Category: Cell-Based News

  • germany lab grown meat
    4 Mins Read

    In Germany, a quarter of consumers are open to trying cultivated meat made from a 3D printer, a much greater share than in 2019.

    As Europe’s leading plant-based market, Germany has always shown openness to food tech innovation, especially its youth.

    Last year, one survey found that young Germans trust food produced via new technologies and are willing to buy it three times more than older respondents, who worry about potential health risks.

    Now, another poll shows similar results, with 24% of Germans open to trying cultivated meat produced in bioreactors and formed with a 3D printer, much higher than the 13% who said the same six years ago – but older generations seem the least likely to want to give such products a go.

    Conducted by Bitkom Research, the survey covered 1,004 Germans aged 16 and over between March and April this year, who were asked if they could imagine eating 3D-printed cultivated meat, and what drove or kept them from doing so.

    Cost remains a big concern for 3D-printed cultivated meat

    germany 3d printed meat

    Openness to novel food was greatest among 30- to 49-year-olds, 35% of whom expressed interest in trying 3D-printed meat. This was followed by the 16-29 age group (33%).

    However, only 18% of 50- to 64-year-olds say they’d eat cultivated meat made this way, a number that falls to 16% among those aged 65 and over.

    That said, about a third (31%) of consumers are convinced that cultivated meat from a 3D printer can contribute to a more sustainable food system. While that’s proof that Germans are aware of the climate benefits of these proteins, it highlights the need for further education.

    Perhaps more crucial to consumers is the cost to their wallet, with only 7% willing to pay more for these foods. In fact, a sixth of them viewed 3D-printed food as purely a luxury product.

    It’s reflective of a key bottleneck for the cultivated meat industry. Since it’s a new technology currently being produced on a small scale, these proteins are expensive. A lot of work has been done over the last decade to bring prices down – and dramatically so, in some cases. According to McKinsey, it will take until at least 2030 for cultivated meat to be cost-competitive with its conventional counterparts.

    And in line with some expectations from the survey, some cultured meat startups have focused on high-value species and positioned them as premium products for the cost economics to make more sense. For example, BlueNalu is working on bluefin tuna toro, Forsea Foods on Japanese eel, and Vow on quail and foie gras.

    Germans are also most likely to be introduced to these proteins through a foie gras product, with Parisian startup Gourmey submitting the EU’s first regulatory dossier for cultivated meat last year. Months later, Dutch firm Mosa Meat applied to the EU for its cultivated beef fat, which is mixed with plant-based ingredients to produce burgers and reduce overall costs.

    Germans envision 3D-printers becoming mainstream

    3d printed cultured meat
    Courtesy: Steakholder Foods

    “Food printers are currently still relatively expensive and rely on specialised ingredients. Therefore, they are not yet suitable for mass production, but are primarily used in the catering and food industry,” explained Margareta Maier, digital farming officer at Bitkom.

    Still, 16% of Germans say they’d like to use a 3D printer to produce food tailored to their preferences and needs, and 15% believe they will become an integral kitchen equipment in the future.

    “The process makes it possible to give products an appearance and texture similar to conventional meat – but with a significantly smaller ecological footprint,” Maier said. “More and more people are open to plant-based alternatives and innovative technologies – 3D-printed food could therefore become even more important in the future.”

    Cultivated meat manufacturers often use 3D printing to build scaffolds that dictate how cells grow and differentiate. Israel’s Steakholder Foods, Believer Meats and Aleph Farms, and California’s Good Meat BlueNalu have all been known to leverage this tech.

    3D printing is among a number of techniques used to make scaffolds, with manufacturers also able to use polymer spinning technologies (like electrospinning), decellularisation, hydrogels, and even mycelium.

    Germans’ receptiveness to the tech, though, chimes with previous research. One survey found that nearly half (47%) of its citizens say they would eat cultivated meat, and that the government should support its development and help farmers capitalise on the opportunities. This comes at a time when more and more Germans are cutting back on meat; a third of its consumer want to reduce their meat consumption, and 38% want to replace it with plant-based food.

    “From food tech in industry and gastronomy to smart farming in the field and in the stable, digital technologies play a central role in saving resources in food production and making agriculture more environmentally friendly, robust, and animal-friendly,” said Maier.

    The post A Quarter of Germans Would Eat 3D-Printed Cultivated Meat appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • where to buy lab grown meat
    5 Mins Read

    Cultivated meat isn’t approved for sale in Europe yet – but that hasn’t stopped this entrepreneur from setting up an online shop for these proteins.

    Forget Michelin-starred restaurants and famed butcheries. What if you could get cultivated meat delivered to your doorstep at the click of a button?

    David Bell has taken that idea and run with it. An e-commerce and digital marketing expert by day, he has established an online store for cultivated meat in 18 European countries, even though regulatory approval for these novel foods is at least a year away in the EU.

    “Everything starts before it’s ready. Waiting until products are on the shelf means playing catch-up,” Bell explains when asked why he decided to set up the e-store now.

    “Launching now gives us time to build awareness and visibility, educate the public, earn search presence and digital momentum, and position ourselves as the natural home for cultivated products,” he adds. “This space is moving fast. We’re creating the infrastructure before it’s urgently needed.”

    The website is CultivatedMeat.co.uk, and Bell aims to list a vast range of cultivated meat products (some, like crocodile, aren’t in development commercially, though Australian startup Vow has previously said it is working with the animal’s cells), as well as offering educational guides and a blog with science and industry news. “We’ve built a site that makes cultivated meat visible and tangible, even in concept,” he says.

    He’s based in the UK, where cultivated meat briefly appeared on shelves earlier this year – albeit for pet food. “We’ve secured the cultivated meat domains in 18 other European countries, so local versions will roll out imminently,” Bell notes. “Each of these will be localised as approvals come through.”

    Will an online shop work for cultivated meat?

    where to buy lab grown meat near me
    Courtesy: CultivatedMeat

    Bell has been vegan for 13 years, primarily for ethical reasons – the health benefits were a bonus. “Even so, I’ve always missed the taste and cultural aspects of meat. I just never thought there’d be an alternative that made sense to me,” he says. “Cultivated meat makes it possible to eat real meat again without causing suffering.”

    The website has sections for a variety of species, from beef, chicken and pork to duck, seafood, and even kangaroo meat, each of which is displayed next to an image of the living animal. Aside from the shop, it has guides and blogs describing how cultivated meat is made, its environmental benefits, and how you can cook it at home.

    So far, the few cultivated meat products that have made it to market have been launched into either high-end restaurants or premium butcher shops. In the US, Mission Barns’s cultivated pork products will be the first to debut in a supermarket when they roll out at Sprouts Farmers Market later this year.

    “That’s normal at the start – small batches, tight control. But long-term, consumer access will be the game-changer,” says Bell, explaining the rationale behind an e-store.

    “Early adopters will be looking online first. That’s always how new categories start,” he suggests, outlining the Internet’s capability to build “clustered interest, niche education, and targeted communities”.

    “Even as cultivated meat moves into the mainstream, physical retailers won’t carry every product, but we will. This site becomes the long-tail destination for the full range of cultivated meat options,” he says. “An online store also allows controlled launches per country, direct-to-consumer storytelling, data feedback for producers, and a single point of discovery for all cultivated meat.”

    Is ‘cultivated meat’ the best term to attract consumers? “Yes. It’s the most widely accepted term across media, policy, and industry. It avoids the baggage of ‘lab-grown’ while clearly describing what it is,” he contends. “Personally, as a long-time vegan, I see cultivated meat as a reconciliation of ethics, science, and taste. The word reflects that balance.”

    As he waits for cultivated meat to be approved for human food in Europe, his platform is focused on building its email waitlist, publishing educational content, and developing partnerships. “It’s not just a shop – it’s a public front door for the cultivated meat movement from a consumer perspective,” he notes.

    cultivated meat where to buy
    Courtesy: CultivatedMeat

    Cultivated meat startups in talks with online store

    Speaking of partnerships, Bell is already in talks with several cultivated meat firms, both in Europe and beyond. “We’re shaping what launch partnerships might look like,” he says.

    He says he is in contact with several organisations across the ecosystem. “We bring the consumer front-end. That makes us a useful partner for groups focused on research, policy, or production,” he explains.

    CultivatedMeat’s business model is flexible, both in terms of revenue and logistics. The platform will handle distribution in some cases, and pass it on to producers or third-party firms in others.

    “We already have access to specialist cold chain partners for frozen and chilled delivery for when this is ready,” he notes. “Most early product rollouts will be closely managed, so logistics will be smaller-scale and controllable to begin with.”

    As for the revenue stream, some partnerships might follow a classic buy-sell model, and others might be based on a margin, affiliate, or distribution partnership. “Longer term, revenue will come from retail markups or commissions, exclusive product collaborations, brand placement and launch support, sponsored content, and media visibility,” outlines Bell.

    lab grown meat eu
    Courtesy: Romain Buisson/Gourmey

    So far, only two cultivated meat companies have publicly filed for novel food approval in the EU: France’s Gourmey (for foie gras) and Dutch startup Mosa Meat (for beef fat). The process can take around 18 months, and Gourmey has indicated its plans to sell its product via restaurants by 2026.

    Both these firms have applied in Switzerland and the UK, as has Israeli cultivated beef producer Aleph Farms. The latter country is a frontrunner in Europe – it has already approved Meatly’s chicken for pet food applications, and is assessing human-focused applications from Vital Meat and Ivy Farm Technologies too.

    Bell is leveraging his online expertise to be ready for when these regulators eventually greenlight the products for sale. “As someone who’s worked in digital commerce for years, launching this platform felt like the most natural and meaningful thing I could do,” he says. “I’m just combining what I know about online ecosystems and ethical consumerism to help move this space forward.”

    The post Amazon of Synbio? This E-Shop Wants to Sell Cultivated Meat Across Europe appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • nebraska lab grown meat ban
    5 Mins Read

    Nebraska has become the sixth US state to ban cultivated meat, after Governor Jim Pillen signed the bill that he had initially requested.

    Jim Pillen, owner of the largest pork producer in Nebraska, happily signed a bill sent to his desk on Tuesday. It was one he himself had dreamt up months ago, and it would protect the very industry he’s built his fortune on.

    The Nebraska governor put pen to paper on LB 246, officially banning the production, sale or import of cultivated meat within state boundaries. Anybody violating this would face penalties under the Pure Food Act, and as well as the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

    “We need to be willing to protect and preserve our state’s vital ag industry as well as our consumers,” said Pillen. “These products are grown from harvested cells in bioreactor machines. The health consequences are unknown, and so are the long-term effects to consumers.”

    It marks the culmination of what Pillen had labelled “a full-blown attack on lab-grown meats and fake meat” in August, when he signed an executive order putting restrictions on these proteins and announcing his intention to ban them in 2025.

    At his request, Senator Barry DeKay brought forward the bill in January, which describes cultivated meat as an “adulterated food product”. While there was apprehension from some fellow Republicans, as well as the very industry Pillen said he was aiming to safeguard, the bill finally made it through the state chambers.

    Nebraska’s ban helps Gov Pillen more than anyone else

    lab grown meat ban
    Courtesy: Phelan M Ebenhack/AP

    When signing his executive order in August, Pillen indicated his desire to protect animal agriculture from the “extraordinary, crazy views out there that there’s going to be different ways to feed the planet”.

    He took a jibe at Bill Gates, who has invested in a number of alternative protein companies, including California’s Upside Foods, which has sued Florida for a similar ban. “There’s a guy that made some money in building computers. He needs to stay in the computer space and knock this stuff off thinking that he’s going to promote lab-grown meat. He’s lost his brains,” said Pillen.

    “We are the beef state,” he added. That’s the issue, though. Agriculture is the largest source of Nebraska’s emissions, contributing to 42% of the state’s climate footprint – and beef production alone accounts for 55% of this share, and 23.7% of the state’s overall emissions.

    lab
    Courtesy: EPA

    Pillen said Nebraska’s farmers and ranchers (which includes himself) “are committed to producing the best food products anywhere”.

    “We feed the world, and we save the planet more effectively and more efficiently than anybody else, and I will defend those practices with my last breath,” he said.

    Pillen’s hog farm operation has made him a multimillionaire. Pillen Family Farms is one of the nation’s largest pork producers and received a $286M loan from a lender in 2023. It has also come under scrutiny for having dangerously high nitrate levels in its farms’ water supply, which puts the health of both farmers and consumers at risk.

    So it’s a little tough to take Pillen at his word about who this cultivated meat ban would benefit.

    Farmers opposed cultivated meat ban in Nebraska

    nebraska lab grown meat
    Courtesy: Governor Jim Pillen/X

    Nebraska’s ban faced more opposition than Pillen perhaps anticipated. Lawmakers like Senator Merv Riepe, as well as the Nebraska Farm Bureau preferred to address the labelling of cultivated meat instead of outlawing it, especially since it’s not available in the state yet.

    Opposition also came from ranchers and farming groups, who said they didn’t need the government’s help to compete with cultivated meat. One farmer told the AP that he welcomes cultivated meat producers to “jump into the pool” and try to compete with his Waygu beef, going on to describe his disdain for lawmakers’ efforts to stifle competition in a free market.

    He noted that governments should only be limited to regulating product labels and inspecting facilities – something the US Department of Agriculture already does when reviewing regulatory applications for cultivated meat. “After that, it’s up to the consumer to make the decision about what they buy and eat,” said the beef farmer.

    The final bill didn’t pass unanimously, with 11 lawmakers voting against it. Now that it has succeeded, Nebraska has become the sixth state to ban cultivated meat – and the fourth in the last couple of months. It joins Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, South Dakota and Indiana (the latter has placed a two-year moratorium).

    More than 20 states have tried to do so over the last few years. In the current legislative session, South DakotaSouth CarolinaWest VirginiaMontanaWyoming, and Georgia have all been mulling the move.

    It reflects the shifting political and cultural landscape in the US, with President Donald Trump and colleagues like JD Vance and Robert F Kennedy Jr all denouncing “fake meat”, just as consumers spend more on meat than ever before.

    While more such legislation are likely on the way (as are legal challenges like that of Upside Foods), it does feel like a colossal waste of resources to ban something that has barely made it out of the gates, and is only trying to safeguard the future of an industry causing copious amounts of pollution, and being subsequently ravaged by climate change.

    The post Nebraska Bans Cultivated Meat As State Gov Pillen Gets His Wish appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • forbes 30 under 30 asia
    6 Mins Read

    Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Nutella Plant-Based’s UK launch, Oatly’s collab with Chris Parnell, and Nestlé’s new biotech centre.

    New products and launches

    Ferrero has announced that it will launch Nutella Plant-Based in the UK on May 25. It will be available at Sainsbury’s for £3.99 per 350g jar, before rolling out to other retailers next year. For context, the classic Nutella is 30p cheaper for the same size.

    vegan nutella
    Courtesy: Ferrero

    US startup Nature’s Bakery has released two new products: a gluten-free strawberry flavour of its flagship Fig Bar, and a raspberry and lemon oatmeal crumble bar. The plant-based treats are available at Target and on its website for $7 per six-pack.

    Vegan snack brand Hippeas has rolled out Cheezy Cheddar Pops made from yellow peas and chickpeas. They contain 3g of protein and 2g of fibre per 1oz serving, and are available at Target, Walmart, and on Amazon and its website in various sizes.

    hippeas
    Courtesy: Hippeas

    French plant-based startup Hari&Co has launched Moroccan-inspired keftas, made from wheat and pea protein. They contain 20g of protein per 100g, have an A rating on the Nutri-Score scale, plus a 90/100 score on product-scanning app Yuka.I

    Slovenia’s Juicy Marbles is bringing its plant-based whole cuts to Spain via a distribution deal with Zyrcular Foods.

    juicy marbles lamb
    Courtesy: Juicy Marbles

    Germany’s Veganz Group has signed a deal with Jindilli Beverages to export its Mililk line of oat and almond milks in Tetra Pak formats to North America, Australia and New Zealand. The agreement also includes a new non-dairy creamer called Mililk Drops.

    Also in North America, Canadian vegan fast-food chain Odd Burger has secured its own distribution agreement with Dot Foods, which will see its retail and foodservice products expand their national grocery and restaurant chain footprint.

    odd burger
    Courtesy: Odd Burger

    Vegan pizza maker Blackbird Foods has rolled out its frozen products at 88 Hy-Vee supermarket locations across the Midwest. They’re available in Margherita, Supreme, and Pepperoni flavours (the latetr features Beyond Meat).

    And Indian startup Cosmix has launched No-Nonsense Plant Protein PRO, a yeast protein powder with the maximum protein digestibility score (akin to whey)

    Company and finance updates

    Speaking of India, New Delhi-based vegan egg startup Plantmade has ceased operations after four years.

    As part of its Blind Love campaign, Oatly has launched a spoof ad with comedian and Saturday Night Live alum Chris Parnell to spread the word about what it has termed Dormant Oatmilk Condition: five times more Americans prefer oat milk in their coffee over dairy, but they don’t know it yet.

    In Switzerland, Nestlé has opened a biotech centre to advance its nutritional solutions across a range of verticals, including early life, women’s health, and weight management. Among the hub’s credentials are enhanced capabilities in precision fermentation.

    Meanwhile, Beyond Meat has amended its lease on its headquarters, giving up 61,000 sq ft of its office space back to HC Hornet Way for a one-time termination fee of $1M. It continues to rent 220,000 sq ft of space, but expects to incur $600,000 in modification costs. This comes after a disappointing Q1 for the plant-based meat maker.

    beyond meat documentary
    Courtesy: Beyond Meat

    Food tech startup High Time Foods, which makes ambient plant protein products, has raised $1.2M in a new funding round. Following the deal, it has relocated from the US to India, and is gearing up its product development and international expansion efforts.

    Aussie firm Levur, which is working on a precision-fermentated alternative to palm oil, has also secured $1.2M in pre-seed funding.

    fable shiitake infusion
    Courtesy: Daniel Hine/Fable Foods

    Fellow Sydney-based startup Fable Food has posted a 50% year-on-year revenue growth, and projects an even better performance this year, thanks to its shiitake-mushroom-based products (which have taken the blended meat world by storm).

    In New Zealand, Opo Bio – a B2B supplier of livestock cells for cultivated meat production – has secured investment from Epic Angels to expand its R&D efforts and patent portfolio.

    eatkinda
    Courtesy: EatKinda

    Forbes has named Mrinali Kumar, co-founder and CEO of cauliflower ice cream brand EatKinda, and Emily McIsaac, co-founder and COO of precision fermentation firm Daisy Lab, on its 30 Under 30 list, under the Arts and Industry, Manufacturing & Energy categories, respectively.

    Canada’s Lovingly Made Flour Mills and Botaneco are working with British firm Stars UK R&D and the University of Leeds to develop Canadian-grown legumes and sunflower ingredients to improve the juiciness of plant-based burgers.

    just egg uk
    Courtesy: Eat Just

    California’s Eat Just has hired Kristie Middleton as its VP of foodservice sales. She was most recently the chief relationship officer at vegan chicken maker Rebellyous Foods.

    Also in California, cultivated meat startup Omeat has appointed Eric Schulze as its CTO. He is a former regulator at the FDA who later spent seven years at Upside Foods.

    Research, policy and events

    In the UK, The Vegan Society will celebrate its 80th year with the Veganism: Past, Present and Future exhibition at the Library of Birmingham from May 17 to August 24.

    Cellulaire Agricultuur Nederland and the Dutch Research Council (NWO) are preparing to open a €4M research call focused on scaling up the production and reducing costs of foods produced via precision fermentation and cell culture.

    Retail sales of plant-based meat in the US fell by 7.5% to $1.13B in the year ending April 20, 2025, according to SPINS. Refrigerated burgers bore the burnt of the fall, with sales dipping by 26%.

