Food Standards Australia and New Zealand has formally accepted a dossier by French firm Parima to sell cultivated duck products, which is expected to be approved next year.
Parima, a cultivated meat company formed last week, could be selling cultured foie gras and pâté to consumers in Australia and New Zealand by August 2026.
The startup’s regulatory dossier for cultivated duck, made under its Gourmey brand, has been officially accepted by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ). Now, the application will enter the scientific risk assessment process.
Parima emerged as a new entity after Gourmey acquired French cultivated chicken firm Vital Meat, marrying their tech, regulatory and manufacturing prowess, with a combined 15 patent families and more than 70 applications. The company is seeking regulatory clearance for its cultivated meat products in seven markets.
Its FSANZ filing comes months after the regulator gave the green light to Sydney-based cultivated quail maker Vow, which has been selling its protein in the form of parfait and foie gras in restaurants across Australia since July.
How Gourmey makes its cultivated duck
Courtesy: Sherry Hack
The standout feature of Parima’s application is that it will be assessed under FSANZ’s General (Level 5) Procedure, as opposed to its Major Procedure. It means the process is expected to take less than a year, since it only requires one round of public consultation. It’s also around A$40,000 cheaper.
It’s important to note that the late August 2026 timeline underlined by FSANZ is not set in stone. Vow’s application was meant to take around 15 months and be approved by June 2024, but was delayed by a year as the regulator amended its Food Standards Code.
Parima submitted its application in August. In its dossier, the startup explains that it employs non-GM cell lines and a semi-continuous process using shake flasks. Duck cells are grown in controlled conditions until the viable density is reached – after this, the majority of the culture volume is inoculated in a suspension bioreactor, and a small amount is retained to maintain a continuous process.
Once the culture in the bioreactor reaches the desired density, the biomass is harvested and separated from the culture media by centrifugation, before being washed with a saline solution. It is then packed and frozen until it’s ready to be used to make a final product, in combination with other food-safe ingredients.
“Cell-cultured duck is proposed for use by the general population, without sensitivities to duck or other avian species, as a food ingredient for further processing to be used [in] duck meat analogues at an inclusion rate of 5-80% by weight of the finished food,” the company says.
The cultivated duck can be turned into meat analogues, spreadable specialties, and fats and oils. Gourmey has already unveiled its foie gras application, which has been endorsed by a group of Michelin-starred chefs.
Parima’s regulatory progress latest in milestone year for cultivated meat
Courtesy: Parima
According to a document released by the FSANZ, the scientific risk assessment report will take about six months, followed by a six-week public consultation period starting in March. The FSANZ board will then make its approval decision, before being discussed by ministers in both countries in June.
“We look forward to working transparently and constructively with FSANZ as the review progresses, bringing cultivated foods one step closer to consumers’ plates,” Parima said in a statement.
It currently operates an innovation centre and a pilot facility in central Paris, where it runs multiple 400-litre bioreactors, and a pilot plant near Nantes, equipped with 2,000-litre bioreactors run daily. It also has a dedicated setup with a 5,000-litre fermenter, which analysis shows can bring costs down to $3.43 per lb. And in June, it partnered with AI specialist DeepLife to develop an avian digital twin to optimise production of its cultivated meat.
Aside from Australia and New Zealand, Parima has filed for approval in the EU (where it is the most advanced), the UK (also the most advanced here), Switzerland, Singapore, the US, and another undisclosed country.
In an interview with Green Queen this summer, Gourmey co-founder and Parima CEO Nicolas Morin-Forest had said it was expecting approval in Singapore first.
“We anticipate the first market authorisations within the next few months,” he said last week. “We’re aiming to become the first European cultivated meat company to get approved, and the first ever company with approval for two species: duck and chicken.”
Friends & Family Pet Food Company, meanwhile, was cleared to sell cultivated pet food in Singapore, and Biocraft Pet Nutrition and Umami Bioworks registered their cultivated meat innovations as feed materials in the EU, allowing them to sell the products as pet food ingredients.
The Good Food Institute has acquired cell lines and growth media from defunct startup SciFi Foods, and partnered with Tufts University to make them available for cultivated meat researchers.
In a major move to save the future food industry years of effort and millions of dollars for R&D, the Good Food Institute (GFI) has purchased cultivated meat components developed by SciFi Foods to free them up for public use.
The non-profit has bought eight bovine cell lines and two serum-free media formulations at an auction of SciFi Foods’s assets, following the Californian startup’s closure in 2024.
GFI has also partnered with the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture (TUCCA) to store and validate the components and place them in an open-access cell bank for academia and, eventually, companies. This cell bank will be housed at the institute’s upcoming future foods innovation hub.
It marks the first time suspension-adapted bovine cell lines will be available to cultivated meat researchers globally, and is set to remove some of the preeminent barriers to market entry for industry players.
“SCiFi’s pioneering work is like a baton in a relay. Given our role in the field, GFI was able to ensure that baton didn’t drop, and through our partnership with Tufts, copies of that same baton will be handed off to scientists and startups around the world, enabling more people to join the race,” highlighted Dr Amanda Hildebrand, VP of science and technology at GFI.
How GFI snapped up SciFi Foods’s cell lines
Courtesy: SciFi Foods
Founded in 2019, SciFi Foods began growing cell lines for beef in 2023, developing a hybrid burger with 90% soy protein and 10% cultivated meat. It had raised $40M in funding, was in consultation with the US FDA for approval, and operated a 16,000 sq ft pilot facility, where it completed a commercial-scale production run in a 500-litre bioreactor.
The startup had hoped to enter the market by 2025, but as investors withdrew from the wider cultivated meat sector, SciFi Foods was unable to escape the headwinds. It shut down in June 2024 after running out of cash, appointing an advisory firm for the sale of its assets.
Among the parties notified of the auction were GFI and Tufts. The former’s bid was accepted in August, and the cells and media were successfully transferred to the latter for storage and distribution a month later.
“We didn’t know who else might show up for the auction, but collectively agreed it would be a shame for SCiFI’s technology to get locked in a box somewhere, so we were excited that GFI decided to bid,” said Meera Zassenhaus, director of communications for TUCCA.
The components bought by GFI include the three most commercially developed beef cell lines from SciFi Foods. These had been modified by the gene-editing technology CRISPR to ensure their ability to grow indefinitely in culture, and subsequently adapted to grow in scalable single-cell suspensions.
Two of these cell lines were further engineered to remove markers of antibiotic resistance (genes inserted in the R&D stage), making them suitable for food applications.
“When we started SCiFi Foods, we had to start from square one, beginning with a small sample of cells from a cow on an actual farm. It took us four years and tens of millions of dollars to develop these cells into commercial cell lines that grow quickly in suspension and in serum-free media,” said SciFi Foods co-founder and CEO Joshua March.
“This was a massive technical achievement… but despite our relative speed, our progress wasn’t on the time-to-revenue required in today’s VC market. Despite our disappointment that we can’t take the SCiFi burger to market, we are extremely excited by GFI’s acquisition of our cell lines and the collaboration with Tufts for use by the field.”
Open-access cell lines a ‘win-win-win’ for cultivated meat
Courtesy: Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture
“So many experiments currently take place in small-scale systems, and at the end of the day, those experiments can only go so far in informing large-scale, bioreactor-based processes,” said Dr Andrew Stout, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at TUCCA.
“When labs across the field have access to shared, scalable, and serum-free systems, I think it will cause a real leap in the value and applicability of their research. At the same time, I’m hopeful that these cells will also help to catalyse a broadening pattern of resource sharing and cell line optimisation across the field,” he added.
According to GFI, cultivated meat makers currently spend a significant portion of their funds and time on cell line development, which costs between $2-10M, so access to these materials could save the industry tens of millions and years of R&D, removing barriers for future startups.
Open access to these cells and the media formulations will kickstart immediate R&D work and enable studies to be run in small bioreactors, which can help researchers refine process development. Plus, their availability reduces redundancies and spurs innovation through research collaborations, and benefits B2B players like media and scaffold suppliers and bioreactor and equipment manufacturers.
“Talk about a win-win-win,” said Hildebrand. “This type of open-access jumpstart invites more people to the field, gives everyone a better starting position, and ultimately can produce more winners – companies that get more products to consumer plates, and consumers who have more choices for foods they love.”
Tufts said the cell bank will offer shared-use prototyping and scale-up research facilities, incubator lab space for startups to co-locate, and a network of experts to accelerate cellular agriculture development globally. The university is currently raising capital to build out its infrastructure to acquire and develop additional cells, including bovine, mackerel, and pork lines.
Researchers interested in the cell lines can now join a waitlist, while the media formulations are already available online. “We are essentially composting intellectual property, or IP, from an individual start-up and transforming it into a public good to benefit the entire field,” said Tufts’s Zassenhaus.
“This model of IP reuse makes sense for all kinds of technologies even beyond alternative proteins, especially as climate tech broadly faces a contraction in funding,” she added.
France’s Gourmey has snapped up Vital Meat to form Parima, aiming to become the first cultivated protein company to get regulatory approval for two species.
In the latest consolidation move for alternative proteins, Paris-based Gourmey has acquired fellow French cultivated meat firm Vital Meat, combining their tech, regulatory and manufacturing prowess under a new entity, Parima.
The company combines Gourmey’s cultivated duck platform (which has spawned a foie gras product) with Vital Meat’s cultured chicken technology, which are collectively the subject of nine active regulatory filings across the world.
“Parima represents a new chapter, a unified platform built to lead the next generation of animal production, spanning multiple species and market applications, from premium to mass market. It’s about creating abundance through efficiency and scale,” Parima CEO Nicolas Morin-Forest tells Green Queen.
Vital Meat’s team is joining Parima, including co-founder Etienne Duthoit, who is taking up a leadership role. “We’re expanding our site presence in France,” adds Morin-Forest.
“Gourmey remains the group’s culinary brand, focused on premium products, chef collaborations, and established partnerships with leading gourmet distributors serving the world’s top restaurants and hotels,” he says. The brand’s demand from leading restaurants will “remain a key differentiator” as Parima expands across multiple species and applications.
Gourmey and Vital Meat to combine production at French facilities
Courtesy: Vital Meat
Gourmey made a splash in the future food world when it announced regulatory submissions in five geographies last year, including the first ever in the EU. It has created a foie gras product using cultured duck cells, which has been endorsed by Michelin-starred chefs, and has been working on chicken too.
The startup’s platform leverages a “second-generation” tech stack that replaces legacy biopharma techniques with food-grade, cost-effective, scalable processes. It combines continuous production, undifferentiated cell biomass, and suspension-based cell cultures to support efficiency and consistency.
In June, Gourmey partnered with AI specialist DeepLife to develop the world’s first avian digital twin to optimise production of its cultivated meat, shortly after analysis revealed that its 5,000-litre bioreactor system can bring costs down to $3.43 per lb.
Vital Meat, meanwhile, makes cultivated chicken using cell-line technology developed from nearly 25 years of avian cell research at Groupe Grimaud, a global animal genetics leader. The startup filed for approval in Singapore in late 2023, and in the UK in summer 2024. And months later, it held a public tasting at Hue restaurant in Singapore.
Gourmey currently operates an innovation centre and a pilot facility in central Paris, where it runs multiple 400-litre bioreactors. It also has a dedicated setup with a 5,000-litre fermenter. Likewise, Vital Meat has a pilot plant near Nantes, equipped with 2,000-litre bioreactors that are run daily.
Following the acquisition, both sites will remain operational. “Together, they form a fully integrated end-to-end platform, covering cell line and process development, scale-up, and culinary innovation. Our combined bioreactor capacity reaches several thousand litres,” Morin-Forest highlights.
Parima expects regulatory nod in ‘next few months’
Gourmey’s foie gras is made from cultivated duck cells | Courtesy: Sherry Hack
Parima has over 15 patent families and more than 70 applications, alongside regulatory filings in various geographies. “They cover the EU, where we’re the first and most advanced; the UK, where the Vital Meat and Gourmey dossiers are the two most advanced; Switzerland; Singapore, where both companies have active applications; the US; Australia; and another country we’re not disclosing yet,” says Morin-Forest.
Each company’s dossiers will continue under their existing procedures, and in an interview with Green Queen this summer, the Gourmey co-founder had said it was expecting approval in Singapore first.
“We anticipate the first market authorisations within the next few months,” Morin-Forest says now. “We’re aiming to become the first European cultivated meat company to get approved, and the first ever company with approval for two species: duck and chicken.”
Over the next 12 months, the company’s focus is on “execution, advancing regulatory approvals, scaling our production systems, and preparing our first market launches”.
“Our culinary brand, Gourmey, is grounded in B2B readiness, with strong culinary validation (we launched the industry’s first-ever culinary advisory board, bringing together Michelin-starred chefs Claude Le Tohic, Rasmus Munk and Daniel Calvert), global demand, and commercial partnerships already in place,” he says.
Since September 2024, more than 40 alternative protein companies have ceased trading, fallen into insolvency, or been acquired, partly a reflection of the industry’s struggles to fundraise. This year, cultivated fat maker Upstream Foods and cell culture tech firm CellRev shut down, while Uncommon Bio sold off its cultivated meat platform to Meatable and Vow to focus on therapeutics instead.
“After the initial hype, consolidation is the natural next step for our industry,” contends Morin-Forest. “A handful of leaders with the most scalable IP, the strongest products, and global regulatory market access will prevail. That’s what Parima is about.”
Time Magazine has released its annual list of the world’s best inventions, recognising a range of alternative protein and future food innovations.
From fish grown in bioreactors to butter made from carbon, some of this year’s most exciting food tech innovations have made it to Time Magazine’s list of the Best Inventions of 2025.
The annual publication has been expanded to include 300 products and technologies, the biggest in its 25-year history. The magazine sought nominations from its editors and correspondents around the world, with special attention paid to growing fields like AI and healthcare.
Each innovation was evaluated on a range of factors, including originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact. The honourees span a multitude of categories, including food and drink, agriculture, sustainability, green tech, and social impact.
When it comes to food tech, the 2025 list features innovations like cultivated seafood, animal- and plant-free butter, vegan gummies, mycoprotein, and more.
Wildtype, Savor, and The Better Meat Co among 2025 honourees
The company was the first to sell cultivated seafood anywhere in the world, and has joined forces with cultivated chicken maker Upside Foods to sue Texas over its ban on these proteins.
California is, in fact, home to several food tech startups on Time’s Best Inventions list. This includes Savor, which transforms point-captured carbon dioxide, green hydrogen, and methane into agriculture-free fats that can replace dairy and palm oil.
It launched its carbon-derived butter this year, working with the patisserie of San Francisco’s Michelin-starred outpost, One65, to sell bonbons and cookies. Savor has also partnered with fellow Michelin-starred eateries SingleThread and Atelier Crenn, and beloved establishment Jane the Bakery. And it’s now raising a Series B round to build a 10,000-tonne facility.
Speaking of fundraisers, in August, West Sacramento-based The Better Meat Co secured $31M in Series A funding for its Rhiza mycoprotein, a whole-biomass ingredient offering complete protein and high digestibility. Recognised on Time’s list, it is produced by feeding microbes on sorghum and potato sidestreams, and is on course to beat commodity beef prices next year.
Courtesy: The Better Meat Co
Rhiza can be used in vegan and blended meat applications, and is already sold to Hormel Foods, Maple Leaf Foods, K12 caterer SFE, and plant-based salmon maker Oshi. The company has secured five agreements from major meat producers in North America, South America and Asia, which are set to bring $13M in annual revenue.
Meanwhile, Swedish firm Orkla Snacks’s vegan foamy gummies, called Bubs, went viral on social media last year, causing an unexpected supply shortage. Now, four new flavours have been launched in the US, made from the same proprietary recipe and manufacturing technique that earned it a spot on Time’s list.
In the experimental category of the Best Inventions list, Time namechecked a cultivated chicken that made international headlines. University of Tokyo researchers created a nugget-sized piece of meat via a hollow fibre bioreactor, opening possibilities to grow whole cuts of cultivated meat, the industry’s holy grail.
Time Magazine’s list also featured 100 special mentions, and among them is Texas-based artisanal dairy-free brand Rebel Cheese, which uses “cave ageing and proprietary cultures to better match the flavours of their dairy counterparts”.
Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods and Alpro named World’s Best Brands
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
This week, Time Magazine also released its annual list of the World’s Best Brands, which aims to guide consumers to make more informed decisions and navigate through the brands available in each category.
The publication works with Statista to identify the top brands in the US, the UK, Germany, and Mexico, based on surveys of over 90,000 consumers in each country (India and Brazil will be added in December).
A weighted overall score based on brand awareness (15%), social buzz (10%), likability (30%), usage (15%), and loyalty (30%) was calculated for each brand in the 72 categories. The top-rated entry’s overall score was set at 100, and the scores of the following brands were adjusted accordingly.
In the US, Silk was named the top plant-based milk brand, followed by Almond Breeze, Chobani, Planet Oat, and Califia Farms. Likewise, Chobani topped the overall yoghurt category (it makes both dairy and plant-based versions), and Silk’s fully dairy-free yoghurts were third.
When it came to meat alternatives, Kellanova-owned MorningStar Farms was recognised as the best brand in the US, followed closely by Beyond Meat (with a score of 98.2) and Impossible Foods (92). Field Roast and Gardein rounded out the top five.
Courtesy: Alpro
In the UK, Alpro was named as the best plant-based milk brand in 2025 by Time, with Oatly close behind. Califia Farms, Rude Health and Koko were also on the list, but the gap between the scores is sizeable. Alpro was also fifth in the overall yoghurt segment. Meanwhile, market-leading Quorn was the best meat-free brand, a list also featuring Linda McCartney, Beyond Meat, Amy’s Kitchen, and Cauldron Foods.
Alpro’s dominance of the non-dairy milk market continued in Germany, where it was trailed by Alnatura, Oatly, KoRo and Bio Primo. Rügenwalder Mühle won the honour of the best meat alternative brand, with Green Cuisine, Alnatura, Beyond Meat, and Nestlé’s Garden Gourmet also on the list.
Finally, in Mexico, local company César Soya was named the best brand of meat analogues, followed by Gardein, fellow Mexican firm Soi-yah!, Loma Linda, and Beyond Meat.
A new study analysed several plant-based, algae-derived and cultivated protein sources for meat alternatives to find consumers’ favourite ingredients.
Are you more into pea protein burgers or rice protein nuggets? Or perhaps you’re more likely to bite into a cultivated sausage?
As food tech opens up possibilities to make meat alternatives with a wide range of ingredients, it can be hard to get the product mix right. What tastes good, and is it healthy and climate-friendly to boot?
