Category: Cell-Based News

May 1, 2024

Future Food Quick Bites: Cultivated Quail, MasterChef Pros & A Cheese Debacle

5 Mins Read
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Vow’s Tippling Club collab, US bans on cultivated meat, and a climate change podcast.

New products and launches

Australian cultivated meat startup Vow, which recently became the fourth company to receive regulatory approval, has announced its first restaurant partner, Singapore’s Tippling Club, which will serve its Forged Parfait with cultured quail from May 3-14. The product debuted at Mandala Club earlier this month.

In the UK, Alpro has rolled out four new protein-centric SKUs: two original- and chocolate-flavoured Plant Protein drinks, and yoghurts in mixed berries and mango-banana variants. It has also introduced 500ml versions of its unsweetened almond and oat milks.

UK tofu maker The Tofoo Co has partnered with vegan restaurant Temple of Seitan to launch seitan in original and pepperoni flavours at UK retailers, which will be available at Waitrose and Tesco (only the original) from today.

Automotive giant Mercedes-Benz is working to align its German canteens with the Planetary Health Diet, and has pledged to serve predominantly plant-based food by the end of 2025. Last week, it linked up with Stuttgart restaurant Vhy! to showcase the potential of vegan food.

In the US, online grocery retailer FreshDirect has unveiled Foraged Mushroom Meat, which are available in nuggets and pulled formats and made from the stalks of mushrooms, alongside soy protein, tapioca flour and coconut oil.

Spanish seafood producer Angulas Aguinaga is entering the alternative seafood world via a collaboration with Catalan startup Vrave, starting with a konjac-based calamari to be sold under the former’s Aguinamar brand. They plan to roll out the calamari in the UK, France and Portugal next month.

Courtesy: Heura/LinkedIn

Meanwhile, fellow Catalan vegan brand Heura‘s three-week veggie sandwich pilot at French bakery chain Boulangerie Ange last November has been made permanent, with the sandwich now vegan thanks to the use of Violife cheese.

Else Nutrition‘s soy-free vegan infant formula and toddler drink has made its way into the Asia-Pacific market, launching in Australia and New Zealand.

And BBC Springwatch host Gillian Burke has launched a new climate podcast called If I Ruled The World, where she interviews scientists, lawmakers, artists, journalists, activists and entrepreneurs about system change and their solution to the climate crisis.

Finance and policy developments

Berlin-based startup Cultimate Foods has raised €2.3M in a seed funding round to scale up production and expand commercial operations for its plant-based fat ingredient for meat analogues.

Likewise, France’s Edonia has bagged €2M in investment to produce plant-based meat analogues from microalgae like spirulina and chlorella.

UK venture capital firm CPT Capital has teamed up with Accenture, the Good Food Institute Europe and the Alternative Proteins Association to launch the third edition of its Coller Startup Competition for alternative protein companies, with the winner receiving £100,000.

Courtesy: Milky Plant

Also in the UK, Milky Plant has turned over £2M in two years with its homemade alt-milk machine, with sales set to reach £10M by the end of the year.

In Alabama, the House of Representatives has voted in favour of a bill to ban the production and sale of cultivated meat by an 85-14 vote, which will now return to the Senate before being passed. The House amended the bill to say it would not prevent people from researching these proteins in the state.

Similarly, the Arizona House has voted for a bill requiring cultivated meat products to be labelled clearly to distinguish themselves from conventional meat, though this is a watered-down version of the original proposal, which sought to ban the use of meat-related terms on packaging labels for these products. The bill still needs Senate approval.

Partnerships, research and breakthroughs

Australian cultivated pork producer Magic Valley hosted a tasting event for its bao buns at John Gorilla Café in Brunswick, which received rave reviews from attendees.

Courtesy: Magic Valley

Vegan certification body V-Label has collaborated with the Middle East Vegan Society to accelerate and advance the clear and transparent labelling of vegan and vegetarian products in the region.

In the US, animal nutrition company Wilbur-Ellius Nutrition and precision fermentation protein startup Bond Pet Foods have teamed up to develop ingredients for the pet food industry.

Californian startup Checkerspot has received a patent for its non-genetically-engineered high-oleic algae oil ingredient, two weeks after partnering with sustainable nutrition company Mara Renewables to develop omega-3 alternatives to fish oil.

Courtesy: Upfield

Violife Professional, the foodservice arm of plant-based dairy leader Upfield, has partnered with MasterChef: The Professionals winner Alex Webb to showcase foodservice kitchens how to best swap dairy for vegan analogues, curating six dishes using Flora butter and cream and Violife cream cheese.

Plant-based consumption is seemingly on the rise in Romania, up from 30% in 2022 to 39% in 2023, with taste the biggest driver, according to research by Danone Romania.

Courtesy: Climax Foods

Finally, vegan cheesemaker Climax Foods, which was set to become the first plant-based brand to win the Good Food Awards for its blue cheese, was disqualified on the eve of the ceremony, with its founder ascribing it to a pushback from the dairy industry and a retrospective change of rules.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

The post Future Food Quick Bites: Cultivated Quail, MasterChef Pros & A Cheese Debacle appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
April 23, 2024

Internal Rifts and Layoffs Headline Tough Year for Omeat – But Cultivated Meat Startup Will Soon Close New Funding Round

6 Mins Read
Los Angeles startup Omeat has seen its employee count shrink by about 80%, with a change in leadership brought on by what insiders describe as a hostile work culture, according to AgFunderNews.

It was in June last year that Omeat emerged with a serum-free cell culture media solution for cultivated meat production, but a lot has happened since then, with founder Ali Khademhosseini stepping down from his role of CEO, a majority of its workforce being let go, and a raft of challenges leaving the business reeling.

A former staffer told AgFunderNews that the Los Angeles-based startup now has a skeleton staff of about 10 people – mostly the core science team – which is down from a peak of nearly 50. Khademhosseini, meanwhile, was replaced by CTO Jim Miller in November, following multiple complaints by employees accusing him of creating a toxic working culture.

Omeat was founded in 2021 but came out of stealth last year, unveiling an alternative to fetal bovine serum (FBS) created using regenerative plasma drawn humanely from cows that graze freely on its carbon-negative farm. Collected weekly, the process to extract the plasma is similar to human plasma donation – unlike blood, plasma regenerates quickly, so the cows don’t feel depleted.

But while the company has said that Plenty, its cell culture media supplement, is affordable and scalable, its former employees say that it has had trouble expanding its production process – which eventually led to Khademhosseini launching a tirade that resulted in his removal as CEO.

Scaling the scalability challenge

Courtesy: Omeat

Scalability is one of cultivated meat’s major bottlenecks, alongside cost. But while Omeat has obtained 2,000-litre and 10,000-litre bioreactors for its new pilot plant in Thousand Oaks California, it’s still in the process of validating its production process at a 200-litre scale, according to an ex-employee. So far, very few cultivated meat companies have successfully validated their bioreactor technology at a scale of or over 200 litres – these include Good Meat, Upside Foods and Vow, all of which have been cleared to sell cultivated meat in Singapore and/or the US.

“At the 200-litre scale, we successfully held media with some cells in there without contamination, but we usually ended up with [fewer] cells than we put in to begin with,” one former employee said.

Another explained that the company had proven “some cell growth” on a 20-litre scale, but it rarely ran the 200-litre bioreactor, noting that it usually failed due to contamination. “They just never had a properly defined process. We also had challenges with cleaning the bioreactors, and when we got the [larger] bioreactors from India, we had to assemble them ourselves, and some stuff was missing; they weren’t great.”

A fellow ex-staffer said these new bioreactors are just sitting there. “Omeat’s ultimate sin was spending all that money transitioning into the pilot plant before we were doing everything properly at lab scale. There was this pressure to scale, scale, scale when we were not ready,” they said. “Omeat isn’t ready to scale. The science isn’t quite ready, and it has effectively gone back into R&D mode, which makes sense.”

A toxic work culture and change in leadership

Courtesy: Omeat

It was around October that things began to heat up, with Omeat preparing to open its pilot plant but Khademhosseini still feeling progress was slow. He articulated that in a verbal attack on a business trip, which was filmed by employees.

“You guys have demonstrated nothing but incompetence,” he was reported as saying. “Do you want me to be saying: ‘Oh great job for failing for two years?’” The startup’s founder labelled assembled employees as “idiots”, saying he was “sick and tired of all you guys”.

“He just started unloading, he had a complete meltdown,” said one witness. Another added: “He would belittle the team and the PhD scientists. He put them under so much pressure that they would just tell him what he wanted to hear.”

Omeat claims a third-party investigation into the matter found no evidence of wrongdoing or unlawful conduct, but in November, Miller had taken the mantle of CEO. This was followed by layoff rounds earlier this year, with several employees resigning too.

“Ali requested that position shift and it was fully supported by the board. Ali is continuing to work with Omeat as a board member and a scientific advisor,” the company said. On the layoffs, it added: “Omeat had to make a difficult decision to trim the staff because the company believes that it can meet milestones of getting to commercial viability with a smaller staff. This is a testament to how the technology has been validated and is well-defined, and so the company no longer needs such a large R&D team.”

The statement also added that the tech “has been demonstrated at the 200-litre scale”, contrary to the claims of former employees.

“At Omeat, we strive to foster a positive work environment and culture that allows our employees to thrive and focus on the company’s business,” said Miller. “We remain intent on positioning the business to ensure the continued success of Omeat and our mission, including by continuing to secure new sources of funding.”

Omeat to announce new funding soon

Courtesy: Omeat

Khademhosseini explained the company had taken steps to control costs and extend its runway, revealing that it was closing in on another round of financing, with a “positive announcement” expected soon. So far, Omeat has raised $40M, including a $36.5M Series A in 2022.

“taken steps to control our costs and extend our runway while we secure our current round of fundraising”. He said: “We expect to make a further positive announcement on this soon.”

In terms of scalability, he claimed Omeat is executing its scale-up plan and that its core tech “remains sound”, adding that it’s dedicating additional resources to help generate sales of its FBS alternative. “Plenty has shown positive results through extensive independent testing by a number of research institutes. We are in the process of assembling these results and will be sharing the Plenty whitepaper publicly very soon,” he said.

“They are trying to raise money, but a lot of people are not willing to invest in alt-proteins right now,” one former employee said. “The capex required to pull this off at scale is in the hundreds of millions and that kind of money just doesn’t seem like it’s out there right now.” They likened it to a chicken and egg situation: “Generalist VCs aren’t going to be willing to invest until they see traction, and cultivated meat is not going to get traction without a whole bunch of capital.”

The global food tech sector saw VC funding drop by 49% in 2023, while financing for alternative proteins dipped by 44%, from $2.9B in 2022 to $1.6B in 2023. This was dominated by plant-based and fermentation startups, with cultivated meat startups only attracting $226M in capital last year (a far cry from the $922M the sector secured in 2022).

The industry has faced its fair share of challenges. Pioneers like Good Meat and Upside Foods have had to deal with financial and scalability hurdles, and Singapore’s Umami Bioworks and Shiok Meats have merged as a marker of consolidation in the category. Cultivated seafood player Finless Foods, meanwhile, recently initiated an alleged second round of layoffs in less than 12 months. The industry as a whole is facing political attacks and threats of bans – with Italy already passing a bill prohibiting domestic production or sale of cultivated meat.

So it’s not out of the ordinary that Omeat’s large-scale cutbacks will raise some alarm bells. However, there is cause for hope too, with Vow and Israel’s Aleph Farms both receiving regulatory approval this year, and Meatable hosting the EU’s first public tasting for cultivated meat last week. 2023 also saw 10 new cultivated meat facilities open, alongside several other alternative protein sites, a trend that can support an estimated 83 million jobs internationally by 2050.

The post Internal Rifts and Layoffs Headline Tough Year for Omeat – But Cultivated Meat Startup Will Soon Close New Funding Round appeared first on Green Queen.

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April 17, 2024

Exclusive: Meatable Hosts the EU’s First Public Tasting for Cultivated Meat at Dutch HQ

9 Mins Read
Dutch cultivated pork startup Meatable today hosted the first public tasting event for cultivated meat in the European Union, following approval from the newly formed safety assessment panel in the Netherlands. It comes ahead of its launch in Singapore restaurants later this year.

Months after the Netherlands established an expert committee to evaluate applications for cultivated meat tastings, Leiden-based producer Meatable has officially hosted the first such event in the EU, showcasing its hybrid pork sausages to chefs, journalists, industry stakeholders and public officials.

Held at its 3,300 sq m headquarters at the Bio Science Park in Leiden, the public tasting convened the likes of two-Michelin-starred chef Ron Blaauw, Dutch prince and special envoy Constantijn van Oranje Techleap, as well as RESPECTfarms founder Ira van Eelen (who is the daughter of Willem van Eelen, widely considered the godfather of cultivated meat).

Meatable is hoping to gauge feedback from the tastings to optimise its product as it awaits regulatory approval and market entry, starting with Singapore later this year. The startup has already held two tasting events in the city-state, and will roll out its cultivated pork sausages in select restaurants following the greenlight from the Singapore Food Agency.

The event comes after Dutch government had introduced a Code of Practice to approve tastings of cultivated meat and seafood back in July. Meatable was the first company to file a dossier to the expert panel installed by the Cellular Agriculture Netherlands Foundation in January. “We were thrilled to receive the go-ahead from the committee earlier this year, and are delighted that we can finally have people try our products in our home country,” Meatable co-founder and chief technology officer Daan Luining tells Green Queen.

Hybrid meats deliver on flavour and quality

Courtesy: Meatable

Meatable’s pork sausage is a hybrid meat product combining animal cells with plant-based ingredients. While it’s still under development and each tasting will inform the final product, the sausage presented at the tasting contained 28% cultivated pork fat.

The company’s decision to go down this route was strategic – hybrid meats have been touted by investors as the only way to make cultivated meat commercially feasible in the near term. Luining explains that while the company’s process can ultimately result in fully cultivated meat, the hybrid approach allows it to significantly increase the production output. He adds that this also delivers superior taste attributes over 100% plant-based analogues, and satisfies the quality expected by meat-eaters.

And that is evident in the reactions of the taste testers in Leiden. “I have already attended several tastings in other countries and have to say I found Meatable’s sausage to be remarkably delicious,” notes van Eelen, who called it a “huge step” for the sector.

“We trialled fully plant-based sausages to compare them to the sample with the cultivated pork fat,” writes Forbes’ Daniela De Lorenzo. “As [Meatable co-founder and CEO Krijn] de Nood told us, we shouldn’t be surprised it tastes like pork, which it really did.”

For the tasting, the cultivated sausage was cooked in a skillet over a stovetop by a professional chef, and served to attendees both on their own and as part of a bun. It was only the second tasting for cultivated meat in Europe, following Australian startup Vow’s event in Iceland in February (earlier this month, it received Singaporean approval for its cultivated quail).

Last week, British newspaper the Telegraph’s food critic, William Sitwell, claimed the company had rescinded an invitation to taste their sausages, suggesting that it wanted journalists who were familiar with the scientific and technical aspects of cultivated meat. Sitwell implied the startup was keeping food critics away, writing: “If you want to get the public champing on the bit, get the food critics on side first.”

On the contrary, Luining says critics are an “important part of our outreach and our tastings” as it closes in on commercialisation: “We believe that food critics and consumers alike should ultimately be part of the experience, and we very much value their opinions and feedback.”

It appears the Telegraph incident was the result of a miscommunication. “The tasting invitation was seemingly transferred to him [Sitwell] without our permission. While we had very limited availability for this tasting, we look forward to continuing to welcome more people to our tastings soon,” says Luining.

“Under the new Dutch regulations, we were only able to invite a few people in to taste our products under very controlled conditions, but look forward to expanding for future tastings,” he explains. “We see this as a really positive step forward for both Meatable and the industry at large.”

Traversing the regulatory waters

Courtesy: Meatable

Speaking of regulations, Meatable is working with food safety agencies across the world. Apart from filing for approval in Singapore last year, it has been in talks with both the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, and hopes to enter the country in 2025. So far, only Eat JUST and UPSIDE Foods have been approved to sell cultivated meat in the US.

“By launching in Singapore first, we will be able to use the knowledge we get from that market for an effective US and then European launch later,” says Luining. The latter will no doubt be challenging, with the EU’s novel foods framework among the most stringent in the world. “In Europe, it’s a more complicated process. It can take years to receive approvals under the Novel Food Regulation, and the process also requires buy-in from all 27 member states,” he explains.

It’s the same reason why many companies target Singapore and the US first – the only other country to have greenlit these foods is Israel, who issued a ‘no questions’ letter to local cultivated beef producer Aleph Farms in January. It’s worth noting that Aleph Farms itself has filed for approval in Switzerland and the UK too, which aren’t part of the EU. The latter is expected to authorise the sale of cultivated cat food in the upcoming months.

“While we would love to move faster, we are using tastings like these in the Netherlands and Singapore to further inform us on product optimisation on our way to filing a dossier with the EFSA [European Food Safety Authority],” says Luining.

The other hurdle cultivated meat needs to clear is political. Legislators have been attempting to ban cultivated meat in the US and the EU, with Italy already having done so and Florida on the verge of it. These attempts have been criticised by alternative protein leaders, climate advocacy groups, and even the meat industry itself.

“Cultivated meat is a novel food and we understand that there are concerns about the impact it may have on farming and rural areas, especially in the US and EU,” Luining says. “But it’s important to note that we are not trying to replace these existing industries – we’re trying to create a more diversified and sustainable food supply chain.”

He adds: “Cultivated meat can exist next to plant-based alternatives and farm-raised meat. As the demand for meat is only forecasted to grow, the burden it places on our planet is clear. We believe that it is necessary to provide an alternative to people that still serves the appetite for real meat, without harming animals, people or the planet.”

Making cultivated meat faster than the rest

Courtesy: Meatable

Meatable, which has attracted $95M in investments since its inception in 2018, has multiple manufacturing setups that will enable it to produce cultivated pork at scale. In October 2022, it partnered with Singapore’s ESCO Aster, the world’s first regulator-approved contracted cultivated meat manufacturing facility. A month later, it announced a co-manufacturing deal with another Singaporean company, Love Handle, to open a Future of Meat Innovation Centre for hybrid meat.

It moved to its current facility in Leiden in November last year, moving up from 50-litre bioreactors to reach a capacity of 200 litres (potentially extending to 500 litres). “This is an important step for us in scaling up. Next to that, we have started production on the ground in Singapore,” Meatable COO Carolien Wilschut told Green Queen before the Leiden move.

Another aspect that will aid its scale-up efforts is its updated production process, which has cut its manufacturing time in half to just four days. This is possible due to its Opti-ox technology, which enables it to make products by isolating a single animal cell, without the need for fetal bovine serum. The process revolves around 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 allows the startup to work in a continuous cycle to generate very high cell densities, and can produce fully differentiated muscle and fat cells in just four days – 60 times faster than it takes to rear a pig for pork. The breakthrough means Meatable can make cultivated meat faster than anybody else.

Consumers will dictate the possibilities of cultivated meat

Courtesy: Meatable

At launch, the company is aiming to match the price point for high-end organic meats, with an ultimate path to price parity with conventionally farmed meat within the next few years. Holding public tasting events will help it finetune its sausage and gauge how consumers think about its product – but consumers’ appetite for cultivated meat can be mixed.

In the US, for example, one poll suggested that 45% are open to trying these foods. Similarly, 47% of Germans and 42% of Austrians are willing to eat them at least once. This falls to just over a third (34%) in the UK. In Singapore, acceptance for cultivated meat among those who have already tried is high, ranking 4.19 on a scale of 1 to 5 – buying and eating these products “significantly boosted” people’s acceptance, with diners expressing a strong willingness to try them again (a score of 4.41/5).

And another recent survey from the US shows that 60% of consumers would try cultivated pork in a restaurant, but this is much lower than the 88% who’d do so for conventional pork. “At this stage, it’s all about providing education about our product and its benefits. Once people have a chance to learn more about how it’s produced, and experience their first taste of a cultivated meat product, we believe people will be more willing to integrate it into their diet,” says Luining.

“In the end, we all know that the way we’re currently producing our food is not futureproof and recognise that cultivated meat can be part of the solution,” he adds. The Meatable co-founder hopes the Dutch tasting is the “first of many”, calling them “essential in helping us collect feedback for product optimization and an important part of education around cultivated meat”.

Speaking to Green Queen after its Singapore launch this month, Vow co-founder and CEO George Peppou suggested that we need to rethink cultivated meat. “Cultured meat only makes sense as a way to create new, delicious foods, not imitate the food we already know and love,” he said.

Luining agrees, reiterating that cultivated meat can co-exist with plant-based and farm-raised meat. “At Meatable, we are not trying to replace farm-raised meat; we’re trying to create additional options,” he outlines, adding that cultivated meat will be key in creating a cleaner planet for future generations. “In the end, consumers will ultimately choose how they want to experience the possibilities that cultivated meat presents.”

The post Exclusive: Meatable Hosts the EU’s First Public Tasting for Cultivated Meat at Dutch HQ appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
April 17, 2024

Price Parity, Job Creation & Investment: Highlights from GFI’s Alt-Protein State of the Industry Reports 2024

7 Mins Read
Alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute has released its annual State of the Industry series of reports, covering plant-based, cultivated and fermentation-derived proteins. Here are the key takeaways.

Political resistance and a drop in funding and sales were offset by a hike in manufacturing facilities, diverse partnerships, and regulatory approvals in the alternative protein world last year, according to the 2023 State of the Industry reports by the Good Food Institute (GFI).

Comprising plant-based, cultivated and fermented proteins, the reports outline the progress, challenges, and future of the industry. Globally, retail sales for plant-based meat, seafood and dairy saw a slight increase, from $28B in 2022 to $29B in 2023. But the road towards taste and price parity, improved accessibility, better nutrition, and significant market penetration remains lengthy, with GFI comparing this to Hofstadter’s Law.

Coined by scientist Douglas Hofstadter, it reads: “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.” It’s meant to describe the difficulty of estimating how much time it will take to complete complex tasks. “As Hofstadter’s Law and similar adages dictate, this will take time,” says GFI business analyst Daniel Gartner, drawing parallels with alternative protein’s progress. “However, keep our eyes on the goal post and the vision all of us in this industry are working towards – a brighter food future for people and the planet.”

Here are the key highlights from the 2023 State of the Industry reports:

Plant-based milk on the up, but meat and seafood suffer

Courtesy: GFI

The plant-based food market in the US saw $8.1B in dollar sales in 2023, down by 2% from the year before. This meant the industry represented 1.1% of the overall food sector’s sales. But looking at longer-term trends, global sales for plant-based meat have nearly tripled from $2.2B in 2014 to $6.4B in 2023.

For plant-based meat and seafood, the decline was larger, representing the macroeconomic challenges faced by the category. Here, US retail dollar sales fell by 12% to $1.2B. Sales for conventional meat and seafood, in comparison, flatlined – but the average price per unit was only up by 3%, compared to 9% for plant-based analogues, which now make up 0.9% of the overall meat market. Burger patties are the most popular, followed by nuggets, tenders and wings, and grounds.

Things were slightly more positive on the plant-based milk side of things, where sales grew slightly by 1% to reach $2.9B and take up 14.5% of the overall milk sector in the US. Almond is still king, capturing 56% of the market, with oat continuing its ascendancy (24%).