    The number one reason deterring people from plant-based milk is taste. At the Technical University of Denmark, researchers suggest the solution lies in the same microbes found in kimchi: lactic acid bacteria.

    foodtech world cup
    Courtesy: HackSummit

    Finally, Argentinian gut health startup Future Biome has won this year’s FoodTech World Cup at the HackSummit for its new class of fungi-based prebiotic solutions.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: Oatly x Chris Parnell, Vegan Nutella & Forbes 30 Under 30 appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • lab grown meat approved
    5 Mins Read

    Dutch cultivated meat startup Mosa Meat has filed for regulatory approval in the UK, where it’s part of a government support scheme and teased its first burger all those years ago.

    Twelve years after unveiling the world’s first cultivated beef burger in London, Mosa Meat has applied for regulatory approval to sell its beef fat ingredient in the UK.

    The Dutch startup has filed the dossier with the Food Standards Agency, two months after joining the regulator’s cultivated meat ‘sandbox’ programme, which hosts eight firms looking to speed up the commercialisation of their products.

    At the launch of the two-year scheme, the FSA indicated its goal to approve at least two products during this period. This means Mosa Meat’s cultivated beef fat, which can be blended with plant-based ingredients to make hybrid burgers, meatballs, and filling for cottage pie, could be on the market by 2027.

    “We are thankful to the FSA for engaging in valuable presubmission consultations with our food safety team,” said Mosa Meat CEO Maarten Bosch. “We included their valuable feedback and have submitted our cultivated beef fat dossier for formal review.”

    The UK filing comes amid a period of rapid progress for Mosa Meat, which submitted dossiers to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and Switzerland’s Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office.

    And in February, it smashed its crowdfunding goal of €1.5M in just 24 minutes, a sign of public confidence in the startup at a time when VCs have become disillusioned with cultivated meat. The firm raised a total of €3.7M ($3.9M at the time) from nearly 1,650 investors, taking its overall funding to date to $139M.

    Mosa Meat is preparing public tastings of cultivated beef

    mosa meat
    Courtesy: Mosa Meat

    Mosa Meat is one of a number of startups focusing on cultivated fat as the first ingredient. Fat is the most optimal carrier of flavour and provides the textural attributes that meat is renowned for, which allows the startup to deliver a sensory experience people expect from conventional beef

    “By starting with cultivated fat, we’re paving the way to introduce our first burgers to consumers while staying true to our long-term vision. Our initial products will combine cultivated and plant-based ingredients, leveraging our in-house expertise in both areas,” explained Bosch.

    “This innovation not only enhances our Mosa burgers, but also has the potential to elevate plant-based products, which often struggle to replicate the full sensory experience of meat.”

    There’s another advantage: by blending fat with plant-based ingredients, companies can make the final product a lot more cost-effective, which is a crucial bottleneck for the industry. That first set of burgers in 2013, introduced by co-founder Dr Mark Post, cost $330,000 to make; the firm has since dramatically lowered its production costs, reducing the price of its growth medium by 80-fold in 2020 and its fat medium by 66 times a year later.

    Before the UK, the EU and Switzerland, Mosa Meat first applied for approval with the Singapore Food Agency, but the original nine- to 12-month timeline the country has touted has been hard to realise. A new Food Safety and Security Bill, which codifies the assessment framework, can break the deadlock and speed up the process in the city-state.

    The startup has previously indicated interest in the US too, though the decision will now partly depend on political developments. Donald Trump’s return to the presidency and Robert F Kennedy’s appointment as health secretary have left things uncertain for food tech in the country, particularly cultivated meat, which has now been banned in five states, with several others poised to join that list.

    Last year, Mosa Meat held a public tasting of its burgers for cattle farmers, product developers and other industry representatives at its headquarters in Maastricht. “We are currently creating our next-generation products and are preparing to submit tasting approvals for those this year,” Bosch told Green Queen in February.

    lab grown meat tasting
    Courtesy: Mosa Meat

    UK aims to become a cultivated meat leader

    The UK’s Cell-Cultivated Products Regulatory Sandbox was set up with a £1.6M infusion by the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, as part of the first round of its Engineering Biology Sandbox Fund. It came as the government sought to modernise its novel food ecosystem, having followed the EU’s framework, described as rigorous yet slow and prohibitive, in its post-Brexit years.

    Sandboxes comprise controlled environments for situations where scientific and technological innovation has outpaced existing regulation. They run for a limited period to help startups, researchers and regulators work together to develop new rules, standards and guidance.

    It is being jointly run by the FSA and Food Standards Scotland (FSS), which are gathering “rigorous scientific evidence” about the technology behind cell-cultured foods to better regulate these products and apply up-to-date insights during safety assessments. The FSA has previously said it expects at least 15 more applications in the next two years, and predicted the rise of many new startups in the space.

    “These are exactly the kind of public-private partnerships we envisioned when we debuted the world’s first cultivated burger right here in London in 2013,” Mosa Meat’s Post said in March.

    “The regulatory sandbox is already making an impact on attracting innovative companies like ours to the UK market,” Bosch said after the British dosier submission.

    lab grown meat uk
    Courtesy: Mosa Meat

    In the sandbox, Mosa Meat is joined by Hoxton Farms, Roslin Technologies, Uncommon Bio (all British), BlueNalu (US), Vow (Australia), Gourmey (France), and Vital Meat (France). The latter two, along with British startup Ivy Farm Technologies and Israel’s Aleph Farms, are already waiting on FSA approval. London-based Meatly is the only one to have received the green light (and sold cultivated meat) in the UK, albeit for pet food.

    The FSA is working with the Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub (CARMA), the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (helped by a £15M injection from the government), and Bezos Earth Fund‘s Centre for Sustainable Protein, as part of the sandbox, alongside think tank the Good Food Institute Europe and trade body the Alternative Proteins Association. Plus, it is setting up a system of international cooperation, allowing the UK to approve cultivated meat products cleared elsewhere.

    When it comes to regulatory approvals, it has been a fruitful 18 months for cultivated meat startups. Aleph Farms has earned the go-ahead in Israel, Vow in Singapore and (preliminarily) Australia and New Zealand, and Mission Barns in the US. Meanwhile, Thailand is evaluating Aleph Farms’s application, while experts believe South Korea could grant an approval this year.

    The post Dutch Startup Mosa Meat Files for UK Regulatory Approval of Cultivated Beef Fat appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • massive attack vegan
    6 Mins Read

    Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Massive Attack’s vegan concert, Beleaf’s plant-based meat price freeze, and the FDA’s labelling guidelines.

    New products and launches

    Lindt has released its oat-milk-based Lindor Vegan Truffles in Canada, with both the milk and dark chocolate versions available in 120g packs for C$12.99.

    ombar blonde chocolate
    Courtesy: Ombar

    British vegan chocolate brand Ombar has re-released its Blonde Caramelised White Chocolate bar, a Nestlé Caramac copycat, on a permanent basis thanks to popular demand. The 70g bars are available for £2.75 at Tesco.

    In more chocolate news, fellow UK dairy-free brand Nomo has introduced Salted Popcorn, Birthday Cake and snackable Cookie Dough bars.

    UK plant-based meat brand THIS has rolled out two new SKUs at Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, and Ocado stores. The THIS Isn’t Chicken Deli Pieces contain 28g of protein per serving and are priced at £3.95 per 120g pack, and THIS Isn’t Pork Cocktail Sausages have 20g of protein and cost £2.95 per 140g.

    this isn't chicken
    Courtesy: THIS

    Vegan food producer Gosh!, meanwhile, has launched Mexican- and Italian-inspired snack packs called Veg Bites, which are high in ‘plant points‘ and available at Morrisons for £1.30 per 50g pack, or as part of a meal deal.

    Also in the UK, Compleat Food Group’s Wall’s Pastry has expanded its meat-free range with Vegan Peppered Steak and Vegan Chicken & Mushroom slices, available for £2 per 180g pack at Tesco.

    At London Coffee Festival, Califia Farms will introduce hazelnut- and pistachio-flavoured versions of its barista milk, tapping into a global trend for non-dairy milk.

    plant based meat price parity
    Courtesy: Beleaf Foods

    In the US, Beleaf Foods has initiated a price freeze until 2027 for its plant-based meat range to address consumer complaints about the price gap with meat, which will likely be exacerbated amid the tariff war.

    Flavour giant T. Hasegawa has introduced PlantReact, a “science-driven” natural flavour technology that leverages Maillard reactions, enzymolysis, and fermentation to make better-tasting vegan chicken, beef, pork, and milk analogues.

    Speaking of fermentation, ingredient manufacturer DMC Biotechnologies has launched a fermented myo-inositol for food, beverage, and supplement applications. The compound is naturally present in both plants and animals and used in nutrition products, but suffers from sustainability, traceability and supply issues.

    beyond meat jalapeno burger
    Courtesy: Beyond Meat

    In the Netherlands, Beyond Meat has rolled out its jalapeño burger at 750 Albert Heijn stores, 75 Plus locations, and online retailer PicNic, and expanded its availability at Jumbo to 150 doors.

    Austrian plant protein player Revo Foods, known for its 3D-printed seafood analogues, has kickstarted a crowdfunding campaign and has already raised €1.2M of its €2M goal.

    revo foods factory
    Courtesy: Revo Foods

    And Spanish biotech firm MOA Foodtech has unveiled Albatros, an AI-driven microbiology platform to help manufacturers identify agricultural sidestreams to turn into valuable products through fermentation.

    Company and finance updates

    Popular vegan seafood chain Planta has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing a need to cut costs as consumers cut back on dining out. The move will provide it with a “strategic opportunity to streamline our cost structure and strengthen our balance sheet”.

    Shoofly, a vegan wholesale bakery in Portland, Oregon, has shuttered after its staff walked out over alleged late payments and dissatisfaction with its new owner. Now, one supervisor has started a GoFundMe page to help compensate employees for lost wages, and either buy the bakery or start their own.

    shoofly vegan bakery
    Courtesy: Shoofly

    US startup Sennos (formerly Precision Fermentation) has secured $15M to expand its AI-powered fermentation platform for biofuels, biopharma, and alternative proteins.

    Cultivated meat firm Upside Foods has appointed John Mitchell as its new VP of sales. He was previously the chief product officer at alt-seafood startup Konscious Foods.

    Finnish food tech firm Foodiq has raised $11.1M to scale up its multi-layer cooker technology for clean-label dairy and alternative proteins, and expand internationally.

    massive attack act 1.5
    Courtesy: Horace Downs

    In the UK, Manchester’s fully electric Co-op Live venue will go fully vegan for the show headlined by trip-hop band Massive Attack next month. The band has been pioneering low-carbon concerts and held a fully plant-based festival last year too.

    Precision fermentation firm Better Dairy has diversified its portfolio with the successful production of osteopontin, a functional bioactive protein found in mammalian milk, bones, and tissue.

    British fermented food brand The Cultured Collective has brought in James Robinson as chair and non-executive director. He holds a similar position at The Bold Bean Company.

    turion labs
    Courtesy: Turion Labs

    South Korea’s S&S LAB and Indonesia’s Future Lestari have joined forces to launch Turion Labs, a new biotech platform in Singapore that plans to build a regional network of facilities to support early-stage biotech ventures.

    Vegan cheesemaker Violife says it is now the leading plant-based cheese brand in Canada, capturing a third of all sales in the market.

    New Zealand’s Life Health Foods has decided to withdraw its Bean Supreme line of meat-free sausages, burgers and mince from the market, citing “tough market conditions” and changing consumer behaviours.

    Research and policy developments

    In the US, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has signed HB 1126 into law, a false advertising bill that requires producers to disclose clearly that cultivated and plant-based meat products are not meat. Violators could face misdemeanour charges.

    The US Food and Drug Administration has extended the public consultation for its front-of-package labelling update by another 90 days, with the deadline now set for July 15.

    fda front of package labeling
    Courtesy: FDA

    In a study co-funded by New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries, the Cawthron Institute and Nutrition from Water have identified 14 microalgae strains with a naturally high protein concentration of over 40%, which the latter will use to create affordable nutrition prototypes under its Marine Whey series.

    Finally, a scientist at the Malaysian Agro-Biotechnology Institute’s Food Biotechnology Department has developed a vegan burger patty from grey oyster mushrooms, a widely cultivated but underused variety of fungi in the country.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: Massive Attack, Blonde Chocolate & A Price Freeze appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • lab grown fat cells
    4 Mins Read

    University of Edinburgh scientists have developed a pig fat cell line that promises efficient, scalable and consistent cultivated meat production, with the potential of going past the exosphere.

    Could astronauts enjoy a cultivated bacon breakfast in space?

    Researchers from the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute are working to make that a reality, having developed a technology that could solve some major obstacles for cultivated meat production.

    They have created a source of fat cells from pigs with what they claim is a “rare combination of reliable and stable cell growth”, potentially enabling large-scale manufacturing of cultivated pork without the need for genetic modification (a key requirement for regulators in markets like the EU and New Zealand).

    Presenting their findings in the NPJ Science of Food journal, the scientists said this novel cell line – dubbed FaTTy – can efficiently produce fat tissue with remarkable consistency, making it a “very attractive, potentially game-changing resource for food manufacturing, and particularly cultivated meat”.

    The team looked at growing stem cells derived from five piglets, and discovered that one of them was able to reproduce virtually indefinitely, without the need for any gene editing.

    How the new cells can supercharge cultivated fat production

    mission barns fat
    Courtesy: Mission Barns

    “Fat is the primary driver of flavour in meat, influencing taste, aroma, and mouthfeel. Of the main components of meat – muscle, fat, and connective tissue – fat has the most significant culinary impact,” Maarten Bosch, CEO of Dutch cultivated beef producer Mosa Meat, told Green Queen earlier this year. The company has filed for approval for its fat ingredient in the EU and Switzerland.

    “Consumers won’t eat food that isn’t absolutely delicious, which is why we chose to pursue a fat-first approach,” explained Eitan Fischer, CEO of cultivated pork startup Mission Barns, which is now approved to sell in the US. “Not only is fat the main driver of flavour and juiciness, but it is also less costly and faster to produce than lean meat.”

    Cultivated fat is the key to scaling up cultivated meat in a cost-efficient manner, which is perhaps the industry’s biggest bottleneck. In the study, the researchers explain that most animal stem cells lose the ability to reliably produce fat cells quickly. While they can double in population every 20 to 24 hours for the first 30 to 40 days, they gradually slow down.

    On the other hand, The FaTTy cells, which are formed from early-stage stem cells, can grow indefinitely. According to the scientists, they are immortalised after reaching 60 doubling cycles (equal to 57 days in culture). These cells have maintained an adipogenic efficiency – how effectively they can differentiate into fat cells – of nearly 100% for over 200 doubling cycles.

    They’re able to differentiate at this high efficiency in both 2D and 3D contexts, and produce fat that closely resembles native pig fat in composition, with slightly higher levels of healthier monounsaturated fats and lower saturated fat.

    “We didn’t simply develop a tool, we made a very special discovery,” said Tom Thrower, lead researcher at the Roslin Institute. “The fact that these cells not only grow indefinitely but also retain their ability to become fat at such high efficiency is something we have never seen before in livestock stem cells. It opens the door to new possibilities in cultivated meat and beyond.”

    Future foods attracting interest for space applications

    mission barns
    Courtesy: Mission Barns

    Prof F Xavier Donadeu, the principal investigator, said the cells “have the potential to be a game-changer by helping to produce cultivated meat that feels and tastes like traditional meat, whilst being environmentally and ethically sustainable in the longer term”.

    “Future applications could include feeding astronauts in space,” he added. Interest in future-friendly food for space is growing rapidly. Last month, scientists at Imperial College London and Cranfield University launched a fully automated miniature microbe lab into space, containing yeast to produce edible proteins via precision fermentation outside Earth.

    The project aims to find a way to produce food and other bio-derived products in space for astronauts and involves Frontier Space, Atmos Space Cargo, and the European Space Agency, which has previously supported two projects to grow cultivated meat in space.

    In the US, NASA has been conducting experiments on cultivated meat since 2001. And SpaceX has worked with cultivated meat firm Aleph Farms to conduct experiments on microgravity’s effects on muscle tissue growth, using beef cells harvested by the Israeli startup. The Israeli startup has also grown cell-cultured beef on the International Space Station, nearly 400km away from any natural resources.

    Back on Earth, Roslin Institute is readying its cell line for commercial applications. “We already have considerable interest from companies looking to work with us on this proprietary technology,” said Susan Bodie, head of business development for the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at Edinburgh Innovation.

    “Tools like this may help introduce fat cells to improve taste and realism of meat grown in labs in both an ethical and reliable way.”

    The post Scientists Create ‘Game-Changing’ Cultivated Meat Tech That Could Feed Astronauts in Space appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • science museum future of food
    4 Mins Read

    Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers the Science Museum’s future food exhibit, Beyond Steak’s UK debut, and a Dutch public-private plant-based partnership.

    New products and launches

    In London, the Science Museum will host a Future of Food exhibit from July 24, featuring Aleph Farms‘s cultivated beef steak, the oldest sample of Quorn‘s burger from 1981, Clean Food Group‘s yeast-derived palm oil alternative, and more.

    lab grown beef
    Courtesy: Science Museum Group

    British YouTubers James Marriott and Will Lenney (aka Willne) have launched Rodd’s, a dairy-free ready-to-drink brand featuring an iced latte, waffle latte, and a vanilla matcha latte, all made with oat milk. They’re available at 300 Sainsbury’s stores for £2.20 per 250ml bottle.

    Rude Health has released a “clean deck” iced coffee range, with its Oat Latte Iced Coffee and Mocha Iced Coffee aiming to address ultra-processing fears. They’re available for £3.75 per 750ml pack.

    In more oat milk news from the UK, new startup Via Nature has rolled out Oat Shaker, a line described as a “snack in a bottle”. It comes in Banana & Coconut, Matcha & Pineapple and Blueberry & Açaí flavours, and can be found at Sainsbury’s for £4 per 750ml.

    beyond steak uk
    Courtesy: Beyond Meat

    Beyond Meat‘s vegan steak pieces have made it into the UK, rolling out at 650 Tesco stores to align with British Sandwich Week (May 19-25), priced at £4.50 per 160g pack.

    Vegan chocolate maker NOMO has released Salted Popcorn and Birthday Cake flavours in UK supermarkets, which are available in 32g and 127g bars, respectively.

    New Zealand-based Nutrition from Water has released a Ready-To-Bake Sponge Cake Premix from its Marine Whey 50 algae protein.

    vegan french butter
    Courtesy: Maison Linotte/Meawnamcat/Getty Images

    French luxury pastry maker Maison Linotte has unveiled Purely, a premium vegan butter for professionals and baking enthusiasts. Described as a clean-label product, it contains no palm oil and can be used as a 1:1 replacement for dairy butter. It has a neutral flavour and colour, and reduces emissions by 82%.

    Italian almond-based cheesemaker Dreamfarm has debuted vegan Ciliegine, or mini mozzarella balls, at the TuttoFood fair in Milan. They will roll out at Esselunga stores, with each 120g pack containing 12 balls.

    Also in the non-dairy world, Canada’s Daiya has reformulated its cream cheese and Deluxe Mac & Cheese lines with its new fermented oat cream. It has also added a Cinnamon Twist flavour to the former range.

    daiya cream cheese
    Courtesy: Daiya

    And in the US, Dr. Praeger’s is launching two frozen vegan snacks – Taco Stars and Ranch Crunchy Veggie Fries – at Target stores this month.

    Policy, company and finance developments

    Belgium’s Bolder Foods, which was working on a mycelium ingredient for better vegan cheese, has ceased operations after failing to close its funding round.