It’s a question that formed the basis of a new survey by ETH Zürich, the public university in the Swiss capital, which asked nearly 2,000 participants from four European countries about their preferred alternative protein sources.
“Certain protein sources for use in meat alternatives have greater potential in terms of consumer acceptance than others,” the researchers wrote in the Appetite journal.
“The findings indicate that familiarity and regional culinary traditions influence consumer preferences and should therefore be considered when developing meat alternatives to make them more attractive to consumers,” they added.
Potatoes emerge as the tastiest source of meat alternatives
Courtesy: Appetite
Of the countries surveyed in the research, people in Serbia said they eat meat analogues most frequently, with nearly two in five consuming them at least once a week. This is followed by Italy (37%), Germany (24%), and Finland (21%).
Except for Germany, where consumers eat traditional plant proteins just as frequently, participants in each of the other nations are more drawn to meat alternatives than tofu, falafels, and the like.
When asked about the preferred protein sources for the best-tasting meat-free products, it was a two-horse race between eggs (most popular in Serbia and Finland) and potato protein (Italy and Germany)
Rice and pea protein also received high scores in the poll, but the researchers found country-specific differences. For example, almonds were rated highly in Germany and Serbia, lentils in Italy, and oats in Finland. The study ascribed this to “local culinary traditions and exposure, which have been demonstrated to play a crucial role in food acceptance and preferences”.
Cultivated beef was particularly well-rated by Germans, whose taste expectations for this protein were much higher than most other sources.
On the flip side, insect protein from crickets received the lowest rating on the taste scale, followed by algae protein. Soy, one of the most common plant protein sources, received a low score in Germany, sunflower seeds in Finland, and rapeseed protein in Italy and Serbia.
“The fact that these ingredients are widely produced across Europe, and thus well-known to most consumers, suggests that familiarity and exposure do not always lead to high acceptance rates,” the researchers noted.
They added that the unfavourable attitude towards soy, meanwhile, could be due to factors like negative taste perceptions, associations with GMOs, and limited familiarity.
Consumers are unconvinced by the health and sustainability of cultivated meat
Courtesy: Appetite
The findings around the perceived health and environmental impact of different protein sources were “less clear-cut”, though the scores were generally higher than those for taste.
Some of the proteins with the highest taste expectations—such as potatoes, peas, lentils, and oats—were also those considered to be the healthiest and most eco-friendly. The study highlighted the uncertainty surrounding the sustainability of cultivated beef, which was among the lowest-rated protein sources on this scale.
“Participants in Germany and Finland were more critical of the environmental friendliness of protein sources than participants in Italy and Serbia,” the study stated.
The one area where eggs didn’t do as well as the rest was health. Potatoes stood out as the healthiest meat alternative source for respondents, with peas following closely behind.
Most consumers highlighted rice protein among the healthiest sources, though Germans ranked it on the lower end. Instead, these consumers viewed almonds, oats, lentils and faba beans as healthier. Further highlighting the country-wide differences, oats scored high in Finland and Serbia too, while Italians viewed almonds and lentils more favourably.
Rice and soy are viewed as the least healthy plant-based protein sources in Finland, and the same goes for soy in Germany. Across Europe, the ingredient most consistently perceived as less healthy is cultivated beef, highlighting the work this industry needs to do in communicating the benefits of these products.
“Since cultured meat aims to mimic the sensory properties of meat, this similarity could be perceived as a positive attribute,” the researchers wrote. “However, the acceptance of cultured meat varies across cultures and, in certain countries, the perceived unnaturalness and disgust evoked by cultured meat represent significant barriers.”
Courtesy: Appetite
Food tech neophobia affects tofu more than vegan meat
ETH Zürich’s research further revealed that young Europeans were more likely to consume both traditional plant proteins and modern meat alternatives. In Finland and Serbia, men tend to eat these products more than women (there was no significant difference in Germany or Italy).
The study also looked at the effect of food tech neophobia, finding that people with low levels of neophobia were more likely to consume tofu, tempeh, and other traditional sources in all countries except Serbia.
In contrast, food neophobia did not significantly affect the consumption of meat alternatives in Finland, Italy, and Serbia, though it was a significant predictor for the consumption of both traditional and modern plant proteins in Germany.
This conflicts with previous research showing that neophobia is a barrier to meat analogues with the study’s authors suggesting its greater effect on tofu and falafels could be due to the prevalence of these foods in non-European cuisines. “In contrast, plant-based mince, burgers, and chunks are designed to mimic familiar meat products, thereby potentially reducing the impact of food neophobia.”
Regardless, the protein source “exerts a significant influence” on consumer acceptance of meat alternatives and must be considered in new product development, the researchers argued.
“Strategic selection and labelling of already accepted protein sources by product developers and marketers has the potential to enhance the appeal of meat alternatives and facilitate their wider acceptance,” they noted.
“To achieve broader acceptance, the taste and texture of plant-based meat alternatives must be improved and aligned with consumer preferences.”
Singaporean startup ImpacFat has secured fresh financing to fuel its Asian commercialisation plans for cultivated omega-3 fish fat.
ImpacFat, a Singapore-based biotech firm producing fish fats from cell cultures, has expanded into Japan and raised new capital to launch the ingredient into cosmetic formulations next year.
The startup has received investment from Japanese packaging giant Toyo Seikan Group, Singaporean VC firm 144 Ventures, and Lin Xiangliang, the CEO of Esco Aster (which operates the world’s first regulator-approved contract manufacturing facility for cultivated meat).
The seed funding round is in its final stages as the company negotiates with a potential lead investor, so for now, the sum is undisclosed.
“We believe that ImpacFat’s development of functional ingredients derived from fish fat cells, rich in nutrients such as DHA and EPA, can meet the rising global awareness of food security and the growing demand for healthy and delicious food,” said Toyo Seikan president Takuji Nakamura.
“Toyo Seikan Group will leverage its core technologies in sterilisation and moisture/gas barrier to build, together with ImpacFat, a value chain that maximises the potential of cell-cultured fish fat.”
ImpacFat targets cosmetics debut with cultivated fish fat
Courtesy: ImpacFat
Founded in 2019 by CEO Mandy Hon and Shigeki Sugii, ImpacFat’s technology is based on extensive research published by the latter, a stem cell biologist and principal investigator at Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star).
The startup makes cell-based fish fat high in omega-3 fatty acids. “[We] focus on wellness as a whole, which includes skincare, omega-3 supplements and alternative foods [like] plant-based meat [and] cultivated meat,” Hon tells Green Queen.
ImpacFat isolates cells from premium fish species like eels and pangasius catfish, developing cell lines that help them proliferate in controlled environments in bioreactors. These mature into healthy fat cells, which are then harvested.
The resulting ingredient is high in unsaturated fat and omega-3 fatty acids. In fact, it outperforms wild-caught bluefin tuna on omega-3 levels.
“We are focusing on selling our omega-3 cultivated fish fat as an ‘ingredient’, and making hybrid products for foodservice and retail,” explains Hon, highlighting the B2B model. “For alternative food, we are currently working with many close partners, which include Toyo Seikan Group, Esco Aster Singapore, Fuji Oil, etc.”
Its current production capacity involves five-litre bioreactors, and the firm is in the middle of expanding to a 10- to 50-litre scale. “We are also working with contract manufacturing partners in scaling up,” she says.
ImpacFat’s first foray into the market will come in the personal care industry. The startup is working on stem-cell conditioned media and exosome-based active ingredients for skin rejuvenation, anti-oxidation, and anti-ageing formulations. It is targeting a 2026 rollout in Singapore and South Korea’s cosmetics markets.
“We will also be looking for product development and commercialisation of skincare products in Japan in 2026, [and] subsequently food and supplements,” says Hon.
Cultivated meat and pet food products are already in the works
Courtesy: ImpacFat
ImpacFat’s ingredient adds a rich, savoury profile to seafood alternatives, delivering the taste and mouthfeel consumers often find missing in these innovations, and boosting the omega-3 content (a key pain point for these products).
Singapore is its first market for food applications, given that Japan is still in the process of developing its regulatory guidelines. ImpacFat submitted its novel food dossier to the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) in December 2024. “We are currently going through the review process with the SFA closely,” says Hon.
But any launch for human food and omega-3 supplements is, for now, earmarked for 2027. It’s gunning for a 2026-27 launch in the pet food arena, offering safer products free from microplastics, mercury and other marine pollutants. ImpacFat has signed an MoU for pet food product development and manufacturing.
The startup was inspired by Singapore’s 30 by 30 target, which aimed to produce 30% of the city-state’s food supply locally (currently, over 90% is imported). ImpacFat’s foray into Japan will contribute to its food security goals too, tapping into what the firm labels “one of the world’s most sophisticated markets for seafood and health supplements”.
By setting up research and operational infrastructure within Tokyo, it’s looking to work closely with local partners, researchers, and ecosystem players and speed up the adoption of cell-cultured tech in Japan.
ImpacFat will use the funds to scale up production, expand applications, and accelerate its market entry plans. “In 2026, we have a couple of R&D [projects] together with various key partners, including upcoming plans for cultivated fish fat scale-up, [… and] product development with plant-based meat,” says Hon.
It is one of several startups developing cell-cultured fats. California’s Mission Barns is already selling its cultivated pork fat in the US, while Dutch firm Mosa Meat is awaiting approval for its beef fat in various European markets. In Singapore, Ants Innovate showcased Cell Essence, a cultivated pork oil for hybrid meats, in a private tasting last year.
Aleph Farms CEO Didier Toubia on why the cultivated meat firm hasn’t launched yet, its plans for the UAE, its ongoing fundraise, and comparisons with the dotcom bubble.
It has been 21 months since Aleph Farms was approved to sell cultivated beef in Israel, 15 months since it laid off 30% of its staff, and six months since it raised $7.5M in the first closing of a fresh funding round.
A rollercoaster would be a good way to describe the startup’s previous two years, which included regulatory applications in Switzerland, the UK, and Thailand, and a $21.5M via a SAFE that converted earlier this year.
It is one of the longest-standing cultivated meat companies around. Whether cultivated meat is a technology trigger, at its peak of inflated expectations, or under the current trough of disillusionment in the Gartner hype cycle, Aleph Farms has been there for the whole ride.
Now, the industry is fast-approaching the next stage: the slope of enlightenment. Aiming to lead the way is what co-founder and CEO Didier Toubia calls “Aleph Farms 2.0”.
“Aleph Farms today is very different from the Aleph Farms of 2021-22,” he tells me. “We implemented a lot of changes… to make sure that Aleph Farms is actually in the best position to lead this new category for cultivated meat.”
In 2023, the model of the cultivated meat industry was to go big and fast—expand scale at all costs and launch as quickly as possible. As capital costs increased and investors became more risk-averse, Aleph Farms began focusing on profitability instead by becoming leaner and more capital-efficient.
“We have paused our investments in large plants and big facilities, and postponed our launch to really take the time first to reduce our costs, improve the scalability of our platform, and build the foundations right before we expand,” says Toubia.
He adds that the layoffs last year were part of this – today, the firm has around 40 employees. Moreover, it has decided to recede from the US, instead prioritising smaller markets with lower volumes first. This would help reach profitability faster, which in turn would make it easier to raise money.
Regulatory updates and plans for UAE and EU
Courtesy: Aleph Farms
Toubia says Aleph Farms is likely the most advanced company in the regulatory approval processes in Switzerland and the UK (where at least four others have filed). In the latter country, the firm is part of the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) regulatory sandbox, and was the first to reach the ‘validation’ and ‘suitability’ phases, leaving it three steps away from approval.
“The FSA in the UK is very professional, and I think they’ve really taken to this issue proactively,” he says. “There are good chances that they would actually be the next to prove a cultivated meat product. Of course, I hope it will be Aleph Farms. But, you know, any approval is good for the industry.”
The startup’s filing in Singapore predates these applications. The city-state was the first to clear cultivated meat for sale (back in 2020), and has since issued another approval. Aleph Farms – like a dozen or two others, according to Toubia – is still awaiting a decision.
“It has been delayed for a bunch of reasons,” he says. “After being the first country to approve cultivated meat at the time, they really want to make sure that they are not perceived as a country where it is easy to get approvals.”
The raft of applications has put a strain too. Toubia believes many companies that have filed for approval don’t actually intend to conduct business in Singapore – they just thought it would be easy to get clearance.
“We do see Singapore as a hub for Asia,” he argues. “We’re big believers in Singapore. We believe that the potential is great and that it’s a great footprint for us in Asia. So we remain very committed and excited about the opportunity in Singapore.”
Further, Toubia reveals that Aleph Farms plans to pursue regulatory approval in the EU (where two companies have already filed), as well as the UAE, which would be an entirely new region of focus for cultivated meat.
“We have a strong agenda in terms of food security at Aleph Farms, which is raising a lot of interest, essentially because of the geopolitical tensions, tariffs and disruptions of supply chains globally, especially for animal proteins,” he explains.
Aleph Farms optimises tech and production strategy
Aleph Farms operates a 65,000 sq ft facility in Rehovot, Israel | Courtesy: Amit Goren/Aleph Farms
Speaking of approvals, when Aleph Farms earned the green light in Israel, it was contingent upon clearing a Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) inspection for its production facility. That is still pending, though the company has transferred its production onto its new “platform 1.2”.
This is an optimised, simplified version of its initial tech, with faster timelines, greater efficiency, and fewer steps. “We are now in the process of completing the GMP and all the other certifications to be able to start producing commercially with this new platform,” says Toubia.
“We want to make sure that when we launch, we have continuity in the delivery of products,” he adds. “We’ve seen in the industry that sometimes, launching a product which is very expensive, not available, then pulling it back from the market is actually doing more harm than good.”
A recent independent analysis showed that Aleph Farms’s cultivated steak could be produced at $6.45 per lb and sold in wholesale for $12.25, generating annual net profits of $78.5M. With further process enhancement, the cost of goods sold could fall to just $4.08 per lb.
The firm operates a 65,000 sq ft plant in Rehovot, Israel (with a capacity to initially produce 10 tonnes of cultivated steak annually), has signed a co-manufacturing deal with Singapore’s ESCO Aster, and is building a factory in Thailand with biotech firms BBGI and Fermbox Bio.
Moreover, this month, Aleph Farms teamed up with The Cultured Hub, a biotech facility situated in The Valley in Kemptthal, Switzerland, to produce cultivated meat. It’s meant to be a regional hub that serves as a “cornerstone” for expanding capacity in Europe.
“We’re walking the talk, building and setting up production capacities closer to our markets, and taking operations out of Israel. It also demonstrates the feasibility of our strategy for relying on partners for production,” says Toubia. “The plan with The Cultured Hub is to use the existing plant in the capital, but also to further explore opportunities to operate additional, larger-scale plants, with a focus on Europe.”
Where would these be located? “It could be, of course, in Switzerland, but [we’re] also looking at opportunities in the UK and in Eastern Europe.”
‘Indulgent like beef, healthy like chicken breast’
Courtesy: Aleph Farms
It’s not just the production process that Aleph Farms is fine-tuning. “We’ve also done a lot of work on the product itself,” says Toubia. “I think that it’s important to get the product right, at the right price and to the right consumer – more important than the technology itself.”
He continues: “That’s something that sometimes other cultivated meat companies are not necessarily spending enough time on. There’s a lot of focus on technology and not necessarily on getting the product right.
“People will not buy a product just because it’s a cool product made by an advanced technology. Aleph Farms is the only company cleared today [to sell] cultivated beef products with natural cells – not immortalised, not GMO – as whole cuts.”
The firm’s first product is a Black Angus Petit Steak, and it’s working on a thicker steak too. “We’ve done a lot of work to really focus on trends for proteins… providing an optimised nutritional profile for the product that’s high in protein, low in calories and fat, high in micronutrients, to really target this segment of the market,” he says.
Another trend that’s amplified of late (thanks to the rise of GLP-1 drugs) is healthy indulgence. “A lot of people today want to eat less, but want the portions to be both indulgent and tasty and healthy at the same time,” he explains.
“And today, beef is considered indulgent and tasty, but not as healthy, for instance, as chicken breast, just because it’s heavier to digest, and richer in calories, fat, and cholesterol. Our goal is to deliver a new product that is healthy like a chicken breast, but indulgent like a beef fillet.”
Toubia says this is a new niche that would appeal to several consumer groups: “We need to make sure we’re targeting a segment large enough to really drive scale-up and traction in the market.”
Aleph Farms looking to raise up to $25M by year-end
Courtesy: Aleph Farms
To date, Aleph Farms has raised $147M, including the $29M it announced from the SAFE conversion and new funding. Now, it’s working on a second closing of the latter round by the end of the year, targeting a cumulative raise of $20-25M (including the $7.5M from March).
“The refocus away from scale into building a profitable business also implies a plan where we intend to raise much less money than the plans we had in 2021-22, because today, investors really want to see capital efficiency,” says Toubia.
“They want companies with less capital to reach more significant milestones and become profitable. So relying on external partners for the production is also where to minimise all direct investment in capex and equipment.”
Aleph Farms has a three-phase plan to maintain its leadership in the industry. The first stage is centred on growth foundations, with the business aiming to launch products with restaurant partners in Israel and Singapore by 2027, as well as achieving positive gross margins.
The second phase focuses on profitability between 2027 and 2028, and involves expansion in Asia-Pacific and the EU, building capacity, and garnering government support and offtake agreements.
It’s only after 2028, in the third phase, that Aleph will go all-in on scale. The company aims to launch in the US and Japan, while introducing new products and entering premium retail stores.
Cultivated meat akin to the dotcom bubble
Courtesy: Aleph Farms
Toubia compares the cultivated meat sector to the dotcom bubble of the late 90s. “We saw a lot of companies raising a lot of money and valuations going to the sky. A lot of junk and not very good companies were funded, with a strong focus at the time on scale and gaining a user base, rather than focusing on profit,” he recalls.
Then came the crash, with the value of the Nasdaq index sinking by 78%. “Companies were able to really rethink their business and their focus on building real, profitable businesses,” he says. Those who did – Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft among them – emerged from the slump and own the market today.
“It’s not a perfect analogy, but the same process is happening with complementary proteins,” he says. In 2020-21, a lot of money flowed into the space, but capital in this sector has shrunk alarmingly in the years since.
“After this excess of 2020, we’ve seen an opposite kind of excessive situation where, in 2023-24, many investors stopped completely investing in the space,” he explains. “Today, we’ve started seeing a kind of a rebound of the sector, which is much more rational and focused on… analysis of the fundamentals of the companies.
