4Mins Read It’s been more than three years since California voters passed Prop 12, one of the nation’s strictest animal welfare laws. The pork industry pushed back, saying regulations would make meeting demand for products like bacon near impossible. Is a bacon crisis really coming? And with all the innovations in vegan and cultivated meat, will it […]
The search for animal fat alternatives is taking off. Below, we highlight five food tech startups focusing on the business of fat.
Demand for flavourful cultivated meats, realistic plant-based options, and palm oil-free products is increasing, and in parallel, a variety of fats are being developed to cover a spectrum of needs. Who are the key players in the category? Let’s take a closer look.
Palm trees. Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels
1. NoPalm Ingredients
Netherlands-based biotech startup NoPalm Ingredients has risen to the challenge of replacing environmentally damaging palm oil. It uses microbial oil in place of the unsustainable alternative and can be added to a variety of products, food, and cosmetics included. The company announced its first fundraising success earlier this month, scooping €1 million from the Future Food Fund, Green Creators, and ICOS Capital, amongst others.
Fermentation technology is used to create the oil, with specific characteristics brewed into the microbial base. NoPalm uses waste feedstocks such as rejected produce and peelings. Any biomass that remains at the end of production can be reincorporated, creating a sustainable circular manufacturing model.
“The oil produced by our yeasts is remarkably similar to plant-derived oils such as palm, sunflower and coconut,”Jeroen Hugenholtz, CTO and co-founder of NoPalm said in a statement. “Our yeasts contain high amounts of oil, much higher than the oil-containing crops, making the overall oil production much more efficient and less energy-intense than for vegetable oils. In addition, we have the great advantage that our microbial – fermentation – process is tunable allowing for the production of harder or softer oils depending on the need of the customer or application.”
In 2021, the company won the ‘Most innovative F&B ingredient or Processing Technology’ award at the Fi Global Startup Innovation Challenge.
Fruit kernels. Photo by Kern Tec.
2. Kern Tec
Austrian startup Kern Tec saw the potential in food side streams to provide sustainable and cost-effective ingredient oils. Taking fruit pits, notably apricots, cherries, and plums, proprietary technology has been developed to process these waste items and convert them into raw ingredients for the F&B industry. It also recently launched ice cream and yogurt made from the pits.
The company, an alumn of 2021’s ProVeg incubator, refers to its base pits as ‘new nuts’. Similar to conventional nuts, it claims that they have healthy fats, proteins, and other nutrients locked away inside. The operation is still young but has initiated a production line in Austria. It can process thousands of tonnes of fruit pits every year and is scalable.
“We have a lot of milestones in front of us, Luca Fichtinger, co-founder of Nern Tec, told Vegconomist. “Of course, we want to scale our impact and production, with more suppliers from across the whole of Europe. We will continue to develop new products to help accelerate the transformation. For example, we will extend our product range with proteins extracted from seeds. Additionally, we will apply our tech and supply chain to other by-products. Fruit pits are just the beginning.”
Co-founders Jordi Bladé, Dr. Raquel Revilla & Andrés Montefeltro (Photo by Cubiq Foods)
3. Cubiq Foods
Focussing on the alt-protein sector, Barcelona’s Cubiq Foods is developing what it refers to as ‘smart fats’. Omega-3-rich cultivated fat products range from structured ingredients to oils and fatty emulsions, to be used across a variety of applications. The company’s intention is to remove the alt-protein sector’s reliance on saturated fats such as coconut oil.
Not looking to discriminate, Cubiq aims to supply both the cultivated and plant-based meat sectors. The latter would be offered products developed from healthy oils, such as olive, to avoid animal contamination. Cultivated meat companies, including Mosa Meat, have previously been reported to be in discussion with Cubiq about a supply relationship. Existing brands, such as Beyond Meat could benefit from healthier fat developments, as saturated fat levels have come under scrutiny.