    In the Netherlands, Wageningen University & Research, Jumbo, Intersnack Group, Alpro, HAK, and The Vegetarian Butcher have launched a two-year public-private partnership called Shifting Shelves, which aims to increase the uptake of plant-based meat and dairy, legumes, and nuts via literature reviews, consumer research, and virtual and in-store supermarket tests.

    shifting shelves
    Courtesy: Jumbo

    Berlin-based startup Cultimate Foods has received funding from the Investitionsbank Berlin, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund, to scale up its cultivated animal fat.

    Denmark’s Ferm Food has earned EU authorisation to sell its fermented rapeseed cake as a food ingredient. A byproduct of canola oil production, it contains 28-30% protein and can be used in bread, cakes, and plant-based products.

    ferm food
    Courtesy: Ferm Food

    Abhay Rangan, co-founder and former CEO of Indian plant-based dairy startup One Good (now part of Nourish You), has joined German cultivated milk startup Senara as its chief business officer.

    Finally, UK tempeh brand Better Nature has hired Helen Atkinson as its new head of sales. She has previously worked at Dr Oetker, Noble Foods and Bel Group.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: Science Museum, Fermented Rapeseed & Shifting Shelves appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • montana lab grown meat
    6 Mins Read

    Montana Governor Greg Gianforte has signed a bill that prevents the production or sale of cultivated meat in the state, while Indiana has introduced a two-year prohibition.

    From October 1, manufacturing or selling cultivated meat in Montana could put you at risk of imprisonment for up to three months, a fine of up to $250, or both.

    The state became the fourth to pass legislation banning cultivated meat after Governor Greg Gianforte signed HB 401 into law on May 1.

    Retailers that sell cultivated meat could face fines too, while restaurants could have their licences suspended. Additionally, even though it can’t be sold, the state has put a restriction on how cultivated meat can be marketed, preventing it from being “misbranded”.

    And yesterday (May 6), Indiana Governor Mike Braun signed into law HB 1425, which establishes a two-year moratorium on the sale and manufacturing of cultivated meat and its labelling as a “meat product”.

    It’s in effect from July 1 this year until June 30, 2027, and violators face fines up to $10,000, the highest of any other such ban in the US.

    Montana attacks World Economic Forum after ban

    Montana’s anti-cultivated-meat bill was brought to the House floor in February by Representative Braxton Mitchell, who said at the time: “This bill will help promote the Montana agricultural industry and keep it strong and thriving in the state of Montana. I think we have a unique opportunity here to put the hammer down clearly and show that we stand with agriculture and that we stand with our cattle ranchers.”

    The effort was co-sponsored by over 70 lawmakers, most of whom are Republican. “I have some grave concerns over the use and production of lab-grown meat,” Representative Randyn Gregg said during the first hearing.

    “The process is a fusion of dystopia. One could call it Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ meets Keanu Reeves in ‘The Matrix’,” he added, painting a vivid – if highly misleading – portrait of how cultivated meat is made. It’s not the first time someone has described cultivated meat as ‘Franken-food’, or a legislator has supported a ban based on wholly incorrect assumptions about the process.

    The bill passed through both chambers without much fuss, with House Republicans unanimously voting in favour, outnumbering the opposition from Democrats for a final count of 64-35. In the Senate, the bill was voted 34-14 in favour, with five of the nays coming from Republicans. It was then transferred to Gianforte, who quietly signed it into law last week.

    In announcing the bill’s success, Mitchell claimed the state was “punching back at the World Economic Forum’s plan to force the world to eat fake meat and bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals”.

    It’s in reference to the organisation’s assertion that alternative proteins are necessary to help meet the needs of a population that will reach 10 billion in 2050 and combat the changing climate. Again, he isn’t the first lawmaker to attack the WEF as a means to justify a ban on cultivated meat.

    Mitchell further added that the WEF “claims that our consumption of naturally grown meat is ‘the source of greenhouse gases and climate change’”. But the organisation is right. Livestock farming accounts for as much as a fifth of global emissions (10 times higher than aviation), while taking up 70% of our freshwater supplies and 80% of farmland.

    Within the food system, nearly 60% of emissions come from meat and dairy production. In Montana, where there are twice as many cows as humans, agriculture is responsible for over a fifth of GHG emissions, with methane from cattle a major contributor. Cultivated meat, meanwhile, can have a 92% lower impact on climate change, and requires 95% less land and 78% less water than conventional beef.

    Indiana temporarily bans sale and labelling of cultivated meat

    indiana lab grown meat
    Courtesy” Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

    In Indiana, HB 1425 was proposed by Representative Beau Baird, who indicated that cultivated meat was too new a product to be viewed as perfectly safe, and should be prohibited for two years as more studies are conducted.

    “The US Department of Agriculture just approved this product in 2023, in the fall, so it’s still a relatively new product. I think that taking our time and making sure we know what our constituents are consuming is thoughtful and a wise decision,” he had said.

    The bill also contains a provision that mandates manufacturers to label cultivated meat products with the phrase “This is an imitation meat product”, and outlaws labels that don’t “clearly indicate” that it is a cell-cultured product.

    But the text actually defines cultivated meat as “animal protein grown in a facility from extracted animal stem cells and arranged in a similar structure as animal tissues to replicate the sensory and nutritional profiles of meat products”, so the labelling clause caused some confusion.

    “We actually define ‘cultivated meat product’ in this bill, but then the label is going to say something different,” Senator Shelli Yoder said during one of the hearings.

    Nevertheless, the bill passed with a 74-15 majority in the House, and 43-7 in the Senate, with Governor Braun signing it into law yesterday.

    It makes Indiana the fifth state to officially ban cultivated meat from being sold within its borders, albeit this is a temporary measure.

    Cultivated meat bans popular despite criticism

    lab grown meat ban
    Courtesy: Good Meat

    It’s almost becoming fashionable for states to attempt to ban cultivated meat, empowered by an administration that loves Big Meat and a cultural shift that has brought beef back to the centre of the plate.

    Florida and Alabama introduced the first two bans in 2024. And in March, Mississippi’s bill to ban cultivated meat became official, passing both the House and the Senate unanimously (which eschewed the need for the governor’s sign-off).

    More than 20 states have tried to do so over the last few years. In the current legislative session, South DakotaSouth CarolinaWest Virginia, Montana, Wyoming, and Georgia have all been mulling the move, while Nebraska is awaiting the governor’s sign-off.

    But these efforts have been criticised by a multitude of stakeholders, including cattle farmers themselves. In a March 2024 letter sent to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the North American Meat Institute called the ban “bad public policy”.

    “These bills establish a precedent for adopting policies and regulatory requirements that could one day adversely affect the bills’ supporters,” it said, emphasising the importance of consumer choice.

    California’s Upside Foods, one of only three companies that have been approved by the FDA and the USDA to sell cultivated meat, has filed a lawsuit against Florida’s ban. Last week, a judge blocked the state’s attempt to throw out the case, paving its way towards the trial court.

    Meanwhile, regulators cleared Mission Barns’s cultivated pork fat for sale earlier this year, the first green light for cultivated meat since Upside Foods and Good Meat’s summer 2023 approvals. It will debut at San Francisco restaurant group Fiorella and Sprouts Farmers Market.

    The post ‘Frankenstein Meets The Matrix’: Montana & Indiana Become Latest US States to Ban Cultivated Meat appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • fura singapore

    5 Mins Read

    From gas protein and bean-free coffee to cultured quail and upcycled kombucha, Fura is opening up the future of food to Singaporeans.

    One of the hottest additions to the Asia’s 50 Best Bars list last year, the cult bar is putting sustainability at the heart of its operations and championing an inventive, future-facing menu.

    Both a cocktail bar and dining destination, Singapore’s Fura has made a big splash since opening in October 2023, with its menu labelled as a Journal of Future Food. The first edition, for example, featured dishes like XOXO, Tempe, featuring mushroom XO sauce, pomelo, and a chimichurri made from Solein, the gas protein by Solar Foods.

    Meanwhile, one of the cocktails on offer was called Got Milk?, a combination of Empirical Soka, pandan, honeydew, and kombucha made from Very Dairy, the animal-free milk commercialised by precision fermentation startup Perfect Day (which has since been discontinued).

    Now, co-owners Christina Rasmussen and Sasha Wijidessa are embarking on the next step in Fura’s journey, with the second volume of its future food menu. Among the highlights are Vow‘s cultured quail (and its residual ‘tallow’), a novel take on the Dirty Banana cocktail with Prefer’s beanless coffee, and a triple-corn cocktail highlighting the benefits of crop diversification.

    “We want to change the way we eat and drink by giving a glimpse of what our diet could look like in the future due to climate change,” Rasmussen, previously the head forager at Copenhagen’s world-renowned restaurant Noma, tells Green Queen.

    Cultured quail walks into Fura

    vow cultured quail
    A Quail Walks Into a Bar, featuring Vow’s Forged Parfait | Courtesy: Kahying

    One of several establishments using Australian company Vow’s cultivated meat in the city-state, Fura takes things a step further, using not just the Japanese quail parfait, it is also making use of the startup’s fat byproduct.

    A Quail Walks Into a Bar is the eatery’s first dish using the cultured quail, which is sold under the Forged brand and was approved for sale in Singapore last year. “The Japanese quail has a buttery, smooth parfait texture, which is piped and torched on top of a hazelnut biscuit, garnished with dill cream and acidic malt apple gel to cut the richness,” describes Rasmussen.

    “We’re then also using a byproduct of making the quail cells from Forged as our ‘butter’ for the Bread & Butter(ish). This is formed into a candle, which is lit just before serving and topped with pink peppercorn, garlic and Maldon salt,” she says. “The melted result serves as a dip for the black garlic bread, sweetened with brown bananas.”

    This innovation doesn’t stop at the food – the cultured quail has also made onto Fura’s cocktail menu. “A Quail Walks Into a Martini showcases the use of cell-cultured meat by rooting it in a familiar drink, a dry martini,” she says. “The quail is infused into gin and dry vermouth; a caramelised fennel puree is then sous vide and fat-washed with gin to complete the rich and dry drink.”

    Fura uses this technique often to integrate less familiar ingredients into the menu “By connecting them to something familiar, our guests will recognise and feel comfortable ordering [them],” says Rasmussen.

    In addition, Singaporean startup Prefer’s bean-free coffee – made by fermenting waste bread, soy milk pulp and spent brewer’s grain – appears in two menu items. It’s part of the New Age Sando, which combines the coffee alternative with an apricot kernel ice cream, raspberry crisps, and marigold.

    Plus, in Fura’s take on a Dirty Banana, the coffee is replaced with Prefer’s version, which is mixed with Empirical Ayuuk, dates, cardamom, and lacto banana cream.

    prefer bean free coffee
    Fura’s New Age Sando, featuring Prefer’s bean-free coffee | Courtesy: Kahying

    Turning future food from ‘intimidating’ to something ‘approachable’

    Apart from future food startups, Fura works with a range of local businesses to source its ingredients, including GreenLoop FarmsMother Dough and Bewilder.

    These make it onto the menu in innovative ways too. Take the 3 Crop Corn cocktail, for instance, which is aimed at promoting crop diversification as a strategy for lowering emissions and supporting regenerative landscapes.

    “The name refers to a three-crop system with a small grain (represented by the sorghum grain from the Empirical Soka), summer legume (showcased in corn silk vermouth), and cover crop (a garnish of mustard frills from GreenLoopFarms),” explains Rasmussen.

    Another aspect of Fura’s sustainability is waste reduction. Its menu has an Ugly Delicious section to include ‘wonky’ fruits and vegetables that don’t make it in retail stores and would otherwise be thrown away. The eatery ferments these to make fruit wines and kombucha.

    “We make all of our kombuchas in-house. We have three different flavours: #01 is a blackberry, fennel and black tea kombucha, #02 is a raspberry, pineapple and milk kombucha, and #03 is a grapefruit, coconut and green tea kombucha,” says Rasmussen.

    “The milk kombucha is the byproduct from one of our old cocktails, where the ‘whey’ was in excess and we used it to help soften the sharpness of acidity in our kombucha.”

    lab grown meat singapore restaurant
    Fura’s Journal of Future Food, Volume Two | Courtesy: Kahying

    Aside from food, Fura avoids using cling film and works with reusable piping bags, and makes paper mâché with used receipts, which are then repurposed as product cards for their retail section. These types of measures are what helped the establishment achieve the Sustainable Bar Award by Asia’s 50 Best last year.

    “Everything on our food and drinks menus highlights ingredients that are prevalent, invasive or in abundance due to the imbalance of our ecosystem. Our guiding principle is to look for ingredients that have low carbon emissions,” says Rasmussen.

    “We understand it can be intimidating for people to live in a way that helps work towards a more sustainable future, so we want to make that more approachable by showing people small steps they can take through food and drink.”

    The post This Singapore Bar Shows Diners What Food Will Look Like in the Future appeared first on Green Queen.

  • jeff tripician
    4 Mins Read

    Dutch startup Meatable has partnered with Singapore-based TruMeat to build a large-scale facility to produce cultivated meat at cost-competitive levels.

    As it awaits regulatory approval in the island nation, Meatable is planning to build a commercial-scale factory in Singapore to produce cultivated pork at a faster and cheaper rate.

    The Dutch startup has partnered with TruMeat, a firm focused on the industrialisation of cultivated meat tech, to construct what it says would be Singapore’s first cultivated meat factory capable of cost-competitive production.

    While details of the bioreactor’s size and capacity are yet to be revealed, the companies plan to start construction this year.

    “This is the next step in our journey to make cultivated meat accessible and affordable,” said Jeff Tripician, CEO of Meatable. “We have full trust in TruMeat’s expertise, and together, we are confident in our ability to optimise processes and scale efficiently.”

    Scaling up ahead of market entry

    The strategic partnership will focus on optimising processes and media development and building the state-of-the-art facility, which would be operated by TruMeat using Meatable’s technology.

    According to the company, the factory would be able to deliver cultivated meat at the cost levels and volumes required to support Meatable’s commercial partners in formulating, testing, and launching products made with its cultivated pork.

    “We recognise that Meatable is a clear leader in the cultivated meat space, and we have been waiting for a technology with this potential,” said TruMeat chairman James Chui.

    “We are very confident that by combining our strengths, we can achieve the necessary cost reductions and the commercial scale to make cultivated meat a viable option for global markets.”

    Meatable currently operates out of a facility in Leiden, which houses 200-litre bioreactors (with the potential of expanding to 500 litres). It has previously partnered with Singapore’s ESCO Aster, the world’s first approved contract manufacturing facility for cultivated meat, and plant protein manufacturer Love Handle.

    Its process involves the use of 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 fastest of any startup in the industry.

    “This collaboration brings us closer to providing the meat industry with the solutions it needs to deliver great-tasting, sustainable meat to customers and consumers worldwide,” said Tripician.

    Meatable prepares for fundraising and regulatory approvals

    In a wide-ranging interview with Green Queen in October, Tripician laid out Meatable’s “big change” in approach since he took over from co-founder Krijn de Nood five months earlier.

    “The role of Meatable is to help meat companies gain access to more meat. We’re a supplier to them. We show them the technology. We transfer the technology so they can do what they do. 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.”

    Meatable’s focus on production in the city-state comes amid its wait for the regulatory green light from the Singapore Food Agency. “We’ve got meat companies there that know there’s regulatory approval, or there will be, within 12 to 18 months,” says Tripician. “That’s where it’s going to gain traction, and then we’ll follow.”

    At the time, he said the firm was expecting approval by Q1 2025. While this is delayed, the company said it will use the approval as a proxy to get clearance in other countries too, as a form of international cooperation for novel food authorisation.

    Meatable is filing dossiers in at least six countries. “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.”

    The company has already hosted two tasting events in Singapore, and one at its Leiden headquarters in the Netherlands (a first for the EU). Having raised $95M to date, it is looking to secure around $35M in a Series C raise, Tripician revealed at the time.

    While funding has been hard to come by for cultivated meat (plummeting by 75% and 40% in 2023 and 2024, respectively), some leading startups have been successful, as can be evidenced by Aleph Farms’s $29M raise.

    “If you believe we’re on the right path and the science and the IP and all that’s there, and our business model is going to be successful, can you invest an amount that will get us through this time?” Tripician had said when asked what his pitch to investors would be. “I know the meat companies will be buying licenses from us, building plants, and entering the marketplace over the next five years.”

    The post Meatable Bets on Singapore Factory for Global Scale-Up of Cultivated Pork appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • bluenalu
    6 Mins Read

    US cultivated seafood startup BlueNalu is targeting an initial launch of its bluefin tuna in California and has cemented partnerships to take the product global.

    A highly prized sushi delicacy made from cultured tuna cells could soon be coming to diners’ plates in California.

    San Diego-based BlueNalu is targeting the state as the first port of entry for its cultivated bluefin tuna toro, having filed for regulatory approval with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Agriculture (USDA).

    “Our initial launch will focus on California, starting in our home base of San Diego – a region known for its vibrant food culture and consumers who prioritise healthy and responsibly produced products,” founder and CEO Lou Cooperhouse tells Green Queen.

    At the same time, the company is laying the groundwork for international operations in “markets where demand, regulatory clarity, and strategic partnerships align”. That includes Singapore (where it has submitted a regulatory dossier), the UK (where it’s part of the government’s new regulatory sandbox scheme), and several nations in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

    The UK is the only European country to have approved cultivated meat for sale, which has prompted BlueNalu to amp up its focus on this market and expand its ongoing partnership with frozen food distributor Nomad Foods.

    “We began collaborating in 2021 to explore the market potential for cultivated seafood and following compelling consumer insights, we are now working together on market entry and commercialisation strategies,” says Cooperhouse, noting that the link-up will help bring its cultivated tuna to both the UK and the wider European market.

    “This includes evaluating premium foodservice offerings that align with consumer demand for high-quality, sustainable seafood, and also exploring other channels of distribution that align with Nomad’s current and future capabilities,” he adds.

    Brits respond positively to cultivated seafood

    lab grown seafood
    Courtesy: BlueNalu

    As part of its global push, BlueNalu commissioned a survey of 2,000 frequent sushi consumers in the UK last summer. “The results showed strong enthusiasm for BlueNalu’s first product, cell-cultivated bluefin tuna toro: 92% of respondents expressed some level of interest in trying it, including 55% who were very or extremely interested,” reveals Cooperhouse.

    “Consumers identified the absence of parasites, pesticides, microplastics, mercury, and antibiotics as top benefits, followed by high omega-3 content and sustainable production,” he adds. “The study also affirmed that the terms ‘cell-cultivated’ and ‘cell-cultured’ effectively communicate the product’s origin and align with consumer expectations.”

    BlueNalu is one of eight startups participating in the UK Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) two-year regulatory sandbox programme, which aims to help firms bring cultivated meat to market faster. It is the only US company in the scheme, and the only one focused on seafood.

    BlueNalu CTO Lauran Madden calls it a “first-of-its-kind initiative” designed to support the development of safe and innovative cultivated food products. “The sandbox offers a unique opportunity for early, collaborative engagement with regulators to ensure we are aligned with the FSA’s expectations and data requirements for novel food applications, and structured dialogue and feedback,” she tells Green Queen.

    “We commend the FSA for its forward-thinking approach and leadership in enabling a science-based, transparent regulatory pathway for emerging food technologies,” Madden adds.

    In the aforementioned survey, 73% of Brits said they’d likely visit a sushi restaurant that offers the product. So it stands to reason that BlueNalu is planning to introduce its tuna in the UK and Europe through premium sushi and fine-dining restaurants.

    “This approach reflects both consumer interest and our product’s unique value proposition. Nomad Foods has a long history of launching innovative seafood products, and together we are identifying the best entry points that meet today’s expectations for taste, safety, consistency, and sustainability,” says Cooperhouse.

