As an international network, Unreasonable Food is uniquely positioned to scale high-growth ventures dedicated to creating a more sustainable food system.
NEW YORK, Sept. 11, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Today, as part of the Unreasonable Food™ collaboration, Mars and Unreasonable Group are welcoming the next generation of growth stage ventures into the Unreasonable Food family.
Evolving our food system will never be a simple journey, yet it remains one of the most practical levers we have for building a more resilient future and a thriving economy. Unreasonable Food, a bold collaboration between Mars Snacking and Unreasonable Group, was born in 2024 to back entrepreneurs turning our most pressing food chain challenges into unprecedented opportunities.
“Addressing the challenges in our food system is a task bigger than any one organization,” said Amanda Davies, Chief R&D, Procurement and Sustainability Officer for Mars Snacking. “That’s why it’s so important to build a collaborative ecosystem – connecting brilliant minds behind pioneering ventures with scaled industry leaders – so we can help unlock new possibilities and accelerate the transformation toward a more resilient future.”
Mars, in collaboration with Unreasonable Group, has selected fourteen purpose-led ventures that represent the next frontier of sustainability advancements. The 2025 Unreasonable Food cohort will build upon the work started in 2024, with a strategic focus on reducing dairy cattle emissions, scaling sustainable ingredients, and exploring solutions with partners around sustainable colors.
This critical work will continue to move us toward the next phase of developing a food system that is more sustainable and nutritious, for all.
Meet the 2025 Unreasonable Food Cohort:
- Alpine Bio: Engineering crops like soybeans to produce dairy proteins, enabling familiar melt, stretch, and creaminess without cows.
- Standing Ovation: Producing animal-free casein via precision fermentation to deliver authentic dairy textures for cheese and other foods.
- Oobli: Harnessing sweet proteins from plants to create sugar-like taste with no sugar, made scalable through fermentation.
- Debut Biotechnology: Fermenting high-value ingredients, including natural color alternatives, to replace unsustainable or synthetic sources.
- Octarine Bio: Producing a vibrant palette of natural colors through fermentation, offering reliable, sustainable options for food and textiles.
- DE3PBIO: Using AI and biotech to unlock plant-based functional ingredients that make foods cleaner, healthier, and more nutritious.
- NuCicer: Breeding new chickpea varieties with up to 75% more protein, improving taste, texture, and resilience to climate stress.
- Plantible Foods: Extracting Rubi protein from lemna (duckweed), a highly sustainable plant that can replace eggs, dairy, and additives.
- Hydrosome Labs: Leveraging ultrafine bubbles to boost fermentation yields and nutrient delivery, making biomanufacturing more efficient.
- Pow.bio: Pioneering continuous fermentation technology that reduces costs and increases capacity for bio-based production.
The 2024 inaugural cohort has continued to demonstrate what’s possible when high-growth companies are supported by an ecosystem connected by shared sustainability ambitions. Since joining the program in 2024, our first cohort reported nearly an additional $200 million in revenue, 140,000 tons of CO₂e avoided, 310 million liters of water conserved, and 1.14 million kilograms of food sold. They reached 24 million more people with safe, nutritious food and educated 2 million more people on climate change mitigation and adaptation, while growing job opportunities improving working conditions across their communities.
“We’re honored to welcome these entrepreneurs to the Unreasonable Food family,” said Daniel Epstein, CEO of Unreasonable Group. “Their work reflects our shared ambition to evolve the food system in ways that are sustainable and inclusive. In collaboration with Mars, we stand ready to offer mentorship, convene stakeholders, and surface opportunities that can accelerate their journeys.”
The collective 2024 and 2025 class of ventures will engage with Mars teams across the enterprise, Unreasonable Food mentors, and a global investor network to further support their culture changing work, which will center around two shared priorities: transforming food supply chains and shaping the future of food.
For more information about Unreasonable Food and the Year 2 cohort, please visit Unreasonable Food.
About Mars, Incorporated
Mars, Incorporated is driven by the belief that the world we want tomorrow starts with how we do business today. As an approximately $55bn family-owned business, our diverse and expanding portfolio of leading pet care products and veterinary services support pets all around the world and our quality snacking and food products delight millions of people every day. We produce some of the world’s best-loved brands including ROYAL CANIN®, PEDIGREE®, WHISKAS®, CESAR®, DOVE®, EXTRA®, M&M’S®, SNICKERS® and BEN’S ORIGINAL™. Our international networks of pet hospitals, including BANFIELD™, BLUEPEARL™, VCA™ and ANICURA™ span preventive, general, specialty, and emergency veterinary care, and our global veterinary diagnostics business ANTECH® offers breakthrough capabilities in pet diagnostics. The Mars Five Principles — Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom — inspire our 150,000 Associates to act every day to help create a better world for people, pets and the planet.
For more information about Mars, please visit www.mars.com. Join us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.
About Unreasonable Group, LLC
Unreasonable is a Colorado-based, international company that supports a Fellowship for growth-stage entrepreneurs, channels exclusive deal-flow to investors, and partners with some of the world’s leading brands to ensure a more just future. The 501 ventures in the Unreasonable Fellowship operate across more than 180 countries, have collectively generated $20bn in revenue, raised $20bn in financing, and are positively impacting the lives of more than 1,434,646,829 people. As a global community, Unreasonable exists to re-purpose capitalism. Sound Unreasonable? We hope so. Because reasonable ideas seldom change anything.
For more information about Unreasonable, please visit www.unreasonablegroup.com
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