In May 2020, Cubiq confirmed that it had successfully raised $18.4 million to date. In a statement, Andrés Monrefeltro said, “Sustainable omega-3 and vegan healthier fats inspire our team and partners. We are ready to deliver a new generation of nutritious, healthy, and accessible products at industrial scale by the end of this year.”
Plant-based bacon made with Lypid fat. Photo by Lypid.
4. Lypid
San Francisco food tech company Lypid is a relative newcomer. It is focused on the development of a tasty vegan-friendly fat that can be added to plant-based meats. The company cites this as an often neglected piece of the puzzle when trying to create authentic-tasting food.
Little has been released about the company so far, with no known funding successes yet. It has made its mission clear, however. It seeks to develop a 100 percent vegan fat that will give a “rich meaty mouthfeel” to animal-free meat products. Final products will perform identically to conventional animal fats.
Confirmed supporters of Lypid include SOSV, Indie Bio, Genesis Consortium and NSF.
Bacon made with cultivated pork fat. Photo by Mission Barns.
5. Mission Barns
Based in Silicon Valley, Mission Barns is a food-tech startup specifically cultivating animal fat. In 2021 it celebrated a successful Series A fundraising round that generated $24 million for the construction of a pilot manufacturing plant. Lever VC was amongst the round participants.
With new facilities in place, Mission Barns intends to commercialise its proprietary cell-based animal fat development for use in a range of foods. Testing has already commenced with cell-based bacon made using cultivated pork fat being trialled in 2020. Other foods to use the cultivated fat analogue include burgers, nuggets and sausages.
“I’ve been sampling plant-based meats for 20 years from a huge variety of brands globally, and have never tasted anything as meat-like as products containing Mission Fat,” Nick Cooney, managing partner at Lever VC said in a statement. ”This is going to be a game-changer for the alternative meat sector, because it’s going to help brands around the world have a dramatically better product almost overnight.”
Mission Barns will be working closely with Shanghai’s Herotein to create hybrid cultivated/plant-based meat to market.
4Mins Read China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has published its eagerly awaited national plan. Acting as a blueprint for future developments, innovations and national economic strength, the plan has specifically included cultivated meat and ‘future foods’ as sectors to actively participate in. Long-term goals as directed by China’s political leaders, are supported by the agricultural […]
3Mins Read Japanese foodtech IntegriCuture has closed a Series A funding round with £7 million successfully raised. The investment will go into the development of affordable growth mediums, plus other tech solutions for the cultivated meat sector. The company plans to make developments open source in a bid to accelerate widespread progress and commercialisation. To date, IntegriCulture […]
3Mins Read Barcelona’s Novameat has released images of a blue steak. Not blue as in cooking preference, actually blue in colour. The bioengineering startup claims that it is the world’s first meat alternative to encapsulate all five kingdom classifications. Using its patented forming technology, the company produced a whole-cut hybrid steak with a blue hue. Novameat has […]
4Mins Read California’s cultivated meat trailblazer Upside Foods has announced its acquisition of cultivated seafood Cultured Decadence. The Wisconsin-based cultivated seafood company will bring high-impact seafood products to the Upside portfolio. Combined capabilities and technical specificity will speed production. Cultured Decadence will adopt Upside’s brand name but remain in the Midwest as a production hub. Cultured Decadence […]
4Mins Read Cultivated meat brand SuperMeat has held a blind taste testing event at its in-house Tel Aviv restaurant, The Chicken. Among the samplers was highly respected Israeli taster and Master Chef judge Michal Ansky. Highly confident in her ability to identify the real chicken, Ansky grows visibly less certain as the test progresses. She is eventually […]
10Mins Read Another year, another set of Green Queen trend predictions. 2021 was a bumper year for the global alternative protein industry and less than three weeks into 2022, it’s looking even more wild. The raises are getting bigger, the launches are getting bolder, the plant-based meat is getting real-er (ok, not a word). And the reality […]
Are lab-grown oysters coming to a plate near you? That’s the hope for Nikita Michelsen and marine biologist Joey Peters, the co-founders behind the cultivated oyster meat seafood startup, Pearlita Foods. For now, though, they’re starting with vegan oysters made from mushrooms and seaweed.