    “As we progress towards commercialisation, this partnership enables us to pair scientific and regulatory progress with real market insights and commercial expertise.”

    The cost economics of bluefin tuna

    cultured meat
    Courtesy: BlueNalu

    Bluefin tuna is a highly sought-after seafood delicacy, thanks to its velvety texture, buttery flavour and nutritional attributes. However, this species represents the ocean’s fastest and longest-distance swimmers, which makes it difficult to raise the fish in captivity, thus commanding a higher price. Toro is the fatty part of bluefin tuna belly, and is used in high-grade sushi and sashimi.

    However, its supply is limited and extremely variable in quality, and its stocks face declines due to overfishing and illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing. Continued demand is driving the species towards endangerment and has prompted governments to place strict quotas to limit its fishing. Plus, tuna is one of the most polluted fish in the oceans, often contaminated with plastic debris and extremely high levels of heavy metals like mercury.

    Israel’s Wanda Fish, too, is working on cultivated bluefin tuna toro to address this issue, though BlueNalu appears to be ahead in the race to bring it to consumer plates. It already operates a 38,000 sq ft pilot plant in San Diego (which can produce enough tuna for small-scale sales), and has unveiled plans for a larger 140,000 sq ft facility that can manufacture six million lbs of product annually once operational.

    This will help bring down costs for the cultivated tuna, a crucial aspect for most consumers. That said, the company is already staring at an advantage here, since bluefin tuna toro already carries a premium price tag, so a cell-cultured version wouldn’t have the same cost difference as that with commodity beef or chicken. According to the poll, 74% of UK consumers are willing to pay the same or more than for conventional bluefin tuna.

    “BlueNalu’s business strategy centres on high-demand species that address challenges in supply, consistency, sustainability, and food security – particularly those that displace imports… and command premium pricing,” says Cooperhouse.

    “Seafood is already a premium category, and toro is one of the most expensive cuts, and has been described as the ‘Wagyu beef of the sea’. That gives us a unique opportunity to compete in a segment where consumers already expect to pay for quality, and where BlueNalu’s product’s health benefits, consistency, and safety attributes add real value.

    “BlueNalu’s consumer research has already demonstrated that many consumers will see great value in our products, due to the health and safety advantages associated with our process. As a result, we believe we will be able to sell our products at or near price parity from our early stages of commercialisation.”

    BlueNalu attracting global interest

    lab grown bluefin tuna
    Courtesy: BlueNalu

    The results of the UK research are “highly consistent” with other consumer studies BlueNalue has conducted in the US, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, covering nearly 10,000 people who “showed broad demand” for its seafood.

    “Across these markets, we’ve seen strong interest in cell-cultivated seafood, especially among health-conscious consumers who value safety, quality, and transparency,” says Cooperhouse.

    BlueNalu has previously announced partnerships and agreements with Asian food giants Pulmuone (South Korea), Mitsubishi, Sumitomo (both Japan), and Thai Union (Thailand), as well as industry leaders like Rich Foods and Griffith Foods. In addition, it has teamed up with Neom, Saudi Arabia’s upcoming future-facing city.

    It is one of the most well-funded startups in the cultivated meat industry, having attracted $118M over several rounds, including a $33.5M Series B raise in 2023. However, the firm was an outlier that year, when overall funding for cultivated meat dropped by 75%.

    That fall has since continued, as legislative challenges in the US and overseas have attempted to ban cultivated meat (with several states being successful), with investment in this space dropping by a further 40% in 2024.

    “As a pre-revenue startup, we’re continually exploring strategic investment opportunities to support our growth,” Cooperhouse says when asked if BlueNalu is seeking new capital.

    He adds: “We remain focused on scaling production, advancing regulatory clearances, and building a strong foundation for commercialisation and global market penetration.”

    The post California’s BlueNalu Bets on Premium Sushi & Price Parity with Cultivated Bluefin Toro appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • gordon ramsay flora ad
    4 Mins Read

    Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Gordon Ramsay’s partnership with Becel, a new vegan egg in Italy, and Spain’s plant-based school meal decree.

    New products and launches

    Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has taken his partnership with plant-based dairy giant Flora Food Group global, appearing in a replica Skip the Cow ad (minus the expletives) for its Canadian dairy-free butter brand Becel.

    In the UK, Quorn has added two new flavours to its mycoprotein-based deli slices range. The tomato-basil flavour can be found at Sainsbury’s and Asda, and the garlic-herb variant at Tesco, both for £2.60.

    As whole-food plant-based food surges in the UK, The Tofoo Co introduced a Thai Burger and Southern Fried Pieces, which will retail at Waitrose and Tesco, respectively, for £3.

    Speaking of whole foods, vegan seafood player Happiee! has launched what it claims is the UK’s first ready-to-cook lion’s mane mushroom chunks. They’re available in original and teriyaki flavours, retailing for £4 per 180g pack at 240 Sainsbury’s stores.

    lion's mane mushroom uk
    Courtesy: Happiee!

    Confectionery giant Mars has rolled out a new Honeycomb for its dairy-free Galaxy range in the UK. Combining cocoa and hazelnut paste with honeycomb pieces, the bar is available at Sainsbury’s for £1.50.

    Ice cream maker Oppo Brothers has launched a better-for-you vegan sorbet range called Oppo Refresh, available in Sicilian Lemon & Strawberry, Alphonso Mango & Passionfruit, and Raspberry Coulis Swirl flavours for £3.75 per three-pack.

    Also in the UK, oat milk brand Minor Figures has launched the Hyper Oat line it had unveiled at Expo West. Available in berry, turmeric, matcha, and mango variants, the milks contain adaptogens and nootropics. The berry and mango flavours are available at Waitrose for £3 per 750ml bottle, followed by a wider launch in the coming months.

    minor figures hyper oat
    Courtesy: Minor Figures

    In Spain, plant-based meat leader Heura has rolled out a Fine Herbs chicken burger to cater to the country’s affinity for white meat, one of several products planned for this year.

    Italian plant-based producer The Bridge has launched a vegan liquid egg called Veg Egg, which is made from soy milk and soy protein.

    Across the Atlantic, South Korea’s Unlimeat has brought its flagship Korean BBQ Bulgogi and Pulled Pork Original products to 300 Kroger-affiliated stores in the US, including Ralphs, Fred Meyer, King Soopers, and Smith’s.

    unlimeat
    Courtesy: Unlimeat

    Californian biotech firm Checkerspot has developed what it says is the world’s first high-oleic palm oil alternative made entirely via microalgae fermentation.

    Company and finance updates

    US animal-free dairy startup DeNovo Foodlabs has formed a 50:50 joint venture with Earth First Food Ventures called PFerrinX26 to scale up the production of precision-fermented lactoferrin protein. They will announce a manufacturing partner soon, and plan to build facilities to produce 300 tonnes of the protein within the next decade.

    LoveRaw, the cult-favourite British vegan chocolate brand known for its Ferrero Rocher and Kinder Bueno copycats, has been rescued from administration by Bulgarian plant-based producer Smart Organic, after investment and supplier challenges disrupted the former’s operations and revenue.

    loveraw chocolate
    Courtesy: LoveRaw

    Mycelium Technologies, the French parent company of mycelium protein brand Mycfoods, has kickstarted its first fundraising round, with a €750,000 target. It plans a subsequent €4.5M round next year.

    French plant-based companies Hari&Co, Accro, HappyVore, La Vie and Swap Food have formed InterVeg, a coalition aimed at accelerating the transition to a plant-based diet via constructive dialogue with policymakers and promotional campaigns.

    Policy and research developments

    In a big win for the protein transition, Spain’s Council of Ministers has approved the Royal Decree on Healthy and Sustainable School Cafeterias, which contains a provision to protect children’s right to a 100% plant-based menu in schools, as well as increase legume consumption.

    new wave biotech
    Courtesy: New Wave Biotech

    What makes a lean startup? Singaporean sustainable food production platform Nurasa and AI-based precision fermentation facilitator New Wave Biotech have released a whitepaper to help ingredient manufacturers “reimagine the five core lean startup principles” for the food tech world.

    Researchers from the US have devised a new 3D printing process to make vegan calamari, using mung bean protein isolate, powdered light-yellow microalgae, gellan gum, and canola oil.

    At the University of Florida, researchers are testing a new kind of cattle feed that could help dairy cows release less methane and use nutrients more efficiently.

    Finally, in Norway, scientists are proposing kelp and other seaweed species, as well as plant residues, as an alternative to blood and other animal-derived inputs to use as culture media for cultivated meat.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: Gordon Ramsay x Flora, Hyper Oat Milk & Vegan School Meals appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • vegan meat price
    6 Mins Read

    The Good Food Institute, an alternative protein think tank, has released its latest State of the Industry series of reports for 2024. Here’s how plant-based, fermentation-derived and cultivated proteins fared in 2024.

    While investment in alternative protein continued to fall in 2024, global sales of plant-based meat and dairy alternatives are up, as is interest in whole foods, according to the 2024 State of the Industry reports by industry think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI).

    The annual series of reports explores the challenges and opportunities for plant-based food, fermentation-derived proteins, and cultivated meat. This year’s editions reveal a complex landscape for alternative proteins, with sales in markets like the US still declining and public investment in the industry on the rise.

    Alternative proteins are part of a polarising debate in many parts of the world, punctuated by high prices and taste concerns, and enveloped by the backlash against ultra-processed foods (UPFs). However, the global performance shows promise in the market at a time when it has been portrayed as anything but.

    Global plant-based sales on the rise

    plant based food sales
    Courtesy: GFI

    You’d be forgiven for thinking that sales of plant-based foods took a giant plunge, given all the coverage and discourse around them. In actuality, global sales reached $28.6B, a 5% increase from 2023.

    Non-dairy alternatives dominated the market, with sales up by 5% to reach $22.4B, while meat analogues hit $6.1B (a 4% increase). After milk, meat and seafood, vegan yoghurt is the most popular category.

    Europe was the leader in 2024, recording $9.7B in sales of plant-based meat, seafood and dairy, followed by Asia-Pacific ($8.9B), and North America ($7.3B), where conventional beef sales reached a record high last year.

    Meat and dairy alternatives decline in the US, while whole foods shine

    plant based meat sales
    Courtesy: GFI

    In the US, overall plant-based sales reached $8.1B in 2024, a 4% decline from 2023. More than a third of the market (34%) was occupied by non-dairy milk alone, whose sales dropped by 5% to $2.8B. Likewise, meat and seafood alternatives saw dollar sales fall by 7% to $1.2B, though the rate of decline was slower than in 2023.

    At the same time, the demand for protein led to an increase in sales of protein powders (11%), and growing interest in whole foods resulted in a 7% hike in sales for tofu, tempeh and seitan. The biggest windfall, however, came for vegan desserts and baked goods (13%).

    Plant-based eggs, meanwhile, saw a 2% increase in retail sales as avian flu wrecked chicken egg supplies in the US. This was true for foodservice too, where vegan egg sales were up by 28%. The report authors note that the data on unit sales and price changes is somewhat skewed due to the leading product in the category shifting to a larger pack size and thus a comparably higher price point.

    Still in foodservice, plant-based proteins suffered a 5% decline in sales, though non-dairy milk continued its climb with a 9% growth.

    Price parity and consumer reach still hindrance for the plant-based sector

    gfi state of the industry
    Courtesy: GFI

    Plant-based meat and seafood were 4% more expensive in 2024, versus just a 1% price hike for their conventional counterparts, widening the former’s premium to 82%.

    The price gap for chicken and milk remained the same, while widening for pork and turkey. On the flip side, rising beef rates mean plant-based versions are just 14% more expensive now. And chicken-free eggs, which had a 317% price premium in 2023, narrowed this to 110%.

    Bringing down prices of plant-based food is critical for them to compete with animal-derived products, as is improving consumer reach and acceptance. In the US, 59% of households bought a vegan product in 2024, similar to the year before, though down from 63% in 2022.

    Penetration of plant-based meat and seafood remains low at 13%, though encouragingly, 63% go back to the store for more. Further, almost all Americans who buy these alternatives are not vegan or vegetarian – 96% of buyers also put conventional meat in their shopping baskets in 2024.

    Milk alternatives reached 40% of households, with a repeat rate of 76%. Almond milk continues to remain the most popular dairy alternative (capturing 54% of sales), but oat milk is on the rise (25%).

    VC investment slides, public funding a bright spot

    alternative protein investment
    Graphic by Green Queen

    Alternative proteins did not escape the bleak landscape for climate tech venture capital in 2024, with total funding for the sector only amounting to $1.1B, a 27% decline from the year before.

    Plant-based companies took the biggest hit, as venture capitalists backed away from foods linked to ultra-processing. These startups only raised $309M in 2024, a sharp 64% fall from the year before.

    Cultivated meat, meanwhile, witnessed a 40% decline, securing only $139M, its lowest annual total since 2019. In fact, in the last three years, this sector has cumulatively raised less money than it did in 2021 alone.

    The only bright spot for the category here is fermentation, where VC investment experienced a 43% increase last year, overturning a decline in 2023. This was led by Meati‘s $100M Series C round. Further, this category surpassed plant proteins in terms of the amount of public capital invested.

    Speaking of which, while private investors remained cautious, governments continued to pour money into alternative protein, amid a push to meet their net-zero goals and mounting pressure from climate experts to diversify protein sources. Public investment in alternative proteins reached $510M in 2024, in line with the year before.

    This was driven by the US, Denmark and the EU overall, while Asia-Pacific played a major role in the doubling of public funding for cultivated meat in 2024.

    plant based investments
    Courtesy: GFI

    Legislative headwinds make for uneven regulatory progress

    2024 was a milestone year for companies making novel food from precision, biomass and gas fermentation, with several regulators greenlighting products like cow-free casein, CO2-derived protein, and animal-free egg protein.

    However, in the US, Robert F Kennedy Jr’s potential removal of the self-affirmed Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) pathway could stall this momentum.

    Meanwhile, cultivated meat continues to face threats of bans in the US and elsewhere. According to GFI’s calculations, 12 states attempted to restrict cultivated meat last year, with Florida and Alabama being successful – the former is now facing a lawsuit from California’s Upside Foods. Already this year, a host of other states have proposed similar bills, with Mississippi becoming the third to enact a ban.

    fsanz cultured quail
    Courtesy: Vow

    Even so, cultivated meat regulation progressed in several other markets in 2024. Australia’s Vow was cleared to sell its cultivated quail and foie gras in Singapore (and later in Australia and New Zealand), and UK’s Meatly earned UK approval to commercialise cultivated chicken for pets, following Aleph Farms‘s greenlight in Israel in December 2023. Plus, regulators in the EU, South Korea, and Thailand received their first applications.

    “Although some uncertainty exists due to shifting political winds around the globe, more approvals are likely in 2025,” said GFI. “These approvals will increase the number of cultivated meat products on the market while also generating new and more robust data on their safety and nutritional profile”

    The post Global Plant-Based Sales Up By 5% in 2024 Despite US Setback: New Report appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • florida lab grown meat ban
    4 Mins Read

    Upside Foods has been handed an initial legal victory after a judge denied Florida’s request to dismiss the lawsuit against its cultivated meat ban.

    The lawsuit against Florida’s ban on cultivated meat is going ahead, after a judge rejected the state’s motion to dismiss the case.

    In a 29-page ruling, Mark Walker, chief judge of the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida, granted cultivated meat producer Upside Foods a “first-round victory” in its challenge against Florida’s decision last Friday.

    The judge’s decision to deny Florida’s attempt to dismiss the case means it will continue to move forward in the trial court. It comes months after Walker rejected Upside Foods’s request to grant a preliminary injunction to exhibit its cultivated chicken at December’s Art Basel festival in Miami.

    Why Florida banned cultivated meat – and why it’s being sued

    lab grown meat florida
    Courtesy: Ron DeSantis/Twitter

    Upside Foods was among the first two startups to be allowed to sell cultivated meat in the US back in 2021, receiving approval from both the US Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration. It rolled out the chicken at Michelin-starred eatery Bar Crenn in San Francisco, and has since been hosting pop-up events at various restaurants across the US.

    But in 2024, amid a growing wave of politically charged discontent against cultivated meat, Florida passed a bill that made it a crime to produce or sell cultivated meat, in what was the first such ban on these products in the US.

    “Some people think Florida is theme parks, South Beach and maybe some oranges, but they don’t understand that we have one of the top cattle industries in the country,” Governor Ron DeSantis said when signing the legislation in May.

    “What we’re protecting here is the industry against acts of man, against an ideological agenda that wants to finger agriculture as the problem, that views things like raising cattle as destroying our climate,” he added. “Take your fake lab-grown meat elsewhere. We’re not doing that in the state of Florida.”

    Weeks after the law took effect in July, Upside Foods filed its legal complaint, labelling the ban “unconstitutional”. The lawsuit alleges that the move violates the federal Commerce Clause, which gives the national government exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce. The plaintiff argues that Florida’s law was enacted to protect in-state producers of conventional meat from out-of-state cultivated meat manufacturers.

    Upside Foods, reprinted by the Institute for Justice, additionally suggests that the decision by two federal departments to allow the sale of its cultivated chicken in the interstate market supersedes any contrary state laws, as outlined in the Supremacy Clause.

    The lawsuit and the subsequent rejection of the preliminary injunction cancelled the company’s scheduled appearances at Art Basel and the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, and postponed its planned debut at a restaurant in the state in early 2025.

    Upside Foods ‘not looking to replace meat’

    florida lab grown meat lawsuit
    Courtesy: Kevin Martin Galante/Upside Foods

    “One of the primary reasons for the enactment of the Constitution was to secure a national common market,” said Paul Sherman, a senior attorney at ICJ. “Today’s ruling is an important vindication of the principle that states cannot close their borders to innovative out-of-state competition, and a warning to other states that are considering banning cultivated meat.”

    The ruling comes at a time when attempts to ban cultivated meat have become fashionable in the US, just as conventional meat sales reached a record high in 2024. Alabama and Mississippi have joined Florida in making this a law.

    Nebraska is close to finalising a ban too, while South DakotaSouth CarolinaWest Virginia, Montana, Wyoming and Georgia are some of the others that are mulling the move this year.

    These efforts are fuelled by a cultural shift in the US, as beef becomes a favourite amid a renewed wave of Americana and right-wing influence, the rise of Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Make America Healthy Again movement, and his crusade against ultra-processed foods.

    But historically, over 20 states have attempted to ban cultivated meat – from KentuckyNew York, and Tennessee to PennsylvaniaTexas and Arizona – but most of these efforts have fallen by the wayside.

    Even members of the meat industry have criticised these attempts. In a letter sent to DeSantis in March 2024, the North American Meat Institute called the ban “bad public policy”. “These bills establish a precedent for adopting policies and regulatory requirements that could one day adversely affect the bills’ supporters,” it said, emphasising the importance of consumer choice.

    “Upside is not looking to replace conventional meat, which will always have a place at the table,” said Uma Valeti, co-founder and CEO of Upside Foods, which is pursuing approval to sell a new shredded chicken product by the end of this year.

    “All we are asking for is the right to compete, so that Floridians can try our product and see that it is possible to have delicious meat without the need for slaughtering animals,” he added. “Today’s ruling is an important step towards securing that right.”

    The post Florida’s Attempt to Dismiss Cultivated Meat Lawsuit Denied by Judge appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • forbes 30 under 30 2025
    6 Mins Read

    Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Purple Carrot’s partnership with Fable Foods, Gosh!’s new points-based packaging, and SimpliiGood’s spirulina-based salmon.

