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. 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Today, as part of the Unreasonable Food™ collaboration, Mars and Unreasonable Group announced the thirteen ventures joining the 2026 cohort, the third since the program launched in 2024.
The food system underpins the health of people and the planet, along with the livelihoods of everyone who grows, makes and moves what we eat. Transforming it will never be simple, yet it remains one of the most meaningful opportunities we have to build a more resilient future and a thriving economy. Unreasonable Food, a strategic collaboration between Mars and Unreasonable Group, backs growth-stage entrepreneurs positioned to re-define our food systems for a more nutritious and equitable future of food for all.
Since joining the program in 2024, the 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 two million more people on climate change mitigation and adaptation, while growing job opportunities and improving working conditions across their communities.
“At Mars, our ambition is to create better snacks and a better planet — and that requires innovation across the entire food system, from soil to snack,” said Amanda Davies, Chief R&D, Commercial and Sustainability Officer for Mars Snacking. “This year’s Unreasonable Food cohort brings the bold, scalable thinking we believe can help advance nutrition, ingredient innovation, food safety, circularity and supply chain resilience.”
Mars, in collaboration with Unreasonable Group, has selected thirteen ventures from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Portugal and India. The 2026 cohort builds on the work of the two previous cohorts, with a strategic focus on gut health, nutrition and ingredient innovation, protein, data and wellness platforms, food safety, and circularity.
Meet the 2026 Unreasonable Food Cohort:
Fiber & Gut Health
1. Superbrewed Food: Creating precision postbiotic ingredients from whole microbial cells that support digestive health and deliver protein nutrition comparable to dairy, for people and pets.
2. Myota: Blending prebiotic fibers to work across the natural variation in people’s gut bacteria, tested in multiple randomized controlled trials.
3. Holobiome: Mapping how gut bacteria, biology and diet interact to discover the microbes and foods that can be developed into consumer products and drugs.
Ingredients & Nutrition Innovation
4. Kuli Kuli: Cultivating the world’s most potent superfoods, starting with moringa, in partnership with small communities of growers, and crafting them into products sold in 11,000 US stores.
5. BIOVIT: Extracting vitamins and minerals from plants and fungi grown on organic farms, with clinically proven bioavailability, to fortify everyday foods naturally.
6. Lasso Labs: Spinning simple ingredients into fibers the way a cotton candy machine spins sugar, giving foods the texture of meat without additives or high heat.
Protein Enhancement & Fortification
7. Nutrition from Water: Growing complete protein from microalgae in fermentation tanks to help close the global dairy protein gap at up to three times lower cost.
Functional Protein
8. Revyve: Producing texturizing ingredients from yeast that mimic egg functionality, delivering emulsifying, gelling and binding without eggs or additives.
Data & Wellness Platforms
9. FoodHealth: Scoring every food from 1 to 100 on nutrient density and ingredient quality, giving shoppers, retailers and brands a shared language for food quality.
10. HowGood: Using the world’s largest database on food sustainability to help brands and retailers measure and reduce the footprint of every ingredient.
11. Radicle Science: Running large-scale, placebo-controlled clinical trials on supplements and wellness products, bringing rigorous proof to natural health products.
Food Safety
12. Spore Bio: Detecting contamination on the factory floor within minutes rather than days, for food, beverage, cosmetics and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Circularity & Recycling Infrastructure
13. Without: Re-engineering multi-layered plastics and mixed textiles into premium recycled materials while graduating waste-pickers into dignified manufacturing jobs.
“We’re honored to welcome these thirteen entrepreneurs into the Unreasonable Food family,” said Daniel Epstein, CEO of Unreasonable Group. “Changing how food is grown, made and moved is one of the most practical levers we have for a more resilient future, and it takes founders like these to pull it. Working alongside Mars, our job is to give them the support that helps them get there faster.”
The cohort gathers in Windham, New York, from September 12 to 18, and joins the 2024 and 2025 cohorts in an ongoing network of Mars teams across the enterprise, Unreasonable Food mentors, and global investors. Across all three cohorts, the work continues to serve the same two priorities, transforming food supply chains and shaping the future of food.
For more information about Unreasonable Food and the 2026 cohort, please visit Unreasonable Food.
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About Mars, Incorporated
Mars, Incorporated is driven by the belief that the world we want tomorrow starts with how we do business today. Based on combined Mars and Kellanova 2025 net sales, we are a $65bn+ family-owned business with 170,000 Associates, our diverse portfolio of leading pet care products and veterinary services serve 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®, M&M’S®, SNICKERS®, EXTRA®, Pringles®, Cheez-It® and BEN’S ORIGINAL™. Our international networks of pet hospitals, including BANFIELD™, BLUEPEARL™, VCA™ and ANICURA™ deliver high quality veterinary care and ANTECH ™ offers breakthrough capabilities in pet diagnostics.
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 institutions to discover profit in solving global challenges. The 559 ventures in the Unreasonable Fellowship operate across more than 180 countries, have collectively generated $22bn in revenue, raised $23bn in financing, are positively impacting the lives of more than 1,828,369,018 people, and have mitigated 170,015,821 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. We strive to become the world’s most trusted community in service of a more connected and regenerative economy. 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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