“In the next five years, we see a smaller group of companies really emerging as the category leaders. And those companies would be the ones which understand the market and the consumer, which are developing the right product at the right price for the right consumers, which are going to maintain the costs and focus on operational efficiency,” says Toubia.
“I believe Aleph Farms will be part of those few leaders emerging from the last two years of downturn.”
Israeli food tech pioneer Aleph Farms has struck a deal to produce its cultivated meat in Europe, setting up at The Cultured Hub facility in Kemptthal.
As it awaits regulatory approval in Switzerland, Aleph Farms has chosen the canton of Zurich as the European production hub for its cultivated beef.
The Israeli startup has teamed up with The Cultured Hub, a biotech facility situated in The Valley in Kemptthal, opened last year by retail giant Migros, flavour specialist Givaudan, and equipment manufacturer Bühler Group.
The move is part of Aleph Farms’s localised production strategy, and marks a key milestone for its international expansion. It’s also an extension of the firm’s six-year-long strategic partnership with Migros, which supported the firm’s regulatory application to the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office in 2023.
“Our collaboration with The Cultured Hub builds on years of joint work to advance the regulatory and operational readiness of cultivated meat in Switzerland,” said Aleph Farms co-founder and CEO Didier Toubia.
How Aleph Farms is charting its global footprint
Aleph Farms operates a 65,000 square foot facility in Rehovot, Israel. Courtesy: Amit Goren/Aleph Farms
Aleph Farms’s signature offering is the Petit Steak, a hybrid meat product combining non-modified, non-immortalised cells of a premium Black Angus cow with a plant protein matrix made of soy and wheat.
The firm has already received regulatory clearance in Israel, though this was contingent on the company clearing a Good Manufacturing Practices inspection for its production facility, on which there has been no public update yet.
Additionally, it has filed for approval in Singapore, the UK, Thailand, and Switzerland, and is engaged in advanced pre-submission consultations in countries including the US. It plans to eventually expand into Japan, South Korea, Australia, China, and Hong Kong too.
This strategy would give way to a complex supply chain, so setting up facilities in local hotspots would help Aleph Farms streamline its manufacturing and distribution. It currently operates a 65,000 sq ft plant in Rehovot, Israel (with a capacity to initially produce 10 tonnes of cultivated steak annually), and has acquired another factory in Modi’in.
Elsewhere, the startup has signed a co-manufacturing deal with Singapore’s ESCO Aster (the first approved cultivated meat facility globally), and is building a factory in Thailand with biotech firms BBGI and Fermbox Bio.
The Swiss facility is an extension of this approach, and will allow Aleph Farms to create a long-term partnership framework for production in the canton of Zurich, with the potential for future expansion into other European markets.
Aleph Farms will prepare for commercial launch with Swiss facility
The Cultured Hub is located in The Valley business park | Courtesy: The Valley
Opened in December, The Cultured Hub aims to speed up the development and commercialisation of cellular agriculture products. It’s equipped with advanced production development labs, as well as cell culture and fermentation capabilities and equipment.
The hub can host three companies at a time, which can work simultaneously in fully separated suites. Producers can scale up from small lab experiments to 1,000-litre pilot operations without investing in expensive assets or diluting equity. This helps accelerate market entry by saving time and resources, and allowing the entities to focus on creating the optimal food products at competitive costs.
“We believe the future of food depends on cross-industry collaboration to create impact at scale,” said Fabio Campanile, chairman of The Cultured Hub and head of science and tech at Givaudan. “We are confident that we can provide the infrastructure, services, and networks needed to bring great new products to market by combining Aleph’s innovation and expertise with our platform.”
The establishment of Aleph Farms’s Swiss operations is supported by the regional administration. “The company strengthens Zurich’s position as a hub for innovation and brings fresh momentum to the growing Zurich food ecosystem, which includes the Food Hub in Wädenswil and nearly 11,000 businesses across the canton,” said Carmen Walker Späh, the canton’s economic affairs councillor.
According to Aleph Farms, the collaboration supports the startup’s goal of decentralising production and boosting Switzerland’s domestic meat supply – currently, 20% of its beef is imported. It will further help the startup prepare for its commercial launch through relevant distribution channels, once it’s cleared to sell.
“This partnership allows us to execute our global strategy in the best possible way – one that is both capital-efficient and deeply embedded in the local market,” said Toubia.
It comes months after the firm secured $29M in the first closing of a larger funding round, taking its total investment to nearly $150M. And last week, an independent analysis showed that Aleph Farms’s steak could be produced at $6.45 per lb and sold in wholesale for $12.25, generating annual net profits of $78.5M. With further process enhancement, the cost of goods sold could fall to just $4.08 per lb.
A day after Texas’s ban on cultivated meat came into force, two food tech startups sued the state for its decision. Their legal team explains why.
When Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a law to ban cultivated meat in the state, companies had just over two months before it went into effect.
In that period, Wildtype, a US startup approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to sell cultivated salmon nationwide, debuted its product at Otoko, an omakase restaurant in Austin known for its blend of Tokyo-style sushi and Kyoto-style kaiseki.
“Farm-raised salmon creates so much pollution, so it’s not sustainable. You want to enjoy seafood long-term, so Wildtype’s good because you don’t have to kill the fish anymore,” chef-owner Yoshi Okai said. “It’s something new. It’s awesome.”
The eatery was one of Wildtype’s first launch partners, alongside outposts in Oregon, California, Washington, and Colorado. “We had selected Otoko and chef Yoshi Okai for a number of reasons, many months before this ban was floated in Texas,” co-founder and CEO Justin Kolbeck tells Green Queen.
“Following our launch in July, we had planned to build on our momentum in Austin by making Wildtype available to a number of seafood restaurants across Texas, including in Dallas and Houston, but this bill closed those markets to us,” he says.
Before Texas’s ban was even discussed by policymakers, Upside Foods – a cultivated meat startup approved to sell both by the FDA and the US Department of Agriculture – sold limited amounts of its first chicken product at a “well-attended private event” during the 2024 South by Southwest conference in Austin.
“The company is preparing for a larger-scale commercial launch of its new chicken products in the coming months,” says Upside Foods general counsel Myra Pasek. “Texas businesses – both restaurants and grocery stores – have expressed serious interest in selling Upside chicken in Texas. With the ban in effect, these sales would be prohibited.”
These missed opportunities have driven Wildtype and Upside Foods to join forces with the Institute for Justice to file a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, alleging that the state’s SB 261 is “unconstitutional”.
Wildtype was selling its cultivated salmon at Yoshi Okai’s Otoko restaurant in Austin before Texas’s ban | Courtesy: Wildtype
What clauses is Texas allegedly violating?
In the legal complaint, the Institute for Justice noted that the law wasn’t passed to protect the health and safety of consumers, since it allows the distribution of cultivated meat as long as it isn’t sold.
“Instead, SB 261 was enacted to stifle the growth of the cultivated meat industry to protect Texas’s conventional agricultural industry from innovative competition that is exclusively based outside of Texas,” it said.
It argues that Texas’s ban violates the Commerce and Supremacy Clauses of the US Constitution. Under the former’s dormant clause, the federal government has exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce, with states having limited power to interfere. It’s designed to prohibit economic protectionism that benefits in-state interests.
The Supremacy Clause, meanwhile, makes the Constitution and federal laws the highest law of the land. The decisions by two federal departments to allow Wildtype and Upside Foods to sell products in the interstate market supersede any contrary state laws.
“Texas’s law is unconstitutional because it was enacted for the purpose, and has the effect, of protecting in-state economic interests from out-of-state competition. That sort of discrimination violates the Commerce Clause,” explains Paul Sherman, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice.
“Second, as to Upside, Texas’s law is preempted by federal law. The Poultry Product Inspection Act prohibits states from imposing rules on the permissible ingredients in poultry products – or the manner in which they’re produced – that differ from or exceed federal standards,” he notes.
“The USDA has given Upside the green light to manufacture chicken products from cultivated cells. Texas has said Upside can’t sell products containing cultivated cells. That’s not allowed.”
Courtesy: Kevin Martin Galante/Upside Foods
Texas’s cultivated meat ban is ‘pure economic protectionism’
Texas is one of seven states to have banned cultivated meat. Florida was the first, and was at the end of a similar lawsuit brought by the Institute for Justice on behalf of Upside Foods last year. Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, Indiana, and Nebraska have also outlawed the sale of cultivated meat.
So why choose Texas for the lawsuit instead of the others? “Texas is the second most populous state in the country. It’s an important market,” says Sherman. “And it’s one in which both Wildtype and Upside have distributed their products. A victory there would send a strong signal to other states that this sort of economic protectionism will not stand.”
He confirms that the Institute for Justice is “monitoring legislative activity in all the states and will certainly consider filing other lawsuits if necessary”.
All the states that have banned cultivated meat are led by Republican governors, and surveys have shown that cultivated meat acceptance skews lower among Americans who vote red. But Wildtype’s Kolbeck doesn’t think such legislation is driven by partisan politics.
“This is pure economic protectionism,” he says. “There were countless points made during deliberations on this bill about protecting Texas ranchers. The complaint filed by the Institute for Justice provides examples. This law is all about keeping competition out of Texas. Wildtype was collateral damage.”
Indeed, Texas is the top meat producer in the US – last year, it churned out 4.5 billion lbs of beef. The industry is the third-largest economic generator in the state. And in the run-up to the bill’s signing, SB 261’s sponsor, Senator Charles Perry, said the introduction of cultivated meat “could disrupt traditional livestock markets, affecting rural communities and family farms”.
Likewise, Stan Gerdes, the bill’s lead sponsor in the House, said: “The goal of this bill is to protect our agriculture industry.”
Courtesy: Wildtype
What happens next?
The Institute for Justice isn’t stopping here. “We will be filing a motion for preliminary injunction asking the court to allow Wildtype and UPSIDE to continue selling their products in Texas while the case moves forward,” says Sherman “Our hope is that we can have a ruling on that before the end of the year.”
It attempted a similar move in Florida, though a judge rejected the preliminary injunction, cancelling Upside Foods’s scheduled appearances at Art Basel and the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, and postponing its planned product launch at a restaurant in the state in early 2025.
“Although the Florida court rejected our preemption claim, its reasoning was based on a misunderstanding of how the federal law works. Briefly, the court believed that state and federal requirements had to conflict, but the federal law prohibits even non-conflicting state requirements,” says Sherman.
“Meanwhile, the [Texas] government is likely to file a motion to dismiss the case. We defeated a motion to dismiss in our Florida challenge, and we’re confident we can defeat one here,” he adds. “We have strong arguments. The district court in our Florida lawsuit has already held that the government will have a heavy burden to justify the law on our Commerce Clause claim.”
Wildtype co-founders Aryé Elfenbein and Justin Kolbeck | Courtesy: Wildtype
Apart from harming cultivated meat producers’ financial dealings, Kolbeck suggests that the ban has a wider effect on public perception. “In addition to shutting down one of the very first places cultivated seafood was available for sale, proponents of the bill made misrepresentations about cultivated foods during deliberations, all of which harmed the reputation of our emerging industry,” he says.
The case has been assigned to Judge Alan Albright, who Sherman says is known for moving cases quickly: “Our hope is we’ll have a ruling from the trial court on the merits no later than summer next year.”
Asked for an update on the Florida case, Sherman adds: “We’ll be having an argument in the 11th Circuit on November 3 about whether the trial court erred when it denied Upside’s motion for a preliminary injunction. Besides that, we’re moving forward with discovery in the trial court.”
Californian startup Mission Barns sold its cultivated pork for the first time at a dinner in San Francisco, with dishes featuring its meatballs and bacon.
On Tuesday evening in San Francisco’s Sunset District, a small group of diners gathered for the first sale of cultivated pork anywhere in the world.
Food tech firm Mission Barns held the exclusive dinner at Fiorella, weeks after securing approval from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its cultivated pork fat. The event was the first of three pop-up dinners, convening six industry leaders and one sweepstakes winner.
Fiorella served Mission Barns’s meatballs with Italian herbs and chilli, as well as in a Sicilian-inspired dish with raisins and pignoli, a creation of chef-owner Brandon Gillis. Diners also tried its Applewood-smoked bacon, which is layered with the startup’s cultivated fat.
Courtesy: Mission Barns
“We put our full trust in Fiorella and chef Brandon, who has deep experience working with the best local, seasonal ingredients in a farm-to-table Italian style,” Mission Barns CEO Cecilia Chang tells Green Queen.
“After we walked him through our products, he created a menu that showcases them in true Fiorella fashion,” she says. “One highlight is his take on our meatball – he broke it apart, seasoned it with classic Sicilian ingredients like currants and pine nuts, and reformed it into something entirely new, while still letting our cultivated pork shine.”
Chang recently took over from Eitan Fischer as CEO to lead the company into its next phase of growth, with Fischer still actively involved as founder and board member.
The inaugural dinner will be followed by another event on September 24, where eight guests chosen from the public will be invited to try the cultivated pork dishes.
What goes into Mission Barns’s meatballs?
Courtesy: Mission Barns
Founded in 2018, Mission Barns uses belly fat cells from American Yorkshire pigs and grows them in bioreactors to make its Mission Fat. This fat is then mixed with plant-based ingredients to make meatballs, bacon, and more.
This hybrid approach allows the startup to keep costs from soaring too high. And since fat is the primary flavour carrier in food, even a little bit goes a long way in replicating conventional meat.
“The great thing about our cultivated fat ingredient is that we’ve found even at low inclusion rates (i.e., single-digit percentages), there’s a really noticeable improvement on taste and mouthfeel, and our products have been able to match conventional meat on blind taste tests with consumers,” says Chang.
For example, the meatballs contain a base of pea protein and Mission Fat (which will appear on the label as a composition of purified water, cell-cultivated pork fat cells, and kosher salt).
These are complemented by coconut oil, textured pea protein, Italian seasoning, and methylcellulose. In addition, the meatballs contain less than 2% of natural flavours and colours, sodium gluconate, salt, potato starch, red wine vinegar, lactic acid, xanthan gum, and liquid seasoning.
At Fiorella, Gillis was “blown away” by the cultivated pork fat. “It had that same rich, savoury depth you get from traditional pork, but with a much smaller footprint,” he recalls. “Working with them on this launch lets us create dishes that are both familiar and groundbreaking.”
As part of its launch strategy, Mission Barns has been working with front-of-house teams to help engage and educate diners. “At our restaurant, we’re always looking for ways to honour tradition while embracing innovation,” says Isabella Hare, a server at Fiorella.
“Partnering with Mission Barns allows us to introduce our guests to a groundbreaking ingredient that’s not only delicious but also more sustainable for the future of food,” she adds.
Courtesy: Mission Barns
The three pop-up dinners had always been intended as a limited in-market test to gauge consumer response and gather valuable feedback, according to Chang.
“While we’re excited to continue exploring opportunities with Fiorella and other chefs, our long-term strategy has always been B2B: licensing our technology so food partners and manufacturers can produce cultivated products at scale. These early sales and insights serve as proof points for potential partners,” she says.
“We are having conversations with chefs and restaurants across several US cities,” she notes, but adds: “In the near term, our focus remains on scaling our bioreactor platform rather than expanding restaurant distribution.”
The firm has designed a novel bioreactor technology that marks a departure from the single-cell suspension tanks of the biopharma sector, enabling more efficient, scalable, and cheaper production.
Courtesy: Mission Barns
Cultivated meat bans ‘limit choice and economic opportunity’
Aside from its restaurant rollout, Mission Barns has announced a listing with Sprouts Farmers Market, which will make it the first cultivated meat product to be sold in a US supermarket.
In July, Chang told Green Queen that the company expects to roll out its meatballs at the retailer’s Oakland locations in Q3. “We’re working closely with Sprouts on timing, but we aren’t announcing specific rollout dates just yet,” she says now. “What we can share is that consumers in the Bay Area will be among the first in the country to find Mission Barns cultivated pork on grocery shelves.”
Though its current focus is on the US, Mission Barns is keeping an eye on markets that align with the US regulatory process, like Singapore and other Asian countries. It has secured $60 million in funding to date, and will now attempt to raise more capital to support commercial scale-up, strategic licensing, and global expansion.
“We are raising enough to fund our scale-up work for the next few years,” says Chang. “As everyone knows, the fundraising landscape for cultivated meat is a tough one right now.”
Indeed, in 2023, funding for cultivated meat startups fell by 75%, followed by another 40% drop in 2024, reaching just $137M. And in the first half of this year, this total dropped even further to $35M.
Courtesy: Mission Barns
What will convince investors to bet on Mission Barns? “We have a differentiated approach focused on cultivated fat as a low-inclusion-rate flavouring ingredient, and our novel patented bioreactor has broad applications for products outside of just food – so that’s a really attractive point for investors,” highlights Chang.
It has been a big year for cultivated meat in the US. Aside from Mission Barns, Wildtype and Believer Meats have both also received a ‘no questions’ letter from the Food and Drug Administration – Wildtype’s salmon is already being served in several restaurants now (as seafood isn’t regulated by the USDA). At the same time, seven states have now banned cultivated meat, with Florida and Texas being sued for their decisions.
“We believe consumers should have the right to choose safe, delicious, healthy products that are approved by US regulators (in our case, the FDA and the USDA),” says Chang. “The bans are unfortunate because they limit choice, innovation, and economic opportunity in those states. That said, they haven’t slowed our plans – we’re focusing on states where cultivated meat is welcomed, starting here in California.”
Food tech startup ORF Genetics has raised €5M ($5.8M) in a new funding round to scale up production of specialised proteins key to cultivated meat.
Icelandic firm ORF Genetics has secured €5M ($5.8M) in funding to advance and scale up its cultivated meat capabilities.
The investment round saw participation from both existing and new shareholders, and will help the startup significantly scale up its capacity to produce specialised proteins via molecular farming. These proteins are key components for cultivated meat manufacturing.
“We are at a pivotal moment,” said CEO Berglind Rán Ólafsdóttir. “This funding ensures that ORF can meet the imminent surge in commercial opportunities and supports the company’s next growth phase.”
How ORF Genetics makes growth factors with barley
Courtesy: ORF Genetics
ORF Genetics’s base technology leverages molecular farming, through which companies modify the cells of plants (instead of microbes or animals, as is the case in cultivated proteins or precision fermentation) to enable them to replicate animal proteins, which can be harvested from leaves or other plant tissues.
Its unique expression system is called Orfeus, which uses barley as a vehicle for large-scale production of recombinant animal and human proteins. The startup identifies the genetic code for the target protein, which is cloned into a highly optimised expression vector called GrainVec.
In a process mediated by bacteria, immature barley embryos undergo tissue culture in a carefully optimised medium, which then grow into strong, bioengineered plantlets with a well-developed root system.