When it comes to consumer adoption, 62% of households bought vegan products, with meat and seafood reaching 15% of homes, and milk 44%. Encouragingly, the repeat purchase rates were high at 81% for the entire category, 79% for milk, and 62% for meat and seafood analogues.

Beef is closest to price parity, eggs farthest

Courtesy: GFI

GFI notes that the price gap between plant-based and conventional proteins is still a significant purchase barrier, outlining that grocery costs were the key economic concern for consumers last year. And 2023 was challenging for the vegan sector in this aspect – while plant-based foods saw a lower price growth than the overall food sector and some conventional categories in 2022, the former’s markups were higher in 2023.

From 2021 to 2023, plant-based meat and seafood’s average price per unit rose by 17%, compared to 16% for their conventional counterparts. Last year, the average price premium for plant-based meat and seafood was 77%. That said, beef is currently the vegan analogue that’s closest to price parity, with plant-based versions costing $7.48 per pound, versus $6.24 for the same amount of animal-derived beef – a 20% difference.

The gap is much larger in other categories. For milk, this comes to 104%, while eggs have the highest price premium at 317%. Even other meat categories need to bridge this gap, with vegan chicken costing 156% more, pork 177% and turkey 214%.

Alternative protein investments underestimated

Courtesy: GFI

A host of reports over the last few months have showcased the dire situation of VC funding in the food tech sector. Globally, agrifood tech companies brought in 49% less capital in 2023 than the year before, according to one report.

The data cited by GFI signals a 42% in overall VC investment across all sectors, with a 40% drop in climate tech, 51% fall in fintech, and 61% decline in food tech financing. For alternative protein companies too, funding dipped by 44% from $2.9B in 2022 to $1.6B in 2023. This was dominated by plant-based startups ($907M), followed by fermentation ($515M) and cultivated meat ($226M) companies. Collectively, these sectors have secured $15.7B in all-time investment.

“The sales and investment slowdowns in 2023 weren’t unique to the alternative protein industry, but as a relatively nascent sector relying on private investments to navigate early-stage operations and strong sales performance to secure favourable placements on retail shelves, they played outsized roles in the sector’s 2023 performance,” writes Gartner.

But GFI suggests that these totals are likely understated, with some funding rounds not publicly disclosed. While that is the case for certain deals in general anyway, this year may have had a higher frequency due to a large number of simple agreements for future equity (SAFE) and bridge rounds, and based on its conversations with market participants. Some of these rounds may be reported this year.

Despite that, investments in Europe actually increased for the second consecutive year, reaching $584M (up by 74%), a record total for the region. It was the first time European investments comprised over half of all invested capital in the plant-based industry.

Legislative wins and challenges for alternative protein

Courtesy: New Culture

Despite the private investment dip, public financing for these sectors matched the record levels of 2022. Canada announced C$150M for Protein Industries Canada, Germany set aside €38M in its federal budget for a sustainable protein transition, the US committed $40M in fermentation funding over four years, and the UK injected £15.4M in multiple cultivated meat projects.

However, GFI noted that total public investment in 2023 only met a tiny fraction of the estimated $10.1B in annual support needed to realise the full potential of alternative proteins.

It has been a rollercoaster year in terms of regulation for cultivated meat and precision fermentation. The US joined Singapore as the second country to allow the sale of cultivated meat. Israeli precision fermentation company Remilk received a ‘no further questions’ letter from the FDA to cement its Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS), while The Every Co obtained its third such certification in late 2023. Imagindairy and TurtleTree, meanwhile, earned self-affirmed GRAS status (with a ‘no further questions’ letter coming in January this year for the former).

Since then, Israel has also joined the list of countries that have approved cultivated meat, while Singapore issued its second certification earlier this month. Precision fermentation companies like New Culture, The Protein Brewery, Vivici and Oobli have achieved some form of GRAS status in the US too.

But there have been challenges as well, with Florida on the verge of banning cultivated meat, and Alabama, Arizona, Wisconsin, Texas, Nebraska and Tennessee all proposing similar bills. Across the Atlantic, Italy became the first country to ban cultivated meat, while a group of countries asked the EU to rethink its already-stringent novel foods regulations. France and Romania are also considering a ban on these proteins.

More facilities, more jobs

Courtesy: Meatable

In spite of the tough funding environment and legislative challenges, there has been an increase in both the number of companies and production facilities for alternative proteins. There are now 174 businesses working on cultivated meat across the supply chain (up from 166 in 2022), and 158 on fermentation-based proteins (versus 136 in 2022).

Meanwhile, 2023 saw 10 new cultivated meat facilities open, while seven fermentation plants began operating too. And several more sites were announced across the alt-protein spectrum too. According to the ClimateWorks Foundation and the Global Methane Hub, this trend means the industry could support up to 83 million jobs internationally by 2050.

“However, the alternative protein sector is not yet positioned to capture those levels of economic impact,” notes Gertner. “The plant-based, fermentation, and cultivated industries exist in distinct stages of industry development, but the average quality and availability of alternative protein products do not yet meet consumer expectations. To approach significant market penetration levels, alternative protein companies need to continue to improve product cost, taste and volumes.”

He implores governments, companies and investors to dedicate more research and investment towards alternative proteins, if they’re “serious about improving food security, reducing emissions, and achieving climate goals”. “By scaling, reducing costs, and improving taste and texture, alternative proteins – alongside other advances and innovations –can continue to shape the future of food and agriculture,” he said.

The post Price Parity, Job Creation & Investment: Highlights from GFI’s Alt-Protein State of the Industry Reports 2024 appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
April 16, 2024

Mosa Meat Secures €40M in Funding to Expand Production and Speed Up Launch of Cultivated Meat

5 Mins Read
Dutch cultivated meat pioneer Mosa Meat has raised €40M ($42.4M) in a new funding round to support the “next phase” of the company’s growth, with a public tasting of its burger imminent ahead of its launch in Singapore.

The company that proved the concept for cultivated meat all those years ago is now gearing up for public tastings and market entry with a new €40M ($42.4M) round of financing. It takes Mosa Meat’s total raised to more than $135M, following its previous $85M Series B and $8M Series A rounds.

The oversubscribed round was led by Lowercarbon Capital and M Ventures, and included backing from new government-backed players like Dutch state-owned impact investor Invest-NL (partly with coverage from EU Commission programme InvestEU), Limburg province’s regional development agency LIOF, and the Limburg Energy Fund, a regional fund to support emissions reduction.

Other investors included poultry producer PHW Group (which has a background in alternative protein and cultivated meat financing), XO Ventures, Doux Investments, and others.

Mosa Meat expects Singapore approval soon

Courtesy: Mosa Meat

Mosa Meat’s latest financing round is the largest sum brought in by a cultivated meat company since November 2022, when Australia’s Vow (which incidentally received regulatory approval for the sale of its cultivated quail in Singapore earlier this month) raised $49.2M. It reflects the tough funding environment for cultivated meat, which was labelled a “sector to watch” by AgFunder after VC investments nosedived by 78% in 2023, against a larger 49% drop in agrifood tech funding last year.

“The overall macroeconomic landscape has been rough in the last two years, which has culled the herd of companies and forced us to be even more strategic and focused on achieving our mission,” said Mosa Meat CEO Maarten Bosch. “As such, we are humbled and honoured to welcome both public parties and conventional meat producers to join this critical journey.”

The company will use the funds to further scale up its production processes, following the May 2023 opening of what it claims is currently the world’s largest cultivated meat facility in Maastricht, Netherlands. This “cultivated meat campus” is its fourth plant, expanding its footprint to 7,340 sq m (79,007 sq ft), and has a 1,000-litre bioreactor scale that can produce “tens of thousands of cultivated hamburgers”.

The capital will also help Mosa Meat accelerate its market entry. The startup is actively pursuing regulatory approval in “North America, Asia, Europe, the UK and more”, according to Bosch, who told Green Queen in September: “We’re engaging policymakers at the national and international levels to encourage the enabling conditions necessary to foster thriving cellular agriculture ecosystems.”

It’s expected that Mosa Meat’s cultivated beef burger will first be introduced in Singapore, where the regulatory greenlight is imminent. So far, only Israel’s Aleph Farms has been cleared to sell cultivated beef, announcing the go-ahead in its home country in January.

Cost-effective, high-quality cultivated beef ready for public tastings

Courtesy: Mosa Meat

Mosa Meat first unveiled its cultivated beef in 2013 at a now-famous press conference in London. At the time, the two proof-of-concept burger patties cost $330,000, but the company has since made major strides in bringing down its costs. In 2020, it brought down the price of its own growth medium by 80-fold, and the following year, it slashed its fat medium’s cost by 66 times.

To further these efforts, it received a €2M grant from the EU to cut production costs by 100-fold in 2021. And last year, it partnered with its investor Nutreco to develop a cell feed supply chain and transition to food-grade amino acids to achieve this reduction without affecting yield. While its exact production costs are not known, it’s estimated that cultivated meat needs to cost $2.92 per lb to be on price parity with conventional meat.

Mosa Meat is focusing on beef over other meats first because of its impact on the climate – it is the most polluting food on the planet. The Dutch startup’s cultivated beef, however, is created in facilities that use 100% renewable energy, and last year, a peer-reviewed life-cycle assessment revealed that cultivated beef can lower climate impact by 92%, air pollution by 94%, land use by 95%, and water consumption by 78% compared to conventional beef. In September, the company became the first cultivated meat company to be certified as a B Corp.

Strengthening its reputation as a pioneer, Mosa Meat removed the controversial fetal bovine serum from its cultivated meat in favour of a serum-free growth medium, and published the method as open-source for other industry players to use in 2022.

Cultivated meat has been under attack in the media and the political sphere recently, with governments in the US and the EU attempting to ban or restrict these foods. Italy and Florida have already done so. “In an environment that is increasingly polarised, we choose to connect and collaborate, working towards a future where cultivated beef is a real choice for consumers and a complementary solution in the toolbox to combat the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity,” said Bosch.

The company is currently awaiting approval from the Dutch government to host public tastings for its cultivated beef, following the establishment of a Code of Practice in July with support from Mosa Meat, cultivated pork producer Meatable, and sector representative HollandBIO. “Rethinking how we produce great food for a growing planet without destroying it is quite a daunting task and will take many people and organisations to pull in the same direction,” added Bosch.

Speaking on the Green Queen in Conversation: Cultivated Meat Pioneers podcast in August, Mosa Meat founder and CSO Dr Mark Post outlined the importance of having a high-quality product that outcompetes current meat analogues. “I cannot help thinking that part of it is that people just want to have meat, that the meat alternative has to be meat and nothing else,” he said. “So, the foremost goal of the company is to create a high-quality alternative that is sufficiently credible for consumers to change their behaviour away from traditional meat.”

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April 15, 2024

Health Remains Americans’ Key Consideration for Plant Proteins and Cultivated Meat

6 Mins Read
As plant-based meat companies rejig their nutritional messaging and cultivated meat battles to shake off the ‘lab-grown’ tag and political attacks, two consumer surveys reveal that health remains a key priority for Americans when it comes to alternative proteins.

The overconsumption of meat in the US is a major driver of the country’s large climate footprint, with one analysis showing that Americans’ red meat intake is over six times higher than advised by the Eat-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet.

Only 12% of Americans consume half of all the beef eaten in the US, and about 40% don’t think eating red meat increases greenhouse gas emissions – despite beef being the most polluting food. Separate research shows that as many as 74% of Americans don’t link meat-eating with climate change, while one estimate suggests the country needs to cut meat consumption by 82% if it wants to avoid climate diasters in the future.

And while the number of vegans hit a decade-long low in the US last year, another poll suggests that the percentage of consumers who are eating plant-rich diets has doubled over the last few years – but the red-meat-eaters have also grown in number. The paradoxical results of all these surveys show that there’s certainly interest in plant-based eating in the US, but meat still rules the roost.

That paradox is also highlighted by two new surveys about food in the country, covering cost of living, animal protein, plant-based proteins and cultivated meat.

Plant-based brands will find it hard to sway new customers

The first of these surveys is the March Consumer Digest by data science firm 84.51°, which polled 400 consumers who shopped from Kroger in the last three months.

It reveals that the higher cost of living continues to influence consumer behaviour significantly, adjusting meal plans to include dishes that use less meat (43% are doing so); purchasing more beans, legumes, nuts and eggs (33%); and reducing protein consumption (18%).

Courtesy: 84.51°

When it comes to the latter, shoppers are most concerned with taste (60%) and value (55%), while plant-based sources are among the factors they’re least concerned with (45%). In fact, animal protein sources take up four of the top five spots in the list of preferred protein sources, with vegetables (cited by 86%) third on the list, although they are above all meat sources.

Other plant proteins are much lower on the list, with tofu coming in last (11%), just behind soy (11%), plant-based meat (15%) and lentils (22%). 84.51° reveals that plant-based milk often serves as an entry point for vegan food consumption, which is apparent when you consider that milk is the vegan category households consume most (33%). It’s also among the top three segments that Americans want to consume more of, alongside fresh and frozen plant-based meats.

Courtesy: 84.51°

For 59% of respondents, health is the most important consideration pushing them to eat plant-based, followed by sustainability (42%) and taste (38%). This is exactly why industry leaders like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have shifted their messaging of late, introducing nutrition-focused products, packaging and marketing campaigns.

When it comes to consumption barriers, cost is key to 53%, while 41% are dismayed by low sales or promotions. And it seems that companies in this space face an uphill battle to lure consumers, with nearly half (48%) of people who haven’t tried vegan analogues saying they aren’t likely to do so in the future – only 5% say they’re very likely to try them.

Courtesy: 84.51°

Cultivated meat may need to tackle the uncommon

Researchers at Purdue University’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability, meanwhile, surveyed 1,200 Americans for its March Consumer Food Insights Report, revealing that while Americans do prefer conventional meat more than cultivated, the latter isn’t too far behind (considering its current scale and availability) when it comes to a restaurant setting.

For example, while 96% of Americans would try chicken in restaurants, two-thirds (67%) would be willing to do so with cultivated chicken as well. This is similar for conventional versus cultivated beef (94% and 65%, respectively) and pork (88% vs 60%).

“We see similar results when evaluating consumers’ willingness to try conventional and cultivated meats in a restaurant setting,” said lead author Joseph Balagtas, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue. “The proportion of consumers willing to try the cultivated versions of these meats is around 30 percentage points lower, though it is still a majority, about 60%.”

He added: “Given the fact that cell-cultured meat is not widely available, these results reflect consumer distrust of the unknown when it comes to food, which is a barrier for any novel food trying to break into the market.”

Courtesy: Purdue University

Interestingly, of those respondents not willing to try conventional chicken, beef or pork, around 46%, 26% and 22% said they’d eat cultivated versions of these products, respectively. “This shows that there may be (a) market for cultivated meat among a sizable portion – albeit small number – of consumers who do not eat meat along with a majority of consumers who already are willing to try conventional versions of these meats,” Balagtas said.

In terms of health, consumers felt traditionally farmed meat is tastier and healthier than cultivated versions. On a scale of 0 to 5, beef (4.4) and chicken (4.2) ranked high on the flavour aspect, versus 2.7 each for their cultivated counterparts. Similarly, beef scored 3.4 and chicken 4.2 when considering their health credentials, compared to 2.6 and 2.9 for cultivated beef and chicken, respectively.

Courtesy: Purdue University

The report also looked at certain ‘exotic meats’ – like octopus, shark and ostrich (among others) – where acceptance for conventional versions was higher than cultivated meats, but it is mostly a minority of consumers who are willing to try either of these products. Other animals included kangaroo and zebra too – this is topical considering Australian company Vow, which last week became the fourth company globally to receive regulatory approval for cultivated meat, has been known to work with cells of these species.

Its debut product itself is somewhat out of the ordinary. The company has produced cultivated quail as part of a parfait, and its co-founder and CEO George Peppou outlined why cultivated meat companies need to stop recreating conventional meats, and produce entirely new foods instead. “By changing the process of production, rather than the food itself, you are asking consumers to change their behaviour for the benefit of the planet alone. Despite what we’d like to believe, those externalities don’t matter as much as we think to a vast majority of consumers when it comes to purchasing,” he told Green Queen last week.

It encapsulates the results of the Purdue survey – there’s much less gap between acceptance for the cultivated and conventional versions of ‘exotic’ meats than for chicken, beef and pork. “The only way for us to change our behaviour is to offer new foods that consumers choose selfishly. That’s why Vow is different, because we innovate instead of imitating, and therefore offer something that consumers will selfishly choose, because it is deliberately different.

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April 12, 2024

Bluu Seafood Opens Europe’s First Cultivated Seafood Facility, Eyes Singapore Launch in 2025

5 Mins Read
German cultivated fish startup Bluu Seafood relocated to Hamburg with the opening of a large-scale pilot plant to produce its salmon and rainbow trout, ahead of an expected launch in Singapore early next year.

Bluu Seafood has opened Europe’s first dedicated facility for cultivated seafood production, moving its headquarters from Lübeck to Hamburg as it prepares for a 2025 market launch in Singapore.

It comes 10 months after the company closed a $17.5M Series A funding round to enhance its R&D efforts and initiate production of its cultivated salmon and rainbow trout, with its first products being fish balls and fingers (it is also working on prototypes for salmon sashimi and trout fillets).

“With the facilities at our new site, we are laying the foundations to supply the first markets,” said Bluu Seafood co-founder and co-CEO Sebastian Rakers, who founded the startup with managing director Simon Fabich in 2020. “In Hamburg, we have the ideal conditions to continue to grow and continuously reduce production costs.”

Bluu Seafood to target non-EU countries first

Courtesy: Anna Brauns/Bluu Seafood

Sprawling 2,000 sq m, the new facility marks Bluu Seafood’s departure from laboratory scale and marks the next step in its commercialisation journey. The Hamburg plant will give it access to customised research, production, and office space, and house fermentation tanks that have a current capacity of 65 litres.

The company is planning to scale up to 500 litres by the end of this year, with a further expansion to the full 2,000-litre capacity scheduled for 2025. This will allow the producer to cultivate muscle, fat and connective tissue cells from Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout in much larger quantities than before.

With the optimal temperature, oxygen supply and nutrients, the animal cells can grow and differentiate in the same way they do in fish – but the advantage, of course, is that Bluu Seafood’s cultivated products are free from the heavy metals and microplastics found in wild-caught fish and much more planet-friendly, while retaining the flavour, nutritional content and cooking functionality of conventional seafood.

So far, no company has commercialised cultivated seafood, with US players Upside Foods and Eat Just having sold cultivated chicken in US restaurants, and Australia’s Vow currently selling its newly approved cultivated quail in Singapore (Eat Just has also previously done so in the island nation). Meanwhile, the only other company to have been cleared by regulators to sell cultivated meat is Israel’s Aleph Farms, which will soon launch its beef product at restaurants in its home nation.

But Bluu Seafood is hoping to join that list with its salmon and trout products in Singapore by early 2025, having already filed for regulatory approval there. Rakers confirmed the company is in talks with the FDA in the US too. “As a European company, the EU is certainly on our radar,” he added. “However, considering that the EU approval process with its 27 members is a lot more complex, we will probably focus on European countries outside the European Union first – for example, the UK and Switzerland.”

Aleph Farms has made its application in those two countries as well, with the conversation around cultivated meat heating up particularly in the UK, given pet food companies Meatly and OMNI expect the greenlight for their cultivated chicken for cats within the next three months.

Upside Foods, Eat Just and Vow have all entered the market through foodservice partnerships, and that is the approach Bluu Seafood will take too. “At the market entry point, we will only have a very limited number of products available. We will therefore take a careful positioning strategy, and initially work exclusively with well-known restaurants, chefs and influencers,” said Rakers. “Rollout with exclusive retail partners will follow thereafter.”

Enduring the waves of legislative and financial challenges

Courtesy: Wim Jansen/Bluu Seafood

The alternative seafood and cultivated meat sectors have been facing a bunch of headwinds as of late. One of the biggest bottlenecks of the industry – alongside scale – is production cost. Estimates suggest cultivated meat won’t be on par with the price of meat until 2030, but Bluu Seafood is more optimistic about things.

“If the scalability and market conditions are favourable, we will be able to offer cultivated fish at wholesale fish prices in as little as three years,” Rakers said.

It would mark a major milestone for an industry that has suffered from a lack of investment, increased financial strains, and greater political and legal pressure. In recent months, fellow German alt-seafood startup Ordinary Seafood and San Francisco-based New Wave Foods ceased operations, citing a bleak funding landscape and market challenges. In February, Californian cultivated seafood player Finless Foods reportedly initiated a second round of layoffs in less than 12 months. And last month, Singapore’s Umami Bioworks and Shiok Meats merged as a marker of consolidation in the category.

At current rates, overfishing could lead to a collapse of global fisheries by 2048, but in the US, the Supreme Court is considering overturning a doctrine that would enable unchecked overfishing and remove accountability from the sector, leaving global waters open to exploitation.

Rakers believes these developments are a sign that it’s now “a matter of making the right decisions, focusing on strong points and delivering proof of scalability for the technology used” for the cultivated seafood industry. “The biggest challenge currently is the lack of clear guidance and regulations for this specific area in many markets, as the industry is new, and the creation of regulations and guidance takes time,” he said.

This is evident in places like the EU and the US, where legislators aren’t just slow on progress, but are actively going in the opposite direction by attempting to ban cultivated meat. Italy has already done so, and Florida is close to it. “The legislative drive in some regions of the world to curb food innovation is mostly driven by industry protectionism but does not necessarily represent a wider public opinion,” Rakers suggested. “Legislators need to trust scientific judgement and updated food safety regulations for cultivated proteins. Thereafter, it is people’s individual decision to buy the product or not.”

There are positive signs too: the Indian government, for example, is working with a local startup to produce cultivated seafood and is reportedly developing a regulatory framework for the sector. South Korea has also established its framework and is inviting applications now.

“We can already see improvements in that respect, but of course not at the speed the industry develops and would wish for,” said Rakers. “Because of this lack of guidance and regulations applications are complicated and it takes a long time to go to market, which is crucial, especially for startups.”

He continues: “One aspect to improve this situation would be for the respective authorities to allocate more resources and engage in one-to-one contact with the industry’s players to clarify questions and safety needs as quickly as possible. FDA and SFA [Singapore Food Agency] take this approach quite successfully.”

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April 4, 2024

Vow CEO George Peppou on Cultivated Quail Launch: ‘We Need to Change the Food, Not the Production Process’

8 Mins Read
As it rolls out its first cultivated meat product following regulatory approval in Singapore, Vow CEO George Peppou speaks to Green Queen about the Forged quail parfait, the need to do things differently, and consumers’ approach to novel food tech.

As the first Australian cultivated meat brand to earn regulatory clearance anywhere in the world, Vow’s momentous achievement has raised plenty of intrigue – and questions.

In case you missed it, the Syndey-based startup is today launching its cultivated Japanese quail in Singapore’s Mandala Club, after the country’s regulator gave it the go-ahead to sell the product. But unlike other rollouts of cultivated meat, where chefs are supplied with the meat itself (which they then incorporate into dishes), Vow is taking a novel approach. What restaurant kitchens get is a parfait containing its cultivated quail.