    New products and launches

    Plant-based meal company Purple Carrot has added Fable Foods‘s Pulled Shiitake mushrooms to its lineup, including the Bluff Bourguignon Stew and BBQ Burnt Ends kits.

    purple carrot fable shiitake
    Courtesy: Purple Carrot

    US non-dairy creamer brand Laird Superfood has released a larger 750ml pack of its functional-mushroom-infused coffee creamers, which come in Unsweetened, Sweet & Creamy, Cinnamon and Vanilla flavours.

    In the UK, ready-to-eat vegan food brand Gosh! has revamped its packaging with a new ‘Plant Points’ system aimed at supporting the goal of eating 30 plants a week. Each point denotes the inclusion of a fruit, vegetable, whole grain, legume, or seed, and each of the brand’s products has a minimum of six points.

    gosh plant based
    Courtesy: Gosh!

    To mark Earth Day (April 22), Dutch cultivated pork startup Meatable has joined forces with Food Tank, the United Nations Global Compact, and The Hunger Project to tackle climate change and global hunger through the food system.

    Also in honour of Earth Day, Indian plant-based brand Blue Tribe – backed by actress Anushka Sharma and cricketer Virat Kohli – has launched an Eat Green Initiative to promote sustainable eating. The weeklong campaign (April 22-28) sees employees and influencers share recipes made with the company’s products.

    At the ongoing Expo 2025 Osaka, members of Japan’s Cultivated Meat Future Creation Consortium are showcasing 3D-printed cultured meat and an at-home marbled meat maker, aiming to commercialise the products by 2031.

    Company and finance updates

    Indian plant protein manufacturer Proeon Foods has secured a €1M grant from the Province of South Holland, as part of the European Regional Development Fund, for its EGGcellent project. The startup is working with precision fermentation firm Vivici, Applikon Biotechnology, and Planet B.io to develop an egg alternative for industrial baking applications.

    Relsus, a Singaporean producer of functional plant-based ingredients, has opened a commercial-scale manufacturing facility in Ujjain, India.

    vegan cheese spain
    Courtesy: Quevana

    In Europe, cashew cheese maker Quevana has opened a 2,400 sq m facility in Segovia, Spain, which will double its capacity to over 400,000 units of fermented dairy-free cheese each month.

    Swiss vegan seafood startup Catchfree has raised $1.45M in seed funding to scale up production and commercialise its plant-based shrimp, fish burgers, and fish bites this summer.

    Elin Roberts and Christopher Kong, the co-founders and co-CEOs of British tempeh startup Better Nature, have been named in the Art & Culture of Forbes‘s 30 Under 30 list.

    spirulina salmon
    Courtesy: SimpliiGood

    Armed with a $4M grant from the Israel Innovation Authority, AlgaeCore Technologies‘s SimpliiGood has secured European approval to commercialise its spirulina-based smoked salmon alternative. It is now pursuing clearance in the US too, has pilots with several companies, and will launch its first products as part of private-label brands within the next six months.

    Alternative protein think tank The Good Food Institute is experiencing a change at the top, with CEO Ilya Sheyman departing in June. Jessica Almy, senior VP of policy and government relations, will take over as interim chief as the organisation hunts its next CEO.

    Likewise, at US molecular farming pioneer Moolec, co-founder Gastón Paladini has stepped down as CEO.

    moolec science
    Courtesy: Moolec Science

    Californian vegan frozen foods maker Sunday Supper has expanded its executive team, adding Spencer Oberg as CEO, Matt Williams as head of sales, and Chris Hays as CMO, as it kickstarts a $2.5M seed funding round.

    Meanwhile, the Canadian province of Nova Scotia has invested $5M in the newly opened Neptune Bioinnovation Centre in Dartmouth. The 4,738 sq m facility will offer precision fermentation and spray drying capacity, and is set to create over 2,400 jobs and contribute $334M to the region’s annual GDP.

    neptune bioinnovation centre
    Courtesy: Government of Nova Scotia

    Event organiser Emerald Expositions has acquired the Plant Based World Expo and its media platform, Plant Based World Pulse, from JD Events for an undisclosed sum. The deal includes both the North American and European editions of the show.

    Research and policy developments

    Amid the hike in dairy sales in the UK, plant-based milk is also on the rise for the first time since 2022, with sales volumes up by 2.1% between February 2024 and 2025. Oat milk is the leader, with a 7.2% growth in that period – it’s set to take 40% of the non-dairy market this year, according to Kantar.

    In related news, British bakery chain Gail’s has dropped the surcharge on soy milk after a Peta campaign, offering the alternative for free from May 21. However, it will still ask customers to pay 40-60p extra if they want oat milk.

    gail's oat milk
    Courtesy: Gail’s

    The US Department of Agriculture has cancelled the $3B Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities programme that aimed to promote environmentally friendly farming practices. The revocation of the Biden-era initiative is part of the Trump administration’s sweeping climate rollbacks.

    In Canada, meanwhile, candidates from all four major political parties will participate in an election debate about animal protection today (April 23), organised by a group of animal welfare organisations, including Animal Justice and World Animal Protection.

    chocjes
    Courtesy: Kai Kitschenberg/Funke Foto Services

    In its TrendTracker 2024 report, food giant Cargill found that 73% of consumers want their governments to set stricter environmental standards for the chocolate supply, just as European plant-based chocolates and desserts grew by 25% annually between 2019 and 2023.

    Swapping out red meat for plant-based alternatives and choosing non-dairy milks can help cut the average Australian household’s emissions by six tonnes a year, research by the George Institute for Global Health has found.

    lactic acid plant based
    Courtesy: Technical University of Denmark

    Finally, researchers from Novonesis and the Technical University of Denmark suggest that the bacteria in lactic acid could help reduce off-flavours and degrade anti-nutrients in plant-based dairy products, enhancing their taste profile and nutrient bioavailability.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: Earth Day, 30 Under 30 & Spirulina Salmon appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • finland cellular agriculture
    6 Mins Read

    Finland is well-placed to become a cellular agriculture leader, with its export potential set to reach €1B in the next decade – but funding and regulation challenges must be addressed.

    In a decade’s time, cultivated meat, cell-based cocoa, and carbon-derived proteins could amount to €1B in export value in Finland, according to a government-commissioned report.

    The country’s natural resources and biotech expertise leave it on the cusp of becoming a global leader in the cellular agriculture field, which involves the use of microbial, plant and animal cell cultures to produce proteins, fats, coffee and cocoa (among other products) in bioreactors.

    While a majority of young adults in Finland (83%) have a positive or neutral attitude towards new technologies in food production, there are several challenges that the ecosystem needs to address before it can reach its market potential, according to researchers at the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, the Natural Resources Institute Finland, and University of Helsinki.

    Commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Business Finland, the experts lay out a policy roadmap to help Finland become a leader in this sector.

    Finland’s future food system will blend cellular and traditional agriculture

    vtt finland
    Courtesy: VTT

    The country is already home to food tech leaders like Solar Foods (maker of Solein gas protein), Onego Bio (which makes egg proteins via precision fermentation), and Enifer (producer of Pekilo mycoprotein).

    “One of Finland’s biggest challenges currently is the lack of capital, which limits the growth opportunities of cellular agriculture,” said VTT’s Emilia Nordlund, who led the study. “Building production facilities requires large investments, and success will not come without government support to accelerate investments and realise venture capital investments.”

    The nation is home to a variety of carbohydrate-rich side streams like straw, sawdust, wood chips, and grass biomass, which could be utilised as feedstocks for cellular agriculture. For instance, if more than half of the straw were used as a sugar source for microbes, the amount of food produced would be enough to meet the annual protein needs of the population.

    “The future food system will be based on the interplay between modern agriculture and cellular agriculture, utilising circular economy solutions,” said Päivi Nerg, state secretary from the agriculture ministry. “We must identify the necessary change paths and ensure that measures consider the entire chain, from farmers to consumers and other stakeholders.”

    Teija Lahti-Nuuttila, executive director of Business Finland, added: “Finnish companies should recognise their strengths as part of emerging new value networks and build their competitiveness in the long term together with research organisations. Business Finland is already currently funding ambitious cellular agriculture RDI projects, so there is no need to wait for a separate programme.”

    The researchers have come up with an eight-point plan to tackle the bottlenecks of Finland’s cellular agriculture industry and fulfil the estimated annual export value of €500M to €1B by 2035.

    1) Ramp up major infrastructure investments

    The report states that the country needs an action plan to increase venture capital funding and attract international investor interest, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises. The public sector can “provide support that signals the realisation of private financing”.

    Infrastructure investments are critical to enabling new value chains, and the government is being urged to create risk financing and loan instruments to enable factory financing.

    onego bio
    Courtesy: Timo Kauppila/Onego Bio

    2) Ease EU novel food regulation

    One of the biggets bottlenecks for the cellular agriculture industry concerns regulation – the EU’s novel food stringent framework has “significantly” slowed progress and left it playing catch-up with other markets. The report suggests setting up an office in Finland to support startups with the novel food process through advice and financial backing.

    This office would actively influence the EU to expedite and ease the adoption of novel technologies, something that Finnish policymakers must support. Reviewing agricultural subsidies is also key, since these novel food technologies aren’t covered by any EU subsidies yet.

    3) Build a €100M R&D programme

    Finland should introduce a five-year, €100M R&D programme that would produce future food innovations, making use of the nation’s technological expertise and abundant natural resources.

    The multidisciplinary initiative would ensure the development of value chains at the regional level too, while facilitating long-term development and economic growth. In addition, it will help the country achieve its target of increasing R&D spending to 4% of the GDP.

    solar foods factory 01
    Courtesy: Solar Foods

    4) Establish a future food ministry

    The researchers propose creating a joint working group or organisation of ministries to develop the future food system, support the R&D programme, and promote cross-sector collaboration. This Ministry of Future Food would enable a broad perspective for a common goal to develop both conventional and cellular agriculture, boost the value chain, and enable competitiveness.

    Another solution would be to establish a food innovation centre that would take overall responsibility for the implementation of R&D activities, including political decisions.

    5) Expand education to secure future experts

    While Finland has a sufficient knowledge base, the critical mass is not enough – there should be closer cooperation between education and training organisations to produce experts for the food sector. The report says it is “critical” that the number of industrial biotech experts increases in Finland.

    The government’s Growth Programme goal to increase food experts also requires training people about exports. Education programmes focused on future solutions can enable the internationalisation of an expert corps in the country. The talent environment should embrace even those with limited proficiency in Finnish.

    coffee climate change
    Courtesy: Vesa Kippola

    6) Conduct public tastings to educate consumers

    The report calls for the spread of “strong and inspiring stories” about the future food system to enhance consumer knowledge and acceptance. One way to do this would be to create a ‘showroom’ to present novel foods and provide examples of how cellular agriculture can work in tandem with conventional farming.

    Moreover, Finland should follow the lead of European states like the Netherlands to allow public tastings of these foods before they go through the lengthy approval process – the government needs to create a national model to enable these events, which would increase the industry’s chances of success and dispel any prejudices from consumers.

    7) Incorporate primary production in the novel food industry

    Finland’s rich feedstock supply can help the cellular agriculture industry, though there are challenges with production, processing, storage, and logistics. This is why cooperating with primary producers is crucial – for them, this industry can open up new business opportunities. According to the report, business models and practical trials need to be developed to create this value for primary producers.

    Further, the opportunities for cooperation can strengthen the role of agricultural entrepreneurs and the financial profitability of farms when underutilised feedstocks are converted into a business.

    finland future foods
    Courtesy: VTT

    8) Target export support functions for cell-based food

    While local production and related product exports are key to the growth and export potential of cellular agriculture in Finland, the equipment and technology exports, IP licensing, and value chains and factories built by Finnish companies overseas can play a crucial role too.

    Given that this is a young, startup-driven market with a wide range of opportunities, export support functions should be built specifically to meet the needs of the sector to ensure that growth is effectively enabled.

    The post Govt-Backed Report Shows How Finland Can Build A €1B Future Food Economy appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • lab grown chicken nuggets
    4 Mins Read

    Researchers in Japan say they’ve reached a “breakthrough” in tissue engineering that could open up “transformative opportunities” for cultivated meat production.

    To solve one of cultivated meat’s biggest challenges, scientists have resorted to the circulatory system.

    The same way blood vessels carry nutrients and oxygen to cells to help animals grow, scientists from the University of Tokyo have devised a “breakthrough” method to deliver these nutrients to artificial tissue, making it possible to grow whole cuts of cultivated meat, the holy grail for the future food industry.

    Currently, most production methods can only render tiny pieces of cultivated meat (akin to mince), which are then assembled into a larger product via edible scaffolds, or combined with plant-based binders and ingredients to form a whole piece.

    The problem lies in the random distribution of hollow fibres, which prevents uniform nutrient delivery and hinders tissue quality. Shoji Takeuchi and his colleagues have come up with what they say is a “scalable, top-down strategy” for producing whole cuts of cultivated meat using a perfusable hollow fibre bioreactor.

    Could this be the future of cultivated meat?

    whole cut lab grown meat
    Courtesy: Shoji Takeuchi

    The study, published in the Trends in Biotechnology journal, explained that getting enough oxygen and nutrients to the cells in the centre of thick tissues is a major hurdle. Diffusion alone can’t sustain cells across considerable distances.

    To overcome that, the researchers developed a bioreactor equipped with an array of semi-permeable hollow fibres that function as artificial circulation systems, which ensured uniform nutrient distribution throughout the tissue.

    “We’re using semipermeable hollow fibres, which mimic blood vessels in their ability to deliver nutrients to the tissues,” said Takeuchi.

    “These fibres are already commonly used in household water filters and dialysis machines for patients with kidney disease. It’s exciting to discover that these tiny fibres can also effectively help create artificial tissues and, possibly, whole organs in the future,” he added.

    “We overcame the challenge of achieving perfusion across thick tissues by arranging hollow fibres with microscale precision,” Takeuchi says.

    Tissues without an integrated circular system have generally been limited to a thickness of less than 1mm, but this new method allowed the scientists to produce a 2cm thick piece of chicken muscle that was several centimetres long and wide. Made using chicken fibroblast cells, which make up connective tisuse, the meat weighed 11g, and was about the size of a chicken nugget.

    Further, the hollow fibre bioreactor had microfabricated anchors to promote cell alignment. And when using active perfusion, the chicken muscle tissue showcased higher protein expression and improved taste and texture.

    Many obstacles to overcome

    hollow fiber bioreactors
    Courtesy: Shoji Takeuchi

    “Cultured meat offers a sustainable, ethical alternative to conventional meat,” said Takeuchi. “However, replicating the texture and taste of whole-cut meat remains difficult. Our technology enables the production of structured meat with improved texture and flavour, potentially accelerating its commercial viability.”

    Speaking of which, there’s still a lot to do and a long way to go before this production method can scale up and make cultivated meat fit for our plates.

    There are several reasons why. The hollow fibres are not edible and must be pulled from the meat by hand, so the team is working on automating their removal or replacing them with edible cellulose fibres that can be left in and fine-tune the texture of the meat.

    In terms of scaling up, as the tissue size increases, ensuring a sufficient oxygen supply becomes more challenging. So future versions of the bioreactor may need artificial blood to help carry more oxygen to cells and grow larger pieces of cultivated meat.

    The researchers used cells cultured in a medium containing animal serum too, which is expensive and raises ethical concerns. To commercialise the product, the team would likely need to use plant-derived collagen and serum-free culture media, something many companies are already doing.

    “Alongside solving these technological issues, regulatory challenges must also be addressed, including the approval of materials and processes for food production by relevant authorities, such as the FDA or European Food Safety Authority,” the study noted. “In addition, fostering a culture that embraces new foods is essential for the acceptance of cultured meat products by the public.”

    Speaking to the Guardian, Takeuchi said with enough funding, products made using this approach could be available in five to 10 years. “At first, it will likely be more expensive than conventional chicken, mainly due to material and production costs,” he said. “However, we are actively developing food-grade, scalable systems, and if successful, we expect the cost to decrease substantially over time.”

    The post Could This Be the Holy Grail of Cultivated Meat? appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • dell ugo vegan
    5 Mins Read

    Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers This’s pasta partnership with Ugo Foods Group, Starday’s $11M Series A round, and a nomination for the Earthshot Prize.

    New products and launches

    London-based meat alternative startup This and Ugo Foods Group‘s vegan ravioli products are hitting supermarkets, with the Bacon & Cheese and Chicken & Pesto flavours now available at 250 Morrisons stores, priced at £6 for two packs.

    dell ugo this isn't
    Courtesy: This

    UK plant-based milk maker Rude Health has introduced a clean-label iced coffee range in oat latte and mocha variants. The 750ml ready-to-drink Tetra Paks are available at Waitrose for £3.75, and Ocado at the end of the month.

    Also in the UK, plant protein brand Tibah Tempeh has released a Smoky Block. It’s available for £3 per 220g pack at Ocado (from April 18), and Sainsbury’s and Waitrose at the end of the month.

    Meanwhile, free-from snacking company Crave has expanded its lineup with a gluten-free, vegan Pink Cheetahs wafer biscuit, available at 480 Sainsbury’s stores for £2 per 100g.

    bosh vegan
    Courtesy: Eurest

    In more news from the island, Eurest – the corporate division of Compass Group, the world’s largest catering company – partnered with plant-based chef duo Bosh! for a new vegan smokehouse menu at Jaguar Land Rover‘s head office in Warwickshire.

    Vegan meal kit brand Grubby has partnered with artisanal non-dairy cheese maker Julienne Bruno on a limited-edition Creamy Burrata-Topped Za’atar-Spiced Squash option for Easter.

    Across the Atlantic, Fungi protein startup Nature’s Fynd, meanwhile, has launched Spicy Indian Fy Bites at Plantega locations in New York City. They contain 14g of protein and 5g of fibre per serving.

    nature's fynd fy bites
    Courtesy: Nature’s Fynd

    Miyoko’s Creamery has rolled out a new flavour of its spreadable cashew cheese. The Jalapeño Plant Milk Cheese Spread can be found at Nugget Market stores for $6.99 per 8oz tub, with further retailers to follow this summer.

    Vegan cheese giant Violife has partnered with James Beard Award finalist Dan Richer to launch the first-ever non-dairy pizza at his Jersey City pizzeria Razza. The Spicy Vegan Vodka Pizza is made with plant-based mozzarella shreds and on the menu until the end of the month.

    Chilean food tech unicorn NotCo has expanded its partnership with Aeromexico to offer passengers in its Premier and Premier One classes a NotBurger with manchego-inspired NotCheese until May 31.

    vinker chicken
    Courtesy: Vinker

    Canada’s Vinker is bringing its vegan Korean Crispy Chick’n to the US, rolling out at Pop Up Grocer in Manhattan, New York.

    Germany’s Loryma, a subsidiary of Crespel & Deiters Group, has launched Lory Stab, a stabilising compound of technically treated raw materials to replace eggs and dairy in baked goods.

    Swiss plant-based meat leader Planted has announced former wrestler Christian Stucki as a brand ambassador for its upcoming BBQ campaign, alongside a new Paprika steak and listings at several new retailers in Europe.

    planted steak
    Courtesy: Planted

    In Hong Kong, plant protein producer Ferm by SpiceBox Organic has teamed up with food preservation specialist Ixon to launch a shelf-stable range of tempeh, vegan meatballs, and plant-based meat sauce for pasta.

    And in India, Mumbai’s Bandra district is home to Pause Café, a new all-vegan 32-seater eatery serving continental dishes and desserts.

    Company, policy and awards

    Speaking of restaurants, US vegan taco chain Tacotarian has launched a franchise programme as part of its expansion strategy.

    all day chickpea protein
    Courtesy: Starday

    AI-powered plant-based snacking brand Starday has raised $11M in Series A funding to accelerate its retail expansion and partner with retailers and CPG brands to create bespoke products. It takes the company’s total funding to $20M.