The Raleigh, North Carolina-based startup is working to develop cultivated oysters—Pearlita says it’s the first cultivated meat company to tackle oysters and oyster shells. The company is a funding recipient of Sustainable Food Ventures and Big Idea Ventures New Protein Fund.
The company revealed its first prototype last week, an oyster made from mushrooms and seaweed. But the plan is to integrate cell-cultured technology along with the fungi and seaweed, once there’s regulatory approval for cultivated meat products.
Pearlita is also producing a biodegradable oyster shell that requires no shucking. That’s still in development, so the company is using real oyster shells to showcase its products for now.
“Instead of harvesting and killing oysters from the sea we grow them, using cellular agriculture. Just as animals would, we are creating a mixture of nutrients to raise cells in a controlled environment free of disease or chemical contamination. By culturing cells we are providing a new untapped source of seafood, which is meant to support wild populations by reducing the impact from fishing” Peters said in a statement.
Courtesy Pearlita
The company recently secured investments from CULT Food Science.
“We are impressed by and proud of Pearlita’s successful production of its first cultivated oyster prototype. Pearlita’s commitment to making the world a better place and doing its part to increasing the world’s food security is encouraging as we possess the same goals,” Lejjy Gafour, CEO of CULT Food Science, said in a statement.
“Pearlita is taking great steps to advance the production of cultured seafood on a mass scale. We are energized by the positive contributions that their team is making to the cellular agriculture industry.”
Oysters in the ecosystem
The founders say they chose North Carolina as their headquarters because it is the second-largest estuarine system in the U.S., as well as the fastest-growing hub for biotech and future foods.
“So we will be close to the ecosystems where oysters thrive and amongst other entrepreneurs—both which we believe will accelerate our growth,” says Michelsen.
Oysters play critical roles in their ecosystems. They clean and filter the water—an adult oyster can clean as much as 50 gallons of water per day. They can filter sediment and nitrogen that can make water unsafe for other marine animals.
Overharvesting for human consumption has seen oyster populations decline in key areas around the world. According to the National Park Service, 85 percent of oyster reefs are gone. And as oceans face a growing number of threats from pollution and acidification to biodiversity loss, keeping populations for critical ecosystem-supporting species like oysters intact is crucial to the future of our oceans, experts say.
Photo by Anima Visual on Unsplash
“By using cell cultivation we are hoping to grow oysters efficiently, without adding any burden to wild populations, so that they can continue to perform their important ecosystems services – like carbon sequestration” adds Michelsen. Further, Pearlita’s oysters would have a far less toxic profile. “Oysters in polluted water ways are known to store contaminants and toxins in their tissues. Ours would be contaminant free.”
Pearlita says cultivated oysters would remove much of the burden on our oceans and marine life that wild harvesting and farming cause. The company says this would decrease the footprint from farm-raising oysters, significantly—oyster farming comes with a host of problems, including reducing nutrients from the water column, as well as competing with other organisms for survival, which can lead to environmental degradation, according to a recent report from the University of Massachusetts.
“It made so much sense to me,” Nikita Michelsen, founder and CEO of Pearlita Foods, said in a statement. “We have acidification and rising temperatures in the ocean.”
Despite the strides made in the cultivated meat space, reproducing bivalves have proven more difficult, says the Pearlita team, because the tissues are so complex. Pearlita says it’s the complexity of the tissues that makes oysters a desirable food to begin with.
“Pearlita is going to deliver something very unique,” says Stephanie Michelsen, advisor to Pearlita Foods and CEO of Jellatech. “By utilizing novel cellular agriculture, they will make one of the highest premium proteins accessible,” she says.
