak to the enzyme that causes browning.

The result? Same taste. Same texture. Less food waste.

Browning bananas are a major driver of food waste — and wasted fruit = wasted emissions.

This innovation could cut as much CO₂ as removing 2M cars from the road.

One small gene-edit. One giant leap for your fruit bowl.

Read more here.

4. [What’s next] 🌍 Bonn sets the tone for COP30

From June 16–26, global climate negotiators will meet in Bonn (Germany) to prepare for COP30 in Belem, Brazil in November this year.

Their focus:

↳ Strengthening carbon market rules

↳ Defining climate finance pathways

↳ Improving transparency frameworks

So I guess, Bonn is where strategy is shaped—so that COP30 can finally deliver more impact than COPs in previous years.

Interested in seeing which topics are on their agenda? Check it out here.

 5. [Inspiration] 🎤 Give better talks. Say less, mean more.

Talking about food, climate tech, or AI? Your message is only as strong as how you deliver it.

This visual guide by Alex Merry is a perfect cheat sheet in communication.

Some of my favorites:

↳ Less is more. Kill what doesn’t support your key message.

↳ Start with a belief-challenging question → this is powerful!

↳ Your “mess-ups” make you more real.

Forget perfect slides. Focus on making people feel something.

Stay awesome,
Lia

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