Canadian food tech startup Opalia has secured what it claims is the world’s first commercial supply agreement for cell-based dairy, weeks ahead of an expected $4M fundraise.
Taking a big step forward for the nascent cell-based milk category, Opalia has secured the first sale of its ingredients from Dutch dairy giant Hoogwegt.
The two-year agreement (starting in 2026) will see the firms create a range of cell-cultured dairy products and showcase the viability of Opalia’s tech. The startup called it a major milestone for its scale-up and commercialisation plans.
Opalia co-founder and CEO Jennifer Côté tells Green Queen that the deal originated from Hoogwegt’s initial investment in the food tech startup in 2023. “Over the past two years, we have worked closely together,” she says.
“We determined that to support our next phase of development, we needed to establish a commercial partnership to showcase the world’s first cell-based milk dairy products. We want to show the world that it is possible to produce milk from cow mammary cells at scale.”
While Côté isn’t drawn on the quantity of milk it will supply as part of the agreement, she confirms the “raw product will be used for product development across a wide range of dairy applications to showcase our milk’s versatility”.
Cell culture tech allows Opalia to make whole milk
Founded in 2020 by Côté and CTO Lucas House, Opalia is one of very few companies globally working on cell-based milk. It emerged as an early leader of the category with a patent-pending technology that can produce products like butter, cream, cheese, yoghurts, and other dairy products without the cow.
“The first step was establishing our proprietary bovine mammary cell line from tissue. Because we have an immortal cell line, we don’t have to harvest more tissue from the cow. Simply put, we grow our cells and then induce lactation,” explains Côté.
“We have a fully continuous process. The same cells can make milk for extended periods of time. We don’t have to regrow our cells every time we harvest the milk produced by them. This makes our process very cost-efficient,” she adds. “The harvested milk follows a similar downstream process to that of milk produced by cows on dairy farms. However, we don’t pasteurise our milk because it does not contain bacteria.”
In 2023, Opalia successfully removed fetal bovine serum from its process, a major milestone for its scalability and costs, as well as consumer acceptance.
Côté describes cell-based milk production as a hybrid process between precision fermentation and cultivated meat. “Mammary cells are not the final product, unlike fat or muscle cells in cultivated meat products. The milk produced by our mammary cells is harvested as a fluid. After a harvest, the cells remain in culture and continue producing milk,” she explains.
“Since we manufacture whole milk, we can work with our customers to supply our product in whatever form they want,” she adds. “This milk can be sold as is and/or transformed into a cheese, butter or another dairy product. Since the mammary cells are not consumed as part of the final product, the process is much more cost-efficient and, from discussions with the regulators, easier to regulate.”
Speaking of which, Opalia says it is actively working with regulatory agencies to showcase its cell-based dairy products at tasting events. “We are focusing on obtaining regulatory approval in North America first. We are also monitoring regulatory guideline developments in other strategic regions,” says Côté.
The company is currently building its dossiers for submission, with approval needed from both the US Food and Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture. “We are still early in the regulatory process and are actively working with the regulators to distinguish between cell-based meat and milk-specific regulations,” she explains.
“The main difference in regulatory approval between cell-based milk and meat is the cell characterisation requirements. Because you are not consuming the cell, but simply the byproduct of the cell (milk), the stringency of the testing at the cellular level changes.”
Opalia targets $4M round for regulatory approval and market entry
Hoogwegt is among the world’s largest privately held dairy ingredient suppliers, with operations in 130 countries over six continents. For such an industry behemoth to bet on cell culture technology is a sign of the category’s potential.
“After already having invested in Opalia, this commercial purchase agreement between Opalia and Hoogwegt is a next major step towards establishing Opalia as a strategic supplier of cell-based milk in Hoogwegt’s future sustainable dairy supply chain,” said the company’s CEO, Sander Hulsebos.
Ahead of its scale-up efforts, Opalia is currently working on reducing its production costs. “We have plans to scale to pilot production over the next two years,” Côté suggests. “[The] cell culture medium is the main cost driver in our process right now. We are actively working to reduce the price to allow us to be competitive at commercial scale.”
While most cultivated meat makers are focused on a hybrid model – combining cultured proteins or fats with plant-based ingredients – to manage costs and scale when entering the market, Opalia’s cell-based whole milk can be used in multiple ways.
“Since we make whole milk, that is milk with all of its major constituents, it can be used as a full replacement,” explains Côté. “Additionally, conventional milk ingredients can be isolated from our milk (fat, casein or whey proteins) and be part of hybrid products to enhance their nutrition, taste, and functionality.”
The firm has so far secured $3M from investors including Hoogwegt, Big Idea Ventures, Ahimsa Foundation, and the Québec government. “We are actively fundraising, and while we anticipate a close in the next few weeks, we still have space remaining for the right partners,” says the Opalia CEO. “We are raising $4M to scale to pilot production, obtain regulatory approval, and begin commercialisation.”
Accorsing to the company, its technology can lower emissions by 95%, land use by 90%, and water consumption by 95% compared to conventional dairy, one of the reasons why it has been nominated for the 2025 Earthshot Prize.
Other startups working in the cell-based dairy category include Wilk (Israel), Senara (Europe), Brown Foods‘s UnReal Milk (US/India). France’s Nūmi and US-based 108Labs, meanwhile, are developing cultivated breast milk.
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