Israel’s Finally Foods has announced its first field trial for potatoes containing casein, less than a year after the molecular farming startup launched.
In what it describes as “record time”, AI-driven molecular farming startup Finally Foods will begin its first field trial for potatoes that contain dairy proteins in Israel next week.
The move comes just 10 months after the Israeli firm emerged from stealth, marking a “major milestone” in its path to commercialisation. The field trial, which will last three to four months, will be a validation point of the company’s technology, which essentially modifies potatoes into bioreactors that can produce casein in a sustainable and cost-effective manner.
It will allow the company to assess the yield scalability and protein yield of its potato crops. The trial “transitions our technology from controlled greenhouse conditions to real-world agricultural settings, testing how our casein-producing potatoes perform in open-field environments”, explains Dafna Gabbay, co-founder and CEO of Finally Foods.
“One of the key challenges in molecular farming is the lengthy time-to-market, but Finally Foods is demonstrating that molecular farming can efficiently produce high-value proteins at scale in record time by drastically reducing the trial-and-error time,” she adds.
Molecular farming helping produce multiple casein formulations
Gabbay established the startup with CTO Basia J Vinocur, who was formerly the VP of R&D at biotech firm Evogene. Finally Foods has an exclusive license for Evogene’s GeneRator AI technology, which it uses to optimise its production process by enabling short R&D cycles, more efficient extractions, and faster commercialisation plans.
Evogene holds around a 40% stake in the company, with the rest of the ownership divided between the co-founders and state-backed investor The Kitchen FoodTech Hub.
Finally Foods chose to use potatoes because they met several efficiency parameters, including high yields and effective protein extraction. The company has designed the potato as an optimised “expression system” that can formulate multiple variations of casein.
“We’re currently expressing multiple formulations of casein in our plants, with a primary focus on developing versatile formulations that can be used across a broad range of dairy applications,” says Gabbay.
Casein is the most common protein found in cow’s milk, making up 80% of its protein content, and is a key emulsifier that prevents water and fat from separating and gives cheese its melty and stretchy attributes.
There are four kinds of casein proteins found in milk, which fold into a spherical structure known as a micelle, where they are suspended in a highly hydrated solution and bound together with minerals like calcium. This is key to casein’s functional attributes, and Gabbay has previously indicated that her team plans to express all four sub-units in one plant.
The startup is one of several companies working with molecular farming to produce animal proteins, including Moolec, Alpine Bio, Mozza, Miruku, PoLoPo, and Veloz Bio. A market set to double in value by 2029, molecular farming has been identified as a more viable and affordable way to replicate animal proteins than cell cultivation or precision fermentation.
This technology relies upon genetically engineering plants to produce proteins, which can be harvested from leaves or other tissues. This forgoes the need for expensive fermentation tanks, since plants themselves are the natural bioreactors here.
Finally Foods in talks with dairy producers
“This trial is a necessary step toward large-scale protein extraction, paving the way for efficient and cost-effective production at scale,” says Gabbay.
One of the major challenges faced by molecular farming is regulation – companies require approval to both grow genetically modified plants and then sell them for use in human food.
“Field trials are an essential step for regulatory approval, allowing us to gather key agronomic data and validate environmental impact assessments,” she adds.
This field trial follows the completion of a greenhouse gas trial, which confirmed that the potatoes grow and behave like non-transgenic potatoes and showcase no abnormal characteristics. “This is essential for regulatory approvals and to ensure the plant’s viability for large-scale agricultural production,” notes Gabbay.
“Also, the potatoes we harvested from the greenhouse enable us to extract and analyse casein from different lines expressing different formulations. This step is key for optimising protein yield, functionality, and extraction efficiency.”
Integrating AI into the process has allowed Finally Foods to accelerate development and get high yields of functional casein within potatoes, while keeping costs low. More and more alternative porten companies are leveraging AI, including Shiru which has an AI-powered protein discovery platform; Climax Foods, which employs machine learning to reverse-engineer what makes cheese taste good; and NotCo, whose AI platform matches thousands of plant-based ingredients to find the combinations best suited to replace animal proteins.
Finally Foods is “in ongoing discussions with several dairy companies to start developing applications” with its casein formulations this year. To support its progress, it is currently securing an extension to the pre-seed round it raised last year, and expects to open a seed funding round in the months to come.
“This next phase of funding will support scaling our production, advancing regulatory approvals, and expanding commercial partnerships, as we continue to drive innovation in molecular farming and plant-based casein production,” Gabbay says.
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