The product coincides with the unveiling of its premium consumer brand, Forged, and a new metaphorical bird called Quailia, which is supposed to represent an animal that only exists to be eaten, unlike its real-world counterpart. “Quailia is a metaphor for what we are doing: creating new experiences rather than replicating food animals make,” Vow co-founder and CEO George Peppou tells Green Queen.

It all feels a little different with this latest cultivated meat launch – and that’s because it’s meant to be. “We believe in creating entirely new food experiences,” says Peppou. “Quail is a great way to introduce consumers to this. It’s familiar enough to be interesting, but not something eaten regularly enough for consumers to have a strong view of what it is and isn’t.”

What’s in the Forged Parfait?

Courtesy: Vow

Peppou reveals that the parfait is the first of several products Vow is launching the Forged brand this year. But why start with this? “Parfait was the most gentle introduction to our deliberately different products,” he notes. “Parfait is similar to a very light pâté. Forged Parfait combines a flavour and texture combination you can’t find anywhere else. The result is a delightful contradiction: rich yet delicate with a unique weightless, melt-in-your-mouth quality.”

Companies like Eat Just, Aleph Farms (both of whom are cleared to sell their products) and Meatable are all using a hybrid approach in their initial products, but Vow’s quail itself comprises 100% quail cells. “We don’t hybridise with any other inputs,” confirms Peppou.

So what goes in the parfait? “Cultured Japanese quail, a bit of garlic, onion, brandy and butter – exactly what you’d find in a pâté, just much lighter and creamier.” The Quailia makes up 60% of the product, which additionally contains butter and port wine that’s clarified with egg whites and milk. Being a meat product grown from real animal cells, this was never going to be vegan, but the company is doubling down on its for-meat-lovers rhetoric.

“We are exclusively focused on making foods for meat-eaters, which is why featuring butter on the ingredient list is not an issue,” says Peppou. “Vegans and vegetarians eating the food we produce doesn’t have an impact.”

This chimes with what the Vow CEO – a meat-eater – told Green Queen founding editor Sonalie Figueiras on the Green Queen in Conversation: Cultivated Meat Pioneers in October. “When I think about how can I change the behaviour of people like me, like my family, it’s not going to be by making something which approximates the meat we eat today – that’s a very hard sell for people that already have integrated meat into their diets and have no intention of changing that.”

He added: “We have to make foods that are better than the meat that we can get today: tastier, more nutritious, offering functionality that animals can’t.”

To elevate and showcase the potential of such products, cultivated meat companies rely on world-class chefs to incorporate their innovations into dishes. Vow’s debut will come courtesy of a seven-course omakase menu at Mandala Club’s Japanese restaurant Mori, with a series of exclusive dinners running until the end of the month.

“The product delivered to chefs is a packaged finished parfait,” Peppou says. “The use cases are limited only by the creativity of the chefs, as diners will see at Mandala, and at other venues in the future.” (Vow has a host of other restaurant collaborations lined up for the next two months, but it remains tight-lipped when pressed for further details.)

APAC ‘more open-minded’ to novel foods

Courtesy: Vow

The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) was the first regulator to approve the sale of cultivated meat, granting that honour to Eat Just back in 2020. Since then, Eat Just and fellow Californian startup Upside Foods have obtained approval in the US, and Aleph Farms in its home country of Israel.

It cements Singapore’s status as a hotbed for food tech and regulatory progress, despite having one of the most stringent processes globally. Dutch cultivated pork producer Meatable and French cell-cultured chicken startup Vital Meat have also filed for clearance in the island nation, with the former expecting to go to market in mid-2024.

“It was a very thorough assessment, which was very important to us so that consumers know our products are safe beyond doubt,” says Peppou. “The team at SFA were rigorous across all parts of the application, paying special attention to media components and ensuring our risk assessment around residues was to the highest standards.”

Europe is still lagging behind when it comes to cultivated meat regulation, given it has the strictest novel foods standards in the world. Up until recently, the UK followed pre-Brexit EU rules too, but now, a shake-up is on the horizon. In the US, while several companies are awaiting FDA and USDA approval, there’s the more immediate issue of dealing with incoming political bans on cultivated meat.

Consumer surveys show mixed results about the acceptance of these proteins. In the US, one poll suggested that 45% are open to trying these foods. This drops to just over a third (34%) in the UK. Another survey shows 47% of Germans and 42% of Austrians are willing to eat them at least once.

In India, meanwhile, a 2019 study showed that 56% of citizens are “very or extremely likely” to buy cultivated meat regularly. And recent research polling Singaporean diners who had tried Eat Just’s cultivated chicken found that on a scale of 1 to 5, the acceptance of cultivated meat was high (4.19). In fact, buying and eating these products “significantly boosted” people’s acceptance, with diners expressing a strong willingness to try them again (a score of 4.41/5) and recommending them to loved ones (4.45/5).

“Asia-Pacific, in general, is much more open-minded to novel food from a consumer standpoint,” says Peppou. “At a regulatory level, it’s much less politicised than in the EU and US,” he adds. Vow is currently in the middle of a public consultation process for its application to the bilateral Food Standards Australia and New Zealand, with the next round due to open in the middle of the year. “We are working with several regulators across four continents in different stages of engagement all the way through to filing,” he says. This includes the US too.

Tackling bans and backlash

Courtesy: Vow

Lately, there has been increased attention on what is termed ‘food tech neophobia’. “Often, what we’ve got is a phobia of new stuff, a sort of almost a sort of comfort reaction of regard to cling to the old stuff,” environmental journalist George Monbiot said in an interview with Figueiras last year.

This fear has been exacerbated by the attack on cultivated meat in the US. The states of Alabama, Arizona, Wisconsin, Texas, Nebraska, Tennessee and Florida have all taken aim at the industry by proposing a series of bans – whether that’s to do with labelling or even production and sale – with the latter on the brink of passing a bill to effectively criminalise cultivated meat.

Meanwhile, a host of negative media coverage – from Bloomberg to the New York Times – hasn’t helped things. “It’s an inevitable backlash by the media to overly optimistic timelines by companies and failed promises, and by farmers to a movement that calls for an end to their livelihoods,” suggests Peppou. “Naturally, farmers are upset by founders and companies that make them out to be a problem to be solved, and politicians are capitalising on that anger, while the companies have failed to convince consumers to replace a tried and tested product with an expensive, lesser replica.”

He adds: “We have been very clear from the beginning: we think sustainable, open-range farming – the kind practised here in Australia – is a critical part of the future of our food systems, and that cultured meat only makes sense as a way to create new, delicious foods, not imitate the food we already know and love. We are proud to create an entirely new category of food designed specifically for meat-eaters to enjoy.”

Peppou disagrees with the notion that novel tech has put many people off. “When Impossible [Foods] launched in Australia, there was zero controversy and now it’s on our shelves.” The Californian plant-based meat giant was something he also mentioned in Green Queen’s podcast last year. He praised Impossible Foods’ marketing and messaging, but said he would do things differently around the consumer angle: “There’s not really any selfish driver to purchase Impossible.”

Expanding on this, he stated: “It’s a direct, drop-in replacement for beef mince. It’s so meaty that it sort of has been seen by meat eaters, and it’s like: ‘What is any individual meathead getting out of incorporating impossible into their diet?’” He continued: “There’s not really anything in it for me to make my lasagna out of Impossible. In fact, there are reasons not to: it’s more expensive and it’s a bit of a hard choice because I have had to make a conscious decision to do something differently than I would otherwise want to.”

Peppou echoes this thinking when asked about the challenges – whether they’re political, optics, financial or production-related – facing cultivated meat in what is going to be a very important year for the industry. “By changing the process of production, rather than the food itself, you are asking consumers to change their behaviour for the benefit of the planet alone. Despite what we’d like to believe, those externalities don’t matter as much as we think to a vast majority of consumers when it comes to purchasing,” he says.

“The only way for us to change our behaviour is to offer new foods that consumers choose selfishly. That’s why Vow is different, because we innovate instead of imitating, and therefore offer something that consumers will selfishly choose, because it is deliberately different.”

The proof, of course, will be in the pudd– sorry, parfait.

The post Vow CEO George Peppou on Cultivated Quail Launch: ‘We Need to Change the Food, Not the Production Process’ appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
April 3, 2024

Vow Food Earns Singapore Regulatory Approval for Cultivated Quail, Debuts Parfait at Mandala Club

8 Mins Read
Australia’s Vow Food has received regulatory approval for its cultivated quail in Singapore, becoming the fourth company to do so globally. It will unveil the product as part of a parfait under its Forged brand at the Mandala Club, followed by other restaurants in the city-state.

A regulatory greenlight, a restaurant debut, a consumer brand launch, and an entirely new concept animal – it’s a big day for Vow Food.

The Sydney-based startup is just the second company to be approved to sell cultivated meat in Singapore, which will allow it to launch its cell-cultured Japanese quail product – called Forged Parfait – onto diners’ plates, starting today at the Mandala Club, which will host a series of exclusive dinners using the parfait at its Japanese eatery Mori.

As part of Forged, its new premium consumer brand, Vow Food also invented Quailia, a new concept animal inspired by quail that serves the sole purpose of being “utterly delicious”. The idea is to present consumers with something they’ve never tasted before. “Quailia is a metaphor for what we are doing: creating new experiences rather than replicating food animals make,” co-founder and CEO George Peppou tells Green Queen.

“We believe that the future of cultured meat is not in replicating what already exists, but in creating deliberately different foods designed for meat-eaters,” he says. “This is the first product of its kind to be approved anywhere in the world: not an imitation of chicken or beef, but a truly unique cultured meat designed to elevate our experience of food.”

The Singapore Food Agency (SFA), which assessed Vow Food’s application for over a year, was famously the first regulator ever to approve cultivated meat when it gave the go-ahead to Eat Just’s chicken in 2020. Since then, Eat Just and fellow Californian startup Upside Foods (also making chicken) have received the greenlight in the US, and Aleph Farms has done so in its home country of Israel for cultivated beef.

Only Eat Just (under its Good Meat brand) and Upside Foods have served cultivated meat products to diners so far, making Vow Food the third to do so with its restaurant launch. Alongside the Mandala Club, the Forged Parfait will land on the menus of several other eateries in Singapore over the next two months.

A metaphorical bird meant to be eaten

Courtesy: Vow Food

Founded in 2019 by Peppou and chief commercial officer Tim Noakesmith, Vow Food has raised $56M over three funding rounds, including a $49.8M Series A in 2022. It made headlines – a lot of them – last year after unveiling a wooly mammoth meatball from sheep cells. It garnered everyone’s attention, with some questions raised over the intentions of the project.

“We needed to do something so outrageous that it would break through into mainstream media,” Peppou told Green Queen in the days after the announcement. While the meatball wasn’t something Vow Food was intended for commercialisation, its cultivated quail very much is.

The startup has always talked about its intention to “invent entirely new meats” that “meat-lovers can and would choose selfishly”, and has been known to work with zebra, alpaca, water buffalo, kangaroo and crocodile cells. The development of Quailia is an extension of this vision, with the company referring to it as a “carefully crafted subspecies of the Japanese quail”.

It takes inspiration from the bird’s scientific name, Coturnix japonica, adopting the moniker Coturnix Fornax instead. Vow Food describes Qualia as a blend of flavours and textures that unlocks an “unparalleled gastronomic experience” and, crucially, a bird that has no heart, bread, feather or bones. “Quailia is the ultimate expression of what we do – create foods that are intentionally unlike anything we’ve had before,” says Peppou.

The company conducted a 1,000-person survey of Singaporeans who frequent high-end restaurants, and found that more than half want to experience never-before-tasted ingredients. It’s why it decided to debut the product as part of a parfait, which is made up of 60% of its cultivated quail, butter, shallots, tapioca starch, port wine, brandy, garlic, vegetable and fruit concentrates, olive oil, salt and thyme.

The Quailia itself, meanwhile, is 100% cultivated quail cells, eschewing the hybrid approach being adopted by the likes of Eat Just, Aleph Farms, Dutch producer Meatable, and others. “We believe in creating entirely new food experiences,” Peppou says. “Quail is a great way to introduce consumers to this. It’s familiar enough to be interesting, but not something eaten regularly enough for consumers to have a strong view of what it is and isn’t.”

Vow Foods prides itself on speed and cost efficacy

Courtesy: Vow Food

In October 2022, Vow Food opened one of the largest cultivated meat facilities in the world. Dubbed Factory 1, it is said to be capable of producing 30 tonnes of product per year. It simultaneously announced that it had begun developing a sister site, Factory 2, which would have the capability of manufacturing 100 times more cultivated meat. Peppou kept his cards close to the chest about the second facility, but hinted that “it’s going very well”.

It will help Vow Food push past a huge industry bottleneck. Scalability is one of cultivated meat’s biggest challenges, and has impeded the continued progress of such products’ market availability. “So far, the global cultured meat industry has suffered from a lack of scalability,” says Peppou, “and products that promise improved sustainability or reduced environmental impact but offer nothing new in terms of taste, texture or appeal when compared to the existing meat offerings.”

He adds: “At Vow, we’ve cracked both those challenges by creating an irresistible product that consumers will want because it’s unlike anything else on offer, and that we are already producing at commercial scale.”

Vow Food COO Ellen Dinsmoor confirms that at present, the company is producing over 100kg of product per month and “will continue to ramp up production as Forged launches in more venues in Singapore and more jurisdictions around the world”.

She adds: “We’re doing it for a fraction of the capital of the largest cultured meat companies in the world.” For context, Eat Just has raised over $850M, Upside Foods has brought in $608M, and Aleph Farms $115M. The five-year-old business also notes that it has commercialised in half the time of some of these companies.

Speaking to Green Queen founding editor Sonalie Figueiras on the Green Queen in Conversation: Cultivated Meat Pioneers in October, Peppou had explained that Vow Food’s first product would be foodservice-only. “How do you make sure people’s first contacts and first experiences are as positive as possible, especially when there is a product that has some assumed knowledge around how you cook it? How do you have a great experience?” he noted, outlining his thinking.

He now confirms these plans, saying that the company is “entirely focused on foodservice” for Forged, with “no imminent plans” for a retail launch.

You can taste Forged Parfait as part of a seven-course meal

Courtesy: Vow Food

“We knew we wanted to launch our products into the Singaporean market first, not only because of the globally renowned culinary scene, but also because of the clear regulatory pathways and the ease of doing business,” notes Dismoor.

The SFA’s assessment process is described by Vow Foods’ head of regulatory affairs Andrew Janis as “amongst the most rigorous in the world”, and one that sets a “clear benchmark for other jurisdictions in Asia”. “Singapore was an obvious choice for Vow given that the SFA has significant experience assessing cultured meat and is regarded as a global leader when it comes to regulatory rigour,” he says.

“We have been deeply impressed by the SFA’s commitment to food safety and are confident that their approval will set us up well as we look to enter additional markets,” Janis added. Speaking of which, Vow Food is currently in the middle of the public consultation stage of the regulatory process in Australia and New Zealand, with the next round due to open towards the middle of the year. The company has indicated that it is engaged in conversations with regulators on four continents.

For the Forged Parfait, it collaborated with Ryan Clift, chef-owner of contemporary eatery Tippling Club, who has been working with the brand for two years. “I’m so blown away by the profile of this product. It’s sweet, has a beautiful, delicate flavour, and the texture is always perfect. It’s the perfect parfait.”

The product’s Mandala Club debut will run from April 12-27, where intimate seatings of only 14 guests will experience a S$289 ($214) seven-course Omakase menu featuring the cultivated quail. Curated by Mori head chef Chun Hong La and Forged chef Adem Kurcan, the menu features savoury cannoli filled with Forged Parfait and served with Black Pearl caviar; a Hokkaido Wagyu Sando (a milk bun topped with A5 Hokkaido Wagyu and Forged Parfait), and Forged Brûlée (layered with port jelly and cognac-poached morels).

“It’s really about finding those true fans, finding the people that are really engaged, and I’ve been on that journey with us, bringing them together, and learning as much as we possibly can about what they love about it, and how they talk about it,” Peppou said on Green Queen’s podcast last year. “The first few months for us are going to be about learning from consumers and learning from customers before we go and try to scale out to heaps of different restaurants and food service. So, there’ll be lots of small, intimate pop-ups all over the city, which will give you a chance to taste.”

He added: “We have a chance to really shape and change our food system. We have a chance to take an experiment with meat in a way that no one else has been able to, and that’s always been the thing which excites and inspires me, and do so in a way which creates positive benefits. I think Vow will be successful, if we either directly, or through inspiring the direction of others, are able to shift at least a single-digit percentage of meat consumption away from animals to something else.”

Vow Food may not be the only cultivated meat company to receive SFA approval this year, with Meatable and France’s Vital Meat both poised to get the greenlight soon.

The post Vow Food Earns Singapore Regulatory Approval for Cultivated Quail, Debuts Parfait at Mandala Club appeared first on Green Queen.

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March 27, 2024

Future Food Quick Bites: IKEA Hot Dogs, Blended Dairy & Expo West Awards

5 Mins Read
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers IKEA’s cheaper-than-meat vegan hot dogs, a new range of blended dairy products, and plant-based restaurant openings in New York City.

New products and launches

Swedish furniture giant IKEA has rolled out vegan hot dogs in the US as part of its goal to be 50% plant-based by 2025. At 70 cents, it’s cheaper than a conventional meat hot dog (which costs 75 cents).

Courtesy: IKEA

In similar price-related news, Dutch supermarket Jumbo has decided to stop all meat promotions, updating its protein transition commitment to ensure 50% of the protein on its shelves next year is plant-based, rising to 60% by 2030.

French charcuterie company Aoste has expanded into the plant-based meat sector with a new range of products under the Better Balance brand, which includes burgers, sausages, breaded cutlets, original chunks, and chunks with herbs, all with a Nutri-Score of A.

South Korea’s Shinesegae Foods has launched You Are What You Eat under its Better Foods division at last week’s Expo West. The new brand contains 10 new meat analogues and plant-based meal replacement products, and underpins the company’s plans to accelerate entry into the US market.

In New York City, vegan Ethiopian restaurant Ras Plant Based – whose original restaurant is in Crown Heights, Brooklyn – is opening its second location in West Village this May.

That’s not the only new vegan eatery in New York City, with Homemade Vegan Dumpling House, Sen Saigon (both in Chinatown) and Siete (Flatiron) all opening their doors this month.

Courtesy: Neggst/IKEA/Kerry Dairy

In what it terms as a “category first”, Kerry Dairy has introduced a range of blended Smug Dairy range of products made from cow’s milk and oat milk, which includes a milk SKU, a butter, and a Cheddar cheese block. The new offerings will hit retail shelves in the UK by the end of this month.

Californian brand Mikuna has been named the exclusive plant protein supplier at Erewhon‘s Tonic Bars, which will use the former’s regenerative, highly functional chocho protein.

German startup Neggst is developing two plant-based egg products: poached and sunny-side-up eggs with runny yolks. The innovations were unveiled at the Internorga trade fair alongside its existing vegan egg patties and bites.

And in the US, market leader Just Egg is now available at Peet’s Coffee, featuring in a new Southwest Breakfast Burrito with plant-based chorizo, Violife Cheddar, black beans, potatoes, salsa verde and green chiles, as well as an Everything Breakfast Sandwich with vegan Cheddar.

Partnerships and company updates

US flavour and fragrance house IFF has invested in high-moisture extrusion technology from German specialist Coperion to develop improved plant-based meat and seafood products.

Californian startup Triplebar Bio has partnered with ingredients giant FrieslandCampina to create a cost-effective approach to scale up production for its precision-fermented lactoferrin protein.

Courtesy: Cauldron Foods

UK tofu brand Cauldron Foods has announced a complete rebrand that includes colourful packaging and several new products, such as Spinach & Carrot and Pumpkin & Caramelised Onion Veggie Bakes, as well as a new extra-firm tofu block, which will debut at various retailers in April.

In an unexpected twist, Irish shellfish producer Errigal Bay is opening an oat milk factory next to its seafood processing facility in Donegal – which was supposed to be a cold storage plant – citing a growing market for plant-based milk and falling demand for seafood.

In more plant-based beverage production news, DSM-Firmenich has opened a pilot plant in Plainsboro, New Jersey focused on scaling up production of both dairy and vegan drinks like milks, creamers and protein shakes.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s microbial fermentation contract manufacturer ScaleUp Bio – a joint venture company between ADM and Temasek – has signed local startups Allozymes and Algrow Biosciences as new customers, alongside agreements with Terra Bioindustries (Canada) and Argento Labs (UK), weeks ahead of opening its commercial-scale pilot plant.

Policy and finance

The USDA’s National Institute of Cellular Agriculture at Tufts University – the country’s first government-funded centre for cultivated meat – has opened applications for its Seed Grant Program 2024, which will award $25,000 or $50,000 for research into alternative proteins, cellular agriculture and precision fermentation.

Over in the cocoa-free chocolate world, UK startup Nukoko has raised €1.3M in seed funding to support production of its faba-bean-to-bar chocolate offering.

Fellow UK company Clean Food Group, which makes a fermentation-based alternative to palm oil, has secured £2.5M in funding to accelerate its path to commercialisation. It follows a £2.4M round in August, and brings total investment to £13M.

Courtesy: Laurie Lapworth/University of Bath

German cultivated meat producer Innocent Meat has brought in €3M to accelerate development of its biocomponents, scale up its pilot plant, and initiate certification processes.

Students at Harvard University will host an inaugural Food 4 Thought event from April 12-14, with the aim of addressing the food system’s challenges, especially the overconsumption of meat.

Finally, there were a host of vegan wins at Expo West‘s NEXTY Awards 2024, including Macalat, MyForest Foods, Ocean’s Halo, Minor Figures, Burroughs Family Farms, Konscious Foods, GoodPop, The Coconut Cult and Le Grand.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

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This post was originally published on Green Queen.
March 25, 2024

The War on Meat: Why Legislators are Trying to Ban Cultivated Meat

8 Mins Read
Restricting the sale of protein cultured from animal cells, developed as a way to raise meat without the climate impacts of livestock, has become a trendy right-wing legislative focus in states from Arizona to Florida.

By Wyatt Myskow and Lee Hedgepeth

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News (hyperlink to the original story), a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Months in jail and thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees – those are the consequences Alabamians and Arizonans could soon face for selling cell-cultured meat products that could cut into the profits of ranchers, farmers and meatpackers in each state.

State legislators from Florida to Arizona are seeking to ban meat grown from animal cells in labs, citing a “war on our ranching” and a need to protect the agriculture industry from efforts to reduce the consumption of animal protein, thereby reducing the high volume of climate-warming methane emissions the sector emits.

Agriculture accounts for about 11% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to federal data, with livestock such as cattle making up a quarter of those emissions, predominantly from their burps, which release methane – a potent greenhouse gas that’s roughly 80 times more effective at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over 20 years. Globally, agriculture accounts for about 37% of methane emissions.

For years, climate activists have been calling for more scrutiny and regulation of emissions from the agricultural sector and for nations to reduce their consumption of meat and dairy products due to their climate impacts. Last year, over 150 countries pledged to voluntarily cut emissions from food and agriculture at the United Nations’ annual climate summit.

But the industry has avoided increased regulation and pushed back against efforts to decrease the consumption of meat, with help from local and state governments across the US.