These are then transferred into a supporting matrix in small pots, in a controlled growth chamber. After a well-defined period, these plantlets are transferred into an automatic hydroponic conveyor belt cultivation system until they are ready for harvest.
ORF Genetics chooses the highest-expressing barley lines (based on target protein levels in the barley seed extract), which are expanded further into a final selection of the best-yielding lines.
ORF Genetics plans extension of funding round
Courtesy: ORF Genetics
The Orfeus platform has allowed the firm to develop a portfolio of growth factors, including Mesokine, its range for cultivated meat. Each product is a defined barley seed extract that contains endotoxin-free growth factors from cows, pigs, birds and marine species. They also contain selected barley proteins to stabilise them, prolong their lifetime, and enhance their bioactivity.
ORF Genetics notes that Mesokine has become a trusted brand among key players in the cultivated meat space. One of its most notable customers is Australia’s Vow, whose cultured quail is made from the Icelandic firm’s growth factors, and is being sold at restaurants in Singapore and Australia.
Further, it’s working with South Korea-based SeaWith, which is hoping to receive regulatory approval and launch cultivated seafood in its home country by the end of the year. The two companies hosted a public tasting for cultivated shellfish meat at the Iceland Ocean Cluster this February, in an event attended by First Gentleman Björn Skúlason and agrifood minister Hanna Katrín Friðriksson.
Now, ORF Genetics is aiming to supercharge the production of Mesokine, with plans to expand capacity by 14-fold by 2027, and by a factor of 10,000 by 2032.
To help with this effort, it’s extending its funding round with a goal of raising €7M. “We plan to expand the round by the end of October and welcome new investors to join us in building a company that holds a key position in a market with tremendous growth potential,” said Berglind Rán.
ORF Genetics is among several companies innovating with molecular farming, including Moolec Science, Alpine Bio, PoLoPo, Mozza, Miruku, Tiamat Sciences, Bright Biotech, and NewMoo.
Swedish cultivated meat startup Re:meat has struck a deal to establish a pilot facility in Lund, which will be the first such factory in Scandinavia.
Months after securing $1.1M in funding, Malmö-based firm Re:meat has signed a partnership to establish Scandinavia’s first cultivated meat facility.
The firm has teamed up with Biotech Heights, a biotech innovation hub supporting future food systems at Kemicentrum in Lund. Co-founded by Lund University, packaging giant Tetra Pak, and Sweden’s national innovation agency, Vinnova, it is located alongside the Lund University Pre-Pilot Plant (LUPPP).
Re:meat has become Biotech Heights’s first startup member, which will launch its first pilot at the LUPPP. “Collaboration is necessary to advance the development of fermentation and apply bioprocess technologies to new industries,” said Emma Nordell, managing director of Biotech Heights.
“Re:meat will be our first start-up to pave the way for collaboration between academia, start-ups and industry players within biosolutions,” she added.
The pilot plant, titled Re:meatery, will be installed by the end of 2025 and validated with partners and clients in spring 2026.
Re:meat bets on food-grade bioreactors to lower costs
Courtesy: Re:meat
Founded in 2022 by Jacob Schaldemose Peterson, Marie Gibbons and Gittan Schiöld, Re:meat emerged from stealth a year later with cultivated Swedish meatballs that received “overwhelmingly positive” feedback in taste tests.
It sources non-GMO cells through a biopsy of healthy free-range livestock. These are immortalised cells, meaning they can differentiate and multiply indefinitely. They’re fed a mix of nutrients and vitamins under an ideal temperature in fermentation tanks called bioreactors.
Once they grow to the desired density, the cells are harvested – this process currently takes three weeks. Re:meat’s initial focus is on minced meat, but it is working towards whole-cut products in the long term.
The company says its patented core technology radically lowers the cost of hardware for cultivated meat, an important step towards scaling cultivated food. It has developed an alternative to the controversial and expensive fetal bovine serum, and uses food-grade equipment instead of pharmaceutical bioreactors to meet the lower margins in this industry.
“Inspired by our many years in the brewing industry, combined with our R&D team in cell biology, we have developed a food-grade bioreactor that still meets the high standards and parameters to cultivate sensitive mammalian cells,” said Re:meat CTO Marten Schmidt.
“This means that our Re:meatery also fits for yeast, and bacteria-based processes, such as precision fermentation. So, the potential really extends beyond cultivated meat,” he added.
Re:meat plays into Swedes’ support for domestic production
Courtesy: Re:meat
While Re:meat is Sweden’s only dedicated cultivated meat startup, it doesn’t mean there’s a lack of appetite for these proteins in the country.
Polling by the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe has found that 55% of Swedes are open to trying cultivated meat, with 57% supporting its availability if approved by regulators.
“Swedes are typically keen on new things,” Thomas Kalling, professor of strategic management at Lund University, told GFI Europe last year. “Their balanced perspective underscores the potential for cultivated meat to not only enhance our competitive edge, but also tackle pressing global challenges related to health, ecology, nutrition, and affordability.”
Re:meat’s Schmidt noted: “We identified the need to design equipment that costs a fraction of today to be able to scale and industrialise alternative foods production and all its connected processes. This could enable a food revolution.
“Biotech Heights is a great partner supporting our common goal of bridging academia and commercialisation by providing the perfect combination of available infrastructure and scientific know-how,” he added.
“It is really inspiring that Re:meat wants to establish a pilot in our environment,” said LUPP manager Martin Hendström. “It will open up exciting new opportunities for innovation, research and education.”
The GFI Europe survey showed that three in five Swedish consumers back domestic production to bolster the national economy. Re:meat’s new factory will lean into that. And it isn’t the only major alternative protein facility being built in the country.
In April, agricultural cooperative Lantmännen received €50M from the European Investment Bank in part financing for a pea protein isolate factory. It will manufacture plant proteins for use in applications like protein bars, drinks, breads, as well as non-dairy alternatives and meat analogues.
The Craft Consortium is building a cultivated meat farm in the Netherlands, a first-of-its-kind project co-funded by the EU.
When it comes to ensuring the safety of cultivated meat, way more Europeans place their trust in farmers (27%) than retailers or private companies (11%), according to a Euroconsumers survey this year.
The fact that farmers themselves will be most acutely affected if cultivated meat takes off on a large scale further emphasises their critical role in this future food sector.
These factors have led several stakeholders to join forces under the Craft (Cellular Revolution in Agriculture and Farming Technology) Consortium, with the aim of building the world’s first cultivated meat farm in the Netherlands.
The project has been awarded the first €2M of a €4M grant request, co-funded by the EU-backed accelerator, EIT Food. It’s designed to decentralise cultivated meat production and enable farmers to diversify their businesses.
The consortium is made up of RespectFarms, Wageningen University & Research, cultivated meat firms Mosa Meat, Aleph Farms, Multus, sustainable agriculture company Kipster, and facility design specialist Royal Kuijpers.
“Craft boils down a world problem to farm size. So we can solve it,” said RespectFarms co-founder Ralf Becks. “And once it works, we scale this out to the world to increase impact. Let’s export technology instead of meat and animals.”
How the cultivated meat farm would work
The project is looking to integrate cultivated meat into real farms, ensuring that the production is led by farmers and embedded locally. It will demonstrate how cultivated meat can coexist with livestock and crops, creating resilient and sustainable food systems.
“It is important for food innovations to stay as close as possible to primary food production, making use of local resources and waste streams,” said René Wijffels, a bioprocessing engineering professor at Wageningen University.
RespectFarms has previously explained that through this model, farmers can work with experts (like architects) who can retrofit their stable with new designs that are fit for cultivated meat production and a farm of the future.
They’d be able to produce more meat with fewer cows, and they don’t need to be slaughtered. It safeguards them against any disease risk to the livestock (and eventually humans who consume their meat), because you’re essentially taking them out of the equation.
“This represents the first effort globally to merge cellular and traditional farming and promises to deliver consumers the best of both worlds: the unrivalled experience of real meat, through products produced and sold locally,” noted Peter Verstrate, co-founder and COO of Mosa Meat, which this year applied for regulatory approval for cultivated beef fat in the EU.
“The project will deliver a business model that is fundamentally new on one hand, and centuries old on the other, and will add [a] new perspective, also for farmers, to agriculture as we know it,” he added.
As things stand, the food system is simply not sustainable, both from a food security and climate perspective. There’s not enough land to produce food for a global population that will approach 10 billion by mid-century, while the emissions linked to livestock production make up the bulk of agriculture’s environmental footprint.
Cultivated meat, though, can reduce water consumption by 78%, land use by 95%, emissions by 92%, and societal costs by 56%. “We need to find other ways to provide for our food – within the Earth’s capacity, with as little impact as possible on animals, humans, [and] the climate, and with a future for the (livestock) farmer,” said Ruud Zanders, co-founder of Kipster and RespectFarms. “Et voila: the cultured meat farm.”
Many farmers have embraced cultivated meat
Courtesy: RespectFarms
The threat to farmers has been the source of reasoning behind bans (and attempted bans) on cultivated meat in the US and Europe, despite livestock producers being open to the competition and advocating for consumer choice.
Farmers in the UK recognise the opportunities presented by cultivated meat, and are more worried about the social issues brought on by these proteins, like Big Food controlling the market or the knock-on effects on rural communities, than the impact on their bottom lines.
This was the argument of the Euroconsumer report. “Cultivated meat can offer opportunities for farmers – but only if we make smart choices now, keep things fair, and make sure benefits don’t just go to a few big players,” it stated.
In the US, too, livestock farmers themselves have opposed the numerous bans on cultivated meat, noting that they didn’t need the government’s help to compete with these proteins.
“This is not an anti-farmer sector; this is a sector that is using farmed products in new ways. And generally using farmed products that are more profitable and highly sustainable in the way they’re produced,” Andy Jarvis, director of the Bezos Earth Fund’s Future of Food scheme, told Green Queen last year. “The [culture] media are sugars, and all sorts of minerals and things that are coming from crops, and they’re farmed goods.”
This sentiment was echoed by Euroconsumers, which highlighted “small-scale on-farm cultivated meat production” as an opportunity for farmers.
Now, the EU agrees with this assessment, having invested in the Craft Consortium. “This grant enables us, together with RespectFarms and our partners, to pioneer farm-scale cultivated meat production, empowering farmers with viable, resilient, and sustainable models that align with Europe’s mission for healthier lives and fairer food systems,” said Neta Lavon, co-founder & CTO of Aleph Farms.
“Combining knowledge, building trust and creating new narratives is what excites me about this project,” said Ira van Eelen, co-founder of RespectFarms and board member of Cellulaire Agricultuur Nederland. “I envision children’s books with fun educational stories about ‘Happy the Cell’ and his adventures in becoming the king’s meatball. This project is literally ‘Food for Thought’.”
The previous 12 months have seen a sharp increase in the number of alternative protein businesses that have ceased trading, come close to the brink, or been acquired. Here are all the major deals, starting September 2024.
The alternative protein sector has experienced a dramatic rise in business failures and consolidation over the past 12 months, reflecting significant market turbulence and shifting investor sentiment.
The bulk of activity occurred in Europe (23 deals) and North America (16 deals), with Asia-Pacific registering five notable events. This clustering highlights how alternative protein entrepreneurship, historically clustered in these regions, has faced pronounced headwinds from both consumer and funding challenges.
Particularly in Europe, legacy brands in the UK and the Netherlands have wound down or switched ownership, while several US-based startups, including those with substantial venture capital backing, have ceased trading or sold assets at losses.
Technology and product trends
Most casualties and transactions have been in plant-based companies (32 out of the total), whereas fermentation (7), cell cultivation (3), molecular farming (1), and blended protein (1) technologies make up far fewer. This skew suggests plant-based meat, dairy, and ready-meal startups have struggled most with scaling and profitability.
Of these, meat analogues (18 deals) and dairy alternatives (10 deals) were especially susceptible, perhaps due to intensifying competition and slower-than-expected consumer adoption. B2B protein suppliers and niche categories like honey and eggs also saw closures and restructuring, indicating market saturation or lack of stand-out differentiation.
Types of business events
Acquisitions constituted the largest share of deals (24), flanked by multiple closures (11), liquidations (4), bankruptcies (2), one merger, and several notable asset sales*.
In some cases, acquisitions afforded surviving entities access to IP or branded assets without assuming full operational risk. Other times, distressed sales reflected deep operational challenges and an inability to raise further funds.
*Note: The estimates for liquidations and bankruptcies do not include businesses that were later acquired or shut.
Macro implications
The spike in closures, insolvencies, and “fire sale” acquisitions suggests intense market correction, likely driven by rising production costs, tighter capital flows, faltering retail demand, and ongoing price sensitivity among mainstream consumers.
The sector is recalibrating around stronger, well-capitalised incumbents, with distressed startups finding new homes or dissolving. It’s clear that after years of expansion, alternative protein is experiencing its first widespread shakeout – a sign both of maturation and a need for strategic pivots in product, channel, and consumer engagement.
Singaporean food tech startup Umami Bioworks has registered two cultivated seafood ingredients for pet food in the EU, and is eyeing a 2026 launch.
In a year of milestones for the industry, cultivated pet food has landed on another.
Singapore’s Umami Bioworks, which specialises in cell-cultured seafood, has registered two pet food ingredients with EU authorities, paving the way for commercialisation in the EU.
While human pet food still remains a fair way off, this is the third startup cleared to sell cultivated pet food in the EU. The two ingredients registered with the EU Feed Materials Register involve cultivated white fish, with one suspended in a liquid nutrient broth.
They’re classed under the register’s Category 10, which involves fish, aquatic animals and their derivative products. “This marks an important regulatory milestone for us and establishes a clear pathway to market,” Gayathri Mani, product manager at Umami Bioworks, tells Green Queen in an email.
“We’re already working with partners, and preparing for launches in 2026,” she added, outlining that the development ensures it can now “move forward with the next steps to bring cultivated seafood into real products for pets in Europe”.
Further, the startup has announced a renewed partnership with California’s Friends & Family Pet Food Company, which earned its own regulatory approval for cultivated pet food in Singapore in June. It comes a year after the two firms first began collaborating, and will entail pilot launches in Singapore, the UK, and the EU.
Umami Bioworks’ EU registration covers cultivated white fish
Courtesy: Umami Bioworks
In the EU, companies looking to sell animal-derived ingredients to pet food manufacturers need to meet legal requirements ensuring the ingredients are safe, and register as a user of animal byproducts.
There’s no pre-market approval process to sell feed ingredients, unlike human food ingredients. This means it isn’t the cultivated pet food ingredients that are subject to registration, but the facility producing these proteins.
Umami Bioworks’ cultured white fish is derived from a non-GMO cell line and grown in a controlled, antibiotic- and animal-free medium. The second ingredient is the same biomass, but suspended in a liquid nutrient broth. Both are described as sources of omega-3 fatty acids, protein and nutrients for pet food.
The startup’s pet food exploits go back to 2023, when it partnered with Canada’s Cult Food Science to unveil the Marina Cat brand of cultivated fish treats. “With nearly 90 million European households owning a pet and the region’s pet food market growing at over 5% annually, the appetite for innovation has never been stronger,” the company said.
Umami Bioworks, which merged with fellow cultivated seafood producer Shiok Meats in 2024, has additionally developed cultured Japanese eel and bluefin tuna for human food use, and is in the early stages of developing a white fish too.
“Our eel programme is the most advanced, with regulatory filings made in several key markets and production running at pilot scale. We are planning multiple product launch campaigns with our partners and will share more on those campaigns in the near future,” Mani told Green Queen last month.
Cultivated meat regulation continues to progress in 2025
Graphic by Green Queen
In March, Austrian-American firm BioCraft Pet Nutrition registered its cultivated mouse meat for pet food use in the EU, under the Category 3 animal byproducts category. Czech startup Bene Meat Technologies was the first to register cultivated pet food as an EU feed material back in 2023, although it did so under the fermentation category instead of as an ABP. It has since filed an application to the US Food and Drug Administration.
Speaking of which, Cult Food Science has conducted feeding trials in the US in pursuit of regulatory approval for its Noochies! brand.
Last year, London-based startup Meatly passed stringent inspections from UK regulatory bodies to receive approval for its cultured pet food, which made it onto Pets At Home shelves in a partnership with vegan dog food maker The Pack this spring.
And as reported by Green Queen, Friends & Family secured approval from Singapore’s Animal & Veterinary Services (AVS) to sell cultivated meat for dogs and cats. It will roll out eight SKUs this autumn.
It’s not just cultivated pet food that has seen a surge in regulatory progress this year. Four startups making cultivated meat for humans also received some form of approval. Vow got cleared to sell its cultured quail in Australia and New Zealand, following its Singapore green light in 2024.
Meanwhile, Mission Barns secured the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) green light for its cultured pork fat (its debut tasting event is next week), Believer Meats received a ‘no questions’ letter from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its cultivated chicken, and Wildtype began selling its cultivated salmon after earning the FDA nod (the USDA doesn’t oversee seafood).
These developments may continue this year, with industry experts hopeful of approvals in Thailand and South Korea by the end of 2025, too.
CellRev, a Newcastle-based bioprocessor of cell culture technologies, has ceased trading and appointed administrators to sell its assets.
UK biotech firm CellulaREvolution (CellRev), an enzyme technology specialist for the cultivated meat, regenerative medicine and vaccine sectors, has gone into administration.
“We couldn’t deliver commercial milestones fast enough to secure Series A investment. The bar is higher than anyone (in 2021) could have foreseen,” said CEO Chris Green.
CellRev brought in Ed Connell and Mike Kienlen from advisory firm Armstrong Watson as administrators on August 12. “Following their appointment, the joint administrators have made all staff redundant and are working with their agents, Hilco Valuation Services, in relation to realising the assets of the company,” a spokesperson for Armstrong Watson said.
CellRev’s partnership with BSF Enterprise was abandoned last year
Courtesy: CellRev
CellRev spun out from Newcastle University in 2018 with a breakthrough novel enzymatic process that overcame longstanding bottlenecks in bioprocessing. It aimed to optimise cell manufacturing with reagents, addressing the industry’s scalability, quality and cost barriers.
The company sought to tackle the manufacturing challenges in the cultivated meat industry to help change consumption habits, and produce tissues for clinical trials to speed up the development of life-saving treatments. It served a global customer base of biopharma, vaccine producers, regenerative medicine developers, and cultivated meat startups, supplying them with high-value media additives in trial and production volumes.
Its flagship product, AggreGuard, is a specialist enzyme blend that stops cells from clumping together during production, which helps increase yields, improve quality, and reduce waste, without slowing cell growth.