    Meanwhile, US precision fermentation manufacturer Liberation Labs has received a strategic investment from Saudi Arabia’s Neom Investment Fund to establish a local facility for Neom’s food company, Topian.

    US manufacturing specialist SPX Flow has partnered with the Danish Agricultural Agency‘s Green Development and Demonstration Program’s LinkingOat project to advance oat-based product development.

    beneo
    Courtesy: Beneo

    In Germany, plant-based functional food ingredient maker Beneo has opened a €50M pulse processing in Orbigheim. The 4,000 sq m facility also produces Palatinose, a ‘smart carb’ ingredient that promotes GLP-1 release.

    Ramkumar Nair, founder and former CEO of mycoprotein startup Mycorena, has established fungi protein firm Smaqo, with a direct-to-consumer focus.

    In Spain, the National Centre for Food Technology and Safety‘s EATEX Food Innovation Hub has launched an Agrifoodtech Sandbox to offer companies a “controlled, forward-looking environment” to test breakthrough technologies and products operating at the edge of regulatory frameworks.

    opalia animal free milk
    Courtesy: Opalia

    Finally, Canadian cell-cultured milk maker Opalia has been nominated for the 2025 Earthshot Prize by Impact Entrepreneur.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: This Isn’t Ravioli, Jaguar Land Rover & Earthshot Prize appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • biokraft india
    4 Mins Read

    Mumbai-based food tech startup Biokraft Foods has debuted cultured seafood prototypes in collaboration with the government, and will apply for regulatory approval for cultivated chicken this summer.

    Cultivated meat is inching closer to Indian plates.

    Biokraft Foods, a Mumbai-based startup, will soon make the first application to sell cultivated meat in the world’s most populous country.

    “We will file for the approval of the chicken meat product, which is expected to happen in the next two months,” founder and CEO Kamalnayan Tibrewal tells Green Queen.

    The development comes just as the startup has raised an undisclosed sum in a pre-seed funding round, with the deal currently under process.

    Meanwhile, it has also unveiled structured fish products made by cultivating the cells of native trout species, as part of a project with a government-backed research institute.

    Working with the ICAR-Central Institute of Coldwater Fisheries Research (ICAR-CICFR), which falls under India’s agricultural ministry, Biokraft Foods has developed fish cell lines and applied its 3D printing technology and bioink to transform these cells into whole-cut cultivated fish.

    “We are working on snow and rainbow trout, a Himalayan delicacy with a huge value proposition in terms of pricing,” says Tibrewal. “Given our collaboration with ICAR-CICFR, whose primary work is around trout fishes, it made sense to proceed with that.”

    Mixing cultivated fish cells with plants and algae

    lab grown fish india
    Courtesy: Biokraft Foods

    Trout is a high-value fish with limited availability in India, making it an expensive source of seafood. Several populations of trout are considered either endangered or threatened, and farming this fish is a resource-intensive, planet-harming process.

    Biokraft aims to address these challenges through cell cultivation. Its tech platform for cultivated chicken uses 3D bioprinting to replicate the texture, taste, and structure of conventional meat, and it’s using the same tech to produce seafood.

    The resulting product is said to be “structurally and nutritionally on par with conventional trout”, with year-round production without any dependence on animal farming, wild catch, or fragile ecosystems. It would further eliminate any antibiotic contamination and microplastic pollution.

    According to the startup, cell cultivation also has the potential to bring down prices over time through scale and process optimisation. But for now, it’s still using the controversial and expensive fetal bovine serum in “certain concentrations in the medium”.

    “The long-term goal is to keep it serum-free. It is too early to discuss the unit economics, but it will be priced lower than conventional trout meat,” says Tibrewal.

    As for the composition of the new seafood products, he reveals: “The current cell biomass stands at 3% due to the slow doubling rate of cells, but we want to boost it up to 10% if unit economics allows. Apart from that, we are using algal and plant-based ingredients.”

    Biokraft Foods to host a series of public tastings

    lab grown meat india
    Courtesy: Biokraft Foods

    “At ICAR-CICFR, our mandate has been to promote sustainable coldwater fisheries through advanced research and innovation,” said Amit Pande, principal scientist at the research institute.

    “The collaborative development of India’s first cultivated trout product with Biokraft Foods exemplifies how academic institutions and emerging industry players can jointly contribute to the evolution of alternative protein sources. This initiative not only aligns with our vision of conserving aquatic biodiversity but also opens up new avenues for cell-based aquaculture research in India.”

    The development comes months after Biokraft Foods hosted India’s first public tasting of cultivated meat, serving over 30 attendees a hybrid chicken breast with cultivated chicken cells mixed with plant-based and algal ingredients.

    “A series of tasting events are lined up starting next month and will primarily focus on chicken,” Tibrewal says now. “The trout product is still under development and will need to undergo validation trials before making it public.”

    The company is also opening a dedicated R&D and pilot facility by the end of this year, which will act as a hub for innovation. “The plan is under development but will be implemented in a step-by-step manner,” he says.

    Biokraft Foods has already been consulting with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) as the regulator established a framework for novel foods, and aims to achieve a commercial rollout of both its meat and seafood products by 2026.

    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. And it’s not just citizens – the government has also been keen on these proteins, as evidenced by the ICAR-CICFR’s involvement.

    The ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute and New Delhi-based startup Neat Meatt are co-developing cultivated seafood in a similar project, and Singaporean pioneer Umami Bioworks has established R&D and commercialisation partnerships with two research hubs in India.

    The post India Inches Closer to Cultivated Meat as Biokraft Foods Prepares Regulatory Filing appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • lab grown cat food
    5 Mins Read

    Alternative protein startup BioCraft Pet Nutrition is working with Prefera Petfood to manufacture a cat food product with 99% cultivated mouse meat.

    Shortly after registering its cultivated mouse meat with Austrian regulators – paving the way for market entry in the EU – BioCraft Pet Nutrition has signed a co-manufacturing deal to scale up production of its ingredient.

    The US startup – which has a lab in Vienna – has linked up with Prefera Petfood, a specialist in premium wet pet food production founded by industry veterans last year, which sells primarily in Europe.

    Through the partnership, the two companies will produce a nutritionally complete mousse for cats, made almost entirely of cultivated mouse cells. “The inclusion level of BioCraft’s cell-cultured mouse is 99%. The remaining 1% are plant-based fibres,” Shannon Falconer, co-founder and CEO of BioCraft, told Green Queen.

    Now that it is cleared to sell cultivated meat to pet food makers in the EU, the firm is stepping up its production capacity. “We anticipate being able to offer meaningful volumes of our ingredient to pet food manufacturers in Europe in late 2025,” she said.

    How BioCraft achieves a high inclusion rate for cultivated meat

    cultivated mouse meat
    Courtesy: BioCraft Pet Nutrition

    BioCraft’s cultivated mouse meat slurry is derived from stable, non-GMO cell lines. It is designed to be used as a one-to-one replacement in wet or dry pet food at similar inclusion levels to conventional slurry.

    While it’s still a nascent market, it’s common for cultivated meat ingredients to be mixed with a larger proportion of other ingredients – usually plant-based – when they’re sold, since the costs and scale of production are currently prohibitive.

    For BioCraft to sell a product with nearly 100% cultivated meat, then, is a “game-changer”, Falconer said. “Most cellular agriculture initiatives struggle to reach high inclusion levels of their ingredient in a final product; however, low inclusion levels don’t accomplish the objective of reducing our reliance on intensive animal agriculture,” she argued.

    So how does it manage to do this, while keeping costs manageable? “We have formulated a proprietary, nutrient-rich media made with AAFCO-approved, food-grade ingredients. In this way, the components of the growth media are not only good for our cells – they are also a source of nutrition for cats and dogs,” she explained.

    “Rather than harvesting only the biomass — which is what ‘conventional’ cultivated meat producers focus on — BioCraft harvests all components from the bioreactor,” she added. This includes the nutrients that initially went in to support the growth of the cells, and the nutrients and flavour molecules that growing animal cells produce and secrete into the surrounding liquid environment.

    “When capturing the biomass alone, these extracellular nutrients and flavour compounds are lost,” said Falconer. Her company’s process allows it to achieve a more nutritious and flavourful ingredient, and offer an affordable price point to pet food manufacturers, even at an almost 100% inclusion rate.

    Typically, animal-derived growth media – the mix of proteins, sugar and nutrients that feed animal cells in a bioreactor – cost hundreds of dollars per litre. Last year, BioCraft announced that its product now had a sale price of $2-2.50 per lb, thanks to a plant-based medium formulated to provide a nutritious boost to the end product.

    Cultivated pet food in the ascendance

    lab grown meat pet food
    Courtesy: BioCraft Pet Nutrition

    BioCraft did not disclose details about the length of the partnership with Prefera Petfood, the production volumes, or the deal’s financials.

    The cultivated mouse meat is a hypoallergenic source of protein with functional benefits for pet health. Third-party profiling of over 100 nutrients has shown that BioCraft’s ingredient has comparable levels of taurine, lysine, methionine and tryptophan to that of chicken slurry, and a superior omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.

    The cell cultivation process is planet-friendly too, while the product is free from bacterial pathogens, viruses, mycotoxins, moulds, and yeasts, as well as biogenic amines and heavy metals.

    Importantly, cats seem to like it, with early palatability tests exhibiting “exceptional acceptance rates”. In fact, taste tests have demonstrated a strong preference for BioCraft’s cultivated mouse over conventional meat among felines.

    “Cats are notoriously selective eaters, so we’re thrilled with the enthusiastic reception,” said Nicola Magalini, general manager of Prefera Petfood. “It’s clear that our feline friends can’t tell the difference – except perhaps that they prefer it.”

    She called the collaboration a milestone in “functional, sustainable and ancestrally appropriate pet nutrition”. “As a company committed to the highest standards of safety and quality, using only real, identifiable ingredients without artificial additives or preservatives, our partnership with BioCraft helps us innovate in ways that benefit both pets and the environment,” she said.

    It is the latest development in what’s shaping up to be a big year for alternative pet food. BioCraft, which has raised $6.7M in funding to date, is already in talks with leading manufacturer Partner in Pet Food. Meanwhile, London-based startup Meatly partnered with vegan pet food maker The Pack to launch its cultivated chicken in dog treats at Pets At Home, after becoming the first company to be approved to sell cultivated meat for pet food last year.

    Czech startup Bene Meat Technologies – the first to register cultivated pet food as an EU feed material back in 2023 (it did so under the fermentation category) – is awaiting approval from the US Food and Drug Administration too. Speaking of which, Cult Food Science has conducted feeding trials in the US in pursuit of regulatory approval for its Noochies! brand. And Friends & Family Pet Food Co has inked two deals to launch stateside and in Singapore.

    The post BioCraft Pet Nutrition Strikes Deal to Produce ‘Mouse Mousse’ with 99% Cultivated Meat appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • bold bean co black chickpeas
    5 Mins Read

    Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Bold Bean Co’s Ottolenghi collaboration, Beyond Meat’s new documentary, and Miyoko Schinner’s upcoming vegan cookbook.

    New products and launches

    British cult-favourite bean brand Bold Bean Co has teamed up with internationally renowned Israeli-British chef Yotam Ottolenghi to launch a new Queen Black Chickpea SKU. It can be found on both their websites, as well as Waitrose for £4 per 700g jar.

    UK frozen foods retailer Iceland has expanded its collaborative lineup with TGI Fridays to include a melt-in-the-middle vegan burger and a returning sesame-glazed chicken strips SKU.

    British fermented food brand The Cultured Collective is bringing its sauerkraut and kimchi to 183 Sainsbury’s stores starting today. The fennel, apple and dill sauerkraut retails for £4.50 per 235g jar, while the original kimchi is priced at £4.75 per 250g jar.

    Hollywood Bowl Group, which operates the Hollywood Bowl and Putt & Play mini-golf centres in the UK, has introduced the Beyond Burger at all its 75 locations in the country. It will cost £6.79 and comes with fries (which are not vegan) or tortillas.

    Speaking of which, Beyond Meat has announced a new YouTube documentary, Planting Change, to set the record straight against the meat lobby’s attacks on meat alternatives as ultra-processed foods.

    pulmuone
    Courtesy: Pulmuone

    Plant-based giant Pulmuone has rolled out limited-edition packaging for some of its ranges for Earth Month, which will be used across its Pulmuone, Nasoya, and Wildwood brands.

    Meanwhile, Disneyland restaurant Bengal Barbecue has added Impossible Lettuce Wraps to its menu, pairing the pioneer’s plant-based meat with shiitake mushrooms, green onions, and water chestnuts. The dish is priced at $12.49.

    prime roots
    Courtesy: Prime Roots

    Mycelium-based whole-cut meat maker Prime Roots has expanded to Canada and will introduce its deli range – which includes ham, turkey, pepperoni, salami and bacon – at the Restaurants Canada Show in Toronto (April 9-11) and the Canadian Food Health Association fair in Vancouver (April 24-27).

    US startup Oddball has debuted its vegan Jell-O alternative in mango, grape, double berry and pink grapefruit flavours. The jiggly fruit snacks are available on its website for $26.99 per six-pack, and will roll at Sprouts Farmers Market this month.

    tempeh uk
    Courtesy: Better Nature Tempeh

    Back in Europe, British tempeh brand Better Nature has rolled out its Organic Tempeh and Smoky Tempeh into 200 more Rewe Mitte stores in Germany, taking its footprint to 350 in the local region and over 1,300 across the country.

    French plant-based meat leader La Vie has unveiled a new line of American sandwiches using its pork alternatives. Available at supermarkets nationwide for €3.49, the BBQ Lover (with bacon) and Ranch Lover (with ham) variants come encased in Viennois baguettes.

    la vie sandwich
    Courtesy: La Vie

    Speaking of French retailers, Carrefour has partnered with Brazilian vegan food maker Vida Veg to add three vegan cheeses – mozzarella and two cream cheese flavours – to its own-label offerings in the increasingly health-conscious Latin American country.

    Dairy-free cheese queen Miyoko Schinner has announced September 16 as the release date for her upcoming cookbook, The Vegan Creamery. It’s available for pre-order now ($26.99).

    the vegan creamery by miyoko schinner
    Courtesy: Ten Speed Press

    Animal welfare non-profit Connect For Animals has launched a new mobile app to help advocates take action, discover local and virtual events, and meet other like-minded people.

    Company and finance updates

    Cultivated meat made it to national television in the US, with CBS News interviewing Mission Barns founder and CEO Eitan Fischer and product development director Daniel Ryan about the firm’s cultivated pork fat, which was approved for sale by the FDA last month.

    mission barns
    Courtesy: Mission Barns/CBS

    Canada’s n!Biomachines, a subsidiary of cell cultivation tech specialist The Cultivated B, has partnered with automation giant Siemens to showcase the Auxo V bioreactor at the 2025 Hannover Messe trade fair (March 31 to April 25), which aims to scale up alternative protein production more efficiently.

    Across the Atlantic, British cultivated Wagyu beef maker Ivy Farm Technologies has appointed Gail Francis as its VP of commercial. She was previously the business growth director at Naylor Nutrition.

    ivy farm lab grown meat
    Courtesy: Ivy Farm Technologies

    Also in the UK, vegan restaurant chain Herbivorous is shuttering all three of its sites in Manchester, Sheffield and York due to “increasing costs”

    Two vegan startups have won grants under EIT Food’s Fast Track to Market Initiative, with Germany’s BettaF!sh earning €248,000 to launch salmon and tuna salad cans and a seaweed extract, and Austria’s Hooked Foods receiving €221,000 to introduce a Super Protein ingredient with 30-35g of protein per 100g.

    Policy and research developments

    A new study by CashNetUSA highlights how vegan food prices differ at Walmart stores across the US, with Arkansas being the cheapest (3.8% below the national average) and Hawaii the most expensive (34% above the mean).

    Researchers at Australia’s Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA) have created a toolkit to help food manufacturers improve the texture of products. They worked with meat alternative startup v2food to help it assess its work on enhancing its burger’s texture.

    Ahmed Khan, a bioscience enterprise MPhil from Cambridge University, became the “first person to speak about cellular agriculture and cultivated meat” during a debate at the Cambridge Union.

    Also speaking truth to power was Bernat Anaños, co-founder and comms chief of Spanish plant-based meat leader Heura Foods, who addressed the Congreso de los Diputados (the lower house of Spain’s legislative branch) about the need for a food systems transformation led by plants.

    Finally, Toronto-based vegan salmon maker New School Foods has been named one of Canadian Business‘s Innovation Awards winners for 2025.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: Ottolenghi’s Beans, Disneyland & Beyond Meat Doc appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • cultured duck
    4 Mins Read

    Japan’s first cultivated meat company, IntegriCulture, has unveiled several prototype dishes and products made from duck liver cells.

    Japanese cellular agriculture specialist IntegriCulture has provided a glimpse of the potential of its cultivated duck liver, as part of several prototypes exhibited at a recent industry session.

    With Japan fast becoming a hotspot in Asia’s alternative protein scene, IntegriCulture has been working with supporting companies to conduct R&D on foods derived from cell-cultured duck, with financial support from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’s Small and Medium Enterprise Innovation Promotion Program.

    The company has simultaneously been developing prototype foods using the cultivated duck, unveiling four as restaurant menu items, and three as packaged products.

    Foie gras, pani puri, and lemon posset highlight versatility

    lab grown meat japan
    Courtesy: IntegriCulture

    IntegriCulture held a sensory evaluation session at its research base, the Shonan Health Innovation Park, with around 30 people in attendance. The firm had established a production line for culturing duck cells and began trial production last year, and this event sought to evaluate the potential of its cultivated duck ingredient, which it has christened ‘Craft Essen’.

    The restaurant dishes were based on a “fun and bright” theme, each item developed as an amuse-bouche and using about 30% of the cultivated duck ingredient.

    One of these was a sweet and sour posset, combining the duck with soy cream to use as a filling in a hollowed-out lemon, which was topped with rock salt. Another innovation mixed the cultivated ingredient with soy cream, this time paired with pears, pink peppercorns, and Narazuke (traditional pickles).

    The third restaurant item was a take on the famous Indian street snack, pani puri, served with spices and flowers. The final dish was made by mixing sweet potatoes with the cultivated duck, which was then wrapped in pie crust and baked.

    The three packaged food innovations were developed as products that would be bought frozen, with the inclusion rate of cultivated meat varying vastly. For example, one of the products was a spicy blood sausage with 20% cultivated duck, soy milk, vegetable fats, and spices, while another was a liver paste with 80% duck plus cocoa powder (though the high amount of cultivated meat makes it cost-prohibitive).

    The third CPG product was reminiscent of foie gras, combining 30% cultivated duck with vegetable oil, soy milk, egg white, and other ingredients to lend a soft texture and rich mouthfeel.

    Cultivated duck impresses taste-testers

    integriculture
    Courtesy: IntegriCulture

    The scaffolds used to produce the cultivated duck were built by San-Ei Gen FFI, one of the newest members of IntegriCulture’s CulNet Consortium, which harbours innovative startups to advance production technologies for cultivated meat.

    “The unique creamy texture was rich and delicious, and I wanted to eat it with wine,” Atsushi Nakagawa, director of San-Ei Gen FFI, said of the products. “The sensory evaluation session made me realise the great potential of cell-cultured foods as new food ingredients.”

    The event was facilitated by the newly formed Craft Essen Council, established to promote the launch and consumer acceptance of the namesake cultivated duck. “Japan has finally reached a phase where we can discuss cultured foods with the general public while showing actual products. It is now important to deepen understanding toward social implementation,” said Tatsuya Shimizu, a professor at Tokyo Women’s Medical University and the council’s chair.