Bills in Alabama, Arizona, Florida and Tennessee are just the latest legislation passed in statehouses across the US that have targeted cell-cultured meat, which is produced by taking a sample of an animal’s muscle cells and growing them into edible products in a lab. Sixteen states – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming – have passed laws addressing the use of the word “meat” in such products’ packaging, according to the National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas, with some prohibiting cell-cultured, plant-based or insect-based food products from being labelled as meat.

Courtesy: Victoria Sergeeva/Canva

“Cell-cultured meat products are so new that there’s not really a framework for how state and federal labelling will work together,” said Rusty Rumley, a senior staff attorney with the National Agricultural Law Center, resulting in no standardized requirements for how to label the products, though legislation has been proposed that could change that.

At the federal level, Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.) introduced the Fair and Accurate Ingredient Representation on Labels Act of 2024, which would authorize the United States Department of Agriculture to regulate imitation meat products and restrict their sale if they are not properly labelled, and US Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) introduced a bill to ban schools from serving cell-cultured meat.

But while plant-based meat substitutes are widespread, cell-cultivated meats are not widely available, with none currently being sold in stores. Just last summer, federal agencies gave their first-ever approvals to two companies making cell-cultivated poultry products, which are appearing on restaurant menus. The meat substitutes have garnered the support of some significant investors, including billionaire Bill Gates, who has been the subject of attacks from supporters of some of the state legislation proposed.

“Let me start off by explaining why I drafted this bill,” said Rep. David Marshall, an Arizona Republican who proposed legislation to ban cell-cultured meat from being sold or produced in the state, during a hearing on the bill. “It’s because of organizations like the FDA and the World Economic Forum, also Bill Gates and others, who have openly declared war on our ranching.”

In Alabama, Fear of “Franken-meat” Competition Spurs Legislation

In Alabama, an effort to ban lab-grown meat is winding its way through the State House in Montgomery.

There, state senators have already passed a bill that would make it a misdemeanour, punishable by up to three months in jail and a $500 fine, to sell, manufacture or distribute what the proposed legislation labels “cultivated food products.” An earlier version of the bill called lab-grown protein “meat” but it was quickly revised by lawmakers. The bill passed out of committee and through the Senate without opposition from any of its members.

Now, the bill is headed toward a vote in the Alabama House of Representatives, where the body’s health committee recently held a public hearing on the issue. Rep. Danny Crawford, who is carrying the bill in the body, told fellow lawmakers during that hearing that he’s concerned about two issues: health risks and competition for Alabama farmers.

“Lab-grown meat or whatever you want to call it – we’re not sure all of the long-term problems with that,” he said. “And it does compete with our farming industry.”

Crawford said that legislators had heard from NASA, which expressed concern about the bill’s impact on programs to develop alternative proteins for astronauts. An amendment to the bill will address that problem, Crawford said, allowing an exemption for research purposes.

Opponents of the ban have said governments shouldn’t interfere with a nascent industry because of unfounded fears over safety concerns.

Pepin Tuma with the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit think tank that works to advance alternative proteins in the food system, spoke at the hearing in opposition to the ban, though he said he’s a “proud meat eater.” The ban will not advance health or safety goals and would stifle innovation, he argued.

“This bill would treat cultivated meat differently than traditional meat without any actual basis in the science and any actual basis in health and safety regulations,” he said.

Tuma also took issue with Crawford’s claim that potential health effects of meat alternatives justify regulation, arguing that other food products have serious long-term negative health impacts yet have not faced bans.

“There are plenty of foods that are not healthy for us that aren’t banned,” Tuma said. “The question is: Should government be the one to come in and tell us what we can or can’t eat?”

Courtesy: Wildtype

Justin Kolbeck, CEO of cultivated seafood company Wildtype, which is working to produce seafood alternatives, told lawmakers that a ban like the one proposed in Alabama would halt the company in its tracks.

“I’m not here to convince you all to buy our products,” he told the committee. “We have our work cut out for us as making seafood that is as delicious and affordable as the best wild-caught seafood is difficult. However, I am here to ask the government to not take away our freedom to decide what to feed ourselves and our families.”

Kolbeck also argued that the ban would advantage foreign businesses over American ones. Unlike beef and chicken, a vast majority of US consumed seafood is imported, deepening US reliance on foreign food products, he said.

“This ban will create Chinese jobs at the expense of small American businesses like mine,” he said.

Even with the proposed amendment to allow research, Kolbeck said the ban could still have serious implications for NASA.

“The problem with cutting out only an exemption for research is that NASA is not going to be in the business of making food products,” Kolbeck said. “We need American companies to make these kinds of products to feed our astronauts, and this industry will die if states like Alabama make it illegal and a criminal misdemeanour for companies like mine to sell our products.”

Only one member of the public, Stephanie Durnin, co-director of an organization called Health Freedom Alabama, spoke in support of the ban.

According to its website, Health Freedom Alabama was founded to support the passage of a bill to ban so-called “vaccine passports” in the state.

“The meat supply of Alabama is complete, whole, real, true, natural. Our membership is very concerned about lab-grown meat,” she said. “Many of our members call it Franken-meat. They want to know that they’re consuming real food from real farmers.”

Arizona Bills Span From Labels to Lawsuits

In Arizona, two bills related to the regulation of cell-cultured meat have passed through the State House of Representatives.

HB 2244 has had more bipartisan support, proposing to prohibit substitute meat products – like those grown in a lab or that are made of plants – from being labelled just as meat.

Another bill, HB 2121, would go a step further by prohibiting residents from selling or producing cell-cultured meat in the state and allowing people and businesses harmed by its sale to sue for up to $100,000. The bill passed through the Arizona House of Representatives last month on a party-line vote, with Republicans in support and Democrats in opposition, and now awaits action in the state Senate.

Critics have said the bill would go too far in restricting what people and businesses can buy or sell. “People should have the right, if they choose to, to buy that here in Arizona,” said Rep. Keith Seaman, a Democrat, at the hearing.

Marshall, the legislator who introduced the bill, said he’s a free-market capitalist, but something must be done to protect the agricultural industry from others “seeking to eradicate ranching.”

Courtesy; Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

“This act is necessary to protect this state’s sovereign interests, history, economy and food heritage,” the legislators wrote at the bottom of the bill, which was co-sponsored by Reps. Selina Bliss, David Cook, John Gillette and Laurin Hendrix.

Arizona school children for decades were taught the five Cs: Copper, Cotton, Citrus, Climate and, of course, Cattle. At one point, the state had nearly two million head of cattle. That figure has now dropped by half, but cattle farms and ranches are still found throughout the state and generate millions of dollars in revenue.

Maintaining the viability of ranchers, supporters said, is a key aspect of HB 2121.

“What’s the issue with ranching? What’s the issue with cattle?” Marshall asked during a hearing for the bill. “They fart and they burp and it causes too much methane.”

The post The War on Meat: Why Legislators are Trying to Ban Cultivated Meat appeared first on Green Queen.

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March 22, 2024

Ahead of Singapore Launch, Meatable Can Now Make Cultivated Meat Quicker Than Anyone Else

6 Mins Read
Dutch cultivated meat leader Meatable has cut the production time for its cultivated meat by half, making it the fastest process in the sector. This means its hybrid pork sausages are much cheaper to produce, months before their expected launch in Singapore.

Ahead of its market launch in Singapore later this year, Meatable has achieved a significant breakthrough in its manufacturing capabilities, allowing its patented Opti-ox tech to produce its cultivated pork sausages in just four days, with half as many bioreactors and significantly lower costs.

This means the Dutch startup can make cultivated meat faster than anyone else in the industry, and represents an important step towards the large-scale production and commercialisation of its hybrid pork. Scalability and costs have been the two major barriers to cultivated meat for years, and Meatable says its production milestone – which sees the timeline of the transformation from cell to sausage cut in half – can overcome these challenges.

“The Meatable process centres around the use of pluripotent stem cells [PSCs] with our patented, proprietary opti-ox technology, which enables those cells to differentiate into mature muscle and fat cells – the ingredients for real meat in a fast and cost-efficient process,” Meatable co-founder and chief technology officer Daan Luining told Green Queen. “By reducing cell differentiation time in half, our process now requires nearly half as many bioreactors at scale, cutting both CAPEX and OPEX costs and enabling a more efficient use of production space.

How Meatable makes cultivated meat so quickly

Courtesy: Meatable

In a chat with Green Queen in August – after a Series B funding round that took its total raised to $95M – Meatable co-founder and CEO Krijn de Nood explained that its Opti-ox technology allows the team to make its products by isolating a single animal cell, without the need for fetal bovine serum.

“While immortalised cell lines are more commonly found in the industry, they require an alteration of the cells to allow them to multiply indefinitely,” he said. The PSCs Luining mentioned above “have the natural ability to keep on multiplying and to do so rapidly”, and at the time, could double in just 24 hours. “The difficulty with using PSCs is that it can be more challenging to change them from stem cells into more specialised cells, such as muscle or fat,” said de Nood.

But by combining these cells with its technology, Meatable was able to produce real muscle and fat cells that are fully differentiated in just eight days. “This is coupled with a perfusion process that allows the team to work in a continuous cycle to generate very high cell densities,” he added. “This means we can grow a lot of cells in our bioreactors, and harvest cultured meat from the reactors continuously. This is a great step forward as it increases productivity and makes the process easy to scale.”

Now, that timeline has been halved, allowing Meatable to produce cultivated pork 60 times faster than the time it takes farmers to rear a pig for pork, and significantly quicker than other cultivated meat processes. “We have been able to create high-quality, fully differentiated cultivated meat with the right level of protein, fat accumulation, and key meat flavours in only four days, a significant reduction in a process that typically takes weeks,” noted Luining. “We are constantly working to improve the efficiency of our process, while also increasing the amount and quality of the fat and muscle tissue in our product.”

Crucially, this drives down production costs too, which represent a key bottleneck for cultivated meat companies. According to Leticia Goncalves, global foods president at ADM (an investor in companies like Good Meat and Believer Meats), cultivated meat needs to reach production costs of $2.92 per lb to be cost-competitive with conventional meat. And while producers have managed to reduce costs by 99% in less than a decade, McKinsey forecasts that it will still take until 2030 for it to reach price parity.

“With this breakthrough, we are able to drive down the costs and work towards producing meat at a competitive price point faster than others in our category,” said Luining. “The breakthrough results in less labour, energy, infrastructure, ingredients, and water used in our process, making us more scalable, cost-efficient, and also more sustainable for the planet.”

Asked how its first products will be priced, he added: “At launch, we are confident our price point will match those for high-end organic meats, and then we plan to ultimately match mass-market pricing. We are optimistic that Meatable will reach price parity with traditional farmed meat in the next few years.”

Meatable looking to capitalise on regulatory progress

Courtesy: Meatable

Speaking of market launch, Meatable expects to roll out its cultivated pork sausages in mid-2024 in Singapore, where it filed a dossier for regulatory approval last year. It has conducted several rounds of public tastings. These showcased multiple prototypes of its hybrid meat, which is a blend of cultivated pig cells and plant-based ingredients.

Hybrid meat has been touted by investors as the way cultivated meat will enter the market on a broad scale. Speaking to Green Queen last year, Heather Courtney, general partner at Alwyn Capital, said: “It’s likely the only way to make cultivated commercially feasible… as the chances of being able to economically produce 100% cultivated products that can compete on price with commoditised meat are slim to none in the next 10+ years.”

This is echoed by Luining, who confirmed that Meatable’s eventual hybrid sausages will comprise at least 33% of cultivated meat. “This delivers a truly superior flavour and taste experience over plant-based alternatives to satisfy the quality that meat-eating consumers recognize and expect,” he explained. “While our process can result in fully cultivated meat, the speed and scale of production would be limited, and the hybrid approach results in a game-changing product.’

While it eventually wants to get into retail, Meatable’s initial entry into the market will be through restaurant menus in Singapore – as has been the case with all other cultivated meat companies to have launched their products, such as Good Meat in Singapore and the US, and Upside Foods in the latter. And given the regulatory success of these companies in the US, Meatable is eyeing an expansion there in 2025, and is already in talks with the USDA and FDA over the regulatory process.

As for its home continent, things are a little tricky. The EU has the world’s most robust food safety regulations around novel foods, and so far, no company has filed for approval in the bloc. In fact, some countries have been trying to create further barriers towards regulatory clearance for cultivated meat, with Italy having banned its sale and production, and France and Romania looking to do the same.

The Netherlands, for its part, has been much more progressive in its support for these proteins, facilitating a €60M grant for cellular agriculture in 2022, and expressed its support in the EU meeting about cultivated meat, with food quality and agriculture minister Piet Adema saying: “We believe that it is important to support innovations that create production methods for animal proteins complementary to, and not as a substitute to, conventional sustainable production.”

Putting its money where its mouth is, the Dutch government in January became the first EU nation to develop a framework to allow public tasting events of cultivated meat. Meatable has already filed a dossier and is awaiting the green light to sample its pork sausages to consumers in the country.

“Our ultimate goal is to get our products on the plates of consumers all over the world through our future restaurant and retail partners,” said Luining. “Recent regulatory developments have boosted confidence in the industry… We look forward to capitalising on this momentum.”

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March 20, 2024

India Working on Regulatory Framework for Cultivated Meat & Seafood: Report

6 Mins Read
India is joining the ranks of other southeast Asian companies to establish a regulatory framework for cultivated meat and seafood companies, who can then file a dossier to receive approval from its food safety authority to sell their products.

First it was Japan. Then South Korea. Now, India has joined the bandwagon.

Policy support for alternative proteins in Asia has been accelerating of late, with new regulatory frameworks soon to launch or already in place in Japan and South Korea this year itself, respectively, and India now exploring its own path for companies to earn regulatory clearance to sell cultivated meat.

Indian newspaper The Economic Times has reported that the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is formulating regulations for cultivated meat, just as a government agency works with a local startup to produce cultivated seafood products.

“We are working on drafting regulations for cultured meat products,” a senior FSSAI official confirmed to the publication, adding that the scientific panel of the regulatory committee is evaluating regulations from other countries that have approved cultivated meat.

“Establishing regulations that are rooted in rigorous scientific inquiry and a comprehensive understanding of the technology as well as the choice it seeks to provide to the Indian consumers would be essential to ensure a clear regulatory framework for safe consumption of smart proteins,” Astha Gaur, regulatory policy specialist at alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI) India, told Green Queen.

“Technological developments are happening in the sector that are simultaneously revolutionising the ingredients and technology that go into the cultivation of meat from animal cells. Moreover, products that come to market in the near future might not rely on one individual technology,” she added.

“The FSSAI’s guidance on hybrid products and other future innovations in smart proteins, such as low-cost serum-free media, etc. would be critical to determining the scalability and price parity of the category in India. Developing a regulatory framework that adapts to scientific advancements and is not rigid but accommodates the innovations in this sector would be essential to India setting an example for a dynamic and effective regulatory framework on cultivated meat.”

A more dynamic regulatory framework needed

Courtesy: Langan/Canva

So far, only three countries have approved the sale of cultivated meat: Singapore, the US and Israel. Australia and New Zealand’s joint regulatory body is being tipped as the next, with Vow Foods’ application currently in advanced stages. Last month, South Korea announced its regulatory framework to invite companies to file dossiers for approval. And next month, Japan will rejig its framework, which will mean companies will liaise with two agencies on regulatory conversations, but prime minister Fumio Kishida will be the the ultimate authority on these matters.

In India, the FSSAI currently classes cultivated meat as a ‘non-specified food or ingredient’ or ‘novel food’ – much like the EU’s regulations – as there is no history of consumption of these proteins in the country. It means that companies need approval from the food safety regulator to manufacture, produce, import or sell cultivated meat products.

Despite having a major vegetarian population, India is the world’s largest producer of buffalo meat, ranks second on the production list for goat meat, and is the third-largest seafood consumer. But while the cultivated meat sector is still in its infancy in the country, a number of startups are working to advance the development of these proteins, covering cell lines (Neat Meatt, Klevermeat, Clear Meat), media formulations (Clear Meat), and scaffolds (MyoWorks).

Chandana Tekkatte, science and technology specialist at GFI India, told Green Queen earlier this year that the country’s nascent cultivated meat and seafood industry will benefit from its thriving pharmaceutical sector (tipped to reach $150B next year). “This sector has a proven track record in affordable, high-quality manufacturing, and cultivated meat companies have the opportunity to tap into its vast infrastructure and resources,” she explained.

The FSSAI had previously formed a Working Group on Cultured Meat with regulatory and scientific experts to study the possible regulatory pathways for cultivated meat in India, but Tekkatte stated that the framework “needs to be made more dynamic and evolve in tandem with innovations”.

“Early engagement with cultivated meat companies intending to apply for pre-market approvals under the Non-Specified Foods Regulations during the development process would enable the regulatory body to have oversight of the development process, leading to effective, timely guidance to the companies to ensure regulatory compliance and appropriate data submission to reduce approval timelines,” she said.

Cultivated meat and seafood’s potential in India

Courtesy: vm2002/Canva

As those startups continue to chip away at market entry hurdles, there have been strong signs of government support as well as potential consumer acceptance for cultivated meat in India.

Within India’s Ministry of Science and Technology, the Science and Engineering Research Board has included cultivated meat research under its Competitive Research Grant Programmes, while the Department of Biotechnology has granted funds to Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and the National Research Centre on Meat for cultivated meat research projects.

And in January, it was announced that the ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) signed an MoU with Neat Meatt to develop cultivated seafood, focusing on high-value species popular among India’s coastal belts, such as kingfish, pomfret and seer fish. The project will combine CMFRI’s capabilities into early cell line development – equipped with a cell culture laboratory – and Neat Meatt’s expertise in optimising cell growth media, developing scaffolds or micro-carriers for cell attachment, and scaling up production through bioreactors.

“This public-private partnership marks a crucial step in bridging the gap between India and other nations like Singapore, Israel, and the USA, who are already advancing cultured seafood research,” said CMFRI director A Gopalakrishnan. “This collaboration leverages CMFRI’s marine research expertise with Neat Meatt’s technological know-how in this field, paving the way for a sustainable and secure future for seafood production in India.”

Contextualising the partnership, Tekkatte said: “There is a growing recognition that by enabling more large-scale international scientific and industrial collaborations (leveraging our decades-old bioeconomy expertise), India could become a production powerhouse in the emerging cultivated meat industry and pave the way for other emerging economies.”

In 2019, a three-country study revealed that 56% of Indians are “very or extremely likely” to buy cultivated meat regularly. “Consumer education and perceptions will play an important role in advertising, marketing, and sale of cultivated meat,” she said. Additionally, research conducted by GFI India and Deloitte in 2022 found that by the end of the decade, the country’s cultivated meat industry could have economic benefits worth between ₹1,233 crore ($150M) to ₹3,909 crore ($473M). Meanwhile, the sector could create between 15,590 to 49,420 jobs by 2030 too. But this will depend on production scaling up and costs coming down.

Formulating regulations for smart protein based on reliable scientific research is pivotal for their effective integration into the market. The dynamic attributes of these proteins require a comprehensive understanding that would best be achieved through rigorous scientific inquiry. Currently, the understanding is that cultivated meat will be regulated under the Approval of Non-Specified Food and Food Ingredients Regulations (NSF Regulations) by the FSSAI, however, there is no specific definition of cultivated meat or guidance provided under the regulations.

“The significance of channelling resources into the cultivated meat industry is particularly relevant in India, with our unique vulnerability to climate change and public health crises. With this massive decrease in land use, additional opportunities arise for the diversification of crops towards direct food consumption,” said Tekkatte. “As we funnel more investment towards R&D and infrastructure, there’s no doubt that the cultivated meat sector can grow exponentially in India and help cater to the increasing protein needs of the global population.”

The post India Working on Regulatory Framework for Cultivated Meat & Seafood: Report appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
March 18, 2024

Germans & Austrians Believe Meat Consumption is Too High, But Less Than Half Think It’s Bad for the Climate

6 Mins Read
Nearly six in 10 consumers in Germany and Austria believe meat consumption is too high, but less than half think these foods are bad for the climate and plan to reduce their intake of animal products, according to new surveys. Even fewer want to eat more plant-based alternatives in the next two years, but there are indications of support for cultivated meat.

Despite being Europe’s largest plant-based market, only 30% of Germans want to up their intake of vegan meat analogues, and just 46% want to eat fewer animal products over the next two years. This is ditto for neighbouring Austria too, despite 59% of consumers (and 58% in Germany) thinking meat consumption is too high.

This is according to two surveys by YouGov on behalf of the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe, which covered over 1,000 Austrian and more than 2,000 German consumers. Ivo Rzegotta, senior public affairs manager for Germany at GFI Europe, argues that the results are still positive. “Overall, the market for plant-based foods in Germany has expanded by 42% since 2020, solidifying the country’s position as a leader in embracing plant-based foods in Europe,” he told Green Queen.

“The fact that 30% of respondents are keen to further increase their consumption of plant-based meat and dairy products is a promising indicator, especially considering the already significant portion of the population favouring plant-based options.”

The polls revealed that 57% of the former and 51% of the latter don’t think meat and animal products are a major problem for the climate – animal agriculture emits twice as many emissions as plant-based foods, with meat accounting for 60% of the entire food system’s carbon footprint.

“People choose alternative proteins for various reasons, including concerns about climate change. However, health and animal welfare are often cited as primary motivations for reducing meat consumption, in line with existing consumer research,” said Rzegotta. “The science is clear on the role of industrial farming in driving climate change and it’s up to policymakers to facilitate the transition to more sustainable food production.”

There is some optimism around cultivated meat too, with 42% of Austrians and 47% of Germans willing to try these novel proteins at least once – a separate in-market survey published last week showed that eating cultivated meat significantly boosts people’s acceptance of it, with a majority indicating they’d buy it again.

Germans and Austrians split on plant-based foods

Courtesy: GFI Europe

In both countries, the interest in upping plant-based meat consumption was slightly higher in men than women, and reduced proportionally with age, with 41% of Austrians and 38% of Germans aged 35 or under planning on eating more meat alternatives, versus 24% for over-55s.

The results are similar for plant-based dairy consumption too, with 28% of Austrians and 27% of Germans wanting to consume more of these foods in the next two years, and the same trend in age demographics. However, men are more interested in doing so in Austria, while the opposite is true in Germany. Overall, just under half of respondents in Austria (47%) and Germany (49%) believe that alternatives to animal products are needed.

That said, there is stronger support for policies to cut the VAT on plant-based milk, with 60% of Austrian consumers agreeing it should come down from 20% to the standard 10% applied to cow’s milk, and 62% of Germans thinking policymakers should reduce the levy from 19% to 7%.

“Germany and Austria stand out in Europe for imposing a higher tax rate on plant-based dairy compared to animal-based dairy, which undoubtedly impacts consumption patterns,” explained Rzegotta. “Establishing a level playing field in terms of taxation is crucial to facilitate consumer choice in favour of plant-based options. By addressing disparities in pricing, policymakers can encourage broader adoption of plant-based dairy products, aligning with consumer preferences and advancing sustainability goals.”

Both countries also have 53% of consumers expressing support for policies that would allow farmers to produce more plant-based foods, which is something the German government is already doing. But Austrians are evenly split on whether lawmakers should increase the range of vegan food in public canteens, while 44% believe governments should support research into foods that can replace animal-derived foods. In Germany, support for both these policy moves lies at 47%.