And Continuase is its continuous cell manufacturing enzyme solution, which enables extended production runs and reduces downtime to offer step-change improvements in efficiency and cost-effectiveness for large-scale manufacturing.
Over the years, CellRev has secured multiple rounds of investment. It closed a £1.2M seed round in 2021, followed by another £1.75M raise a year later. In 2023, the firm brought in £1.4M (supported by the European Regional Development Fund), and secured a £330,000 grant from national innovation agency Innovate UK.
In December 2023, CellRev partnered with BSF Enterprise (parent company of cellular agriculture startup 3D Bio-Tissues) to launch a joint venture, Cultivated Meat Technologies Limited, to mass-produce cultivated meat in a cost-effective manner.
The entity set out to secure licensing agreements with meat producers who could help provide capital, production expertise and supply chain relationships. It was working on producing cultivated meat fillets as a proof of concept.
Late last year, BSF abandoned the joint venture, retaining full ownership and instead focusing on different ways to produce cultivated meat with major British and European food processors.
CellRev pivoted away from under-the-pump cultivated meat sector
Courtesy: CellRev
While CellRev developed an industry-first cell production platform, filed three patent families, and secured initial strategic partnerships to launch products, its target market was “hit unbelievably hard by industry shifts” starting in late 2022, according to Green.
He explained that the startup pivoted in a major way, stripping back to a reagents-only model and focusing solely on the life sciences opportunity. CellRev settled on vaccines as its target, secured commercial partnerships and began conducting pilots. It also signed deals to develop a cell and gene therapy product range, secured its first pharma evaluation, and set up distributors.
“It wasn’t enough,” said Green. “We are still adamant that what CellRev set out to do is transformative and very much needed; however, we ran out of time.”
Now, the administrators are aiming to sell off the company’s assets, including the CellRev brand, the AggreGuard and Continuase products, its trademarks, patent applications, website and domain name, as well as tangible assets like centrifuges, bioreactors and microscopes.
The Newcastle University spinout is the latest example highlighting the hurdles facing the cultivated meat industry, with investors losing faith, governments attempting to restrict these products, and consumers continuing to be sceptical.
Cultivated meat witnessed a 40% decline in funding in 2024, securing only $139M, its lowest annual total since 2019. In fact, between 2022 and 2024, this sector cumulatively raised less money than it did in 2021 alone. This year has been even bleaker, with companies in this space receiving just $35M in the first six months.
It has resulted in startups either running out of cash or pivoting their strategies completely, much like CellRev had done. Last year, SciFi Foods wound down after facing fundraising difficulties, while in July, insect farming company FlyBlast declared bankruptcy and blamed its strategy of targeting the cultivated meat sector.
And this month, UK startup Uncommon Bio sold off its cultivated meat assets separately to Meatable and Vow, turning its attention to therapeutics with an initial focus on severe lung diseases like idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Biokraft Foods held a Great Indian Cultivated Chicken Cook-Off last week, with young chefs showcasing the future of food in the Navi Mumbai event.
For the most part, cultivated meat companies have relied on chefs to flaunt the full potential of their products. The majority of launches have been held at innovative restaurants in the US, Singapore and Australia. Only two of these innovations have entered a supermarket, and one was for pets.
Biokraft Foods is taking the same approach in India. The Mumbai-based maker of cultivated chicken held a cooking competition for its product, dubbed the Great Indian Cultivated Chicken Cook-Off, at the DY Patil School of Hospitality & Tourism Studies last week.
The final involved 10 culinary students, who were tasked to create an appetiser using the cultivated meat as a hero ingredient for a four-strong panel of leading chefs.
“We wanted to show that cultivated chicken is real food with real culinary potential. By bringing cultivated chicken meat to young chefs, we encouraged them to reimagine cultivated chicken through creativity, culture, and tast,,” Biokraft Foods founder and CEO Kamalnayan Tibrewal tells Green Queen.
“These young chefs represent the future of the food ecosystem, and it is important that they engage with ideas that go beyond cooking and that sustainability, ethics, and delicious new ingredients are equally important,” he adds. “The cook-off was our way of making the idea tangible and sparking conversations about how cultivated meat could fit into India’s food future.”
Courtesy: Biokraft Foods
The cook-off’s winning cultivated chicken dishes
The competition saw participants from some of India’s leading culinary schools, and the dishes were judged with several criteria in mind, including hygiene and food waste management, taste and texture, innovation and creativity, and presentation.
The winning dish, called Masalon ka Safar (Hindi for ‘A Journey of Spices’), came courtesy of Issa Patel, a student at the Patkar-Varde College Department of Hospitality and Catering. He won a prize of ₹40,000 ($455). It brought together flavours from across India: saffron naan from the north, Champaran chicken from the east, tangy tomato chutney from the south, and green chilli thecha from the West.
“Cultivated chicken felt no different from conventional chicken, tasty, tender, and satisfying. The real plus is that it’s an ethical and sustainable way to enjoy meat,” Patel tells Green Queen.
Issa Patel’s winning dish, Masalon ka Safar | Courtesy: Biokraft Foods
Another student from the same institute, Shlok Khedekar, secured second place and ₹30,000 ($340) for his creation, Nawabi Yakitori with Miso-Caramel Sauce. “For me, cultivated chicken represents a step towards modern gastronomy, meeting protein needs, delighting taste palettes, and offering a humane, cruelty-free way to enjoy meat,” he says.
The third prize (worth ₹20,000/$230) went to Vedika Sakpal, a student from the host institute, who made Malai Rose Dumplings. The Kohinoor College of Hotel and Tourism Management Studies’s Shravan Kadam, meanwhile, won ₹10,000 ($115) as part of a special innovation prize for his dish, called Sanjeevani Jugalbandi.
“As a chef, it is inspiring to see cultivated chicken, just like farmed chicken, being marinated, grilled, spiced, and plated with pride, using different techniques, in a commercial environment,” says Demetrius Cordeiro D’Souza, new product development chef at Biokraft Foods.
“This competition proves that innovation and tradition can share the same plate, thus opening doors to a revolutionary culinary experience in the future,” he adds.
Courtesy: Biokraft Foods
Biokraft Foods charts path to market for cultivated meat
The winners of Biokraft Foods’s cook-off will receive a sponsored visit to the Merck Life Science facility in Bangalore, giving them a glimpse of the food science behind cultivated meat.
“This is just the beginning. We see the winners as ambassadors of what is possible with cultivated meat,” says Tibrewal. “We would love to involve them in future collaborations, whether through recipe development, showcasing cultivated chicken at pop-ups, or even supporting our eventual market entry. Their creativity helps us connect with consumers in ways science [or] food tech alone cannot.”
In addition to the cook-off, Biokraft Foods also hosted Forkward, a series of panels highlighting the views of stakeholders across the food industry. They included discussions about modernising menus with cultivated meat, the health and sustainability potential of these proteins, and the bridge between innovation and consumer trust.
Courtesy: Biokraft Foods
This series of talks gave chefs the chance to “learn directly from diverse voices across the food ecosystem, including non-profits, foodtech pioneers, founders, and leaders from hospitality”, according to Tibrewal. “This is just the beginning of many such conversations that will shape India’s journey towards sustainable proteins,” he said.
Speaking to Green Queen after hosting India’s first public tasting for cultivated meat in April, he said the two-year-old startup planned to file for regulatory approval with the Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSAI) of India this year.
“The approval pathway calls for thorough safety evaluations, detailed scientific evidence, and transparency in production practices, with the dual aim of safeguarding consumers and fostering innovation,” he says now.
Courtesy: Biokraft Foods
“FSSAI has already set up a scientific working group to create clear evaluation frameworks for cultivated meat, and these frameworks reflect the country’s forward-looking stance on regulation and willingness to engage with next-generation food solutions. This is also complemented by industry efforts to provide strong data on safety, nutrition, and sustainability.”
An update on its regulatory progress is expected soon, but in the meantime, Biokraft Foods is already plotting its path into the market. “Chefs, hotels and restaurants are the best partners to introduce cultivated meat to consumers because they shape taste experiences and build trust,” says Tibrewal. “Once acceptance grows, we would then look at retail formats.”
Cultivated meat, plant-based proteins and regenerative agriculture can facilitate a “just transition” of the protein industry, but factory farming needs to stop, a new study shows.
In the energy industry, a just transition means replacing coal with renewable power. But when it comes to the agrifood sector, one system can’t simply be replaced with another, according to a new study.
This is because food systems are “deeply embedded in culturally sensitive social structures and practices”, so a combination of methods is the key to ensuring a just transition of protein production. The answer may lie in a shift to regenerative agriculture and an increase in cultivated meat and plant-based proteins, alongside a rapid descaling of factory farming.
The study, published in the Plos One journal, is the result of a four-year collaboration between Federation University Australia and Israeli cultivated beef producer Aleph Farms. The researchers evaluated 13 protein systems against 25 social, environmental, economic and governance indicators – these included seven beef production methods, one industrial pork system, two poultry systems, one plant-based alternative, and two types of cultivated meat (made via both conventional and renewable energy).
The findings – built on a review of 285 studies – show that novel proteins like cultivated meat have a positive impact across several areas, and are a better way to produce proteins than most.
Cultivated meat a positive lever for the protein transition
Courtesy: Plos One
The researchers ranked each production system based on its impact on the indicators, with each category assigned a maximum positive and negative score.
For example, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in the US had a score of -43 in the natural capital category (two above the lowest possible score), which included impacts like greenhouse gas emissions, land use change, on-farm waste, and water pollution.
Industrial pork and caged poultry both scored -14 (the lowest possible total being -25) on human capital indicators, which refer to farmers’ and consumers’ health, workplace safety, and more.
Cultivated meat performed positively across key environmental and social measures. When produced from sustainable energy, it had a combined score of six for GHG emissions, water and air pollution, land use change, and land degradation.
It had an extremely positive impact on governance structures (a score of five) and workplace safety (four), and is beneficial for greater opportunities for youth (three), policy influence (three), and worker skills and knowledge (two). Aside from the net emissions, the impact was nearly identical across both conventional and green energy production systems for cultivated meat.
Nine systems had overall positive impacts, led by regenerative farming (a score of 63 on a scale of -125 to 125), followed by organic systems (45). Cultivated meat from sustainable energy came in fifth position (24 points), three points ahead of the same from fossil-derived energy.
Plant-based systems had an overall score of two, with lower scores on water pollution, soil contamination and other natural capital indicators due to their association with on-farm primary production. “This is because large amounts of lentils, grains, oilseed crops, etc., that form the key ingredients of highly processed plant-based food are grown using conventional farming methods,” the researchers explained.
Four protein production methods had negative impacts: CAFOs (-46), industrial pork (-45), poultry (-35) and small-scale beef (-25).
Cultivated meat would earn 33% market share in ideal just transition scenario
Courtesy: Plos One
The authors then developed five “what if” scenarios for a just transition of protein production. The current scenario assumes business as usual, followed by situations outlining slow, moderate, fast and aggressive change.
The fast-change scenario had the highest impact score, entailing a rapid reduction of industrial animal farming to 1% of the global market by 2040 (it currently occupies a 69% share). Simultaneously, plant-based proteins and cultivated meat each make up a third of the protein market by 2050 in this case.
Regenerative agriculture emerged as the most effective approach for a just transition, with the authors highlighting its “enormous potential to contribute to climate-resilient, equitable and economically sustainable protein production systems”. “However, negative impacts associated with greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater extraction and livestock diversity need to be addressed,” they added.
With cultivated meat, meanwhile, concerns about net emissions, energy use, and water consumption “remain unaddressed”. But there’s a caveat. “If the production of cultivated meat grows significantly in the future, it may effectively reduce the overall negative impacts of the protein production systems,” the study stated.
The researchers point out how a large number of negative impacts could lead to adverse regulatory responses to certain protein systems, attracting heavy penalties, consumer backlash, and investor fallout. “Livestock farmers and protein producers can target short-, medium- and long-term responses to avoid risks arising from negative impacts,” they wrote.
It is the first of a series of reports being produced by the Federation University and Aleph Farms, and comes at a time when politicians in the US and the EU are attempting to restrain cultivated meat with bans and proposed restrictions. One of the chief drivers of the efforts is the potential impact on farmers, despite livestock producers being open to the technology and speaking out against policy restrictions on it.
Animal fats are terrible for the planet, but most plant-based alternatives fall short. For Israeli startup Accellta, the key lies with cell-cultured dairy.
With plans for an $8M and a regulatory application in the US, Israeli firm Accellta is aiming to bring cultivated dairy fats to the forefront of the future food conversation.
When it comes to food, cell cultivation technology is best associated with meat, with only a handful of companies focusing on dairy proteins. By focusing on milk fats, this startup is targeting something even more niche.
This is because fat delivers the taste, texture and mouthfeel people love in dairy products. “While proteins are already produced at scale via fermentation and plant-based systems, fat is the real bottleneck,” Accellta co-founder and CEO Michal Amit tells Green Queen when asked why it’s choosing to focus on fats over proteins.
“The dairy industry faces a structural shortage of milk fat,” she says, adding that discussions with global dairy leaders confirmed the urgent need for scalable and authentic milk fat solutions.
There’s also a consistency issue. “Dairy companies struggle with operational challenges: milk fat concentration is not constant, varying between herds and across seasons. In summer months, fat levels are particularly low, forcing companies to purchase additional fat from external sources just to keep production lines running,” explains Amit.
Cultured dairy fat, though, offers a “reliable, geographically closer, and consistent supply”, which streamlines operations and lowers dependency on volatile external markets.
Accellta isn’t a new name in the biotech industry. It has been around since 2012, starting as a stem cell tech startup and building what Amit says was one of the world’s strongest large-scale suspension culture platforms.
It has been profitable since 2018, thanks to tech and media licensing, process development, and media optimisation services. It was in 2023 when the firm turned its focus to the food sector, specifically cultivated fats for dairy products to solve the “fat balance” in the industry while simultaneously decarbonising it.
How Accellta makes its cultivated dairy fat
A microscopic view of cultivated milk fat droplets | Courtesy: Accellta
Unlike cultivated meat, which often requires structured tissues, scaffolds, and multiple cell types, Accellta’s dairy production process focuses solely on fat cells grown efficiently in suspension. “This is simpler, more scalable, and directly aligned with the needs of dairy products, where fat is the key ingredient,” says Amit.
Its proprietary 3D suspension culture grows stem cells in chemically defined media, eliminating the need for scaffolds or microcarriers and enabling very high cell densities with minimal contamination risk. It starts with pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) in suspension. Unlike immortalised cell lines that need to be altered to multiply indefinitely, these have the natural ability to continue multiplying, and in a rapid manner.
The PSCs are then differentiated into adipocytes. “The resulting fat droplets are harvested and processed into functional dairy fat ingredients,” explains Amit. “A unique feature of our platform is the media formulation: it makes PSCs ‘think’ they are attached to a solid surface, while actually growing in suspension; achieved without any genetic modification of the cells.”
She adds: “Importantly, we can also fine-tune the fatty acid composition inside the adipocytes, tailoring the nutritional and functional properties of the fat to specific dairy applications.”
Asked if Accellta is using fetal bovine serum, an ethically controversial and highly expensive component that most of the cultivated meat industry is moving away from, its CEO says she isn’t disclosing details about media formulations right now.
“We have over a decade of experience in developing and optimising suspension media for stem cells, and we are now applying this expertise to create a formulation that meets regulatory requirements while reaching a cost point that enables true commercial viability,” she offers. “Thanks to our strategic partners, we already have a clear target price for our cultured dairy fat that will allow us to compete effectively in the market.”
Cell-cultured dairy fat can be blended with milk or alternative proteins
Instead of selling consumer products, Accellta is focused on the B2B market, supplying its cultivated dairy fat as a premium ingredient to food manufacturers and dairy processors.
“These food manufacturers and dairy companies will then use our fat to create high-quality consumer products with authentic dairy taste and improved nutritional profiles,” says Amit. “Importantly, our technology also enables fine-tuning of the fatty acid composition, so we can adapt the ingredient to match the performance requirements of each customer application.”
In fact, it has already produced prototypes with a fatty acid profile that matches dairy fats. Unlike plant-based fats, the firm’s cell-based dairy version can provide the same taste, mouthfeel and functionality as milk fat, and has the same melting point and flavour release.
“Our cultured fat can be blended seamlessly with conventional dairy fat or with alternative protein bases,” she says. The inclusion rate depends on the specific product; ice cream typically contains 15% fat, butter around 80%, and cheese 20-35%.
“We have already incorporated our cultured dairy fat into prototypes such as yoghurt, butter, and ice cream to demonstrate functionality and taste,” says Amit. Its hybrid butter contains 20% cultured fat.
“We are planning to build our own production facilities to supply cultured fat as an immediate, high-quality ingredient for dairy applications. At the same time, we are pursuing joint ventures with strategic partners worldwide, enabling them to establish localised production facilities based on our technology,” she explains.
“Through these partnerships, we provide technology licensing, hands-on operational support, and benefit from long-term royalty streams,” she adds. “This dual approach – combining direct ingredient supply with scalable global partnerships – allows us to address near-term market needs while positioning Accellta as a key enabler of the dairy industry’s transition to sustainable, cultured ingredients.”
Accellta eyes $8M in funding, targets US as first market
Courtesy: Accellta
Accellta is producing the fat in its in-house bioreactors, with monthly quantities enough for developing applications and prototypes to share with investors and strategic partners.
“The next stage, supported by our fundraising, will be to scale production through contract manufacturing partners who specialise in transforming lab-scale processes into industrial-scale manufacturing,” Amit reveals. “Moving to larger scales will enable us to produce hundreds of kilograms of cultured dairy fat per month, enough for our customers to purchase small batches for the development of dairy products based on our fat.”
Speaking of which, while it has been “self-sustaining and profitable for several years” – thanks to earlier investments, tech licensing revenues, and non-dilutive grants – Accellta is now raising $8M to speed up the development of the cultivated dairy fat, expand its production capacity, and deliver minimum viable product samples to partners.
“This funding will enable us to demonstrate feasibility at commercial scale and secure our first sales agreements within 24 months of closing the round,” says Amit.
Given that this is a novel food ingredient, the cell-based dairy fat would need regulatory approval in whichever markets it plans to enter. “Accellta is working with experienced international regulatory consultants to design and execute our approval strategy,” she says.
“Our first target market is the US, where we are preparing a submission to the FDA, building on the regulatory precedents already established for cultivated food products. In parallel, we plan to engage with regulatory authorities in Singapore, Israel and Europe.”