Cultivated seafood
Like the plant-based protein category, cultivated meat has largely been focused on beef and chicken replacements, with much success. Eat Just’s cultivated Good Meat received regulatory approval in Singapore in 2020 and began selling to consumers since. Upside Foods recently launched a factory it says can produce 400,000 pounds of cultivated meat per year, once it has U.S. regulatory approval.
While a fraction of the bigger cultivated meat market, cultivated seafood is making a splash in the cell-based industry. U.S.-based BlueNalu has been working to prepare for launches in Europe and Asia with its cultivated seafood. And Bay Area startup Wildtype says it has secured distribution deals for its cultivated salmon once it received regulatory approval. Pearlita says it plans to develop other types of sustainable seafood, including squid and scallops.
Photo: Jill Ettinger
As to when that may happen, the industry is still uncertain but hopeful. At best, it will likely be at least 12-18 more months before there’s full FDA approval. But the industry is ready. “We’re rising to this challenge,” Wildtype co-founder Justin Kolbeck, said earlier this year, “and are excited to introduce our products to the public very soon.”
Pearlita is ready, too.
“Although this is a huge challenge we plan to build a passionate team with the unique culturing expertise in this niche field to produce this novel, sustainable seafood,” Peters said. “With support from investors I have no doubt we will accomplish great things.”
3Mins Read Leading cultivated meat brand Mosa Meat has made public how it replaced the controversial growth medium, fetal bovine serum, without genetically altering cells. The findings are published in the journal Nature Food. “Today, we are excited to share that we have published a peer-reviewed article in Nature Food which reveals how we achieve muscle differentiation […]
3Mins Read South Korean startup DaNAgreen has bagged ₩8 billion (approx. US$6.7 million). The R&D company announced the news at the end of 2021. Lotte Ventures, Timewise Investment and Pathfinder H all participated in the Series A investment round. Closure brings total funding to ₩10 billion within four years. The Series A money will be used to […]
3Mins Read Algae2Fish, a spin-off from the university’s Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences is taking aim at the cultivated fish market. Funding from the Good Food Institute is being used to support the project. The Portuguese team aims to produce a cultivated seabass fillet with all the nutritional benefits of conventional alternatives. Zero bones and no negative […]
3Mins Read Canadian investment platform CULT Food Science Corp. has announced a strategic partnership with Singapore’s Umami Meats as part of a seed round. Umami Meat is the latest cultivated brand to be added to its portfolio of sustainable food solutions providers. CULT cites cultivated meat and seafood as an ethical solution to factory farming and aquaculture […]
3Mins Read San Francisco startup Wildtype has announced distribution deals with U.S.-based sushi bar franchiser Snowfox and poké chain Pokéworks. The former operates in-store sushi bars at over 1,230 grocery store locations throughout the country, while Pokéworks currently has 65 outlets with plans to grow to more than 100 by 2023. Commercial rollout is dependent on regulatory […]
3Mins Read Israel’s Future Meat Technologies has secured the largest ever funding raise for the cultivated meat sector. Its $347 million Series B round was co-led by ADM Ventures. Participation from Menora Mivtachim, S2G ventures, and Tyson Foods, amongst others, has been announced. Funding is being cited by Future Meats as confirmation of its industry-leading status and […]
3Mins Read Leading humanitarian chef José Andrés has joined food tech startup Eat Just. He has taken up a board position for the GOOD Meat brand. Alongside his appointment, Andrés has pledged to serve cultivated chicken in one of his U.S. restaurants, pending regulatory approval. As a board member, he will offer introductions to potential farm partners […]
3Mins Read Eat Just has announced its GOOD Meat division has been given regulatory approval for new products in another world first. The news comes exactly one year after the world’s first approval of its kind, also granted to GOOD Meat, for cultivated chicken nuggets. The move enables the cultivated chicken maker to commercialize more of its […]