    “All the dishes on the restaurant menu had a smooth texture, and I was able to enjoy a new sensation of umami in the desserts and sweets. In addition, the processed foods had a stronger animal-based umami flavour, and I felt that it could be used as a food ingredient in a variety of menus,” said Satoshi Tatsumi, life innovation general manager at Sumitomo Riko.

    Cultivated meat advances in Japan

    lab grown meat regulatory approval
    Courtesy: Hoxton Farms

    “I hope that, as culture technology advances, consideration will be given to the implementation of this technology in society,” Satoshi added.

    His comments come just as his firm’s sister company, Sumitomo Corporation, has partnered with British startup Hoxton Farms to commercialise its cultivated fat product in Japan and other Asian countries.

    Hoxton Farms and Sumitomo are consulting with the Japan Association for Cellular Agriculture (JACA) – also a member of the Craft Essen Council – which will be pivotal in shaping the regulatory and social acceptance of cultivated meat in the country.

    A 2024 survey found that 42% of Japanese consumers are willing to try cultivated meat products, but the creation of government regulations is key for 44% of those who are unsure about their safety aspects.

    IntegriCulture, meanwhile, is Japan’s first cultivated meat company, and released a Cell-Cultured Meat Starter Kit on its B2B marketplace, Ocatté Base, last year. This included an oxygen-permeable bioreactor co-created with Sumitomo Riko.

    The firm has received $16.4M in equity funding, and gained a ¥1.87B ($13.1M) grant from the Japanese government to advance the CulNet platform and make its developments open-source. And earlier this year, it received a special overdraft loan of ¥100M ($685,000) from Mizuho Bank.

    The post Japanese Food Tech Showcases Cultivated Duck Products for Restaurants & Supermarkets appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • lab grown meat australia
    6 Mins Read

    Known for its cultured quail, Sydney-based Vow has received regulatory approval from Food Standards Australia New Zealand, a first for cultivated meat in the region.

    Australian food tech startup Vow has become the first startup to be allowed to sell cultivated meat in more than two geographies.

    The Sydney company has apparently received the regulatory green light from Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), the joint regulator for the Antipodean nations, for its cultured quail, according to an approval report dated today (April 7, 2025) uploaded to the regulator’s website.

    It ends a protracted process that started in early 2023 and involved two rounds of public consultation, during which Vow succeeded in getting regulatory clearance to sell the cultivated meat product in Singapore and by extension, Hong Kong (the latter does not have its own regulatory process for novel foods, but relied on approval Singapore under a framework of international cooperation).

    In an interview with Green Queen last year, Vow co-founder and CEO George Peppou had predicted that the company would receive approval in Q1 2025, and that prophecy rang true, with the FSANZ approving the application on March 27 and notifying the Food Ministers’ Meeting of its decision today.

    “FSANZ conducted a full and independent evidence-based assessment of all media inputs and was satisfied their use and/or presence did not raise any safety concerns,” the agency noted in its assessment.

    “At the estimated consumption levels, there were no toxicological concerns related to the cell media or inputs used in the production process,” it said.

    lab grown meat approved
    Courtesy: Vow

    What the FSANZ said about Vow’s cultured quail application

    Vow submitted its dossier in February 2023, seeking permission to use “cultured quail cells, derived from embryonic fibroblasts of Japanese quail, as a novel food ingredient” in Australia and New Zealand.

    FSANZ issued a call for public comments in December 2023 and another 12 months later. The second round received 22 responses, with each submission considered as part of the agency’s assessment of the cultured quail cells.

    The food safety body noted that “cell line suppliers already operate according to good laboratory practices (GLP) and good cell-culturing practices (GCCP) to manage risks”, and therefore, the overall food safety risk for cell lines is “very low”. It added that cell line suppliers aren’t expressly required to ensure that “inputs do not make cell-cultured food unsafe or unsuitable”.

    FSANZ further noted that cultivated meat cannot be included in “special purpose foods” like sports foods, infant formula, or food for special medical purposes without additional pre-market assessments.

    One public comment brought forward the question of whether cultivated meat products should be categorized as ultra-processed and the “adverse health outcomes” they’re linked to. In response, the FSANZ said the issue of UPFs is beyond the scope of the application.

    lab grown meat approval
    Courtesy: Vow Food

    “The nutrition risk assessment considered the macronutrient and micronutrient content of harvested cells including components introduced during the production process and found no nutritional concerns,” it concluded, adding that the harvested cells were unlikely to pose a food allergenicity risk.

    FSANZ confirmed that Vow did not request that its cultured quail be sold as a single ingredient in retail. Instead, it will be mixed with other ingredients – as is the norm for cultivated meat, including Vow’s – to produce dishes in restaurants and foodservice establishments.

    Addressing concerns about the high costs of cultivated meat and its impact on farmers, the FSANZ suggested that “certain industry costs and regulator costs are necessary to ensure safety and are unlikely to outweigh overall benefits to industry, consumers and government”.

    The assessment’s outlook on the potential for cultivated meat is encouraging for the industry at large: “The consideration of costs and benefits acknowledges that cell-cultured foods are in their infancy with uncertain market growth. That takes into consideration the currently high production costs and uncertainty of the future speed or extent of technology developments for reducing production costs.”

    A huge win for cultivated meat amid global challenges

    This is a big win for Vow and the cultivated meat sector as a whole, which has been embattled of late due to funding and geopolitical challenges. Private investment in cultivated meat startups fell by 75% in 2023 and another 40% in 2024.

    Cultivated meat has faced numerous cultural and political challenges of late. Italy prohibited the production and sale of cultivated meat in 2023. In the US, over 20 states have attempted to ban these proteins, and three have been successful. With Donald Trump as president and Robert F Kennedy Jr as health secretary, regulatory progress for cultivated meat looks uncertain – although the US did issue its third initial approval, for cultivated pork fat by San Francisco-based Mission Barns, last month.

    Still, the future of the sector remains murky in the US, and that has opened up opportunities for other countries to emerge as leaders. Singapore is already at the forefront, having been the first to approve cultivated meat back in 2020, and following it up with its green light for Vow last year.

    fsanz cultured quail
    Courtesy: Vow

    Other leaders could include Israel, which approved its homegrown cultivated beef maker Aleph Farms, and the UK, which has just opened a regulatory sandbox for a select group of cultivated startups. Experts believe South Korea could grant an approval this year as well, while regulators in the EUSwitzerland, and Thailand are evaluating applications. With the Vow approval, Australia and New Zealand are well-positioned to be key players in the field.

    The FSANZ approval comes weeks after Vow cut back 30% of its workforce, a decision Peppou described as coming from a “position of strength as the industry leader, not a position of weakness”.

    “However, given the complexity and novelty of the regulatory process for cultured meat, it has taken far longer than initially expected to secure regulatory approval in the markets which Vow has targeted,” he said at the time. “This is not a criticism of the regulators, but rather an acknowledgement of the care and thoroughness necessary to ensure cultured meat is completely safe for human consumption and regulated appropriately.

    The company, which also makes cultured foie gras, is currently selling its products at various restaurants and bakeries in Singapore through its Forged brand, with rave reviews from tasters. One of them told Green Queen: “What stood out to me was that it was genuinely delicious.”

    And just last week, the company claimed to have broken a world record by harvesting 20,000 litres of cell culture through its Andromeda bioreactor.

    Vow – which went viral and appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for its woolly mammoth meatball stunt in 2023 – has secured $55M from investors to date, commercialising with a smaller outlay than competitors that have received approval, including Upside Foods ($608M), Eat Just ($270M), Aleph Farms ($147M), and Mission Barns ($60M).

    This is a developing story. Green Queen has contacted Vow for a comment on this story.

    The post Cultured Quail Startup Vow Gets FSANZ Regulatory Approval in Australia & New Zealand appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • cellx mycelium
    5 Mins Read

    Chinese food tech player CellX has self-determined its first-of-a-kind morel mycelium ingredient as safe in the US, launching high-protein snacks under new consumer brand Mourish.

    Chinese startup CellX is entering the US with what it claims is the world’s first morel mushroom mycelium, rolling out a line of jerky products under new consumer brand Mourish (Mushrooms That Nourish).

    The firm has self-affirmed its morel ingredient under the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) provision in the US, a regulatory pathway that lets companies sell products based on independent scientific evaluations. While these must adhere to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) requirements, they don’t legally mandate a review by the agency.

    The future of self-affirmation is uncertain, with health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr calling it a loophole and asking the FDA to potentially scrap it. It would require food producers to submit their safety conclusions to the FDA and wait for a no-objections letter before they can commercialise ingredients.

    “It’s unfortunate, but… the change will likely take years to take effect,” Ziliang Yang, co-founder and CEO of CellX, tells Green Queen. He confirmed that the firm plans to notify the FDA “in the near future”.

    Right now though, Yang is looking forward to building Mourish- jerkies are now available on its website and Amazon- with plans to enter US supermarkets later in the year.

    Yang aims to make the morel mycelium available to other manufacturers further down the line. “We have started exploring B2B opportunities since last year, and have a few active partners that we are testing the ingredient with,” he says. “We hope to enable brands to create innovative products with our mushroom mycelium protein.”

    morel mushroom mycelium
    Courtesy: CellX/Mourish

    How CellX grows its mycelium

    What began as a cultivated meat company expanded into mycelium fermentation in 2023. “Our team initially used mycelium as a scaffold for cultivated meat, but we quickly realised the exceptional taste and efficiency of this ingredient,” explains Yang.

    “Mushrooms are a superfood, offering incredible nutritional and functional benefits,” he adds. Mycelium has become the darling of the alternative protein world, revered for its ability to assume animal-like flavours, offer complete protein, lower cholesterol, and cut production emissions, among other benefits.

    CellX leverages biomass fermentation to grow its ingredient. It first separates mycelium – the root-like structure of filamentous fungi – from the fruiting body, then experiments with different strains and growing conditions to balance flavour and protein content.

    It cultivates the mycelium in large fermentation tanks, where it grows and multiplies into nutrient-rich protein. At this stage, it’s carefully separated from the fermentation broth and steamed alongside shiitake mushrooms to enhance the natural flavour of the final ingredient.

    mourish
    Courtesy: CellX/Mourish

    Why it chose morel mushrooms

    “By harnessing mycelium fermentation, we significantly increased its protein content, making it an ideal protein alternative,” says Yang. The morel mycelium boasts 5% protein, 25% fibre, and essential vitamins and minerals, giving a makeover to what are historically known in France as the “mushrooms of kings”.

    Morels, CellX explains, are held in high regard by foragers and chefs for their umami, earthy and nutty flavour, and meaty texture. They’re relatively rare, making them some of the most expensive wild mushrooms available.

    “Our decision to focus on morel over other fungi species was deliberate,” Yang says. “We selected our strain from thousands of options, following years of research and development with our university partner. Our proprietary morel strain was isolated from Shangri-La. Our asset-light approach, combined with strategic partnerships, enables cost-efficient, high-quality production.”

    The firm uses a mix of spices to zhuzh up the mycelium before shaping it into snackable bites and baking it on low heat (which helps preserve the nutrients and umami notes). The jerkies – which also contain lion’s mane mushroom powder and pea protein – are available in teriyaki, lemon-pepper, and Sichuan peppercorn flavours. Each 1oz pack contains 8g of protein, 4g of fibre, and zero saturated fat.

    mushroom jerky
    Courtesy: CellX/Mourish

    CellX pivots to licensing model for cultivated meat

    CellX, which has relocated its headquarters from Shanghai to San Francisco, has scaled up production of its mycelium to 12,000-litre fermenters, with immediate plans to expand to 30,000 and 120,000 litres.

    “We are looking at additional products to add to our portfolio later this year, anywhere from snacks and meat alternatives, to protein beverages,” says Yang. The company had initially targeted hybrid meats – mixing its mycelium with cultivated meat – however, that is no longer a focus for its consumer brand.

    “If there are B2B customers who want to use our morel mushroom mycelium ingredient to create these products, we are happy to sell the ingredient,” he says.

    This is reflective of CellX’s cultivated meat pivot too. While it operates a 2,000-litre pilot facility in China – the country’s largest – it doesn’t plan on selling its own products, and is instead focusing on a tech licensing model. It aims to help cultivated meat startups scale up by offering an end-to-end production solution, proprietary cell lines, culture media and bioprocesses, and support for regulatory filings.

    “The underlying thinking behind the shift is that we want to generate revenue and even profits faster, and engage with consumers and customers faster to prove product market fit,” says Yang.

    china lab grown meat
    Courtesy: CellX

    Breaking even without further outside capital

    “I think cultivated meat is still a relatively nascent industry that needs a significant amount of capital, and patience from all stakeholders. It’s unfortunate that the overall sentiment has shifted, and the fundraising environment makes it extremely difficult for companies to go from R&D to commercialisation,” he adds. Indeed, cultivated meat startups attracted 40% less investment in 2024, following a 75% dip the year before.

    CellX itself has raised $20M to date. “We are open to raising more capital, but it won’t be the focus. Our focus is to generate revenue through our B2C brand Mourish, B2B sales of mushroom mycelium ingredient, and licensing cultivated meat technologies,” says Yang.

    “It’s our goal to break even without additional outside capital. However, additional capital is always welcomed as it can help us expand to additional channels, products, and markets,” he adds.

    “We are also fortunate to have started the mushroom mycelium pipeline three years ago, and it’s ready to commercialise now. So the choice to focus on commercialising mushroom mycelium, and pivoting to licensing the cultivated meat tech is natural, as we shift our focus to generating revenue, and finding product market fit.”

    The post CellX Debuts World’s First Morel Mycelium Jerky with New US Brand Mourish appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • solein ice cream
    5 Mins Read

    Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Ajinomoto and Solar Foods’s latest product launch, Unity Diner’s return, and a new meat-free omakase experience in Hong Kong.

    New products and launches

    Japanese food giant Ajinomoto‘s Atlr.72 brand has released its latest product range featuring Solar Foods‘s Solein gas protein in Singapore. The Flowering Ice Creams come in vanilla and mochi (which contains dairy), chocolate and lemon peel, and salted caramel and nuts (both non-dairy) flavours, and can be found at the brand’s food truck.

    ajinomoto solein
    Courtesy: Atlr.72

    Nurasa, the sustainable food innovation platform owned by Temasek, will unveil NuFood Concept Studio, an innovation platform designed to speed up the commercialisation of healthier products, at the FHA-Food & Beverage 2025 event in Singapore (April 8-11). Here, it will showcase a blended meat product made with Quality Meat‘s Q Protein, featuring lower cholesterol and higher fibre.

    In the UK, Earthling Ed-owned Unity Diner is returning to London just two months after shutting down. The vegan restaurant had successful negotiations with its landlords, allowing it to open doors again later this week (April 4). It will also open a carvery on April 20.

    Meanwhile, plant-based leaders Beyond Meat and La Vie have collaborated on a joint marketing campaign with a new ad, with the brands offering a BBQ burger recipe and directing consumers to Honest Burger to try the Bacon Plant 2.0.

    San Diego-based CV Sciences Inc has expanded its plant-based portfolio with Lunar Fox Food Co, a new brand that sells animal-free alternatives to meat, cheese, and eggs. It’s also the owner of vegan egg and cheese maker Cultured Foods.

    lunar fox food co
    Courtesy: Lunar Fox Food Co

    Seafood chain Wintzell’s Oyster House has introduced Plant Based Seafood Co‘s Mind Blown range to its menu. It will offer vegan oysters, crispy fried shrimp, and crab cakes as salad toppings, entrées, and sandwich fillings.

    Brooklyn-based upcycled snack brand B-Sides has launched vegan Crunch Puffs made from the leftover pulp from oat milk production. They’re available in Cheddar, ranch and jalapeño flavours, and can be found on its website, Amazon, or independent retailers in New York City.

    choviva
    Courtesy: Planet A Foods

    German cocoa-free chocolate player Planet A Foods has expanded in three markets ahead of Easter: it’s co-launching eight products featuring ChoViva with chocolate maker Abtey in France, two innovations with retailers Lidl and Penny in Germany, and a new offering in the UK in collaboration with Wawi Schokoladen.

    Fellow cocoa-free chocolate maker Foreverland has released a 240g Easter egg featuring its carob-based Choruba alternative, in collaboration with chocolate giant Dulciar.

    foreverland
    Courtesy: Foreverland

    Israeli 3D-printed meat producer Redefine Meat has gained a listing at Rami Levy Hashikma Marketing, the country’s third-largest retail chain. Its New-Meat lineup of steaks, sausages, kebabs, and shawramas are available at all 57 branches.

    Hong Kong restaurant Niwa has introduced a Vegetarian Omakase Menu, featuring 14 items – from a tofu-pickle wafer and balsamic vinegar tomato to black truffle somen and mushroom sushi – for HK$780 ($100).

    vegan restaurants hong kong
    Courtesy: Niwa

    And in more good news for vegans in Hong Kong, famed meat-free dim sum restaurant Veggie Kingdom has opened its second site at Causeway Bay for perfect plant-based yum cha.

    Company and finance developments

    In a sign of the cultivated meat industry’s scalability potential, Australia’s Vow claims to have broken a world record by harvesting 20,000 litres of cell culture through its Andromeda bioreactor.

    differential bio
    Courtesy: Differential Bio

    Fellow Munich-based startup Differential Bio has emerged from stealth with €2M ($2.2M) in pre-seed funding to advance its Virtual Scale-up Platform for biomanufacturing firms, which combines advanced microbiology, lab automation, and artificial intelligence.

    French vegan seafood brand Olala! has ceased operations after three years, citing a lack of sufficient turnover. The company said it hadn’t found its market, and its industrial model needed a market dynamic.

    After completing its purchase of a 26-acre piece of land in Jefferson, Wisconsin for $777,000, Finnish precision fermentation firm Onego Bio is expected to spend $250-300M to build its new facility for animal-free egg proteins, set to be operational in 2028.

    vegan marbled steak
    Courtesy: Melt&Marble

    Swedish precision-fermented fat producer Melt&Marble has hired veteran pharma leader Tue Hodal as its first CTO, and Paulo Teixeira (formerly at Mycorena) as product manager.

    Californian biotech startup Triplebar has announced Shawn Manchester as its new CEO, who has been promoted from his role as COO. He takes over from outgoing chief Maria Cho.

    British vegan meal startup Planty, meanwhile, has appointed Samuel Rodriguez as head chef and Mimi Phillip as a freelance development chef – both used to work at rival firm Allplants, whose assets are now split between Plants (by Deliciously Ella‘s founders) and Grubby.

    UK vegan charity Viva! has hit its £400,000 crowdfunding target and secured screenings in 300 cinemas for its 62-second Dairy is Scary ad.

    Policy and awards

    Speaking of British non-profits, The Vegan Society has announced Libby Peppiatt as its new CEO. She will take over from interim chief Abbey Mann on May 14.

    Also in the UK, the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology has awarded £1.4M to the Food Standards Agency to support a new innovation hub for foods made via precision fermentation, another step towards novel food leadership for the country.

    new york city hospitals vegan
    Courtesy: NYC Health + Hospitals

    New York City’s Health + Hospitals programme has now served over two million plant-based meals to patients since it began in 2023, with 900,000 dishes served in 2024 alone. The initiative has a 90% satisfaction rate, and has reduced emissions by 36% and costs by 59 cents per meal.

    Finally, mycelium protein maker 50Cut (formerly Mush Foods), which is focused on blended meat, has been named the 2025 FABI Favorites Award Winner at the National Restaurant Association Show.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: CO2 Ice Cream, Cocoa-Free Chocolate & A Tri appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • lab grown seafood allergies
    5 Mins Read

    Cultivated seafood isn’t just better for marine animals, the planet, and human health – it can also bring fish back on the menu for those with severe allergies.