Animal fats are revered for their flavour and functionality, but they’re terrible for the environment. Livestock farming may just be the leading cause of climate change, and uses up vast amounts of land and water.
Plant-based fats are essential too, with saturated fats providing form and functionality to legions of products. But palm oil alone is present in half of all supermarket items and responsible for most of the deforestation in tropical regions.
According to calculations by Savor, a US company making butter with captured carbon, green hydrogen and methane, the production of animal and plant-based fats collectively generates 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It underscores the need for new alternatives that don’t hurt the planet.
Meanwhile, in the cell-based dairy category, Canada’s Opalia has secured the first commercial supply agreement for its milk from Dutch dairy giant Hoogwegt, ahead of an expected $4M fundraise.
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.
Nearly half of citizens in China’s tier 1 cities would choose cultivated meat and seafood over conventional options – but health and safety remain the main concern.
As China’s government ramps up support for cultivated meat, people in its major metropolises are all for it too.
The country is the world’s largest producer, consumer, and importer of meat, and the appetite for these proteins will continue to rise as urbanisation and affluence make them more accessible. However, where that meat comes from may change, since 60% of China’s protein supply needs to come from alternative sources by 2060 for a realistic chance of decarbonisation.
Cultivated meat, grown by culturing real animal cells in bioreactors, can drastically lower the greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and land use associated with meat production. China is already at the forefront of this shift, home to eight of the top 20 patent applicants for these novel proteins.
Its protein diversification drive is bolstered by public support. According to a 1,000-person survey by the APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture (APAC-SCA), 77% of people in four tier 1 cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen – are willing to try cultivated meat and seafood.
Health and food safety top of mind for China’s consumers
Courtesy: APAC-SCA
The poll reveals that the interest in cultivated meat stems from the appeal of trying new and innovative foods, and comes despite relatively little understanding about these proteins.
A third (34%) of Chinese consumers aren’t familiar with the term at all. And while 63% have heard of cultivated meat, just one in 10 knows what the concept means. But even among the latter group of respondents, only about half can provide an accurate technical definition.
Still, the positive outlook towards these proteins persists, with 45% of consumers saying they’re likely to replace conventional meat and seafood with cell-cultured versions.
This is primarily due to “the new and innovative aspects of cultivated meat and seafood, and the health benefits these products may bring when compared to their conventional counterparts”, APAC-SCA project manager Calisa Lim told Green Queen.
That said, health is a recurring concern too. A perceived unnaturalness, food safety worries, and doubts over health are the top three hurdles for cultivated meat. “When it comes to a new food product, especially novel foods, safety aspects will always be at the top of consumers’ minds, due to their unfamiliarity,” said Lim.
“For China, in particular, healthy living has been consistently promoted by the Chinese government and adopted by its citizens, with healthy eating playing a huge role. What we see in terms of the presence of health and food safety aligns with what Chinese consumers already tend to prioritise when purchasing ordinary foods.”
The respondents also place a lot of emphasis on local government laws, regulations, and safety standards, and indicate that these would also shape their perceptions of cultivated proteins. Streamlined messaging about the safety and health benefits of these foods, both from regulators and the industry, are thus critical to building consumer trust.
“Assurance on health and safety cannot come solely from the alternative protein industry,” explained Lim. “As consumers place a strong belief and trust in food safety regulators, unified messages from government stakeholders and industry players would be most effective to provide assurance on health and safety.”
Courtesy: APAC-SCA/Marco Livolsi/Green Queen
APAC-SCA lauds Chinese government support for cultivated meat
Speaking of which, the government is already betting big on future foods. The current five-year agriculture plan encourages research in cultivated meat, while the bioeconomy development strategy aims to advance novel foods.
This year, the country saw its first alternative protein innovation centre open in Beijing, fuelled by an $11M investment from public and private investors to develop novel foods like cultivated meat. And in the Guangdong province, China’s most populous region, local officials are planning to build a biomanufacturing hub to pioneer tech breakthroughs in plant-based, microbial and cultivated proteins.
At the annual Two Sessions summit, top government officials called for a deeper integration of strategic emerging industries (which included biomanufacturing), shortly after the agriculture ministry highlighted the safety and nutritional efficacy of alternative proteins as a key priority. Meanwhile, No. 1 Central Document (which signals China’s top goals for the year), underscored the importance of protein diversification, including efforts “to explore novel food resources”.
“We are excited by the decision of the Chinese government to ramp up support for the cultivated meat and seafood sector, especially with China’s declaration that food security is a top national priority,” said Lim.
“China’s lead in cultivated meat patent filings globally illustrates the deep interest from the scientific community and the rich scientific knowledge of the local industry and research centres that have accumulated thus far. Once the pathways for commercialisation are set in place, China would be a formidable marketplace for such products,” she added.
Graphic by Green Queen
APAC-SCA is calling for the creation of coherent, consistent regulatory guidelines and international alignment on the risk assessment frameworks of cultivated meat. Lim noted that the country introduced a novel food framework back in 2013. “However, a clear guideline for the preparation of cultivated meat and seafood dossiers remains in the works,” she said.
The organisation further noted that engagement with regulators through tools like virtual clinics and sandboxes can provide clarity to companies looking to commercialise their products. Tasting sessions on pre-approved products are also crucial to get public feedback and fine-tune taste and texture ahead of market launch, it said.
“As one of the world’s largest meat consumers, China is very susceptible to livestock diseases such as the African swine fever,” outlined Lim. “The production process of cultivated meat and seafood thus provides a stable alternative for the growing affluent Chinese population (which is eating more meat), from the point of shifting trade relations and climate change.”
Dutch food tech startup Meatable has acquired UK-based Uncommon Bio’s cultivated meat platform and key staff, as the latter shifts focus to therapeutics.
As it works to secure regulatory approval in multiple markets, Dutch cultivated pork startup Meatable is expanding its future food portfolio with the acquisition of several critical assets from Uncommon Bio.
Meatable has taken over the UK firm’s cultivated meat platform, including key technology, several IP assets and high-performing cell lines, and expert staff. The move will allow the former to expand into new species and accelerate its regulatory and market launch efforts.
“The acquisition opens up exciting possibilities for diversification. Pork has always been our starting point, but this additional platform enables us to respond more flexibly to customer demand, whether that’s beef, chicken, or other species,” Meatable CTO Aris de Rijke told Green Queen.
Uncommon Bio, meanwhile, is spinning out to therapeutics in stealth mode, building on the non-GMO mRNA reprogramming and saRNA differentiation technologies it has developed. It is “focusing on changing medicine through multi-targeting”, it said on a job posting on its website.
Its “polysaccharide-based delivery platform enables multi-pathway cell programming, offering a safe, efficient and scalable alternative to multi-target therapies”, the startup added, noting that it was initially targeting severe lung diseases like idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
“We wanted to find the best home for our technology and it’s exciting to see Meatable carry our work forward and apply it at scale,” said Uncommon Bio CEO Benjamina Bollag. “I look forward to continuing our collaboration and watching their continued success and global impact in the years ahead.”
Uncommon Bio founders Ruth Faram and Benjamina Bollag | Courtesy: Uncommon Bio
Meatable eyes new products like cultivated chicken and lamb
Meatable operates one of the fastest cell differentiation processes in the cultivated meat industry. Its Opti-ox technology uses pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), which – unlike immortalised cell lines that need to be altered to multiply indefinitely – have the natural ability to continue multiplying, and do so rapidly.
This is coupled with a perfusion process that enables a continuous cycle to generate very high cell densities and produce fully differentiated muscle and fat cells in just four days.
The acquisition of Uncommon Bio’s platform will allow Meatable to rapidly expand across species, markets, and consumer segments. “The main advantage of acquiring an additional technique lies in the added versatility it brings, enabling us to broaden product lines and work with more breeds,” said de Rijke.
He added that the major attraction was a diversification across possible GMO and non-GMO product lines – until now, Meatable only had the GMO option. “From our conversations with meat companies, it’s clear that speed to market is critical, and achieving this is often easier with a non-GMO product since it typically involves fewer regulatory hurdles,” he explained.
“While our core focus will remain on pork and beef, we are seeing growing demand for other species such as chicken and lamb, areas where Uncommon’s technology will be especially valuable.”
Courtesy: Meatable
The acquisition further boosts Meatable’s IP portfolio with additional patents and proprietary assets. “The value of the IP is strengthened by the calibre of investors who have supported Uncommon’s mission from the start,” said de Rijke.
Uncommon Bio, formerly called Higher Steaks, raised $30M in Series A funding in 2023, bringing in investors like OpenAI founder Sam Altman, his brother Max, and film producer Sebastiano Castiglioni. “We’re proud to carry forward technology that has earned the trust of such respected backers… further fueling our path toward success at scale,” de Rijke noted.
Meatable CEO Jeff Tripician added: “By combining two highly complementary platforms, Meatable is now equipped to reliably deliver high-quality cultivated meat at a global scale. This enables us to support the meat industry with a stable, secure, and future-proof supply of species like pork, beef, lamb, and poultry, ensuring business continuity and resilience in the face of increasingly uncertain times.”
Uncommon Bio acquisition will fast-track regulatory approval for Meatable
In addition to the non-GMO status, Uncommon Bio’s “regulatory-ready dossier” was a big attraction for Meatable, paving the way for faster regulatory approval in multiple regions.
“We have ongoing, constructive conversations with regulators worldwide for our current process, but we recognise that approvals are often faster for non-GMO products,” said de Rijke. “Uncommon has already done impressive work compiling the necessary data for a regulatory dossier, and we look forward to finalising and submitting this in the coming months to accelerate our commercial rollout.”
In a wide-ranging interview with Green Queen last year, Tripician indicated the company planned to file dossiers in the six geographies, with Singapore its first market. The firm, which is building a large-scale facility in the city-state, was expecting approval here by Q1 2025. Though this has been delayed, its strategy is to use the approval as a proxy to get clearance in other countries, as a form of international cooperation for novel food authorisation.
“I see us moving with pretty good speed through 2025,” Tripician said in October. “At the end, I would be very disappointed in our team if we don’t have approval in five, six countries by this time or the end of next year.”
Courtesy: Meatable
The company did not elaborate on its regulatory progress when asked by Green Queen; however, it acknowledged that it was essential before moving forward on its commercial plans. Tripician had noted how Meatable’s approach had shifted to becoming a supplier to the meat industry, which would use its cultivated ingredients in blended protein products: “They take raw material – meat – they turn it into food, and they sell it. We now provide them with some of the meat. Very simple.”
Expanding on this, de Rijke added: “We’ve been in discussions with forward-looking meat companies globally, including in Southeast Asia, the UK, and the Middle East. These partners are eager to establish reliable product lines in today’s volatile market while also making a positive impact on the planet.”
Having raised $95M to date, Meatable is looking to secure around $35M in a Series C raise. In February, it diversified beyond food through a partnership with fellow Dutch firm Pelagen, which specialises in cell-based leather. The two will work to enhance the production, efficiency and scalability of the material for use in a variety of industries, including fashion, automotive, and interiors.
Japan’s IntegriCulture and Singapore’s Umami Bioworks have joined forces to leverage their cellular agriculture expertise and develop novel cosmetics from cultured fish cells.
Ahead of Japan’s inaugural Cellular Agriculture Week, one of its industry pioneers has notched a key partnership to innovate in the future-friendly cosmetics space.
Tokyo-based IntegriCulture, Japan’s first cultivated meat firm, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Singaporean cultured seafood pioneer Umami Bioworks. Together, the two Asian biotech startups will develop beauty and skincare products using cultured fish cells, as part of Umami Bioworks’s newly unveiled Marine Radiance line of cell-cultured bioactives.
“Umami has partnered with Integriculture as our first launch partner in Japan for our Marine Radiance portfolio of cosmetics ingredients,” Umami Bioworks founder and CEO Mihir Pershad told Green Queen.
“Integriculture has already established relationships with many cosmetics brands within Japan through sales of its own ingredients, and we believe they can help us to more quickly find the best paths to commercialising our ingredients,” he added.
“Further, together we can collectively build the market understanding of cultivated cosmetics ingredients, creating greater opportunity for both companies going forward.”
Future-facing skincare with egg and fish cells
Courtesy: IntegriCulture
The strategic collaboration combines IntegriCulture’s Cellament ingredient (derived from egg cells) with Umami Bioworks’s core AI platform, Alkemyst.
Launched in 2021, Cellament is a cell-cultured serum said to be “rich in nourishing proteins and rejuvenating growth factors” to revitalise the skin at the cellular level. It’s made by the selective cultivation of egg cells, such as the amnion, yolk sac, and plasma membrane, which amplify the potency of the nutritional elements in chicken eggs.
IntegriCulture’s skincare ingredient can reduce the enzymatic activity that degrades skin elasticity by 10-70%, as well as accelerate skin cell turnover, which increases smoothness and helps prevent wrinkling. The ingredient is also linked to an increase in moisture retention of keratinocytes, cells that make up 90% of the skin’s outermost layer.
Moreover, Cellament targets free radicals, which can speed up signs of ageing, while the egg proteins reduce the presence of inflammatory cytokines, which cause redness.
Umami Bioworks’s Alkemyst toolkit uses machine learning, computational biology, and digital twin technology to deliver a faster, more precise R&D approach to growing and optimising the production of any marine species via cellular agriculture.
The platform analyses data, identifies patterns and optimises R&D and scale-up parameters across areas like cell line selection, media development, and process controls. The digital twin tech allows it to simulate and predict outcomes, reducing the amount of screening and scale-up experiments needed and thus saving both time and resources.
According to Umami Bioworks, Alkemyst also enables it to transfer learnings from one species to another, improving the efficiency with which it can develop new products.
The two companies are now combining their core competencies to co-develop novel cosmetics that are “fundamentally different” from conventional products, with plans to launch a line of fish-cell-derived innovations in the future.
Responding to consumer beauty trends
Courtesy: Youngoldman/Getty Images
The Marine Radiance range is designed for personal care and nutraceutical products and seeks to address the supply chain instability, ethical concerns, and quality variability that limit access to high-efficacy marine ingredients by offering market-ready solutions that offer consistent, scalable, and traceable supply.
Its first offering under the range is animal-free polydeoxyribonucleotide (PDRN), a compound traditionally extracted from salmon sperm and known for its anti-inflammatory and wound-healing properties. It can synthesise collagen and reduce hyperpigmentation, and is becoming increasingly popular in skincare, wound healing, and regenerative medicine.
“Umami decided to enter the cosmetics sector after discovering that our cells generated co-products that had strong cosmetics activity (anti-ageing, antioxidant, etc),” explained Pershad. “We conducted intensive discovery conversations with a range of cosmetics brands and ingredients companies, and were surprised by how many immediately asked when they could get samples and how much volume we could produce.
“This strong market pull convinced us that cultivated cosmetics ingredients could serve a real market need, which we could supply from co-products of our cultivation process.”
These launches come amid heightened consumer demand for eco-friendly and ethical beauty. Last year, searches for ‘sustainable beauty’ were up by 200% since 2019, and 80% of global consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable goods.
It’s why another Asian cell ag firm, Avant, has developed a cell-cultured peptide complex, ZelluGen, using its Zellulin BioPlatform.
Both IntegriCulture and Umami Bioworks are simultaneously working to advance their food applications too. The former unveiled several prototype cultivated duck dishes and products this spring (including foie gras). The latter, meanwhile, is working with global seafood and food CPG companies to commercialise cultured Japanese eel and bluefin tuna, and is also in the early stages of developing a white fish.
“Our eel programme is the most advanced, with regulatory filings made in several key markets and production running at pilot scale. We are planning multiple product launch campaigns with our partners and will share more on those campaigns in the near future,” product manager Gayathri Mani told Green Queen last week.
EdiMembre has spun off from Merck’s MilliporeSigma to commercialise an edible membrane technology for sustainable foods, starting with whole-cut cultivated meat and high-protein pasta.
In Massachusetts, EdiMembre is a new startup hoping to enable scalable manufacturing for future food companies with hollow fibre membrane technology.
The food tech firm has spun out from MilliporeSigma, the US life sciences arm of Germany’s Merck Group, with an exclusive licence to commercialise its edible membrane platform.
“Inspired by traditional membrane formation techniques, EdiMembre uses a patented phase-inversion approach to form micro- and nanoporous membranes from legume protein isolates. These membranes have the ability to pass large molecules through them, while promoting cell attachment,” co-founder and CSO Ryan Sylvia tells Green Queen.
EdiMembre has already developed countertop bioreactors to create whole-cut pieces of cultivated meat and high-protein pasta made with legume protein isolate. “Beyond this, we can tune the physical properties of the membrane, opening up a range of culinary experiences and applications,” adds Sylvia.
As it transfers the tech from MilliporeSigma, the startup has raised $500,000 in pre-seed investment from Siddhi Capital, Replicator VC, Meach Cove Capital, Alwyn Capital, and Cellular Agriculture Ltd, among others.
“Over the next few weeks, we will be unpacking and building our beta pilot machine to start manufacturing edible fibres in our new headquarters at the Atlas Commercial Kitchen in Woburn, Massachusetts,” notes co-founder and CEO Timothy Ryan Olsen. “Two key members from the technical project team at MilliporeSigma have been hired and are onboarded.”
How edible membrane tech can transform future food manufacturing
Courtesy: EdiMembre
MilliporeSigma’s cultivated meat programme led to the development of a strong IP portfolio and alternative protein partnerships, which presented an externalisation opportunity to fine-tune the tech further with AI-led company builder Mantro.
The latter is managing MilliporeSigma’s stake in EdiMembre, which will develop and commercialise the patent-protected edible membrane tech to deliver efficient solutions for future food manufacturing.
“EdiMembre’s flagship technology is CraftRidge, which is the patent-protected edible hollow fibre bioreactor for growing structured whole-cut cultivated meat at scale,” explains Sylvia. “Thus far, we have worked with partners to demonstrate application for multiple cell types and species, while using single-cell, aggregate, and adherent cell bioprocess modalities. Today, we can offer bench-top devices for growing a few grams, but are actively working towards kilogram scales.”
The startup has demonstrated membranes with several off-the-shelf legume protein isolates, with soy, mung or lentil-derived options preferred most. “From a labelling standpoint, this becomes very attractive, since the membrane is composed of a single material: legume protein isolate,” he says.
The isolates can result in pasta with plant protein content higher than 80%, well above the market standard of 15-40%. They can also help make whole cuts of cultivated meat. Scaling up these novel proteins is a major challenge that requires large amounts of capital expenditure.