3Mins Read Ark Biotech, led by Yossi Quint, aims to address a major stumbling block in the cultivated meat arena. The company is seeking to roll out an extensive infrastructure update to allow pilot plants to be ditched in favour of facilities capable of scaled production. Ark Biotech will address both equipment and software needs. Earlier this […]
3Mins Read Israeli cultivated meat brand Future Meat is in the middle of a funding round that aims to bring in $320 million. If successful, the funding will make the company Israel’s most valuable, within its sector. Tyson Foods and ADM are anticipated to join the round, having invested in the Series B funding earlier this year. […]
3Mins Read U.S.-based Upside Foods has announced a major breakthrough. It has produced an animal component-free (ACF) cell feed designed to fast track the cultivated meat industry to scalable production. Two products have been manufactured using the feed; chicken nuggets and chicken hot dogs. Roll out is anticipated across the company’s full product range. Industry pioneer Upside […]
3Mins Read Aleph Farms and Munich-based Wacker have come together in a new open supply chain agreement. The move will see Wacker offering food-grade growth medium proteins to all cultivated meat operations. Removal of cost barriers is the intended aim, with Aleph pushing for a resulting wide rollout of cultivated product manufacture. Makers of the world’s first […]
3Mins Read CellMEAT has unveiled its fetal bovine serum (FBS)-free cell culture medium. The product will help drive down production costs and circumnavigate ethical concerns within the cultivated meat industry. The company claims that others worldwide are attempting to bring a similar concept to fruition quickly. South Korea’s CellMeat was selected as a participant in the Tech […]
3Mins Read Just a few short years ago, it was unusual to get more than a handful of stories each week about meat analogues, dairy alternatives, and other alt and/or vegan foods. Nowadays, the opposite is true. In fact, there are so many developments in the alt-protein and food tech space we decided to create a weekly […]
3Mins Read A freshly established association, Belgium-based Cellular Agriculture Europe has been founded to create industry unity and transparency. 13 companies have joined, including Dutch pioneer Mosa Meat, whose head of public affairs sits as the first president. Industry-wide challenges will be a primary focus, with issues such as labelling and stakeholder education taking top priority. Cellular […]
4Mins Read Meat made via harvesting cells from animals should, in the future, be referred to as “cultivated” meat according to alt-protein company Upside Foods. The comment is in response to the United States Department of Agriculture’s advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) around labeling cultured meat titled “Labeling of Meat and Poultry Products Comprised of or […]
4Mins Read By: Ruth Purcell & Bianca Le, The University of Melbourne Science has made impressive gains in the art of producing animal products minus the animal. Now this emerging field of cellular agriculture is taking on its biggest challenge yet: breastmilk. Breastmilk is a complex substance, and breastfeeding is even more complicated. We are a long way […]
3Mins Read Biotech startup Tiamat Sciences has announced that it is developing a new cellular agriculture growth medium. The move is intended to significantly reduce the cost of producing cultivated meat and allow for faster progression to large-scale manufacturing. Traditional growth factors are typically cost-prohibitive, but new plant-based biomolecules can take their place. Having just secured $3 […]
3Mins Read Singapore food tech Shiok Meats has opened the doors to its “mini-plant”, the first-of-its-kind R&D facility dedicated to cultivated seafood in the city in a ceremony inaugurated by the city’s state environmental minister. Shiok has officially opened the doors to its mini-plant on Monday (November 22), marking the first-ever cell-based seafood advanced R&D facility to […]
3Mins Read The world’s largest meat company JBS is diving into the cell-based meat space with a $100M investment to acquire Spain’s BioTech Foods and construct a new R&D centre. JBS, the world’s biggest meat processor, is now pivoting its business towards alternative proteins with its first foray into the cell-based meat space. It has announced plans […]
4Mins Read Just a few short years ago, it was unusual to get more than a handful of stories each week about meat analogues, dairy alternatives, and other alt and/or vegan foods. Nowadays, the opposite is true. In fact, there are so many developments in the alt-protein and food tech space we decided to create a weekly […]