If deemed to be safe, cultivated meat should be a consumer choice

Courtesy: GFI Europe

Acceptance for cultivated meat is slightly more encouraging in both Austria and Germany, where 59% and 53% of consumers are familiar with these foods, respectively. In fact, 47% of Germans said they’re willing to try cultivated meat once, as did 42% of Austrians. Here, too, men expressed a greater interest in both countries, and for flexitarians, this number rose to 58% in Germany and 58% in Austria.

Interestingly, though, only about a third of consumers in the two nations said cultivated meat appealed more to them than plant-based options. “There will always be a share of consumers who don’t find plant-based meat appealing for a number of reasons. If 34% of respondents say that cultivated meat is more appealing to them than the current generation of plant-based options, this suggests that this new option could reach a significant group of people who aren’t interested in plant-based meat,” noted Rzegotta. “Overall, the fact that nearly half of consumers in both countries are willing to try cultivated meat – a novel product unfamiliar to many and not yet available in Europe – highlights a promising market demand.

Two-thirds of respondents from both countries believe if cultivated meat does come to market, it should be produced locally to benefit the economy. When it comes to public investment, 42% of Austrians and 47% of Germans think governments should advance the development of cultivated meat and help farmers capitalise on the opportunities.

This industry has been the subject of intense debate in policy circles lately. Whereas the discourse in the US has stemmed from Florida’s impending ban, in Europe, Italy already became the first country to prohibit the sale of cultivated meat, with France and Romania attempting to do so too. In January, a delegation led by Austria, Italy and France brought a note to the EU’s Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting, raising concerns about the bloc’s cultivated meat policies and calling for an overhaul to the regulatory framework, as well as a ban of meat-related terms.

While it was eventually tabled, the note was presented by Austria’s agriculture minister, Norbert Totschnig, but the country’s health ministry – which is responsible for food safety – said the move did not reflect the government’s position. Judging from the YouGov polls, it did not reflect the public’s position either.

Courtesy: GFI Europe

Seven in 10 Austrians say only food safety and consumer protection should be decisive for the authorisation of cultivated meat, which 63% think should happen if the food safety authority deems it safe and nutritious. For 64%, the decision to clear the sale of these products should be independent of the food industry’s economic interests, and 66% feel policymakers should adhere closely to the food regulators’ recommendations when deciding to authorise cultivated meat.

Similarly, in Germany, 69% agree with that statement about food safety and consumer protection being the only decisive factors, 65% think a regulator’s assessment of safety should be enough for authorisation, and 66% believe politicians should stick to that advice. Meanwhile, 61% think the decision shouldn’t rely on the economic interests of the food sector.

In other words, if the country’s food safety authority greenlights cultivated meat, that’s the only decision the government should and must take into account. “Cultivated meat must go through one of the world’s most robust food regulatory processes before it will be available in the EU. Once it’s been approved, Germans and Austrians believe it should be up to consumers themselves to decide whether or not to eat cultivated meat,” said Seth Roberts, policy manager at GFI Europe.

“In the wake of the Italian ban, policymakers should note that people who responded to this survey – regardless of their political views – are increasingly aware of the economic opportunities offered by cultivated meat and are more interested in consumer choice than ideological debates.”

The post Germans & Austrians Believe Meat Consumption is Too High, But Less Than Half Think It’s Bad for the Climate appeared first on Green Queen.

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March 15, 2024

Most People Who Have Tried Cultivated Meat Say They’d Eat It Again, But Taste & Price Parity Remain Key

8 Mins Read
In a first-of-its-kind in-market study of cultivated meat, a majority of consumers who have tasted Eat Just’s Good Meat chicken say they’d do it again. However, delivering on flavour and bringing down costs are the most important factors influencing consumption, highlighting the industry’s primary challenges.

For many diners headed to Huber’s Butchery and Bistro in Singapore last spring, conventional meat wasn’t on their mind. Instead, they were hoping to join an exclusive club of people who have tried cultivated meat globally.

At the time, Singapore was the only country to have approved the sale of these products (the US would follow soon in the summer). Huber’s, for its part, was the world’s first butchery to offer cultivated meat to customers, serving Good Meat’s chicken in the form of kebabs and as part of salads and pastas.

Today, as Eat Just works on restarting its production run in Singapore to be able to manufacture larger amounts of cultivated chicken, these novel proteins aren’t currently available at Huber’s, or any other restaurant in the world, for that matter (though that will change soon). In the face of increased political challenges, high costs, and production bottlenecks, the industry stands at a crossroads.

Many have written cultivated meat off, including figures in the media as well as government, despite most of them never actually having eaten the food themselves. That’s a huge problem: how can you truly make your mind up on something you haven’t done? And for companies in the space, the only way to find out how these products are performing is to ask the people who’ve tried them.

This is exactly what researchers from the Singapore Management University (SMU) did last year, surveying 107 diners at Huber’s between April and June, who had tasted one of its dishes contained Good Meat’s cultivated chicken. Published in the peer-reviewed journal Future Foods this week, the study sought to assess if presenting the chicken in the context of a familiar meal, in a familiar setting, would influence them to buy it again, and recommend it to others.

Here’s what they found.

A majority of cultivated chicken tasters would eat it again

Courtesy: Eat Just

The survey found that 88% of people were first-time tasters of cultivated chicken, with the rest having done so either at a Good Meat trial, at Huber’s or fellow eatery 1880, or via a Foodpanda delivery. On a scale of 1 to 5, the poll revealed that the acceptance of cultivated meat was high (4.19), while scores of their knowledge about the production (3.5) and benefits (3.53), as well as familiarity (3.58) were similar.

But the striking results were in the post-consumption stage, with the researchers finding that buying and eating cultivated meat “significantly boosted” people’s acceptance of it, with diners expressing a strong willingness to try it again (a score of 4.41/5) and recommended it to loved ones (4.45/5). In terms of flavour, survey participants scored Good Meat’s chicken with 4.21 out of 5, but fewer consumers believed others would order cultivated meat at restaurants (3.67/5).

The research also explored consumption drivers and barriers. As is the case with plant-based meat, taste stood out as the factor most important for people to consume cultivated meat again, with 58% saying so. This was followed closely by price (50.5%) and health (49.5%). However, only 35.5% of consumers said safety would play a role in determining whether they repurchase cultivated meat.

“This particular finding may simply demonstrate a trust in regulatory agencies to ensure the safety of food that is approved for sale and consumption,” Eat Just’s head of global communications, Carrie Kabat, tells Green Queen. “In both countries, where [Good Meat’s] cultivated meat has been approved, we have worked closely with regulatory agencies over multiple years to create a rigorous and transparent safety review process, and we are glad to see consumers demonstrating trust in that framework.”

Interestingly, it seems that putting cultivated meat in a familiar dish doesn’t matter much to people, with only 17% finding this important.

Cultivated meat needs to be cheaper

Credit: Eat Just

In terms of deterrents, however, cost is overwhelmingly the biggest issue with cultivated meat. While Kabat says Eat Just prices its chicken similarly to conventional chicken dishes on menus (between S$4 and S$23, or $3-17), 63.5% of diners would find high markups a turnoff. All other factors are less important here, including safety (33%), flavour (30%), texture (25%) and health (16%).

Reflecting on taste as a factor for repeat consumption and price as a potential barrier, Kabat notes: “This demonstrates that while we’ve been able to create a delicious product with similar protein content to conventional chicken, our sharp focus on reducing costs and increasing efficiencies in production is also a crucial element to driving consumer acceptance and adoption.”

Production costs and capacities are consistently the two biggest obstacles to the commercialisation of cultivated meat. Eat Just itself had a challenging 2023 with legal and financial battles, and has currently frozen mass production plans, explaining that factory prices need to halve. Speaking to Axios earlier this week, co-founder and CEO Josh Tetrick said bringing down production costs “will require new thinking in how these facilities are built”, and that the company has “not solved for that”. Confirming that Eat Just is sticking to low levels of production, he added: “I can’t emphasise enough just how small the volumes are.”

When asked how Eat Just can overcome this issue, Kabat says: “Our Good Meat team is focused on process development work to bring down costs and increase efficiencies. This includes things like increasing cell densities and finding ways to reduce the cost of our growth media, as well as rethinking how to build large-scale manufacturing facilities for a much lower price tag.”

This is an issue illustrated by Elliot Schwartz, a principal scientist at alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI). “The question is: how do we increase cell density while simultaneously decreasing media costs?” he said in a webinar on Wednesday. “I don’t think we actually know the cost of cultivated meat production. There are a lot of different production scenarios and approaches being pursued, and so a single number really is hard to provide.”

Schwartz noted that context is important when discussing costs in comparison to conventional meat, given that many cultivated meat companies enter the market through hybrid meat (which combines cultivated meat with plant-based ingredients). Good Meat’s chicken, for example, mixes its cultivated product with wheat gluten, soy protein, sunflower and coconut oils (among other natural flavours and binders).

“If companies are pursuing commodity meats such as chicken, pork, beef, and certain seafoods, then hybrid products at low inclusion rates offer the most tractable way to approach cost-competitiveness,” said Schwartz. “However, the timeline is uncertain.”

On its website, Good Meat says it has reduced production costs by 90% since 2018, when operating a built-for-purpose plant. Previous analysis by Reuters has claimed that cultivated meat needs to reach production costs of $2.92 per pound to compete on price with conventional meat. And while startups have cut manufacturing costs by 99% in less than a decade, McKinsey estimates that it will still take until 2030 for it to reach price parity.

‘Socialise’ cultivated meat to influencers and expats

Courtesy: Eat Just

The researchers suggested that cultivated meat startups could benefit from conducting tasting trials with selected restaurants “to socialise cultivated meat to innovators and early adopters such as food neophiles and social media influencers”, and targeting expats and well-travelled natives, who are likely to be more global and open in their outlook and consumption preferences.

Additionally, they advised companies to focus their brand messaging on flavour, both on its own as well as part of familiar meals and dishes. “While a familiar meal preparation could increase willingness to try, the good taste (i.e. gustation) of a product is essential for fostering its regular consumption,” they wrote.

“We undertook this study because it represented an unprecedented opportunity to study consumer reactions in an actual consumption setting,” said Mark Chong, a professor of communication management at SMU and co-author of the study. “Our findings scientifically validate the importance of sensory experience (e.g. through product trials) and tastiness to consumers’ repeat consumption of cultivated meat.”

GFI APAC managing director Mirte Gosker concurred, highlighting that flavour has to hit the mark. “This data shows that cultivated meat can pass that high bar and turn sceptics into enthusiasts, so now we need costs to come down enough to enable such products to reach the masses,” she said. “That’s going to require greater global collaboration, market access, and investment, but Singapore has made clear that it’s open for business and ready to meet this moment.”

This will likely benefit Eat Just, which remains “singularly focused on achieving cash flow break-even in 2024”, according to Kabat. The city-state will also provide more openness and freedom compared to the US, the other country where it is approved to sell its cultivated chicken, where legislators have been trying to ban these foods.

With just one signature away from governor Ron DeSantis, Florida is very close to doing so. But it has met with pushback from not just cultivated meat companies, but even traditional meat groups, with the largest trade association in the US labelling it as “bad policy” that “limits consumer choice”. Kabat and Eat Just have a similar view. “Restricting consumer choice because of a desire to avoid competition is about as un-American as it gets,” she says.

“Our biggest learning from the study is that when consumers are free to buy and eat cultivated meat, they are much more likely to accept it and suggest it to their friends and family,” she adds. “We have seen over and over again that when people try cultivated meat, they realise it’s just like the chicken they’ve eaten many times before. We’ll continue our work to improve our processes and make more cultivated meat so that even more people have a chance to discover this for themselves.”

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This post was originally published on Green Queen.
March 14, 2024

Orbillion Bio Secures Funding & Reaches Scaling Milestone for Cultivated Beef Production

6 Mins Read
Californian B2B cultivated meat producer Orbillion Bio has secured additional funding to scale up production and develop its biotech platform, which completed a 200-litre production run in September.

The latest round of funding takes Orbillion’s total capital raised to $15M, and was co-led by The Venture Collective and At One Ventures, with participation from YCombinator, Metaplanet and other strategic investors, alongside university endowments.

The Californian startup will use the money to scale up its manufacturing, further develop its technology and premium cultivated beef product, as well as advance its regulatory path. It comes on the back of a successful 200-litre scale-up run of its cultivated meat in September, which it claims is the largest production run undertaken by a pre-Series A company in the sector. This will enable the production of more than four million lbs of cultivated meat annually.

The achievement will allow Orbilion to demonstrate “a new level of capital efficiency” in the industry, and it demonstrates the power of the startup’s algorithm to transform 2D culture into 3D culture in record time and at low costs – which are two of the industry’s tallest barriers towards commercialisation.

An algorithm to make cultivated Wagyu beef cheaper and faster

Courtesy: Orbillion Bio

Founded in 2020 by Patricia Bubner, Gabriel Levesque-Tremblay and Samet Yildirim, Orbillion is known for its cultivated premium Wagyu beef. The company’s B2B model means its primary focus has been scaling up bioprocessing methods for commercial-scale production of cultivated meat, for which it has developed an algorithm that can make low-cost manufacturing possible.

The company describes the algorithm as “a predictive modelling platform to reliably simulate key media and bioprocess parameters that allow mammalian cell cultures to scale from 2D to 3D environments at unmatched speed”. This allows it to de-risk commercial scale-up in several ways.

First, in terms of predictability, the algorithm predicts how 2D cultured cells perform in a 3D environment, which helps establish the nutrient needs and growth environments cells need for successful suspension. The second aspect has to do with the yield – instead of relying on a single flat surface, Orbillion cultures cells in three dimensions (aka suspension), which increases the growing environment, cell density and yield exponentially.

Then there’s the speed. As fewer runs are required to refine its scaled-up bioprocessing, and its growing environments are high-density, the company says it can produce more cultivated meat in 10% of the time it typically takes.

“Adapting cells from 2D to 3D cell culture often falls short because of a failure to understand how media, bioprocess and cells work in harmony, and getting to this understanding typically requires expensive and time-consuming buildouts,” explains Yildirim, who is the company’s COO. “With our bioware and computational platform for cultivated meat, we can scale up in a fraction of the time. Our 200-litre run demonstrates that we can achieve in a few weeks, what takes most companies a full year.”

Rapid development and production, alongside well-honed media inputs, mean this can be done at a fraction of the usual cost. “We identified premium meats with a high price per kg as the breakthrough market to build a profitable business and to eventually achieve price parity at mass scale,” Bubner, who is the CEO, tells Green Queen. “Scalability, while critical for price parity, is not the only important criteria. It has to be hand in hand with intensification. Orbillion’s intensified process platform allows us to scale and hit the cost parity sooner than anyone else.”

Collaborations on the way to bring hybrid meat to market

Courtesy: Orbillion Bio

Finally, there’s Orbillion’s asset-light strategy, which eschews capital-intensive, custom-built equipment for scaling up on pre-existing infrastructure. To facilitate this approach, the producer has collaborated with bioproducts and tech development startup Solar Biotech.

In 2022, Orbillion also teamed up with Dutch premium meats company Luiten Food, giving it access to the latter’s 1,200 distribution points across foodservice, specialty retailers and butchers. But Bubner hinted that this is just one of a number of commercial partnerships it has entered, with more information to come later this year.

“We are a B2B company, and our goals are a fast path to market for a cultivated meat product; to supply the market consistently; and to produce what customers want: tasty, nutritious product at the price of conventionally produced meat,” she says. “We aim to provide delicious products that fulfil our customer’s needs: products that are consistent in quality, high performing, and easy to integrate.”

For many companies in the space, the viable path to market involves combining cultivated animal cells with plant-based ingredients to create what is called hybrid meat. This further helps with driving down costs, and is the approach being taken by the likes of Eat Just, Aleph Farms, Meatable and Umami Meats.

Bubner confirmed her company will go down the same route. “Currently, Orbillion is focused on cultivated ingredients and a ground beef product that has been formulated with cultivated meat and plant-based ingredients to satisfy the high standards of meat-eaters and provide a product that tastes, looks and feels like traditionally harvested beef,” she said.

‘Technology cannot be uninvented’

Courtesy: Orbillion Bio

The funding comes at a pivotal time for cultivated meat and food tech. Globally, the agrifood tech sector saw VC funding cut in half and reach a six-year low in 2023, according to a report by AgFunder this week, which earmarked cultivated meat as a sector to watch, given that it attracted just $177M in funding last year. And while industry leaders Upside Foods and Eat Just made history by receiving the first US regulatory approval of cultivated meat, which meant their chicken was available in restaurants, both have faced challenges too, from manufacturing and financial challenges to negative media coverage.

Within this difficult environment, Bubner says Orbillion has been able to raise fresh capital as it has consistently demonstrated to investors its ability to achieve and exceed milestones. “They have seen how our approach allows us to be fast and cost-effective,” she says. “So we feel incredibly fortunate to be in a position to put these resources to work, we’ll do so in the year ahead.”

It is shaping up to be a big year for cultivated meat, especially in the US, where it has been the subject of countless headlines after attempts by legislators in multiple states (and at federal level) to ban these novel proteins. The latest and most prominent story comes from Florida, where both the House and Senate have passed the bill, which is now expected to be signed into law by governor Ron DeSantis.

The move has faced backlash not just from cultivated meat companies, but even the meat industry itself, with the largest trade association for meat in the US labelling it “bad policy” that “limits consumer choice”. How does Bubner view it? “Technology, once invented, cannot be uninvented; how we use it is critical,” she says.

She compares this to insulin production, which used to be highly controversial at one point. “It used to be harvested from cows and pigs. It used to cause allergic reactions, infections, there were rampant impurities, then scientists discovered how to produce biosynthetic insulin by fermentation of microbes, and it’s higher quality, more readily available, and ditched the downsides. At one point, this was controversial; now, there’s no way we’re going back,” notes Bubner.

“Cultivated meat is an opportunity for current and future generations to make food independent of land, animals, and without the downsides of intensified animal agriculture. It’s a technology we owe our children to build,” she adds. “A cultivated meat ban is not going to stop science, or the way that climate change is affecting our food system or the need for other countries to gain food sovereignty.”

The post Orbillion Bio Secures Funding & Reaches Scaling Milestone for Cultivated Beef Production appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
March 13, 2024

Future Food Quick Bites: Vegan Kraft Dinner, Falafalcinis & Oat Milk Reese’s

7 Mins Read
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers nutrition wins for plant-based meat, a ton of alt-dairy announcements, and an all-vegan fest coming to the UK.

New products and launches

A week after announcing the launch of plant-based Oscar Mayer hot dogs, the Kraft Heinz Not Company is now bringing its vegan Kraft mac and cheese to Canada under the KD brand. It’s available in original, white Cheddar, and gluten-free variants.

Courtesy: Oatly

As outlined in its year-end earnings report, Oatly‘s revamped Oatgurts are now on shelves in German supermarkets. The lineup includes unsweetened vanilla, blueberry, strawberry, and mango-peach-passionfruit, and the 350g pots can be found at Rewe, Edeka and Kaufland stores.

It’s a big week for alt-dairy launches. Canadian plant-based cheesemaker Daiya has announced a range of powdered vegan and gluten-free mac and cheese in Cheddar, white Cheddar and aged Cheddar variants, which will be rolled out to Walmart, The Fresh Market, Loblaws and Metro ON from April (the latter flavour is only available in the US).

Meanwhile, Califia Farms has rolled out a line of organic almond milk coffee creamers in lavender, brown sugar and cinnamon flavours at Whole Foods, Sprouts Farmers Market, and specialty stores at $7.99.

British oat milk maker Minor Figures has expanded its North American presence, with its gluten-free milk now available at all Whole Foods stores in the US and Canada, and over 280 Sprouts locations.

In yet more North American alt-dairy news, plant-based milk brand MALK Organics is launching a cashew milk and shelf-stable oat and almond milk SKUs this quarter, after closing an internal investment round. They’ll be rolled out at Whole Foods exclusively in March, and are being previewed at Expo West this week.

Courtesy: Malk Organics

The Students’ Union of the University of Cambridge – which has already removed beef and lamb from its catering menus in 2016 – has voted to make all catering options across the institute fully plant-based, following a similar move for certain catering services last year.

Speaking of universities, Beyond Meat is debuting at the University of Massachusetts, which has one of the country’s largest plant-based dining initiatives in the country. Its burger and mince products will be offered across all UMass campuses.

Meanwhile, Beyond Steak is coming to Belgium, with the ‘heart-healthy’ beef analogue now stocked at over 250+ Delhaize stores nationwide.

In the US, whole-food plant-based meat company Abbot’s has launched a mushroom-based Whole Burger SKU to its lineup, containing superfoods like spinach, chia and flaxseeds, and boasting 22g of protein per patty. It’s available at select Whole Foods stores nationwide.

Courtesy: 7th Heaven

Hershey’s-owned dairy-free chocolate company 7th Heaven, meanwhile, has unveiled its take on Reese’s with new oat-milk-based peanut butter cups, which you can buy from its website from March 25.

US cult-favourite plant-based burger chain Slutty Vegan is opening a store in New York City, which will be its third location. The 1,870 sq ft Bleecker Street eatery will open on March 23.

Next Level Burger and Veggie Grill are launching limited-edition vegan truffle honey chicken sandwiches and burgers to raise awareness about bees and pollination, with the companies making a donation to the Pollinator Partnership.

Fancy a Falafacini? UK plant-based small bites maker Gosh! has introduced a falafel-arancini hybrid in basil pesto and vegan ‘nduja flavours as part of its new Street Food range. They will retail at Ocado and Tesco for £3.50 per 240g pack. (Although I think ‘falancini’ is a far better name.)

Chinese company Marvelous Foods has launched its Yeyo coconut yoghurt range in Ole, the country’s biggest supermarket chain, with 100 stores across 31 key cities and over 10 million members.

Courtesy: Marvelous Foods

In the cosmetics world, American actress and Masked Singer host Jenny McCarthy has launched a new line of cruelty-free 3D Faux Mink Lashes under her Formless Beauty label.

Likewsie, Canadian cosmetics company Druide Laboratory has rolled out a vegan Druide Biolove personal care collection for babies and young children.

And US-based vegan festival Vegandale is launching in the UK, with events in London’s Clapham Common as well as Manchester in July. It has also expanded its stateside presence to Philadelphia. Early bird tickets are available now.

Finance and manufacturing developments

CPG giant Nestlé is investing CHF 80 million ($91M) to open a new factory dedicated to plant-based food production in Serbia, which will sit next to its existing 18,440 sq m facility. The plant will create 220 new jobs and support the manufacturing of Garden Gourmet products.

Meanwhile, Illinois-headquartered food producer Primient has committed $700M across five years to bolster its plant-based ingredient manufacturing capabilities and strengthen its market position.

Researchers in Italy have embarked on a project to produce meat alternatives from wood, leveraging byproducts like lignin (from the paper industry) and wheat bran, and converting them into amino acids.

German biotech company ProteinDistillery has raised $15M in a seed funding round to support the production of its biomass-fermented Prew:tein ingredient – which is made from upcycled brewer’s yeast and can replace the properties of egg whites – and set up an industrial-scale facility.