“Our scaled-out edible hollow fibre bioprocess approach alleviates this capex burden for the industry while solving the harvest and whole-cut formation challenges,” Sylvia outlines. “The technology platform has been shown to accommodate multiple cell types, species and bioprocess modalities. To use our device is straightforward – you put your cells in, use your bioprocess, harvest, cook, then eat.”
He adds: “Depending on the end user’s preference, we can easily control the amount of hollow fibre membrane that goes into the bioreactor. For most users, our protein hollow fibres are expected to be in the bulk range of 30-50% of the final product, which is great as it will contribute to the final protein content of the cultivated meat.
“The cultivated meat companies can fill the lumen of the fibres with fat content as a post-processing step, allowing for homogenous distribution of fat content throughout the whole-cut meat.”
EdiMembre targets cultivated protein startups and Big Meat
Courtesy: EdiMembre
EdiMembre plans to leverage a B2B consumables model. “CraftRidge is a single-use edible hollow fibre bioreactor consumable part that will be manufactured and available off the shelf, or made to order for custom cultivated meat products,” explains Olsen.
He expects cultivated meat and seafood startups that are bringing products to market today as its initial customers, with future clients including large meat producers that have integrated cell-cultured protein into their supply chain.
“Over the last few years, we have already built partnerships with the leading cultivated meat startups to kickstart industry-relevant testing of our prototypes. They are the true experts with their cells and bioprocess, while also having the vision for the product concept they are bringing to market,” he says.
“As cultivated meat companies are successful in creating products 2.0 and 3.0 with CraftRidge over the next few years, licensing opportunities will naturally present themselves both for access to the consumable for production of cultivated meat and also the equipment used for manufacturing the edible hollow fibres and single-use devices.”
Olsen acknowledges that to enter the market, CraftRidge would need to show strong bioprocess performance, regulatory alignment and seamless integration into existing cultured protein workflows. So it’s critical to work closely with its partners to secure feedback and technical insights at each development stage.
“The go-to-market strategy began with industry testing of our prototypes over the last year. EdiMembre provided the device with a basic protocol, and the cultivated meat startups shared data and bioprocess feedback. We use feedback to set our product specifications with the vision of allowing the launch of a product that can be used by as many customers as possible,” the CEO says.
“As with all biotechnology, scaling sizes are required for the manufacturers to build their bioprocess. After the prototype stage, EdiMembre is targeting a 1kg device as the first ‘usable’ device for making significant quantities of structured cultured meat,” he adds.
“We are planning to have the first version of the 1kg device in our hands by the end of 2025. In the future, we envision a 30kg device being the industrial workhorse for large meat producers.”
Gearing up for $5M seed round
Courtesy: EdiMembre
The edible membrane technology enables a broad range of applications, including substrates for cell-based leather and encapsulation of biologics. Right now, though, EdiMembre is “laser-focused” on cultivated meat, with some of its priorities including the optimisation of protein solutions, formation of bath chemistries, increase of fibre-spinning speeds, and the design of scaled versions of its spinning machines.
“As we build for the cultivated meat industry, we are anticipating opportunistic commercial opportunities for protein pasta via licensing of our manufacturing capabilities. Early wins here would help to advance our technology readiness level across the platform, validate our capabilities, and provide early revenues for our company,” says Olsen.
With the new funds, EdiMembre is working to improve its edible hollow fibre spinning process at the benchtop scale and developing plans to make its manufacturing commercially relevant. It’s not stopping at the pre-seed round, though.
“We have already started our seed round fundraising, and are targeting $5M. These funds will be directed at building out the full pilot machine to enable production of the 1kg CraftRidge devices for delivery to customers, partnering to demonstrate a bioprocess run at the 1kg scale to produce structured whole-cut meat, advancing patent applications on scalable production processes and equipment, and continuing to build out a world-class team,” Olsen says.
The startup will now get its lab up and running and ready its platform, while forging new partnerships that multiply its existing capabilities and create early revenue opportunities. Success in the first six months would allow it to showcase both the tech and its ability to move quickly with a strong yet lean team. “This was key for securing EdiMembre’s first investors, and we know it will be absolutely paramount for our seed fundraising success, especially given the current environment.”
Funding for alternative proteins has dipped dramatically. Cultivated meat companies raised more in 2021 than in the following three years combined. And this year, the sector had only secured $35M by the first half. In the US, where EdiMembre operates, seven states have banned these proteins, and plenty of others are hoping to do the same.
“The cultured meat market has seemed to ‘correct’ itself in terms of valuations and expectations from a few years ago, which has led to the current funding environment. EdiMembre’s first investors and our team are aligned in that cultivated meat is still a huge opportunity, but will just take time and hard work,” Olsen contends.
“As cultured meat companies continue to make progress with cost, scale, product development, infrastructure, regulatory, and beyond, we will do our part to be a key enabling technology partner to accelerate their efforts in bringing delicious cultured products to the global market.”
India’s cultivated meat industry just got a big boost, with a first-of-a-kind animal stem cell biobank listing proteins as a key priority.
India has opened its first animal stem cell biobank at the National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB) in Hyderabad, earmarking cultivated protein production as a major focus.
The centre was inaugurated by science and technology minister Jitendra Singh last weekend, and is aimed at revolutionising animal health, regenerative medicine, and agricultural productivity, in line with the country’s growing emphasis on biotech.
The 9,300 sq ft biobank was built with a ₹1.85 crore ($210,000) investment from the government. The NIAB is an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology’s Biotechnology Research Innovation Council.
Biobank will supply stem cells and culture media
Courtesy: National Institute of Animal Biotechnology
The laboratory will provide high-quality stem cells of various animal origins, as well as indigenous, cost-effective culture media, to research institutions, veterinary clinics, hospitals, and industry. It will support disease modelling, reproductive biotechnology, and tissue regeneration, with plans to expand under the National Biopharma Mission for biobanking animal stem cells and their derivatives.
Some of its priorities include accelerating advances in veterinary medicine, regenerative therapies, and cultivated protein production, in a bid to reduce the dependence on imports and foster the country’s biomanufacturing capacity.
The biobank is equipped with a stem cell culture unit, a 3D bioprinter for tissue engineering, a bacterial culture lab, cryostorage facilities, autoclave rooms, advanced air handling systems, and uninterrupted power backup.
Singh suggested that these innovations will boost the country’s agriculture-linked GDP, labelling the opening as an “evergreen revolution”.
“With 18% of GDP from agriculture and 60% of our workforce depending on it, innovations in veterinary health will have a transformative impact. ₹1 spent on agricultural research yields a return of ₹13, and linking industry partners from day one ensures these technologies reach the ground,” he said.
“The economy will shift from manufacturing to regenerative and genetic processes, and India has already initiated this transition,” he added. “We will not lag behind when the next industrial revolution – driven by biotechnology – takes over.”
Building on India’s BioE3 strategy and cultivated meat developments
Courtesy: Biokraft Foods
Alongside the biobank, Singh also launched five diagnostic tools to enhance animal health “The innovations align with the government’s BioE3 policy, focusing on economy, employment, and environment, to create sustainable, knowledge-based livestock health solutions, from disease control to smart protein production,” said NIAB director G Taru Sharma.
Short for Biotechnology for Economy, Employment, and Environment, the BioE3 strategy was announced 12 months ago to foster high-performance biomanufacturing, with a focus on accelerating tech development and commercialisation by setting up biomanufacturing hubs and biofoundries.
Among the policy’s six pillars are smart proteins and functional foods. “By providing dedicated R&D and innovation support, the policy will accelerate the development of new technologies and processes that can pave the way towards the nutrition, price, and taste parity of smart protein products, making them a truly competitive alternative to their animal-derived counterparts,” Sneha Singh, managing director of the Good Food Institute India, told Green Queen last year.
“Smart protein startups will gain significant momentum through dedicated R&D and innovation support, greater investments, and a nurturing ecosystem. The policy will foster a collaborative environment, facilitating the exchange of knowledge and resources between industry and academia, and encouraging public and private partnerships, leading to faster development and commercialisation of smart protein technologies with biohubs and biofoundries.”
In December, Biokraft Foods held the country’s first public tasting of cultivated meat, presenting hybrid chicken to over 30 attendees in Mumbai. And this year, it unveiled cultivated fish products as part of a project with a government-backed research institute, while announcing its intention to file for regulatory approval with the FSSAI.
Biokraft Foods aims to achieve a commercial rollout of both its meat and seafood products by 2026. The market seems ready. A 2024 survey found that over 60% of Indians are willing to buy cultivated meat, with 59% identifying it as an alternative to conventional meat that promotes nutritional security.
US biotech startup Cultivated Biomaterials has created Angelry, a line of jewellery made with the cultivated leather from the cells of a sanctuary-grazing cow.
Beef may be the cattle industry’s climate Achilles’ heel, but its environmental impact extends beyond food. Cows are the source of leather, one of fashion’s most revered – and most problematic – materials.
Advocates of leather have long argued that it is a byproduct of meat and dairy production, but critics counter that the material should more accurately be viewed as a co-product. In many cases, it is the primary product, and manufacturing it is an energy– and water-intensive process linked to deforestation and biodiversity loss.
Producing a square metre of leather generates 110kg of CO2e, much higher than synthetic and plant-based alternatives. Moreover, animal-derived leather releases lots of health-harming chemicals during tanning.
However, most first-generation vegan leather products use petroleum-derived plastic, which can take up to 500 years to break down and shed microplastics that harm marine life, the waterways, and our health.
For a new crop of companies, the optimal solution lies with cellular agriculture. By using cells from living cows and cultivating them in fermentation tanks, they can produce truly sustainable leather without all the climate and animal welfare questions hanging over it. Some firms have claimed that cell-based leather generates 90% fewer CO2 emissions and 95% less waste, and needs 80% less water to produce.
Joining that crop of innovators is Cultivated Biomaterials, a startup based in Raleigh, North Carolina. It has created the world’s first line of lab-grown leather jewellery, called Angelry, and will next month begin a crowdfunding drive on Kickstarter to bring its products to the market.
“The goal of our upcoming Kickstarter campaign is to raise non-dilutive funds to produce and ship our first cultivated leather jewellery products, while continuing to optimise our processes,” founder and CEO George Engelmayr tells Green Queen.
How Cultivated Biomaterials makes its lab-grown leather
Courtesy: Cultivated Biomaterials
Engelmayr is the former CSO of cultivated pork startup Mission Barns, and has worked at cultivated chicken leader Upside Foods and lab-grown leather firm VitroLabs (which was acquired by competitor Faircraft this year).
“I’ve been conducting tissue-engineering research directed towards growing strong collagenous tissues for 25 years,” he says. “In particular, I’ve worked on a variety of soft tissue applications, such as heart valves for children with congenital heart lesions, cardiac muscle for myocardial infarction, skeletal muscle for volumetric muscle loss and dystrophies, and blood vessels for dialysis access and trauma.”
Many of those same composition-structure-function relationships apply to skin, and, therefore, cultivated leather. “For example, bioprosthetic heart valve leaflets are essentially chemically stabilised sheets of collagen, just like leather,” he explains.
Cultivated Biomaterials’s process is based on the tissue engineering approaches pioneered in the early 1990s by one of Engelmayr’s postdoctoral advisors at MIT, Prof Robert Langer. The ‘top-down’ process involves four principal components: cells, scaffolds, culture media, and bioreactors.
“Regarding cells, our process has been differentiated from that of others from the very outset. Specifically, we are growing cultivated leather harmlessly from the skin cells of a living, sanctuary-grazing cow named Angel,” he says. The cow lives at Sweet Farm sanctuary in New York.
“Our novel, patent-pending plant-based scaffolds are unique in that they are sustainably derived from intrinsically hydrophobic, windborne seed hairs. Like the clock of the dandelion plant (which I’ve used to make cultivated bacon), the seed hairs of the kapok tree, milkweed plant and others are notoriously difficult to wet with water,” he outlines.
“As described in our patent application, we developed a novel, entirely plant-based solution to this challenge. We use amphiphilic sunflower lecithin to render these seed hairs hydrophilic, thereby enabling them to be seeded with cells.”
Engelmayr described having 100% animal-free culture media (so, minus fetal bovine serum) as “absolutely essential” to the startup. “We are working with UK-based Multus Biotechnology on our fully animal-free culture media components,” he reveals.
“The development of novel bioreactors leveraging biophysical stimulation to elicit cell proliferation, differentiation, and maturation has been a running theme throughout my career. Our cultivated leather bioreactor designs continue to evolve, always keeping front and centre the goals of minimising capex, maximising scalability, and simplifying process flow,” he adds.
How is cell-based leather different from cultivated meat?
Courtesy: Cultivated Biomaterials
Animal-derived leather can release lots of health-harming chemicals during tanning, an issue Cultivated Biomaterials is also addressing. “We tan and finish our cultivated leather using a natural, vegetable-based tanning (veg-tan) process. No animal products are ever used in our tanning, fatliquoring, dying, or finishing our cultivated leather,” says Engelmayr.
But aside from the tanning, the startup’s tissue engineering approach is entirely compatible with cultivated meat production. “A difference in our implementation for cultivated leather is that instead of muscle cells, we use dermal fibroblasts harmlessly isolated from Angel,” he explains, adding that its novel plant-based scaffolds are compatible with muscle cells.
“Unlike cultivated meat, bringing cultivated leather to market does not require regulatory approval, nor does it require any shifts in consumer sentiment towards novel foods,” he says. “And cost considerations are not as critical initially for high-end market entry. Cultivated leather simply needs to stand on its own as a beautiful, novel luxury material.”
Expanding on this, Engelmayr highlights that the startup isn’t aiming to be cost-competitive with conventional leather in the near term, nor does he view price parity as an appropriate target.
“I feel targeting price parity with conventional leather devalues what we’re creating here. Indeed, I see the extraordinary confluence of advanced tissue-engineering technologies and Angel’s cells as the birth of a truly novel, exotic luxury material,” he explains.
“As we scale and optimise, costs will naturally come down. But our goal is not to compete head-on with any species of conventional leather, but rather to offer designers and consumers an exciting high-tech option for high-end luxury goods,” he says. “Our cultivated leather… has never existed on Earth before. I feel it should be valued as such.”
Cultivated Biomaterials is currently producing the leather by hand at bench scale. “Our current scale is adequate for making our cultivated leather jewellery, and it is modular, so it can be scaled as needed for small goods,” its founder says. “We are taking a more organic approach to growth, wherein we are not seeking to raise venture capital.”
Cultivated Biomaterials bets on crowdfunding and ‘smaller, simpler’ goods
Courtesy: Cultivated Biomaterials
Speaking of which, Engelmayr believes the VC model demands that lab-grown leather must achieve price parity, and quickly: “As a tissue engineer with 25+ years’ experience, I am not confident that cultivated leather of any sort will reach price parity with the most prevalent conventional leather in the near term.”
Venture capital for climate tech has diminished over the last couple of years, and cell cultivation companies have felt the squeeze. In the cultivated leather world, Modern Meadow pivoted away from the technology to instead focus on a plant-based version, while VitroLabs ended up being acquired by Faircraft.
This is why Cultivated Biomaterials is opting to take the crowdfunding route. “With Kickstarter, we don’t need to concern ourselves with valuations, term sheets, or cap tables. The more we raise from generous backers who are excited by our mission and cultivated leather, the faster we can optimise and scale,” says Engelmayr.
“Our target raise from Kickstarter is as high as possible,” he adds. “To date, the most funding a Kickstarter project has ever raised was over $46M. Our campaign will officially launch on Tuesday, September 9 and will last 60 days.”
The company’s next steps include fashion partnerships and possibly another Kickstarter for its next line of products. For now, it aims to circumvent the fledgling sector’s challenges by focusing on jewellery, which requires “significantly smaller quantities” of cell-based leather.
These products allow the startup to showcase the material “beautifully in settings, almost like the biological equivalent of a gemstone”, notes Engelmayr. “Jewellery is also more forgiving than bags when it comes to strength and durability.”
That doesn’t mean items like bags or shoes are a no-go for the firm. “But we will first optimise the strength and durability of our cultivated leather in the setting of smaller and simpler luxury goods, such as cardholders,” he says.
“Our novel plant-based scaffolds and veg-tanned cultivated leather do not benefit from the reinforcing effects of synthetic plastics, either internally or in external finishes. Hence, we will focus on optimising tissue composition and structure so that we can ensure strength and durability are achieved while upholding our commitment to a truly sustainable and harmless offering.”
Aside from Cultivated Biomaterials, startups working with cell-based leather include Faircraft, Lab-Grown Leather, 3D Bio-Tissues, Qorium and Pelagen.
Singaporean cellular agriculture startup Umami Bioworks has launched Marine Radiance, a line of cell-cultured marine bioactives, starting with regenerative compound PDRN.
Singapore-based Umami Bioworks has expanded its AI-led cell cultivation platform to produce sustainable marine bioactives for use in the personal care and nutraceutical industries.
They will be sold under a new line called Marine Radiance. “We launched it to address supply chain instability, ethical concerns, and quality variability that have long limited access to high-efficacy marine ingredients,” Gayathri Mani, the firm’s product manager, tells Green Queen.
Umami Bioworks has unveiled animal-free polydeoxyribonucleotide (PDRN) as the inaugural ingredient of this range. The compound is traditionally extracted from salmon sperm, and is a fast-growing ingredient used in skincare, wound healing, and regenerative medicine.
“We are rethinking how bioactives like PDRN are made,” says Mani. “Our platform provides a scalable, animal-free source of PDRN with optimised yields and the flexibility to meet growing global demand through localised production.”
Why Umami Bioworks began bioactive line with PDRN
Courtesy: Youngoldman/Getty Images
Known primarily for its cultivated seafood portfolio, Umami Bioworks diversified from its protein portfolio last year, creating a pathogen-detecting tool for the seafood industry.
The Marine Radiance portfolio is an extension of its core AI platform, Alkemyst, which enables a faster, more precise R&D approach to growing and optimising the production of any marine species.
“Applying this capability to challenges in marine bioactives allowed us to rapidly move from ingredient discovery to our Marine Radiance portfolio of market-ready solutions that offer consistent, scalable, and traceable supply,” explains Mani.
PDRN has made a meteoric rise in the active ingredients world, especially for skincare, thanks to its prominence in the K-beauty space. Studies suggest the ingredient has anti-inflammatory and wound-healing properties, with the ability to synthesise collagen and reduce hyperpigmentation.
However, the regenerative compound faces a host of challenges, from supply consistency and ethical concerns to biosecurity risks. Umami Bioworks’s cell biology platform allows it to produce bioidentical PDRN by cultivating marine cell lines under precisely controlled conditions, eschewing the need to transport salmon testicles globally.