    While many in the cellular agriculture industry have touted the health and climate advantages of cultivated meat and seafood, a new study highlights a hidden benefit of these proteins.

    Globally, up to 7% of the population suffers from a seafood allergy, making fish a leading trigger of food-induced anaphylaxis. Cell cultivation can bring fish products back to these consumers’ plates, researchers at the James Cook University (JCU) have found.

    “We have a data bank of over 100 children with confirmed fish allergies, and we demonstrated that there is very little to no reactivity to the known fish allergens in the cell-cultivated fish,” said Andreas Lopata, head of JCU’s Molecular Allergy Research Laboratory in Queensland, Australia, who called the results “hugely promising”.

    Allergenicity of cultivated fish 10 times lower

    lab grown fish
    Courtesy: James Cook University

    The research dates back nearly a decade, with Lopata and his team working with children who had a clinical history of allergies to bony fish.

    They evaluated allergy risks based on a multiomics approach for conventional and cultivated Japanese eel (or unagi), characterising each protein (and allergen) using computational methods.

    The results, presented at the World Allergy Congress in San Diego, California (February 28 to March 3), revealed the abundance of 12 recognised fish allergens was 10-fold lower in the cultivated unagi than the conventional eel.

    “The levels of allergens present in the cell-cultivated fish being so low was quite surprising to us,” said Lopata. “You’re basically taking stem cells from the fish, growing them in tissue culture to the size they are edible, and everyone told us it would basically be the same as the regular fish including any allergy risks.”

    He added: “Instead, we found diminished risks, including a decrease of up to 1000-fold of the predominant fish allergen parvalbumin, and all of this was with no manipulation nor gene modification.”

    The study further emphasises the need for serum-free culture media, since fetal bovine serum – a controversial ingredient the industry has been phasing out in recent years – introduced non-fish allergens to the products.

    JCU working with cultivated seafood pioneer Umami Bioworks

    lab grown seafood
    Courtesy: Umami Bioworks

    JCU’s researchers argued that cultivated fish presents promising opportunities to produce safer seafood with diminished allergy risks. Now, it is conducting further research to evaluate a broader range of seafood cells, as well as develop cultivated fish products.

    To advance that effort, it has partnered with alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI) and Singaporean cultivated seafood startup Umami Bioworks.

    “We have been collaborating to better understand the properties of cultivated seafood, how the products may differ from traditional seafood at a molecular level, and the impacts these differences may have on outcomes like allergenicity,” Umami Bioworks CEO Mihir Pershad told Green Queen, noting that the firm has a long-standing partnership with Lopata and JCU.

    “To our knowledge, these are the first results on the potential allergenicity of cultivated meat and seafood and represent a significant step in building the public body of knowledge about the safety profile of cultivated foods,” he added.

    “We are also excited by the potential demonstrated in this study for cultivated seafood to address challenges that our current seafood system cannot,” Pershad said, referring to the opportunity for people with seafood allergies to enjoy cultivated fish.

    Lopata said Umami Bioworks’s first products will “most likely be cultivated fish and seafood dumplings”: “They should have that same fish flavour and omega-3 fatty acid levels, which are very healthy, along with all the other components of regular fish and seafood.”

    He added: “There can be uncertainties about allergenicity, but that’s where we come in, as experts in the field, really analysing all proteins (the proteome) and then comparing particular allergen patterns to see if there could be anything unsafe for consumers.”

    Umami Bioworks has been in “active review with documents submitted to regulators in major markets across America, Europe, and Asia”, Pershad told Green Queen in October. It’s a list that includes Singapore, the first country to greenlight the sale of cultivated meat, built on the rigorous yet inclusive food safety process designed by the Singapore Food Agency.

    Could cultivated seafood go the plant-based dairy route?

    lab grown fish
    Courtesy: Shlomi Arbiv

    Cultivated meat has gotten caught up in the culture wars. Some countries and US states have banned its production and sale, and many others are trying to do the same. These have contributed to consumer concern about the safety of these products, despite food safety authorities in several countries greenlighting the sale of cultivated meat after months (and sometimes years) of rigorous testing.

    As this study suggests, cultivated seafood could be blessed with a wave of acceptance if it leans in on the anti-allergy positioning, similar to another alternative protein segment that has witnessed significant success using it, namely plant-based dairy.

    Cow-free milk and dairy products have been successful despite the anti-vegan backlash because they cater to not just vegans but a large section of the population who are lactose-intolerant or suffer from dairy protein allergies – around two-thirds of people globally have trouble digesting lactose.

    In the US, for instance, at least 12% of Americans are lactose-intolerant, while over 5% (15 million) have a milk or dairy allergy. While 44% of households buy plant-based milk, one in five Americans who did so also put cow’s milk in their shopping carts. In addition, the prevalence of intolerances and allergies has seen coffee chains like Starbucks and Dunkin’ face lawsuits over the non-dairy surcharge, which they have since dropped.

    Can cultivated seafood recreate dairy-free products’ allergy-friendly strategy and become a more acceptable alternative protein to consumers?

    The post Cultivated Seafood Can Fish Out Allergies, Unlocking A Hidden Benefit appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • jeff tripician
    4 Mins Read

    Jeff Tripician is the CEO of Meatable, a Dutch food tech startup working on cultivated pork. A former meat industry exec, he argues that a collaborative approach is the only recipe for success.

    As global demand for meat rises, one thing is clear: the only sustainable path forward is collaboration – between the meat industry, farmers, ranchers, and all those who have long secured our protein supply.

    By combining existing knowledge and infrastructure with new technology, cultivated and conventional meat can work together to make sustainable protein widely available at scale. Cultivated meat isn’t here to replace the industry – it’s here to complement it. Rather than competing, innovation and tradition must join forces to drive the industry forward, benefiting ranchers, businesses, and the environment alike.

    This was the focus of Meatable’s recent global summit, where over 80 industry leaders, meat executives, investors, and policymakers gathered to discuss how cultivated and conventional meat can collaborate to really make a difference.

    The problem

    The problem is undeniable: our current food production system is unsustainable. It harms the climate and depletes vital resources like water and land, and is subject to supply disruptions due to livestock disease, weather conditions and global conflict. If we continue down this path, we won’t be able to feed our growing population without devastating the planet. It’s time to change course and give the Earth a break.

    Farmers, ranchers, and the meat industry face immense pressure to meet the surging global demand for protein with finite land, water, and resources – all while minimising their environmental footprint. By 2050, global protein demand is projected to rise by a staggering 70%, relating to two billion more people needing 2 trillion meals per year, putting even more strain on an industry that is already pushing the limits of efficiency and scale. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly clear that relying solely on conventional methods is neither practical nor sustainable.

    As the Rt Hon Chris Skidmore, former UK Minister of Energy, stated during the event: “Every human being deserves the right to better nutrition, and to protein-rich meals, just as everyone should have the ability to access energy, electricity, or the internet. These are the global goals that sustainability has to deliver: not to ration, nor to restrict the choices and lifestyles of those who have been denied choice or freedom for too long.”

    The solution

    lab grown meat event
    Courtesy: Meatable

    Instead of competing in a zero-sum game, the meat industry has an opportunity to evolve by embracing cultivated meat as part of the solution. By incorporating this technology we can alleviate the burden on farmers and ranchers to continuously increase production under volatile market conditions. Rather than forcing a binary choice between traditional and cultivated meat, cultivated meat will be able to provide additional supply, so the industry can use both to build a more resilient and adaptable food system.

    At the same time, cultivated meat’s reduced environmental footprint offers a path toward a more sustainable future. By requiring significantly less land and water while generating fewer emissions, it minimises deforestation, preserves natural ecosystems, and reduces pollution from livestock waste.

    With the right approach, the industry can strike a balance between meeting growing consumer demand and protecting the planet for future generations. The future of meat production isn’t about replacement – it’s about integration.

    The way forward

    Courtesy: Meatable

    There is growing interest to do so. As an example, a representative from the New Mexico Partnership (US) outlined during the event that the state of New Mexico, an agricultural hub, is actively exploring opportunities in food innovation, including cultivated meat, and promoting the state as a business hub in this regard.

    And we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The meat industry is built on centuries of expertise, finely tuned supply chains, and an extensive infrastructure that already feeds billions. This foundation provides an enormous advantage – one that cultivated meat is set to integrate with rather than replace. By working together, we can scale up high-quality, sustainable protein production without starting from scratch, ensuring a more efficient and practical path forward.

    My charge? Give future generations a chance, and give consumers a choice. Innovation has always shaped the food industry, and the market will naturally adapt, as it always does. If we strike the right balance, ranchers will not only survive but thrive, the industry will expand rather than contract, and consumers will enjoy more choices than ever before. This is what the future of meat should look like – one driven by innovation and collaboration, not restriction and competition.

    By supporting local farmers and ranchers, continuing the responsible production of conventional meat, and integrating high-quality, great-tasting cultivated meat as a complementary innovation, we can create a more resilient and sustainable future. The path forward isn’t about division or trade-offs – it’s about working together to feed a growing world while protecting the planet.

    This is not a battle between old and new. It’s an opportunity to evolve, using the best of what we already have to build something even better. The only way forward is together.

    Want to discuss further? I’m always ready to pull up a chair. Contact me on LinkedIn.

    The post Meatable CEO: Uniting Innovation with Tradition is the Way Forward for Sustainable Meat Production appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • hoxton farms
    5 Mins Read

    British cultivated meat player Hoxton Farms has partnered with Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation to bring its pork fat ingredient to Asia.

    For cultivated meat, fat is all the rage right now.

    In Europe, Mosa Meat has filed for regulatory approval to sell its cultivated beef fat in Switzerland and the EU. Across the Atlantic, Mission Barns has received the go-ahead from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take its cultured pork fat one step closer to commercialisation in the US.

    Now, a British cultivated fat startup has set its sights on Asia, the world’s largest consumer of pork. Hoxton Farms has partnered with Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo Corporation to bring its pork fat to the country and the wider Asia-Pacific region.

    The two companies will work to secure partnerships with food manufacturers to integrate Hoxton Fat into their products, support awareness initiatives to highlight the potential of the ingredient, and work with regulators and stakeholders to obtain approval ahead of its market entry.

    “The partnership spans multiple countries, including Japan, Singapore, Korea and beyond,” Hoxton Farms co-founder and CEO Max Jamilly tells Green Queen.

    The company’s plans are firmly global, with regulatory filings ongoing for multiple markings. “We will file this year in Singapore and the US, followed by UK and other jurisdictions such as Thailand, Japan, Korea, and Australia and New Zealand,” he says. “We expect to go to market in Singapore first.”

    Hoxton Farms takes on conventional animal and plant fats

    lab grown meat fat
    Courtesy: Hoxton Farms

    Founded in 2020 by Jamilly and COO Ed Steele, Hoxton Farms derives its ingredients from a few pig stem cells, which are fed on a blend of plant-based nutrients to multiply and mature into fat. It makes use of cell biology and machine learning to grow pork fat in modular bioreactors and currently operates a 14,000 sq ft facility in London, which has a fermentation capacity of over 1,000 litres.

    This is intended as a drop-in replacement for animal fats and plant-based oils, which can be mixed with plant proteins to create products like soups, sauces, and hybrid meats, which are seen as the most viable way for cultivated meat to get to market in the current climate.

    There are various motivations driving this innovation. It’s much more sustainable than the alternative – pork is a highly emissive food product, and farming pigs requires excessive amounts of water and land. And common plant-based fats like coconut or palm oil, which are preferred by many manufacturers for their functionality, are the primary contributors to tropical deforestation.

    Fat is also key to flavour and mouthfeel, which is the most important aspect of meat for many omnivores. By recreating pork fat in bioreactors, Hoxton Farms can offer meat-eaters the same flavour, minus the environmental and health harms.

    Speaking of which, processed meats like bacon and sausages are classed as carcinogenic by the WHO, while red meats such as pork are deemed possible carcinogens. Pork fat, coconut or palm oil, meanwhile, are high in saturated fat, which can raise bad cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease.

    Since Hoxton Farms can precisely control the composition of its fat, its team is developing versions that are lower in saturated fat and higher in beneficial elements like omega-3 fatty acids. It’s doing this specifically to reduce the risk of diet-related diseases, which can help address public health concerns in Asia.

    More than 40% of adults are overweight or obese in Asia-Pacific, and up to 12% of total healthcare spending goes towards treating obesity or related conditions.

    “Cell-based foods are an innovative source of protein that can help address future food security challenges without the need for animal sacrifice and with a lower environmental impact,” says Takeo Kojima, agri-innovation head at Sumitomo. “We see Hoxton Farms’s cultured fat as a groundbreaking ingredient that contributes not only to better taste, but also to sustainability.”

    Targeting Japan’s curiosity for cultivated meat

    lab grown meat regulatory approval
    Courtesy: Hoxton Farms

    Asia’s demand for meat is set to increase by 78% by 2050, putting further strain on the planet’s resources and public health. “Asia is the world’s largest consumer of pork, but supplies are threatened by an array of challenges, including disease (African swine fever massively disrupted the global pork market in 2018),” Jamilly points out. “Further, countries in Asia have a strong regulatory environment for cultivated products.”

    The startup, which has raised $35M to date, will co-develop products with food manufacturers via its collaboration with Sumitomo. “With Sumitomo’s unmatched expertise and network, now is the time to bring our cultivated fat to Asia and set a new standard for food innovation,” he says.

    The two firms will closely work with food safety bodies in various countries to obtain regulatory approval for the novel ingredient. This includes Japan, whose government is “making steady progress in developing a novel food regulatory framework”, according to Kimiko Hong-Mitsui, managing director of alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute Japan.

    Hoxton Farms and Sumitomo are consulting with the Japan Association for Cellular Agriculture (JACA), an industry non-profit, which they claim will play a crucial role in shaping regulatory and social acceptance of cultivated meat in the country.

    The collaboration gives Japanese stakeholders “efficient access to groundbreaking technologies, production facilities, and essential information regarding safety and taste in addressing challenges in food supply”, notes JACA president Megumi Avigail Yoshitomi.

    A 2024 survey found that 42% of Japanese consumers are willing to try cultivated meat products; the creation of government regulations is key for 44% of those who are unsure about their safety aspects.

    “We hope that this partnership will serve as a key pillar in strengthening bilateral cooperation between Japan and the UK in the field of food technology,” adds Yoshitomi.

    Currently, only a handful of cultivated meat firms have been approved to sell their products. This includes Eat Just (in Singapore and the US), Upside Foods,  Mission Barns (both US), Aleph Farms (Israel), Vow (Singapore and Hong Kong), and Meatly (UK). Regulators in the EUSwitzerlandAustralia and Thailand are evaluating applications too.

    The post Can Hoxton Farms’s Cultivated Fat Satisfy Asia’s Appetite for Pork? appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • lab grown meat eu
    5 Mins Read

    Food tech firm BioCraft Pet Nutrition has received registration from Austrian authorities to sell its cultivated meat ingredient in pet food applications across the EU.

    After a string of developments last year, 2025 is shaping up to be a big year for cultivated pet food. Just weeks after the first such product went on sale in the UK, another startup is gearing up to sell its version in the EU.

    BioCraft Pet Nutrition, a Delaware-based firm with a lab in Vienna, has received registration from Austrian authorities to use Category 3 animal byproducts (ABPs) in the EU, allowing it to sell its cultivated mouse meat to pet food producers in the region.

    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. BioCraft notes that it has met its obligation as a Feed Business Operator and notified the EU Feed Materials Register.

    “It’s important to note that there is no pre-market approval process to sell feed ingredients in the EU, which means that animal cell-cultured ingredients themselves are not subject to ‘approval’ or ‘registration’ directly,” outlines BioCraft co-founder and CEO Shannon Falconer. “Rather, ‘approval’ or ‘registration’ is granted to the facility producing these animal byproducts.”

    “Cultured mouse is a biomass suspended in liquid-nutrient broth from a safe, non-GM cell line in a controlled, antibiotic-free, animal-free medium. It is a source of polyunsaturated omega fatty acids, protein, and nutrients, for use in pet food only,” the register reads.

    “BioCraft has now met all its legal obligations to sell its ingredient to pet food manufacturers directly,” says Falconer, adding that the company “is not positioning itself to sell to consumers directly”.

    lab grown meat for pets
    Courtesy: BioCraft Pet Nutrition

    Cultivated mouse meat passes three-year-long safety testing

    According to Falconer, facility registration or approval is “not a long process”. BioCraft filed its application to the EU in August 2024 – but it only did so after three years of rigorous safety assessments.

    “What does take time are the many, many tests to validate the safety and nutritional profile of the feed material being sold – especially when it’s something new, such as an animal cell-cultured ingredient,” she explains.

    This includes a full genetic analysis of its cell line, a toxicological review of each ingredient that goes into the product, extensive nutritional profiling of the ingredient, as well as the generation of a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan, which is a legal requirement to sell any feed material in the EU).

    BioCraft enlisted a team of veterinary, food safety, and food science experts – both in-house and third-party – to generate safety data for its cultivated ingredient based on dossier requirements for an EU feed additive.

    biocraft pet food
    Courtesy: BioCraft Pet Nutrition

    Studies confirmed that the company’s ingredient is produced using stable, non-immortalised, non-genetically modified animal cells, and is free from bacterial pathogens, viruses, mycotoxins, moulds and yeasts. The cultivated mouse meat doesn’t contain biogenic amines or heavy metals either.

    Following the safety testing, BioCraft filed for facility registration with Austrian authorities, who granted it “for the purpose of multiplying cells for the production of pet food”.

    “This comprehensive safety analysis goes well beyond regulatory compliance and provides a meticulous breakdown of our feed safety protocols, including stringent supplier verification processes, traceability documentation, risk assessments, and SOPs for every critical control point,” says Falconer.

    “We’ve implemented rigorous quality control measures and transparency across our supply chain, and the result is the highest industry standards for safety and integrity in alternative protein production,” she adds.

    BioCraft in talks with leading pet food manufacturer

    It’s the biggest milestone in the startup’s nine-year history, allowing it to commercialise its debut product in the EU market. The cultivated mouse meat slurry can be used as a one-to-one replacement in wet or dry pet food at similar inclusion levels to conventional slurry, since it has a similar nutritional profile and consistency.

    Third-party profiling of over 100 nutrients showed that BioCraft’s cultivated meat has comparable levels of taurine, lysine, methionine and tryptophan to that of chicken slurry, and a superior omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.

    Last year, BioCraft announced that its product now had a sale price of $2-2.50 per lb. It achieved this feat by developing a plant-based growth medium formulated to provide a nutritious boost to the end product. Typically, animal-derived growth media – the mix of proteins, sugar and nutrients that feed animal cells in a bioreactor – cost hundreds of dollars per litre.

    biocraft pet nutrition
    Courtesy: BioCraft Pet Nutrition

    Formerly called Because Animals, the firm has raised $6.7M in funding to date, and previously earmarked early 2026 for its market launch. Leading manufacturer Partner in Pet Food (PPF) is now “investigating options” with BioCraft. “Pet food producers are following this market space eagerly because there is a need for more ingredients that are supply-chain stable, sustainable, scalable, safe, and ethical,” said Patricia Heydtmann, quality and product development director at PPF.

    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 also filed an application to the US Food and Drug Administration.

    Meanwhile, Cult Food Science conducted feeding trials in the US in pursuit of regulatory approval for its Noochies! brand, and Friends & Family Pet Food Co has inked two deals to launch stateside and in Singapore.

    The UK appears to be leading the race, with London-based startup Meatly passing stringent inspections from its regulatory bodies and partnering with vegan pet food maker The Pack to launch its cultivated chicken in dog treats at Pets At Home.

    The post BioCraft Pet Nutrition Gets EU Registration to Sell Cultivated Mouse Meat for Dogs & Cats appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.