Copenhagen-based Swan Neck Bio, a spinoff from White Labs, has gone live. The startup provides fermentation solutions to food companies facing high costs and congestion in traditional biomanufacturing channels, with its FlexCell tech able to run controlled fermentations from five to 1,000 litres.

Courtesy: Koralo

In yet more fermentation news, German alt-seafood startup Koralo has scaled up its co-fermentation technology to a 5,000-litre industrial scale in South Korea – three months after launching in the country. It has also partnered with the Korean government on the latter’s plant-based national plan.

Montreal-based cultivated milk startup Opalia has received C$2M ($1.48M) in financing to support the launch of its first product.

As for cultivated meat, by the way, there’s a new company in this space from Slovenia, established by the founder and former CEO of aircraft maker Pipistrel and biotech firm CO BIK Institute. Called Tech4Meat, it hopes to bring its products to market in the next few years.

UK companies BSF Enterprise (parent of cellular agriculture business 3D Bio-Tissues) and Ivy Farm Technologies have teamed up to help the latter fundraise, launch and scale its cultivated meat in China.

In another alt-protein partnership, Indian plant-based meat maker GoodDot has linked up with Dubai culinary school the International Centre for Culinary Arts, to help chefs gain specialised certifications in vegan dishes.

After shutting its services in several countries, The Body Shop has confirmed that it has ceased trading in the US too.

In the UK, Borough Broth has acquired vegan curry startup SpiceBox, with all of the latter’s products to now be developed in the former’s organic production kitchen in west London.

Courtesy: OGGS

Having witnessed a 42% year-on-year growth, UK plant-based egg startup OGGS has now launched a crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs, which is open for pre-registration.

Policy and awards

Meanwhile, Aussie precision fermentation producer Fermify is now offering samples to B2B partners for its liquid animal-free casein, which can be used to make dairy alternative products.

Germany’s MicroHarvest has become the first biomass fermentation company to join the Food Fermentation Europe alliance.

In India, Supplant Foods has received a patent for its novel chickpea flour processing technology, which enhances the functionality of chickpea protein that can be used in plant-based dairy, meat and bakery products.

Courtesy: Superbrewed Food

In yet more regulatory news for fermentation-derived protein, Superbrewed Food has received a ‘no further questions’ letter from the US FDA. The GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status allows it to sell its bacteria-derived biomass ingredient, called Postbiotic Cultured Protein. The company has also filed for approval in the EU, UK and Canada.

In Singapore, some hospitals are offering plant-based options for patients after evaluating them to be healthy and nutritionally balanced, with Alexandra Hospital and Ng Teng Fong General Hospital having completely replaced beef and mutton with soy protein, and KK Women’s, Children’s Hospital and National University Hospital too providing vegan food for some time now.

Finally, there were a few vegan wins at this year’s Men’s Health Food Awards, in a nod to the category’s growing health focus. Impossible Foods‘ BBQ Pork Bowls was named the Best Plant-Based Meal, Beyond Meat‘s Italian-Style Meatballs the Best Meatless Meatballs, and Wholly Veggie‘s Buffalo Cauliflower Wings the Best Plant-Based Wings.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

The post Future Food Quick Bites: Vegan Kraft Dinner, Falafalcinis & Oat Milk Reese’s appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
March 12, 2024

Singaporean Cultivated Seafood Startups Umami Bioworks and Shiok Meats Announce Merger

6 Mins Read
In a major shift in the cultivated seafood space, Singaporean startups Umami Bioworks and Shiok Meats have announced plans to merge. Once finalised, Umami Bioworks CEO Mihir Pershad will lead the combined entity, and Shiok Meats CEO Sandhya Sriram will exit the company.

Singapore-based cultivated seafood startups Umami Bioworks and Shiok Meats have agreed to merge, establishing the entity as a global leader in the cellular agriculture industry.

The combined entity will retain the Umami Bioworks name and be led by existing CEO Mihir Pershad, while the leadership will explore how best to leverage the Shiok Meats brand – which will be retained – in the near future.

Green Queen understands that Shiok Meats co-founder and CEO Sandhya Sriram will leave the company after six years at the helm. As for other employees, they will be joining the Umami Bioworks team to support its work on the development of crustacean cell lines and media.

The impending merger is a major development in the cultivated seafood industry, with two of the most well-known companies joining forces at a time when cultivated meat is making progress with regulation and commercialisation. Umami Bioworks itself began submitting its first regulatory dossiers and signed initial customers for its production facilities in Q4 2023. “We are currently actively engaged with multiple regulators worldwide and are planning several regulatory dossier submissions this year.

The company – whose board of directors will include global seafood investment leaders Hatch Blue and Aqua-Spark – intends to continue its ongoing product development with strategic partners for cultivated eel, grouper fish, and pet treats, which will be its lead priorities for market entry. Umami Bioworks will follow a similar approach for additional products and species, including crustaceans, which have been the focus of Shiok Meats’ work.

“Cultivated seafood as a sector is now on the cusp of commercialisation and initial scale-up,” Pershad told Green Queen. “We felt it was a good time to take a more strategic look at how the industry may evolve in the next few years and how we could position the company to be the partner of choice for incumbents looking to adopt a more sustainable production technology. The merger with Shiok Meats stood out as an opportunity to bring together the IP, resources, and commercial progress of two pioneers in the sector to establish a leading platform for cultivated seafood.”

In an exclusive conversation with Green Queen, Sriram – who is still working with Umami Bioworks on a smooth transition and handover – outlined that in a novel industry like cultivated meat, “consolidation is progress”, stating: “For Shiok Meats, it was the right time to do an M&A with the shift in the alternative protein industry and the merger was put in place.” She added that her hope was that the merged company “becomes the leading global cultivated seafood platform”.

Courtesy: Umami Bioworks

Umami Meats will continue Shiok Meats’ work on crustaceans

The merger announcement has been about eight to nine months in the making, and is aimed at expediting the path to salable production of cultivated seafood. With the deal tipped to be completed soon, both startups believe joining forces will help enhance go-to-market efficiencies, expand commercial opportunities, and accelerate regulatory approvals and market entry.

“We are currently working through the integration process to determine the right combination of facilities to fuel our next stage of growth. We will be consolidating our resources and assets and establishing integrated centres to optimise resource allocation toward cell line, media and bioprocess R&D,” explained Pershad.

Shiok Meats has been working on scaling up cell lines for three crustacean species: lobster, shrimp and crab. Pershad confirmed that the new entity will continue this work. “We have seen strong pull from the market, including our existing strategic partners, for cultivated crustacean options,” he said. “Further, UMAMI’s priority has always been ETP (endangered, threatened, and protected) species that are unsuited to large-scale commercial farming and facing growing demand. Crustaceans like lobster and crab are clearly aligned with our strategic mandate.”

The approach will mirror Umami Bioworks’ existing strategy of “securing commercial interest from an industry incumbent and working through a development programme in parallel with production scale-up”. This will result in finished products ready to sell under its partners’ brands, with Umami Bioworks’ ‘plug-and-play’ biomanufacturing system anchoring the production line.

“Cell line work on finfish and crustaceans will continue at these integrated R&D centres,” added Pershad. “The Shiok facilities established for production scale-up will also be an essential part of our next phase of technical validation, as we are now scaling up unagi and grouper.”

Courtesy: Shiok Meats

Hybrid seafood products will pave way for market launch

Umami Meats will follow the same path taken by counterparts like Eat Just, Aleph Farms and Meatable, mixing cultivated animal cells (fish, in this case) with plant-based ingredients for its first products. This helps bring down the costs of cultivated meat, which are currently much higher than both conventional and plant-based meat products.

“We are initially planning to bring cultivated unagi (eel) and white fish (grouper) to the market via hybrid product applications, as these are the most advanced species in our pipeline and those for which we already have commitments from existing strategic partners.”

So far, only Upside Foods (US), Eat Just (Singapore and US) and Aleph Farms (Israel) have received regulatory approval to sell cultivated meat. Within Singapore, which granted the world’s first such greenlight in 2020, Vital Meat and Meatable expect clearance to be imminent for their chicken and pork, respectively. But Australia’s Vow Food could beat them to it, with its application for a cultivated quail product in Australia and New Zealand in advanced stages.

“Umami will initially focus on Singapore and the US due to clear regulatory frameworks and established regulatory review processes,” Pershad said. “However, Umami sees multiple key markets in Asia, including Japan, South Korea, and China, which have tremendous appetite for priority species and growing seafood demand.

“Once we have completed the integration, we will also establish a clear roadmap for crustacean approvals in line with market priorities of our customers.

Courtesy: Umami Bioworks

Why Shiok Meats founder Sandhya Sriram is leaving, and what’s next

Sriram told Green Queen that she had chosen to step down as CEO to take “a well-deserved break”, but next up, she wants to “be part of the more democratised space of agrifood tech.”

Asked if she had any regrets about her journey with Shiok Meats, Sriram said she no, but added that if she could do things over, she “would have done more due diligence on some investors” and she “would not have grown the team so aggressively”. “The biggest learnings are that if you set your mind to do something, you have to work towards that goal, whatever happens. That means more tides against you – and you have to fight harder,” she explained.

Still, Sriram said she was proud of “being the first and a pioneer for the cultivated food space in Singapore and southeast Asia”, adding that as a first mover in the space, the company had opened up the path for others. “That also meant things were much harder than for the rest,” she added.

The cultivated meat category is facing headwinds of late, with a sceptical mainstream media landscape and political obstacles in Europe and the US. Does Sriram still believe in the industry? “For sure, yes!” she exclaimed, adding that companies need to be far more transparent and more upfront about the challenges, particularly when it comes to scaling, and that investors need to be far more patient and supportive.

She concluded: “I am excited for the future of cultivated protein and hope to be around in this industry for much longer and make further impact.”

The post Singaporean Cultivated Seafood Startups Umami Bioworks and Shiok Meats Announce Merger appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
March 11, 2024

Florida Will Soon Ban Cultivated Meat – Here’s How the Industry is Fighting Back

7 Mins Read
Florida will imminently ban cultivated meat from being produced or sold within state borders, with governor Ron DeSantis set to sign the bill that was passed in the Republican-controlled House last week. But the alternative protein industry is fighting back.

“We’re not going to do that fake meat. Like, that doesn’t work.”

These are the words of a lawmaker whose presidential campaign to undo all climate progress didn’t work (although the man who beat him out is worse). However, Ron DeSantis is still the governor of Florida, and despite support for the Republican seesawing over the last couple of months, his words are likely to come true soon.

Last week, a Senate bill that attempted to ban cultivated meat in Florida was passed by the House of Representatives, meaning all it now needs a sign-off from DeSantis’s red pen. And given his rhetoric about what he calls “fake meat” (which it isn’t) and overarching views about the climate crisis – he believes humans, four million of whom could die due to climate change in 2024, are safer than ever – his approval of the ban is an almost certainty.

This would mean, despite scientists, the USDA, and the FDA ruling that cultivated meat is safe for human consumption, Florida’s Big Ag lobby and livestock-loving policymakers have decided otherwise. The alternative protein industry, however, isn’t having it – and it’s pushing back with a new campaign.

Why Florida wants to ban cultivated meat

We’re eating steak tonight. https://t.co/IQA0AnxYcB pic.twitter.com/HaOwMGyUIb
— Jay Collins (@JayCollinsFL) February 29, 2024

It all started in November last year, when Florida House representative Tyler Sirois proposed a bill (HB 435) seeking to ban the manufacturing and sale of cultivated meat within the state, imposing criminal penalties on anyone violating these rules. There was a list of penalties for non-compliance, with violators facing a misdemeanour of the second degree, alongside a fine between $500 to $1,000, and a possible license suspension or immediate stop-sale order.

While that didn’t really go anywhere, two others have. HB 1071, sponsored by Republican House representative Danny Alvarez, has been passed by the House and will now go to the Senate. And SB 1084, introduced by Republican state representative Jay Collins in the Senate, has been passed in both chambers. It prohibits people from producing, selling, holding or distributing cultivated meat, with similar penalties of second-disagree misdemeanours, licence suspensions, and stop-sale orders.

“There are many concerns right here and, until we have those studies and there’s proof positive that this process is going to work, we want to ban this in the state of Florida because it’s just not there quite yet, Collins has said, despite the USDA and FDA carrying out multi-year reviews to prove the exact opposite.

The real reason, really, is an intention to protect the state’s livestock industry from competition from novel protein companies, perpetuate what has become a common right-wing neophobia of food tech, and mobilise voter sentiment against the “woke elite” in the climate change and alt-protein culture wars. It’s a crucial aspect considering that Republicans are looking to reclaim the White House by the end of the year.

UPSIDE Foods Launches Give a Cluck Campaign

As we await DeSantis’ inevitable sign-off, alternative protein companies are fighting back with awareness campaigns and op-eds. California’s UPSIDE Foods, which is one of the two manufacturers in the US to have been approved to sell cultivated meat, is asking what the fuck – sorry, cluck – is going on.

The company argues that the bill “bans your right to choose your meat”. But instead of just restricting consumer choice, it also threatens innovation, the free market and the nation’s biotech leadership.

“We understand cultivated meat may not be for everyone, but it’s clucking frustrating to see a state close their doors before they’ve even had a chance to taste it [only restaurants in California and Washington DC have served cultivated meat so far] – or really even learn about how it’s made and the potential benefits,” the company says. “It’s like killing your chickens before they hatch.”

UPSIDE Foods says supporters of these bans are victims of online misinformation and have concerns over safety, competition with conventional meat, ethics, and economics. But it points out how the US food safety regulators have approved these products, adding that cultivated meat is “complementary, not competitive” and will co-exist with other meat production methods.

The startup further notes that everyone should have the freedom to choose what they eat, and cultivated meat can potentially make people in an ethical dilemma feel good about meat-eating. Finally, it suggests that this ban – and other similar proposals across the US – will give other countries a competitive edge in producing a more “resilient and self-sufficient food system”.

Therefore, UPSIDE Foods’ self-produced campaign is asking consumers to call or email DeSantis to veto SB 1084 and HB 1071. “Americans stand for freedom… not bans on freedom or free markets or choice,” said founder and CEO Uma Valeti.

The meat industry is also against Florida’s ban on cultivated meat

Courtesy: The Better Meat Co

But it’s not just UPSIDE Foods that is pushing back – others have joined the fight too. Leaders from 38 VC funds have signed a letter against the ban, noting that becoming the only state to ban cultivated meat would stop it from attracting investment in research.

“Passage of this legislation will have economic ramifications for Florida. Biotechnology and biomanufacturing are among the fastest-growing industries in the United States, with biomanufacturing leveraging biological systems to produce goods at a commercial scale, offering innovative solutions across various sectors including plastics, fuels, foods, and pharmaceuticals,” the letter reads. “In the short life of this emerging industry, investors have already put almost $3B in capital to work on this product, supporting thousands of jobs in this promising industry.”

It continues: “Florida would uniquely choose to restrict a vital segment of the American biotechnology sector. Such a decision will raise strong doubts among investors about the state’s commitment to supporting emerging technologies, hindering future investments to the industry and Florida.”

Meanwhile, industry leaders have voiced their concerns too. Writing for The Hill, Paul Shapiro, CEO of The Better Meat Co (which produces mycelium protein for blended meat), called the ban a “dumb mistake”. “DeSantis and other like-minded policymakers seeking to deny Americans the freedom to choose the meat they can eat may see a threat from innovative entrepreneurs working to bring cultivated meat to market,” he explained. “But those committed to a free market should ask if it’s really the state’s role to stamp out entrepreneurial competition to ensure incumbent industries always win.”

He added that, despite progress, we’re “still a long way from seeing cultivated meat show up [on] grocery shelves, due to the industry’s lack of scale”. This was echoed by Didier Toubia, CEO of Aleph Farms (only the third company to have received regulatory approval for cultivated meat globally), who wrote in an op-ed for Fast Company about how what he sees as “continuous progress and learning”, critics view as “unwarranted delays or even downright failure”.

Courtesy: Aleph Farms

Toubia outlined that his one regret was not tempering consumer expectations about the mainstreaming of cultivated meat, which is “not a quick fix”. “Sceptics are right to point out that cellular agriculture cannot afford to remain stagnant; it must keep evolving in order to have its intended impact,” he wrote, adding: “By better qualifying our success and managing expectations, we can help people see cultivated meat as we see it: a marathon rather than a sprint.”

But perhaps the most striking opposition to Florida’s ban comes from the very industry its lawmakers are trying to ‘protect’. The North American Meat Institute, the country’s oldest and largest trade association (representing 95% of the US’s meat output), has called the ban “bad public policy” in a letter to DeSantis.

“Legislators and others who beat the ‘food safety’ drum in support of HB 1071 and SB 1084 do so at their peril, and the peril of others, because these bills establish a precedent for adopting policies and regulatory requirements that could one day adversely affect the bills’ supporters,” the letter states, suggesting that it could set a precedent for climate or health policies in other states that could ban conventional meat.

“Restricting the sale and manufacture of cell-cultivated meat products limits consumer choice and denies Floridians access to food options,” it adds. “Decisions about what to consume or purchase should be left to the market and consumers, not dictated by legislation that hampers progress and competition.”

What does it say about a state’s policy when the very group lawmakers are purportedly ‘protecting’ calls out its bullshit? I’ll let DeSantis be the judge of that.

The post Florida Will Soon Ban Cultivated Meat – Here’s How the Industry is Fighting Back appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
March 5, 2024

Blood Free: Disney+ to Release Korean Thriller Series Based on Cultivated Meat

6 Mins Read
Disney+ has announced that it will release a new thriller TV series based on the premise of cultivated meat, called Blood Free, on April 10.

In a year where we’ve already seen another instance of regulatory approval, more public tastings allowed, and a spate of applications amid a growing establishment of regulatory frameworks, cultivated meat is now coming to your screens.

Disney+, the world’s third-largest streaming service, will next month release a new Korean thriller series based on cultivated meat, with a new poster confirming the novel protein’s central role in the story.

The Disney+ Original K-drama will feature Ju Ji-hoon (Lucifer, Kingdom) and Han Hyo-joo (Dong Yi, Moving) in the lead roles, with the storyline blending mystery, technology and ethical dilemmas. The teaser poster of the series showcases a piece of cultivated steak branded with the letters ‘BF’ (for Blood Free) under a 3D printer, with tubes attached to both sides of it.

On the Korean poster, the tagline reads: “Will you join us in this age of artificially cultured meat?” It’s accompanied with a caption stating: “Conspiracies, conflict and cultured meat. One brilliant woman and her protector face the dangers of a #BloodFree future.”

Cultivated meat forms the backdrop of K-drama Blood Free

Courtesy: Disney+

The 10-episode series, previously called Dominant Species, is a suspense thriller set in 2025. It revolves around Yoon Ja-yu (played by Han), who is the CEO of BF Group, a biotech company that has pioneered cultivated meat development. While the firm dominates the market share, Yoon is facing doubts and scrutiny both publicly and internally.

Ju, meanwhile, plays Woo Chae-woon, a former Naval Academy graduate and soldier and current bodyguard who is haunted by past failures. He is chasing the mastermind behind a terrorist attack, and after following several different leads, he approaches Yoon – also a survivor of the attack – to offer protection.

The cast includes Lee Hee-jun, who portrays prime minister Seon Woo-jae, who wants to take control of BF Group. Lee Moo-saeng plays the role of Onsan, Yoon’s friend of 20 years and a physiologist who developed the cell culture tech as a co-founder of BF Group. He developed the technology alongside bioengineer Kim Shin-gu (played by Kim Sang-ho).

They are joined by Park Ji-yeon, who portrays the role of a lawyer and head of planning at BF Group, and Jeon Seok-ho, who plays an IT expert at the firm. The series is written by Lee Soo-yeon, who was behind the acclaimed 2017 series Stranger (an adaptation of Forest of Secrets), and directed by Park Cheol-hwan, who worked alongside Lee on the 2022 series Grid.

Cultivated meat in pop culture, and the importance of accurate representation

Courtesy: Meat the Future

Blood Free signposts a major pop culture moment for cultivated meat, which is still a nascent industry and at a point where consumer buy-in is becoming increasingly crucial, considering that some politicians in the US and the EU are actively attempting to ban it (or have already done so).

It’s not the first time these proteins have been on screen – it was the subject of the 2020 documentary Meat the Future, a Jane Goodall-narrated film that chronicled the story of Californian cultivated chicken producer Upside Foods (which is one of only two companies currently allowed to all cultivated meat in the US).

Cultivated meat has been represented in onscreen fiction too. In 2009, the satirical workplace comedy Better Off Ted attempted to create “beef without cows” in a lab in the episode titled Heroes. However, it also highlighted the risks of misrepresenting cultivated meat to a wider public – the show’s food taster said the meat tasted like “despair”.

It perpetuated two common perceptions of cultivated meat that remain to this day, and to the industry’s detriment. First, the idea that cultivated meat tastes bad or – in Better Off Ted’s case – just plain sad could be off-putting to people who are already unsure about these novel foods. And second, it associated cultivated meat with the ‘lab-grown’ moniker, despite the sector’s attempts to move away from it.

This is because, at scale, cultivated meat is – like most foods – grown in bioreactors in a production facility, not labs. These cultivators are similar to the setup of a brewery. This makes ‘lab-grown’ a misleading term, and it’s one that carries the most uninviting tone to consumers. Research has constantly shown that consumers find ‘lab-grown’ to be the least favourable term (more so than even ‘artificial meat’), with 75% of Americans finding it unappealing.

Blood Free has similar connotations, with the English poster reading: “Out lab-grown future has arrived.” While the representation of cultivated meat in popular media is a significant way to increase awareness of the term, it’s important that the circumstances around it – the terrorist attacks and the doubts faced by the CEO of a cultivated meat company – don’t turn consumers away from these foods, which are vital for a climate-friendly future.

South Korea’s attitudes and support for cultivated meat

Courtesy: TissenBioFarm

The news of the release comes shortly after South Korea established a framework for the regulatory approval of cultivated meat, with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety now accepting applications from cultivated meat producers. Several local startups are expected to file dossiers in the coming weeks, ushering in a new era for meat in the country.

The process takes up to 270 days and costs ₩45M ($34,000), with startups needing to file a comprehensive application to be considered safe for human consumption and allowed to sell their products.

Consumer surveys have displayed a willingness to give these products a shot. A 1,100-person poll by the APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture in October found that 90% of South Koreans are open to trying cultivated meat at least once (though only 5% indicated they’d eat it regularly). Moreover, 39% were supportive of cultivated meat being sold at supermarkets and restaurants (with 14- to 29-year-olds leading the way), and just 10% were opposed to its commercialisation.

In fact, 19% of Koreans said they would prefer cultivated meat over plant proteins. But price remains a significant barrier, with 65% citing it as the most important factor for eating these products, followed by taste and texture (62%). This is reflected in the fact that despite two-thirds of Korean households spending up to ₩50,000 ($23-38) each week on meat products, only 12% would be willing to pay ₩1,000-3,000 (75 cents to $2) more per 100g of cultivated meat.

Calisa Lim, project manager at APAC-SCA, told Green Queen at the time: “We need combined synergies and efforts through investors, contract manufacturers, established stakeholders, startups, and government bodies to facilitate a thriving ecosystem for cultivated meat and seafood in South Korea.”