“Our PDRN is produced through a proprietary cell cultivation and downstream harvesting process powered by our Alkemyst platform, which precisely replicates and optimises the natural conditions needed to produce a bioequivalent, animal-free ingredient, with unmatched consistency and purity, at price parity with current PDRN,” says Mani.
The global market for PDRN was valued at $72M last year, but analysts predict it to grow rapidly to reach $855M in 2031, thanks to its various skincare and medical applications, as well as rising demand for cruelty-free anti-ageing and regenerative solutions.
Marine Radiance bioactives face regulatory challenges
Courtesy: Umami Bioworks
Umami Bioworks is already in early talks with personal care and regenerative medicine customers to co-create PDRN-based products, including anti-ageing and skin repair products.
“Marine Radiance bioactives can be applied across high-performance skincare, ingestible beauty, regenerative medicine, and advanced nutritional supplements,” notes Mani, adding that it’s working with partners to develop products with other marine actives that support collagen production, wound healing, and cellular regeneration.
“These collaborations are focused on delivering premium, sustainable products that match or exceed the efficacy of their animal-derived counterparts while offering unmatched consistency and traceability,” she says.
For cosmetics, the use of bioactives is regulated differently across markets. “In South Korea, pre-market notification is required, with a more rigorous approval process required for ‘functional’ cosmetics Similarly, Japan distinguishes cosmetics, which require streamlined notification, from ‘quasi-drugs’, which require approvals,” Mani explains.
“Umami works closely with partners to understand their desired product strategy and to align our regulatory approach with the product positioning and intended claims.”
With cell-based ingredients, price is always front of mind. Umami Bioworks has aligned its costs with premium marine bioactives, making the Marine Radiance range accessible for brands “looking to differentiate with high-efficacy, sustainable ingredients”.
“Our initial launch will be through select B2B partnerships in skincare and ingestible beauty, with several leading brands already in advanced discussions,” says Mani. “We are targeting scaled production by Q4 to enable these partners to bring new formulations to market quickly, and with reliable supply.”
Umami Bioworks plans fundraise as cultivated seafood progresses
Courtesy: Shlomi Arbiv
The diversification of its portfolio doesn’t mean Umami Bioworks is abandoning its cultivated seafood dream. The company has quietly been making moves on this front, having submitted regulatory dossiers in major markets across North America, Europe, and Asia.
“We have active development programmes for Japanese eel and bluefin tuna with global seafood and food CPG companies as commercialisation partners, and a white fish development programme in the early stages,” says Mani.
“Our eel programme is the most advanced, with regulatory filings made in several key markets and production running at pilot scale. We are planning multiple product launch campaigns with our partners and will share more on those campaigns in the near future,” she adds.
This year has marked the arrival of the first cultivated seafood product on the market, with Wildtype securing approval for its cell-cultured salmon from the US Food and Drug Administration and now selling it in several restaurants.
Umami Bioworks isn’t the only cultivated seafood startup to expand its portfolio past the food industry. Fellow Asian firm Avant has developed ZelluGen, a cell-cultured peptide complex, using its Zellulin BioPlatform.
Now, Umami Bioworks is looking to open up a new investment round to speed up its path to market. “We do have plans to fundraise in the coming months to support market launches of first products in collaboration with our customers and to enable us to deliver a first full-scale production facility for a major customer,” says Mani.
US cultivated pork startup Clever Carnivore has hosted its first tasting events on the West Coast, ahead of a planned launch in 2026.
Chicago-based Clever Carnivore is continuing to gear up for the launch of its cultivated pork products in the US.
The company hosted private tastings in Palo Alto and San Francisco on July 29, its first such events on the West Coast, convening investors, chefs, and food industry operators.
“Everyone was impressed by the delicious product, but even more so by our low production costs and scalable, modular process,” Clever Carnivore claimed in a LinkedIn post.
At the events, attendees got a taste of the startup’s cultivated bratwursts, which contained 10% pork cells. This form of hybrid meat, which combines cultured and plant-based ingredients, is a common fixture in the industry, as it allows companies to keep costs low and supplies stable at current scales.
“Our prototype products incorporate a plant-based fat,” co-founder and CEO Virginia Rangos told Green Queen in June. “Our cultivated pork delivers the ‘meaty’ flavour, allowing us to use plant-based fats and reap the nutritional benefits of plant-based vs animal fats.”
Despite the low inclusion rate, the sausages seemed to prove a hit with taste-testers. “As someone from Germany who hasn’t eaten a traditional [bratwurst] in years, I was shocked,” said Anita Broellochs, founder of fermented plant protein powder maker Balletic Foods. “It honestly was one of the best bratwursts I’ve ever had.”
The cultivated pork product also left Irfan Tahir, a scientist at light-derived novel protein maker Prolific Machines, impressed. “I may have gone back for seconds (okay, I definitely did),” he remarked.
Tasting events are crucial for cultivated meat startups, allowing them to gain first-hand consumer insights about their products and finetune them before market launch. Clever Carnivore’s West Coast events follow two tastings in June (including one in Chicago), where it served over 50 bratwursts.
“We’ve spoken to conventional meat advocates who candidly told us they ‘wanted to hate’ our product,” Ramos said. “But when presented with a product that cooks and tastes just like the sausage they’ve always loved, they quickly became intrigued.”
Aside from taste, she noted that people have appreciated its value proposition: the cultivated pork is free from steroids, antibiotics or GMOs; has a secure food supply chain with domestic production; and offers expanded options that will keep products on shelves amid shortages and price inflation for conventional meat.
Clever Carnivore targets 2026 launch with industry-leading media costs
Courtesy: Clever Carnivore
Rangos was speaking to Green Queen to discuss Clever Carnivore’s latest cost breakthroughs, in its effort to match the price of conventional pork.
The company has brought the cost of its culture media down to an industry-leading $0.07 per litre at pilot scale, sped up the doubling times of its porcine cells to 14 hours, and designed inexpensive bioreactors that could enable its demo facility to reach profitability in its first full year of production.
“Our expertise in media optimisation allows us to replace expensive components like bovine serum albumin and fetal bovine serum with carefully chosen alternatives, [and] ensure that we’re using only the absolutely essential components, maximising growth and minimising cost and waste,” Rangos explained.
Clever Carnivore is now raising a $7M extension to its seed round from 2023 (which also closed at $7M) to develop new products and secure regulatory approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). So far, Upside Foods, Good Meat, Mission Barns, Wildtype, and Believer Meats have received a ‘no questions’ letter from the agency.
“In reviewing their published dossiers, we paid close attention to which data the FDA ultimately asked them to provide, and we’re providing as much information as possible in our initial submission,” Rangos explains. “We project [our] cultivated meat could be available on the market as early as summer 2026.”
Asked how the company plans to launch its innovations, she added: “We’re very interested in partnering with existing conventional meat and restaurant chain brands. We know we’re asking consumers to try something new, and we think presenting Clever Carnivore’s cultivated meat for the first time under a label consumers recognise and trust will go a long way toward getting consumers to try the product.”
The company’s tastings come at an exciting time for cultivated meat in the US. Wildtype’s cultured salmon is rolling out at restaurants across the US, including in Oregon, California and Washington state. Mission Barns, meanwhile, has earned its USDA approval and will debut its cultivated pork products at Fiorella Sunset in San Francisco, alongside a retail launch at Sprouts Farmers Market.
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
Courtesy: Opalia
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.”
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
Courtesy: Opalia
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.
Californian food tech startup Wildtype is taking its cultivated salmon to restaurants across the US, showcasing its potential with award-winning chefs.
More and more Americans can now get their hands on cultivated seafood, thanks to San Francisco firm Wildtype’s expansion drive.
The company’s cell-cultured coho salmon, which received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in late May, is now available in four restaurants, with another soon to be announced.
The product is available at eateries in Oregon, California, Washington, and Texas – in the latter, it’s a limited-time offering, given the incoming ban on cultivated proteins next month. With these rollouts, Wildtype is aiming to enhance consumer acceptance by letting award-winning chefs get the best out of its innovation.
Courtesy: Kann
How America’s chefs are serving Wildtype salmon
The first restaurant to feature the Wildtype salmon was Kann in Portland, Oregon, where it’s paired in a summery dish with pickled strawberry, spiced tomato, strawberry juice, and an epis rice cracker.
“We take pride in the ingredients we utilise,” said chef-owner Gregory Gourdet. “Introducing Wildtype’s cultivated salmon to our menu hits the elevated and sustainable marks we want our menu to offer guests who share a similar value system to ours.”
The sushi-grade cultivated salmon then made its debut at Otoko, led by Yoshi Okai. The Austin eatery is known for a multi-course omakase experience that blends Tokyo-style sushi and Kyoto-style kaiseki, with tasting menus costing between $150 and $250.
“Farm-raised salmon creates so much pollution, so it’s not sustainable. You want to enjoy seafood long-term, so Wildtype’s good because you don’t have to kill the fish anymore,” said Okai. “It’s something new. It’s awesome.”
Courtesy: Wildtype
Now, Wildtype is returning to its home state of California through a partnership with Adam Tortosa’s San Francisco outpost, Robin. Also an omakase restaurant, its tasting menus range from $119 to $219, with Wildtype landing on the menu on August 14.
“The way I would describe Wildtype’s taste is the same as regular salmon. If it didn’t taste like salmon, we wouldn’t consider it,” Tortosa said. “I’m more excited about what it means for the future of the seafood industry. It means that there is a future.”
A week after landing at Robin, Wildtype’s salmon will make its way into Seattle, where it will be on the menu of James Beard-nominated oyster bar The Walrus and the Carpenter. Chef Renee Erickson will serve it as part of a tostada, with the salmon tossed with lime juice and paired with cucumber, pickled carrot, olive oil and herbs.
“The Wildtype salmon saku that we serve raw has pure salmon flavour – it’s amazing. It also has a really dense, nice quality, and I think the fattiness and the deliciousness you’re used to in wild salmon, you get as well in this,” Erickson noted. “It is mind-blowing that it actually is salmon, just not in the sense of what I’ve been used to my entire life.”
Courtesy: Wildtype
More cultivated meat expected on restaurant menus
Backed by the likes of Robert Downey Jr, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jeff Bezos, Wildtype obtains living cells from Pacific salmon, which are adapted to suspension culture. They are grown in tanks similar to those used to make beer or kombucha, under temperature and pH conditions that wild fish thrive in, alongside a nutrient mix containing proteins, sugar, fat, salt, and minerals like iron and zinc.
The cells are harvested using bowl centrifugation, washed three times with a water and sugar solution, rapidly cooled using blast chillers, and stored frozen. They’re mixed with certain plant-based ingredients to replicate the structure and texture of conventional salmon.
The spate of rollouts follows the FDA’s issuance of a ‘no questions’ letter to Wildtype, which confirmed that the cultivated salmon is “as safe as comparable foods produced by other methods”. Founders Aryé Elfenbein and Justin Kolbeck told Green Queen that the startup plans to debut in retail too, following the foodservice launches. It isn’t the only cultivated protein to land restaurant deals in the US this year.
Mission Barns, which received the FDA green light in March and US Department of Agriculture approval last month (Wildtype’s salmon does not fall under the latter’s oversight), will soon debut its cultivated pork at Fiorella Sunset in San Francisco this quarter. Its meatballs will also be available at Sprouts Farmers Market.
Courtesy: Mission Barns
These developments come in what is turning out to be a milestone year for cultivated meat in the US. In July, Israel’s Believer Meats joined the list of startups with FDA authorisation for its cultivated chicken.
These three regulatory wins two years after Upside Foods and Good Meat’s cultivated chicken products made their way at restaurants in the US, including at Dominique Crenn’s Michelin-starred Bar Crenn in San Francisco and José Andrés’s China Chilcano in Washington, DC. Upside Foods is now aiming to secure approval for cultivated chicken shreds and bring them to US eateries by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, last week, Clever Carnivore hosted a public tasting of its cultivated bratwurst in Palo Alto and San Francisco, ahead of a planned launch in 2026.
And outside the US, Vow’s cultured quail has been available at restaurants in Singapore since April 2024, and in Australia since June.
Czech startup Mewery has secured €2.9M ($3.3M) in grants from the EU to expand the production of its cultivated pork and launch pilot projects with meat producers.
While private investment in cultivated meat is in freefall, public support for the category remains robust.
The EU has made its biomanufacturing ambitions clear, with €350M available in biotech funding and a new act aimed at simplifying the novel food regulatory process.
As part of its goal to establish the region as a future food leader, its key R&D funding programme, Horizon Europe, has invested €2.9M ($3.3M) in Brno-based cultivated pork maker Mewery.
Most of the funding comes from a €2.5M ($2.86M) grant via Horizon Europe’s EIC Accelerator, backed by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic. The rest comes from its participation in the international research consortium Alliance, a Horizon Europe initiative led by Wageningen University and supported by CzechInvest, which convenes 19 partners to expand the use of microalgae-based ingredients by developing multi-product biorefineries.
Mewery has already demonstrated its co-cultivation technology (combining pork and microalgae cells) on four prototypes. At the start of the year, it began gradual production in a medium-sized bioreactor with a production capacity in the lower kg range. Now, the firm will use the funds to scale up its tech to higher kg volumes of biomass, which it plans to achieve at the turn of the year.
“This will be a crucial step that will open the way for us to test our technology with meat producers,” says founder and CEO Roman Lauš. Initial talks are already underway, with pilot projects expected to be launched in the EU in the coming months.
“We are currently adjusting our bioprocess for the use in our medium-sized bioreactor with a goal to produce enough biomass for pilot testing projects with partners across Europe, i.e., kilos,” Rostislav Brzobohatý, Mewery’s chief commercial officer, told Green Queen.
“These projects will be in our focus in the coming months. Specific volumes will depend on the needs of individual manufacturing partners that we plan to involve in testing the unit across Europe,” he added.
Courtesy: Mewery
How Mewery is reducing the costs of cultivated pork
Founded in 2020 by Lauš, Mewery’s co-cultivation tech allows it to enhance cell growth efficiency and reduce costs, resulting in a product with “highly valuable composition”. Last year, the company established a stable cell line and expanded its cell bank to include multiple types of non-GMO porcine cells.
It has since begun operating a pilot plant within its facilities at Brno’s Mendel University, which will help with the testing project. “Right now, we are focusing on internal validation of the bioprocess and its optimisation for the current bioreactor size,” says Brzobohatý.
“Mewery will produce the agreed volumes of biomass at its own facility and deliver them to manufacturing partners for testing. We expect them to test our biomass as part of their product applications,” he adds.
“We don’t consider the co-production of our biomass with external manufacturers as we expect to be able to produce required volumes with our current capacities. The co-production is not planned in later stages either, as our long-term business model is built on licensing and our effort will be to enable our manufacturing partners to develop their own production capabilities [by] leveraging our co-cultivation technology.”
Currently, its cost per kg of meat is in the tens of euros. “We are still in low experimental volumes compared to industrial production, and it is premature to draw conclusions about future prices from these figures,” notes Brzobohatý.
Its cost pipeline is pointing towards a price below €10 per kg, driven by the continuous optimisation of its inputs. “With up to 10 times higher yield than industry standard, we significantly reduce the amount of growth media required while simultaneously lowering waste management costs,” he says.
Replacing high-cost components like fetal bovine serum with its proprietary microalgae-based alternative and producing recombinant proteins internally allows it to reduce reliance on expensive external suppliers. “Combined, these factors are steadily narrowing the gap to conventional meat pricing and positioning Mewery not only as a technological pioneer, but as a commercially viable player in the future protein market,” Brzobohatý says.
“However, right now, we are primarily focusing our efforts on developing the right product together with our partners – a product that will excite consumers and deliver real added value, which is ultimately what will determine the perceived value for money and the whole production and pricing strategy,” he adds.
Courtesy: Mewery
Testing project will inform regulatory filings
Mewery has previously teased products like meatballs and tenderloin made from 75% porcine cells and 25% microalgae cells. In 2023, it debuted a burger at a small tasting in its home country, where over 90% of attendees indicated their willingness to taste the cultivated product.
“Mendel University will collaborate on tests related to nutritional composition and safety and will assist in finetuning the joint product,” says Brzobohatý. “In the event of a successful application, we will continue to discuss with our partner regarding a possible joint application to the European Food Safety Authority.”
Only Gourmey and Mosa Meat have applied to sell cultivated meat in the EU so far, with its rigorous and – in its own words – “lengthy” approval process a major barrier for novel food companies. For Mewery, however, it would “make a lot of sense to start in Europe” with partners with whom it’s ready to move from joint development to commercialisation.
“However, we are still planning to apply in the US at the same time, despite the current developments in the field of cultivated meat there,” Brzobohatý says, nodding to the spate of state-level cultivated meat bans. “Based on the current schedule, we expect to apply in 2027-28.”
Courtesy: Mewery
High costs, low scalability and ‘unfulfilled promises’ have led to funding gap
Mewery has secured €4M from public and private investors since its inception. Moreover, thanks to an EIC grant, it has won a Seal of Excellence, a European quality label awarded to projects that meet the highest standards set by the EU Commission.
“We see this award and funding from local sources as a strong sign of confidence, not only in our team, but also in the very idea of cultivated meat as a sustainable alternative,” said Lauš. “European validation at this level proves that our project is at the absolute forefront of technology and ready for scaling up to pilot production.”
Funding for cultivated meat has slowed dramatically since the turn of the decade. The sector saw funding decline by 75% in 2023, and another 40% in 2024. In fact, in the last three years, these companies have cumulatively raised less money than they did in 2021 alone ($1.3B). And this year so far, the category has only attracted $35M.
Graphic by Green Queen
Brzobohatý ascribes the slowdown to high production costs, limited scalability, and unfulfilled promises from earlier market players: “Many companies are struggling to transition from lab-based production to industrial-scale manufacturing or to develop cost-effective processes, leading investors to take a more cautious approach. At the same time, regulatory uncertainty is further dampening investor enthusiasm.”
What makes Mewery a prospect? Based on feedback from EIC biotech and VC experts, it points to two main factors. “Our proprietary unique co-cultivation method with technological advantages [is] already proven in previous proof-of-concept studies (high yield, lower production costs, longer shelf life, easier scalability, and more). These are arguments that give hope for a potential breakthrough in the industry that investors are waiting for,” he says.
Then there’s its commercial pipeline, which “takes into account the needs of our future manufacturing partners and involves them in joint development at an early stage”. This has the potential to “accelerate joint market entry after the regulatory phase”.
He adds: “We believe that there will be several major developments in the meat cultivation industry in the near future, which will attract renewed investor interest and confirm the enormous potential of our industry.