Can Blood Free make Koreans – and the 150 million people who subscribe to Disney+ globally – hungry for cultivated meat?

The post Blood Free: Disney+ to Release Korean Thriller Series Based on Cultivated Meat appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
March 4, 2024

Eat Just Pauses Singapore Operations – But Plans to Double Cultivated Meat Production This Year

6 Mins Read
Californian cultivated meat producer Eat Just has paused its Singapore operations, three months after Huber’s Bistro stopped selling its Good Meat chicken. The production facility set to open in Q3 last year has also been shut, as the company says it’s reevaluating its strategy in Asia.

2024 will mark the four-year anniversary of Eat Just’s historic regulatory approval for the sale of cultivated meat in Singapore. Since then, the Californian startup received clearance in the US too, and restaurants began selling its Good Meat chicken in both countries.

However, you can’t find Eat Just’s chicken – or any cultivated meat, for that matter – in restaurants anymore. In Singapore, its product is no longer available at Huber’s Bistro, which was the only restaurant offering the chicken last year.

And now, it has emerged that Eat Just has pressed pause on its operations in the island nation, with the company telling the Straits Times it’s reassessing its Asia strategy. “We’re evaluating various processing conditions, the unit economics, and a larger strategic approach to producing in Asia,” a spokesperson said.

The Singapore newspaper has revealed that Eat Just is no longer producing in Singapore, with the $61M Good Meat manufacturing plant in Bedok – which was slated for a Q3 2023 launch – seemingly not in operation anymore, while the $120M factory for Just Egg in the city’s Pioneer area also cancelled.

Manufacturing facilities shuttered, but products to return ‘very soon’

Courtesy: Eat Just

The Strait Times visited Bedok Food City, the site of Good Meat’s 30,000 sq ft facility – last week, but employees from other companies in the building said Eat Just’s two units on the ground floor were closed. They added that these had rarely opened for about six months. One of the closed units had boxes full of air-purifying equipment sitting outside, and the other had benches piled up.

The newspaper said a separate commercial plant that previously manufactured Good Meat’s chicken is not producing for the company anymore either. Eat Just said there was “no firm timeline” on when the Bedok facility would be operational, noting that the startup had “produced and paused and produced and paused” since it began selling the chicken.

However, they added: “We’re planning to produce at least twice as much in Singapore this year than any year before.”

Eat Just had announced that it had broken ground on a plant protein facility for its vegan Just Egg product in March 2022, stating that it would take about two years to complete. But when asked about progress on this, the spokesperson said: “We are not building a facility in Pioneer.”

Meanwhile, the company indicated that Good Meat will soon be back at Huber’s Bistro, which offered the chicken as part of skewers and salads. The spokesperson said the products will return to the eatery “very soon”, once the supply is ready.

The foodservice pause isn’t just in Singapore – Good Meat used to be available at the José Andrés-owned Washington, DC restaurant China Chilcano, but the eatery passed reservations for its tasting menu featuring the cultivated chicken back in September. “The most important activities for GOOD Meat are related to process development and lowering costs long-term. We are focusing our efforts and resources on those tasks at this time,” Eat Just’s global communications director, Carrie Kabat, told Green Queen last month.

Eat Just looks to overcome challenges for a profitable 2024

Courtesy: Eat Just

This is the latest in a growing list of challenges faced by Eat Just over the last year. As the company – which has raised over $850M to date – aims for profitability in 2024, it is in the middle of multiple legal battles with suppliers and manufacturers over non-payment.

Eat Just has been involved in at least seven lawsuits since 2019 – and while it has settled some of them, its case with bioreactor manufacturer ABEC is still ongoing. The latter sued the alternative protein startup for $100M, which included payments for changes to the scope of the work, alongside unpaid invoices. But last month, Eat Just filed a counterclaim alleging that it was ABEC that breached contractual terms.

The Californian startup also shut down production on the facility that was going to house the ABEC bioreactors, which was announced in May 2022. Speaking to Green Queen in September, Eat Just CEO Josh Tetrick said: “In the past few years we have invested a lot of capital in the design and engineering for a large-scale cultivated meat facility, knowing we would have to raise additional capital to complete the rest of the facility.”

He added: “Because of market conditions, we found ourselves in a position where it became very challenging to raise that additional capital. At this point, we’re re-assessing how we think about a large-scale facility in a more realistic way – which will still be very challenging.”

But conversely, the company has made several strides to ensure it can break even this year. The news about its Singapore operations comes a week after Eat Just announced it had sold the equivalent of 500 million eggs since Just Egg’s launch in 2019. And in January, it relaunched its cult-favourite Just Mayo and Ranch lines.

“Challenges, doubts, and unforeseen hurdles have not stopped Eat Just from continuing to drive innovation in plant-based foods to give consumers better choices and more ways to change the food system for the better every time they sit down to a meal,” the brand told Green Queen during the launch.

Cultivated meat is still progressing in Singapore and elsewhere

Courtesy: Eat Just

It shows how it’s not all doom and gloom for cultivated meat. Kabat confirmed that Good Meat planned to resume tastings in the US this year, as did Upside Foods, the only other company to have the regulatory greenlight for cultivated meat in the US.

And as for Singapore, the country still remains a hotbed for alternative protein in Asia – it was the world’s first to approve these novel proteins for sale, and it’s now expected to grant the next clearance in the sector, with Dutch company Meatable anticipating the go-ahead by Q2. This would make it the first European startup – and first cultivated pork producer – to be allowed to sell cultivated meat anywhere in the world. France’s Vital Meat and Israel’s Aleph Farms (which is already approved in its home country) have also filed dossiers in Singapore for their products.

Additionally, last month, the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore ruled that cultivated meat can be halal under specific circumstances. It was followed by South Korea inviting applications for safety assessments of cultivated meat for regulatory approval. Meanwhile, Australia’s Vow Food has advanced into a public consultation process for its cultivated quail in Australia and New Zealand, before it will enter a 60-day review period for ministers.

“Transforming the global food system is a relay race, not a sprint,” said Mirte Gosker, managing director of alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute APAC. “With more than 150 companies operating in the cultivated meat sector worldwide, progress is bound to come in fits and starts, as has been the case in clean energy, electric vehicles, and other emerging technologies.

“What matters most is that cultivated meat as a category succeeds, because there is no path to limiting global warming to 1.5°C without reimagining the way meat gets to our plates.”

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March 1, 2024

UK Regulator Eyes State Funding to Build Lab for Safety Testing of Cultivated Meat by Autumn

6 Mins Read
In what would be a major step towards the regulatory approval and commercialisation of cultivated meat, the UK is aiming to begin safety testing by this autumn, with the Food Standards Agency hoping to win government funding for the lab facilities.

It was in August that Israeli cultivated meat producer Aleph Farms announced the submission of its dossier for regulatory approval from the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA). Five months later, the company became just the third in the world to receive the all-clear to sell cultivated meat – but this was in its home country of Israel, not the UK.

However, Aleph Farms may be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel soon, with the FSA reportedly planning to start conducting safety tests for cultivated meat this autumn, according to the Grocer. The FSA is in talks with food companies and has issued a call for scientists to work alongside to pilot a ‘sandbox’ testing project, which will enable them to assess the novel proteins for human consumption.

The FSA is seeking government funding for the labs that would be used to conduct the tests, with a bid to win financing through a £5M scheme announced by UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt last autumn.

“Following the chancellor’s announcement late last year that new regulatory sandboxes would be created to help support transformative innovations in emerging sectors, the Food Standards Agency has signalled its interest in creating a sandbox environment for cultivated meat,” Linus Pardoe, UK policy manager at alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe – which has previously called on the chancellor to provide the FSA with a £30M injection – told Green Queen.

Slow post-Brexit regulation drives UK producers elsewhere

Courtesy: Hoxton Farms

The FSA still follows pre-Brexit rules set out by the European Food Safety Agency, which classes cultivated meat as a novel food that requires premarket authorisation. These are said to be the strictest regulations around food safety in the world, and so far, no alternative protein company has received the go-ahead to sell cultivated meat.

Publicly, Aleph Farms is the only one to have applied in Europe – though both filings were in countries outside the EU (Switzerland and the UK). Dutch company Meatable has announced it will soon apply in the Netherlands, after it cleared the route for public tastings of cell-cultured meat.

In the UK, there was talk of fast-tracking the approval of these foods through a bilateral deal with Israel, with government and FSA officials visiting the country to taste cultivated meat and see how it’s regulated in the Middle Eastern nation. But this was just before its conflict with Hamas began, which has likely derailed any such deals for the time being.

But now, even as many EU countries ban or attempt to restrict these proteins, cultivated meat regulation could be preparing for a shakeup in its former member nation. The FSA will next month present plans for an overhaul of novel foods (among other products) in its board meeting next month, in the face of criticism that it has been too slow to capitalise on post-Brexit freedom in this area.

Speaking to Green Queen in August, Pardoe warned that the UK could risk losing momentum in the regulation race if it didn’t ramp up investment in the sector – countries like the US and Singapore had already approved cultivated meat for sale by then, and the Netherlands and Israel were making good progress. The prophecy has come true, with British cultured pork fat company Hoxton Farms considering a move to the US in order to speed up the regulatory green light.

“We’re very confident we will get approval from the US FDA [Food and Drug Administration], so we’re considering building our first manufacturing facility outside the UK,” CEO Ed Steele told the Financial Times this week. “That’s not what we want to do, but we need to do what’s best for the company.”

The Grocer has previously reported that an FSA-commissioned report by Deloitte in 2023 found that speeding up of novel foods regulation could help the UK meet its carbon reduction plans (the country has earmarked 2050 as its net-zero target). A GFI report from last year found that cultivated meat can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of meat production by 92%.

“We are actively engaging with CCP [cell-cultured product] companies to understand their novel technologies and understand how we can support innovation,” FSA deputy director of food policy Natasha Smith told the Grocer. “Engagement is ongoing, and we are continually speaking to industry about how to best manage applications and to set expectations about the approval process.”

Increased funding supports cultivated meat progress in the UK

Courtesy: Aleph Farms

“Should it receive funding, the FSA will be able to use the sandbox to further develop its understanding of the key food safety considerations and nutritional value of cultivated meat, helping it implement the UK’s robust regulatory framework and build consumer confidence in this food,” said Pardoe.

Regulatory sandboxes involve companies to test new concepts – in this case, cultivated meat – with real customers under the supervision of a regulator, as designed by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.

“If funding is granted, we can create a team in the FSA that works with the cell-cultivated product industry to agree on what should be included within their applications, address complex regulatory questions, and provide pre-application support to CCP companies,” said the FSA’s Smith.

In August, GFI Europe urged the UK government to invest £390M in alternative proteins between 2025 and 2030, while a report by the Green Alliance suggested that, with the right combination of targeted investments and regulation, this industry could be worth £6.8B annually and create 25,000 British jobs by 2035.

In that vein, earlier this month, government body UK Research and Innovation made an investment through its Technical Missions fund for University of Oxford cultivated meat researcher Hua Ye. And fellow state agency Innovate UK awarded close to a £500,000 grant to turn the northeast into a cultivated meat production hub, with the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), MarraBio Ltd and Aelius Biotech working together to create cost-effective and low-emission cultured meat products.

“Ensuring the safety of any new and innovative food product, including cell-cultivated products, is paramount, and we must continue to balance fast-paced technological advances and industry demands with protecting public health,” said Smith.

One source told the Grocer that both the FSA and cultivated meat producers hoping to commercialise their products agree that proving the safety of these foods is crucial. “The sandbox is really zeroing in on cultivated meats specifically,” they said.

As mentioned above, there has been a lot of backlash from EU countries like Italy, France and Romania, who have either outlawed the production and sale of cultivated meat, or are hoping to do so. Among the main reasons cited are to protect culinary heritage, livestock farmers, and human health.

But the source argued that cultivated meat would be safer than conventional meat from a hygiene perspective. “You are talking about food being grown in what is essentially a sterile laboratory, in contrast to your average abattoir,” he noted. “It’s going to be a laboratory with scientists from the FSA looking all over it, I doubt it’s going to get any cleaner than that.”

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February 23, 2024

South Korea Establishes Framework for Regulatory Approval of Cultivated Meat, With Applications Expected Soon

6 Mins Read
South Korea has opened up the regulatory approval process for cultivated meat, after the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety established the framework for these applications.

During the launch of the APAC Regulatory Coordination Forum in October, Mirte Gosker, director of founding organisation the Good Food Institute (GFI) APAC, predicted that South Korea would be among the APAC countries next in line to develop regulatory frameworks for cultivated meat, with both countries “proactively seeking input from industry groups to craft clear and efficient safety review processes”.

Four months on, that prophecy has come true, with South Korea now accepting applications for the regulatory approval of cultivated meat. Today, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) officially published the Standards for Recognition of Temporary Standards and Specifications for Food, etc. to “revitalise the food industry”.

It has revised the framework and clarified the procedure for recognising food ingredients made from “cell and microbial culture” technology. This means that cultivated meat startups, which could previously only use these ingredients for R&D purposes, can now file dossiers to be allowed to sell these products in the country. So far, only Singapore, the US and Israel have approved the sale of cultivated meat.

The latter came just last month, when Israeli’s health ministry granted clearance to local startup Aleph Farms, whose regulatory affairs chef Yifat Gavriel said: “2024 stands to be a landmark year for the advancement of regulatory pathways and commercialisation of cultivated meat.” It certainly is proving to be the case, if South Korea’s announcement is anything to go by.

“Today’s announcement of a tangible path to market for cultivated meat companies is a welcome recognition of the important role that future foods will play as South Korea seeks to build a more secure and sustainable protein supply,” Sam Lawrence, vice president of policy for Asia at GFI, told Green Queen. “So far, the government has released an interim framework, which we expect to continue to develop and evolve over time.

What companies need to do and pay for regulatory approval in South Korea

Courtesy: Space F

While no producer has applied for approval, the expectation is that several local startups are likely to do so within the next few weeks. The entire process is set to take up to 270 working days, meaning even if companies apply soon, it’s unlikely that any clearance will be given this year.

Dossiers submitted to the MFDS must include safety verification data, including the name of the raw material, the origin of the cell, the manufacturing process, and international recognition and usage history. If the cells are derived from livestock, the application needs to provide information about the donor, such as country of origin, gender, age, and slaughter inspection certificate. For marine sources, data confirming the source of the donor must be submitted.

Moreover, the filing requires companies to divulge information about the human safety impact of the raw material, which entails digestibility, any negative health reactions, allergy and toxin data, and a confirmation of the genetic stability between the raw material and final ingredient.

The approval process will cost companies a cool ₩45M ($34,000). That is a hefty markup, especially given that not all countries charge a fee for the assessment of such novel food applications. Singapore and Israel, for example, have no fees attached to the process, for example.

Australia and New Zealand’s joint regulator also doesn’t charge a fee by default, unless companies want the procedure to be fast-tracked or prioritised. Currently, Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) is considering an application from Vow Foods for its cultured quail. The startup filed its application in February 2023, and is now awaiting a second round of public consultation, which will be followed by a 60-day period for ministers to comment on the regulatory body’s decisions

“Considering that the only risk assessment to be completed by FSANZ was done via fee and still took quite a while – who is going to go the free route?” one policy expert familiar with the application process in several countries told Green Queen, with the fees amounting to around AU$195,000 ($128,000). “In my mind, it is a de facto fee structure.”

As for the US, UK and EU, neither country charges a direct fee for the application. However, there are other expenses involved. “There are peripheral costs,” explained the source. “We have to use third-party accredited labs for the analytics on the five non-consecutive batches required for the UK and EU. Those lab fees can add up to be several hundred thousand euros.”

Lawrence added: “Regulatory agencies often operate on a cost-recovery basis and fee reductions are a point of discussion in many jurisdictions. It’s a known cost of doing business for companies operating in the future-foods space, but when GFI is asked for input by regulators, we consistently urge them to make their costs as low as possible, as higher costs can act as a barrier to innovation, particularly for startups.”

Consumer survey shows importance of price parity for cultivated meat

Courtesy: CellMEAT

The development will be welcome news for South Korea’s cultivated meat companies, including TissenBioFarm, Simple Planet, Space F, SeaWith, CellMEAT, and Cellqua, among others. It will also interest Korean noodle giant Nongshim, which has invested $7.4M in food tech VC funding with a focus on cultivated meat, and CJ CheilJedang, which has teamed up with KCell Biosciences to build a cell culture facility in Busan. And last week, scientists at the Yonsei University showcased a hybrid rice variety with cultivated beef and cow fat cells as a proof of concept for more affordable beef with a smaller carbon footprint.

It concludes a process that began in 2022, when the MFDS included official guidance for alternative protein in the country’s National Plan, covering the safety, manufacturing processes and regulatory approval of cultivated meat. A year ago, 28 industry stakeholders signed an MoU to advance the country’s cultivated meat industry, while a month later, the North Gyeongsang province opened a 2,309 sq m Cellular Agriculture Industry Support Center.

The APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture, which co-founded the APAC Regulatory Coordination Forum with GFI APAC, conducted a 1,110-person survey in October, revealing that 90% of respondents were willing to try cultivated meat at least once (though only 5% indicated they’d eat it regularly). Moreover, 39% were supportive of cultivated meat being sold at supermarkets and restaurants (with 14- to 29-year-olds leading the way), and just 10% were opposed to its commercialisation.

In fact, 19% of Koreans said they would prefer cultivated meat over plant proteins. But price remains a key purchase driver, important for 65% of citizens, followed by taste and texture (62%). While two-thirds of respondents spend up to ₩50,000 ($23-38) per week on meat products for the whole household, only 12% would part with ₩1,000-3,000 (75 cents to $2) more per 100g of cultivated meat. And just 6% would be willing to pay even more.

Despite that, 57% and 25% said they’d eat cultivated pork and beef, respectively, if they’re cheaper than their conventional counterparts. This indicates that scaling up production to reach price parity with farmed meat is among the biggest hurdles for South Korea’s cultivated meat sector.

“Hybrid products and scaling up production are key factors to achieve price parity – and it is at the forefront on many of the companies’ agenda either today or in the near future,” Calisa Lim, project manager at APAC-SCA, told Green Queen at the time. “We need combined synergies and efforts through investors, contract manufacturers, established stakeholders, startups, and government bodies to facilitate a thriving ecosystem for cultivated meat and seafood in South Korea.”

“GFI’s scientists and policy experts have offered our input to regulators during the consultation processes, and will continue to provide feedback to ensure the framework is effective and incorporates global best practices,” added Lawrence. “The agency is inviting companies to submit applications during this interim period, which we take as a positive sign that regulators are keen to get the local sector moving.”

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February 21, 2024

Israel’s Aleph Farms Partners with Thailand’s First Cultivated Meat Manufacturing Facility

5 Mins Read
Israeli cultivated meat leader Aleph Farms is advancing its Southeast Asia strategy with an “asset-light” approach through a deal that will involve the first production facility dedicated to cultured meat in Thailand.

Aleph Farms has partnered with biomanufacturer BBGI and synbio research and manufacturing company Fermbox Bio to increase its production capabilities in Southeast Asia. The collaboration will initiate Thailand’s first plant for cultivated meat production.

The deal complements Aleph Farms’ growth strategy in the region, with the company implementing a capital-efficient approach for manufacturing to drive down costs and accelerate scalability. The Israeli startup explains that the production of cultured meat is “conducive to value chains that are decentralised, compact, predictable, and conveniently located near end consumers”. This helps mitigate supply chain vulnerabilities, bolster food security and fuel economic prosperity for local communities.

“A prudent, capital-efficient scale-up lets us navigate infrastructure investments thoughtfully, enabling sustainable penetration into key regions,” said Aleph Farms co-founder and CEO Didier Toubia.

Cost and scale-up the cornerstones of Aleph Farms’ deal

Aleph Farms opened a 65,000 square ft facility at the Stratasys building in Rehovot, Israel in 2022 | Courtesy: Amit Goren

With a total of $118M in funding, Aleph Farms is one of the most well-financed cultivated meat companies. But it has chosen an asset-light approach towards manufacturing, which is centered around a hub-and-spoke model based in key markets. It acquired a production facility in Modi’in, Israel last year and penned a deal with ESCO Aster in Singapore (the world’s only approved industrial manufacturer for cultured meat) based on this approach, and has now added Thailand to its list of hubs.

“This strategy aligns with our commitment to scaling up responsibly, avoiding abrupt, extensive CAPEX investments in the process,” explained Toubia. “Ultimately, this progression aligns with our overarching goal: ensuring food security through an equitable and inclusive transition to sustainable, resilient food systems.”

Explaining this strategy, he told AFN last year: “We believe that in the next five to 10 years, companies will focus either on operations and production or on product development and branding. It will be difficult for companies to do both efficiently – especially in the current funding environment – so at Aleph Farms, we decided to focus on product development and branding and rely on external partners for production.”

This is why it decided to team up with BBGI, which focuses on cooking-oil-based biofuels and high-value bio-based products, and Fermbox Bio, which leverages microbial fermentation and synthetic biology to help businesses mitigate supply chain risks. Aleph Farms stated that collaboration with value chain partners is a pivotal element of its asset-light strategy, and the partnership will focus specifically on production enhancement, including cost optimisation and operational scale-up.

Figuring out ways to bring down prices is a key next step for cultivated meat, which needs to reach production costs of $2.92 per pound to be cost-competitive with conventional meat. While companies have managed to cut manufacturing costs by 99% in less than a decade, McKinsey analysis estimates that it will still take until 2030 for these proteins to reach parity.

“Of common animal proteins, beef delivers the highest value in global markets, so by focusing on cultivated beef, we are able to shorten the timeline to price parity,” Yoav Reisler, senior marketing and communications manager at Aleph Farms, told Green Queen last month.

“This agreement aims to support the sustainable development of Thailand and the region in every aspect, focusing on the new S-Curve, with expected governmental support,” noted BBGI CEO Kittiphong Limsuwannarot, referring to the 10 industries (including food processing) that form a pillar of Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor. “Drawing upon our extensive experience in designing and operating large-scale biomanufacturing facilities, we are well-positioned to operationalise the shared objectives of this collaboration,” added Fermbox Bio founder Subramani Ramachandrappa.

A milestone for Thailand’s alternative protein industry

Courtesy: Aleph Farms

“I think that four or five companies in this space, including Aleph Farms, have already developed scalable processes, have done a lot of work on cost reduction, and have already built facilities where they can make cultivated meet at the commercial level and comply with all the regulatory requirements,” Toubia told Green Queen founding editor Sonalie Figueiras on the Green Queen in Conversation: Cultivated Meat Pioneers podcast in September.

Aleph Farms made history last month after becoming the first company in the world to receive regulatory approval for cultivated beef, and only the third in the cultured meat sector (after California’s UPSIDE Foods and Eat JUST). It means that the startup can sell its Black Angus Petit Steak to consumers in Israel, whose production will be supported by the 65,000 sq ft plant it moved to in Rehovot, Israel, which can produce between 10 to 20 tonnes of product annually.

While research on cultivated pork is ongoing at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University and Mahidol University, there are no companies or manufacturers working with cultivated meat within Thailand, meaning Aleph Farms’ partnership marks a milestone for the country’s alternative protein sector. But it’s not the first time there has been a link between Thai businesses and overseas cultivated meat startups – Bangkok’s Charoen Pokphand Foods is developing hybrid proteins with Israel’s Future Meat, while seafood giant Thai Union is an investor in Aleph Farms.

A 2021 survey conducted by the latter two companies revealed that 97% of Thai consumers are willing to try cultivated meat. Meanwhile, in December last year, a 1,500-person survey revealed that only 24% of the population was aware of cultured meat. However, while 76% of them eat meat, 67% want to reduce their intake within the next two years, primarily for health reasons.

“Thailand has food technology, and we are a top player in the world, especially when compared to our population and country size,” said Jacques-Chai Chomthongdi, Southeast Asia director at Madre Brava. “Therefore, if you want to develop further in any area, the existing potential should be considered, along with changes and needs at the international level as well.”

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February 20, 2024

Alabama Senate Passes Bill to Ban Cultivated Meat, as Legislative Opposition Heats Up in Election Year

6 Mins Read
Alabama has become the latest US state to take legislative action against cultivated meat, with the Senate passing a bill to ban these proteins. The bill will now move to the House of Representatives, where it could become law.

It’s election year in the US, and the political charades are full at play. Some Republican lawmakers are using their power to block a climate solution that could potentially help safeguard the future of food. And now, senators in Alabama – a majority red state with over three times as many Republicans as Democrats – have passed a bill to ban cultivated meat from being sold.

Sponsored by senator Jack Williams, SB23 makes it a Class C felony to manufacture, sell or distribute cultivated meat in the southern state. If you’re the owner of a restaurant hoping to offer cultivated meat to patrons, you could be convicted and your establishment could have its food safety permit suspended or even revoked.

The bill was voted for by 32 of the state’s 35 senators, while nobody opposed it. This means it now goes to the Alabama House of Representatives. “If you were on Mars, you have to grow what you have to grow to eat,” Williams told Alabama Daily News. “The problem with this is we have plenty of food in the state. We have plenty of cattle and chicken. There’s no reason for us to bring this product in here.”

The senator, who is a cattle farmer, raised concerns about the safety of cultivated meat, seemingly ignoring the USDA and FDA‘s assessments deeming cultured chicken from two companies as safe for consumption, or the fact that Alabama is home to a chicken farm where nearly 48,000 birds were killed due to a pathogenic avian flu less than four months ago.

“Anything that is artificial and not to do with our animals comes up on my radar,” he added. “I don’t want Alabamians eating that.” But cultivated meat does have something to do with animals: it’s meat made from animal cells, just without any of the killing or much of the environmental footprint.

Alabama’s bill to ban cultivated meat ignores some home truths

Courtesy: Alabama Senate Republican Caucus

Speaking to 1819 News, Williams said people want to know what they’re eating. “That’s why people are going to the farms so much to get their food now. This is all made from nothing, cells. You don’t know what you’re getting. You don’t know what it’s going to do to you later, I think. It’s a pretty simple bill, but I had big, big support on it. It just keeps it out of the stores in Alabama and keeps them from manufacturing it here.”

He continued: “We don’t know what’s in this. We don’t know what it’s going to do to your body yet. There hasn’t been enough research done. They’re doing chickens in California, I know, and shipping them overseas, not here, but we just don’t want it in Alabama.”

The “they” he referred to here are Californian cultivated meat companies UPSIDE Foods and Eat JUST, the two companies that are allowed to sell cultured chicken in the US. But they’re not shipping these products overseas – that’s not how it works. As a novel food, every country you want to sell your cultivated meat in must approve it through their food regulatory bodies. These two startups have had their chickens in restaurants before, and will soon make them available again.

“UPSIDE Foods strongly opposes the proposed bill aiming to criminalise cultivated meat in Alabama, as it threatens the free market, stifles innovation, and limits consumer choice,” the company told ABC 33/40. “This legislation not only jeopardises the United States’ leadership in biotechnology and Alabama’s supply chain, it also hinders our ability to address the projected doubling of global meat demand by 2050.”

Williams told the same publication that he watches “all the chemicals that are put in meats today, and everything else”. We have more and more people going straight to the farm and buying stuff, from their meats to their vegetables… it’s not altered in any way,” he claimed.

Except that, quite often, it is. Sales of antibiotics for livestock use increased by 12% from 2017-22, according to the FDA. In 2020, the meat industry bought 69% of the US’s medically important antibiotic supply. This has had implications for human health, with 35,000 Americans dying as a result of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in 2019 alone.

Cultivated meat has been identified as a pillar of the future food system. If it can overcome its challenges of scaling up and driving down costs – which are no doubt stifled by legislative bills like Alabama’s – it could present remarkable benefits to the climate, human health (it has already been certified as safe to eat by three countries) and food security.

“If that’s what we have to survive, I would re-entertain looking at something,” said Williams. “But I think there needs to be a lot of test work done on it. The people I represent, we don’t want this meat coming to Alabama and being in our stores.” (Although he was arrested on bribery charges for a corruption scheme affecting those very people in 2018).

Cultivating the culture(d meat) wars ahead of 2024 elections

Courtesy: Upside Foods

Alabama is far from the only state hoping to inhibit the cultivated meat sector. Florida has introduced two bills hoping to ban the production, sale, holding and distribution of cultured meat within the state. One of them suggests imposing criminal penalties – including facing misdemeanours of the second degree, fines of $500 to $1,000, and license suspensions or stop-sale orders – on anyone violating these rules.

In Texas, governor Greg Abbott signed a bill requiring clear labelling of plant-based and cultivated meat, seafood and egg products, while Nebraska’s Real MEAT Act would mandate the word “imitation” on alternative protein if passed. Policymakers in Tennessee are making their case for a $1M fine as part of its proposal to outlaw cultured meat.

Arizona House representative Quang Nguyen drafted HB 2244, a bill that would make it illegal to “intentionally misbrand or misrepresent” an alternative meat product as meat, while fellow Republican David Marshall went a step further with HB 2121, attempting to ban the sale or production of cultured meat. On similar grounds, Wisconsin State Assembly representative Peter Schmidt – a Republican dairy farmer – proposed two bills against alternative protein, one of which put restrictions on the labelling of cultivated meat.

Just last month, senators Mike Rounds (Republican) and Jon Tester (Democrat) proposed a federal bill to ban these proteins in school meals. The reality is that cultivated meat has become a political hotrod in the election year, with lawmakers turning their tirade away from plant-based meat for a second to attack the newest alternative protein they view as a threat to the meat industry. It mirrors similar moves in Europe, with Italy already having banned cultivated meat.

The hope in the US is to mobilise support from voters in heavy farming states, and protect a livestock sector deeply entrenched in America’s political fabric. The meat industry has deep ties with state players – it spends 190 times more money on lobbying and receives 800 times more public funding than alternative protein companies.

It’s a reason why, despite nearly all of the chicken and pork Americans eat coming from confined factory farms, Republicans (and some Democrats too) will have you believe that all meat is grown in a ‘humane’ manner with animals who have tons of free space and good living conditions, all facts be damned. “We want to be supportive of our cattlemen and that’s a huge industry in Alabama and income for our small farmers,” said Rick Pate, Alabama’s agricultural commissioner.

Really, though, the real threat farmers face is the changing climate and all its implications – droughts and floods, irregular harvests and crop failures, extreme heat and extreme cold. But can you blame these politicians, who belong to a country where 74% of people don’t think eating meat affects the climate? For a country that – even for a while – considered a vehement climate change denier as a presidential candidate, the answer is yes. Yes, you can.

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February 16, 2024

South Korea’s Simple Planet Raises $6M in Pre-Series A Round to Speed Up R&D for Cultivated Meat Powder

5 Mins Read
South Korean cultivated meat startup Simple Planet has raised ₩8B ($6M) in a pre-Series A funding round to optimise its technology for its powdered ingredient, secure regulatory approval, and expand internationally.

Simple Planet’s ₩8M ($6M) pre-Series A funding round saw participation from POSCO Technology Investment, DCP Private Equity, Hyundai Technology Investment, Prologue Ventures, Pathfinder H, and Samho Green Investment, among others.

The latest capital injection brought the South Korean startup’s total financing to ₩10B ($7.5M), after a previous ₩2B ($1.5M) round led by tofu giant Pulmuone. It will help accelerate its R&D efforts to produce ingredients like powders and fats for cultivated meat, facilitating the optimisation of its manufacturing processes, its path to regulatory approvals, and overseas expansion.

“Despite the challenging investment climate, our pre-Series funding round was overbooked,” said Simple Planet co-founder and CEO Il Doo Jeong. “We are in the process of establishing a GMP [good manufacturing practices] facility for the mass production of cell-cultured food ingredients.”

Serum-free medium drives down costs for Simple Planet’s ingredients

Courtesy: Simple Planet

Founded in 2021, Simple Planet takes the approach of making cultivated meat ingredients like proteins and unsaturated fats in powdered or paste forms, instead of creating finished products. These ingredients are said to be highly versatile, helping absorb and improve the flavour and nutritional structure of conventional proteins. They can also be used as part of functional ingredients for seniors and infants.

The company has established 13 different floating cell lines so far – including cows, chickens, pigs, ducks and fish – and developed a probiotics-based serum-free edible culture medium. Apart from being controversial for its sourcing, fetal bovine serum (FBS) makes up over 80% of costs in cultivated food manufacturing, according to Simple Planet. Its technology has lowered the price of its serum-free culture by 1/60th, which – alongside controlling nutrient release and density – enables it to bring down the costs of its commercial ingredients too.

In October, the APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture (APAC-SCA) released a 1,110-person survey of South Koreans, finding that 84% of consumers preferred a plant-based growth culture for cultivated meat, although 35% wouldn’t mind seeing FBS being used, and 21% called the latter their most preferred option. “However, we see that FBS ranks lower in the preferred cultivation medium overall, suggesting that negative perception of FBS still remains among the surveyed South Korean population,” says Calisa Lim, project manager at APAC-SCA.

“We expect to accelerate the development of serum-free edible culture media, which we are also researching,” said Simple Planet’s Jeong. “Moreover, we have been collaborating with global food companies since last year to utilise cultured meat prototypes. We aim to create significant outcomes through new business planning and international expansion by building cooperative relationships with global companies.”

The startup aims to launch its high-protein cultivated meat powder both domestically and internationally, and has previously stated plans to set up branches in the US and Canada to enable faster entry. Last September, it unveiled B2C convenience food brand Balboa Kitchen, with the aim of directly incorporating its cultivated food ingredients into consumer products. Now, it is looking to aggressively expand its distribution network.

In January, it entered strategic partnerships with accelerator and investment firm Plug and Play and South Korea’s S&S Lab, which operates private-led shared laboratory IRIS lab. And last year, it linked up with Pulmuone to co-produce hybrid meat products, with a targeted 2025 launch.

Simple Planet has won plenty of recognition for its tech, including being named in the UK’s Forward Fooding FoodTech 500 list (described as “the Fortune 500 of agrifood tech”), being selected in the Sustainable Food Challenge 2023 by MassChallenge in Switzerland, and winning first place in the food tech category of US startup pitch competition WKBC and sustainability category at Singapore’s X-Pitch.

Cultivated meat on the rise in South Korea

Courtesy: Cellmeat

Simple Planet is among a host of startups elevating South Korea’s burgeoning cultivated meat space. In February 2023, industry stakeholders signed an MoU to advance the country’s cultivated meat sector, and a month later, the North Gyeongsang province opened the North Gyeongsang Cellular Agriculture Industry Support Center. The 2,309 sq m facility was built over six years with a total investment of ₩9B ($7M) to develop biomaterials and support cultivated meat companies.

These developments came after the nation’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety included official guidance for alt-protein in its National Plan 2022, covering the safety, manufacturing processes and regulatory approval of cultivated meat.

In October, South Korea’s Society for Food Sustainatech signed on to the APAC Regulatory Coordination Forum, which aims to facilitate cross-border dialogue between stakeholders for cultivated foods. On the regulatory front, the South Korean government is expected to be the next (alongside Japan) to develop a framework for companies. “Both nations are proactively seeking input from industry groups to craft clear and efficient safety review processes,” said Mirte Gosker, managing director of the Good Food Institute APAC, which co-established APAC-SCA.

The APAC-SCA poll also that 90% of respondents were willing to try cultivated meat at least once (though only 5% said they’d definitely eat it regularly). Plus, 39% were supportive of cell-based meat being sold at supermarkets and restaurants (with 14- to 29-year-olds leading the way), and just 10% were opposed to its commercialisation.

In terms of purchase drivers, price tops the list – cited by 65% of Koreans – followed by taste and texture (62%) and health/nutrition (48%). This ties into Simple Planet’s focus on cost reductions as well as flavour and nutrition (0.3g of its cultivated meat powder contains the same essential amino acids as 1kg of beef).

Apart from Simple Planet, at least eight more startups are working with cultivated meat in the country, including CellMEAT – which has created prototypes of cultured Dokdo shrimp and caviar – TissenBioFarm, CellQua, Space F, and SeaWith. Meanwhile, Korean noodle giant Nongshim invested $7.4M in food tech VC funding with a focus on cultivated meat, and CJ CheilJedang has teamed up with KCell Biosciences to build a cell culture facility in Busan.

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February 16, 2024

42% of Japanese Consumers Open to Trying Cultivated Meat, But Safety Remains Key Concern

6 Mins Read
Over four in 10 Japanese consumers are willing to give cultivated meat and seafood a taste as long as it’s safe, but 58% have never heard of it, highlighting the challenge for the country’s alternative protein sector.

In April, the regulatory framework for cultivated meat in Japan will become more complicated. While continuing to oversee food safety, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare will transfer its food hygiene standards division to the Consumer Affairs Agency. This means companies must liaise with two agencies on regulatory conversations, but makes prime minister Fumio Kishida the ultimate authority on these matters.

But if a new survey by the APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture (APAC-SCA) is anything to go by, stronger regulations to determine the safety of these foods are a must for Japan’s population. The 1,000-person poll revealed that as long as they’re safe, 42% of consumers are willing to try cultivated meat and seafood products.

However, 64% of respondents don’t know if cultivated proteins are safer than their conventional counterparts (though 19% found no difference in safety). For 44%, the presence of Japanese government regulations is the most important element in determining the safety of cultivated meat and seafood, with women in their 20s, 40s and 60s chiming most with this sentiment.

Courtesy: APAC-SCA

If international organisations or academia can assure safety, that would satisfy 38% and 24% of consumers, respectively. However, safety assurances from the industry and the sale of these products in other countries would have little effect in swaying these consumers, with only 19% being satisfied with these options. Conversely, 34% would not find these foods safe, whatever the case.

Health and price important, and youth attitudes encouraging

APAC-SCA’s survey highlights that 91% of Japan’s consumers eat meat, mirroring the figure from a Food Frontier report from December. Interestingly, there are more vegans (1%) than flexitarians (0.4%) or pescetarians (0.3%). But there is a gap in consumer awareness about cultivated meat, with 58% of people in Japan having never heard of it. And while 39% are familiar with it, only a further 3% understand the concept in detail.

Apart from the food safety aspect, health and price are key for these consumers when it comes to trying cultivated meat, cited by 25% and 23%, respectively. But an even greater number (30%) say they will not try these products. Safety (44%) and health (33%) are similarly the top concerns for respondents, followed by taste (27%).

Taste represents the leading expectation from these foods too, followed by a diversification of food options, and appearance – although 37% chose the ‘none applies’ option, further highlighting their unfamiliarity with the concept. of cultivated proteins and lack of experience in consuming such products.

Courtesy: APAC-SCA

A fifth (21%) of consumers are willing to buy cultivated meat products if they’re priced the same as their conventional versions, but only 6% would be willing to pay for them if they cost double or more. Understandably, 40% would purchase them if they’re cheaper, though 33% wouldn’t buy them at all. Research by McKinsey has shown that it will take until 2030 for cultivated meat to reach price parity, outlining the importance of scaling up production and increased funding for the sector.

There was a notable shift in acceptance with age, as younger Japanese consumers exhibited a more welcoming attitude towards cultivated meat and seafood. In terms of concerns about these foods, 35% did not select any options from the list – higher than the overall average. Men in their 20s also expressed the greatest interest in buying these products, with 18% willing to do so even if they cost double.

Courtesy: APAC-SCA

“This survey reveals interesting characteristics about the next generation of Japanese consumers. More than half of men in their 20s have heard of ‘cell-based foods’, nearly 30% are interested in trying them, and a whopping 62% answered that they would eat these products if they were cooked,” said Akira Igata, director of APAC-SCA partner the Japan Association for Cellular Agriculture and the survey’s analyst. “Understanding the proclivities of the next generation of Japanese consumers would be critical for companies interested in breaking into the Japanese market.”

What about feeding cultivated meat to children? Half of the respondents are unsure if they’ll do so, while 33% definitely wouldn’t. “For the industry, this signifies the importance of capturing the interest of consumers who are neutral but not opposed to the concept of cultivated meat and seafood,” the report stated.

Collaboration and direct communication key to establishing food safety

Prime minister Kishida already endorsed cellular agriculture last year, with plans to boost the sector to reduce the country’s climate footprint. And between 2020 and 2023, private investment in Japan’s alternative protein sector was dominated by cultivated meat, which made up 76% ($54M) of the total, according to the Good Food Institute APAC. A host of food giants are getting involved in cellular agriculture, including Nipponham and Nissin.

In December, the Japanese government invested ¥1.87B ($13.1M) in local cellular agriculture company IntegriCulture, which claims to have grown cultivated chicken and duck via a tech platform that can bring down costs to under $3 per kg of meat by 2025, and under $1 soon after.

But although the price aspect is important, safety is still crucial for consumers in Japan, which is why APAC-SCA recommends establishing a direct line of communication with regulators to convey information that can exhibit the safety potential of cultivated meat and seafood, which can be in the form of pre-market consultation services or a regulatory sandbox framework.

“Communicating the safety of cultivated meat and seafood products has always been the key focus for the industry,” said APAC-SCA programme director Peter Yu. “The 2023 report released by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Health Organisation concluded that many of the hazards identified in cultivated foods already exist in conventionally produced foods and livestock agriculture. Cultivated meat and seafood are safe for consumption if produced and handled well.”

Courtesy: Wildtype

The report also suggests regulators and industry players can find common consensus on topics to support consistent approaches to safety assessments by participating in activities like the APAC Regulatory Coordination Forum. Likewise, regional collaboration between government agencies, academia and companies can help accelerate R&D efforts via resource and knowledge sharing.

Developing “message maps” for awareness of the benefits of cultivated meat and seafood can help raise consumer confidence and trust too, and socialising international reports can increase public awareness and assure the safety of these products.

“There is a great opportunity and incentive for close collaboration between the government and industry to engage consumers in the food safety dialogue for cultivated meat and seafood,” added Yu. “This will increase consumer confidence and drive widespread acceptance in the long run. Ensuring that cultivated meat and seafood is available as a complementary food option in Japan is vitally important for food security without environmental and ethical concerns associated with conventional meat production.”

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February 14, 2024

Future Food Quick Bites: Vegan Earthshot Prize, Dr. Praeger’s Turns 30 & A Neat Rebrand

7 Mins Read
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Dr. Praeger’s new veggie-forward offerings, Applewood Vegan’s reformulated cheese, and a landmark legal ruling for veganism in Denmark.

New products and launches

In Canada, Danone has launched a Silk Greek yoghurt made from locally sourced pea protein in vanilla and key lime flavours. The new products contain 12g of protein per 175g pack.

Courtesy: Danone

Championing the same ingredient, fellow Canadian manufacturer Louis Dreyfus has announced the construction of a pea protein isolate production plant for its Plant Proteins business at the site of its existing industrial complex in Yorkton, Saskatchewan

Protein Industries Canada, meanwhile, has partnered with Konscious Foods, Avena Foods and Canadian Pacifico Seaweeds to improve the nutritional credentials of existing vegan seafood products and develop new offerings.

In the US, Plant-based meat giant Impossible Foods will soon begin serving its new beef hot dogs to the Blue Devils basketball team and dining halls on Duke University’s campuses.

Next Level Burger and its now subsidiary Veggie Grill have launched a new limited-edition Classic Steak sandwich with Meati’s mycelium meat.

Mycelium bacon producer MyForest Foods has expanded its flagship MyBacon into 57 Whole Foods stores in the northeast, which comes on the heels of a listing at MOM’s Organic Market. It means the product is available in over 350 locations across eight states.

Courtesy: Dr. Praeger’s

Dr. Praeger’s is celebrating its 30th anniversary with two new ranges spotlighting vegetables: Crunchy Burgers and Veggie Fries. The former is available in Southwestern Sweet Potato and Cauliflower variants, made with six vegetables in a gluten-free rice coating, while the latter is offered in California and Cauliflower Broccoli options.

In Israel, bioprinting startup Steakholder Foods has partnered with tofu producer Wyler Farms to use industrial-scale 3D printing tech to make plant-based steaks, with the former’s printer set to be installed at the latter’s facility between Q4 2024 and Q1 2025.

There could be an all-veggie KFC in India’s religious city of Ayodhya, where tourism is exploding after the unveiling of the Ram Mandir last month, with a local government official indicating the city would allow KFC to set up a fully vegetarian location, as it has done with Pizza Hut and Domino’s.

German brand ChoViva‘s cocoa-free chocolate is part of private-label products by retail giant Rewe and its subsidiary Penny, with the innovations now available in select stores.

Barcelona-based plant-based butchery chain El Vegans has opened a new branch in Málaga, a first-of-its-kind butcher in the southern Spanish cities.

In the UK, Applewood Vegan has reformulated its plant-based smoked cheese ahead of its fifth anniversary, with the new recipe rendering a “creamier” product that better replicates conventional cheese.

Courtesy: Swiss International Air Lines

And if you’re flying business on Swiss International Air Lines, you can now get a vegan pumpkin and chestnut goulash with spaetzli (egg noodles) dish, made in collaboration with local plant-based egg producer EggField and Zürich vegetarian eatery Hiltl.

Funding and finance news

The US Department of Defense has announced a new funding opportunity for food tech companies to apply for biomanufacturing grants worth up to $2M under the new Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Investment Program.

Netherlands’ Future Food Fund II has closed with a total of €40M, with the European Investment Fund investing €20M in the final close. It has already invested in precision fermentation and cultivated meat businesses like EV Biotech and Extracellular, respectively.

Austrian 3D-printed seafood producer Revo Foods is crowdfunding, offering a discounted valuation until Sunday, February 18. The startup has already raised €850,000 of its €1.5M goal.

Courtesy: Revo Foods

Ontario-based vegan ramen company Borealis Foods – which counts Gordon Ramsay as brand ambassador and shareholder – has commenced trading on the US NASDAQ exchange under the ticker ‘BRLS’.

US vegan shrimp producer New Wave Foods has ceased operations, with its assets now set to be liquidated and distributed after the company was unable to pay its debts in full.

In similarly sad news, fellow US plant-based seafood company Ordinary Seafood has wound down its operations and let go of its staff, with founder and CEO Anton Pluschke blaming the bleak funding landscape for food tech.

Meanwhile, after closing half of its UK stores last year, Lewis Hamilton-backed vegan fast-food chain Neat Burger has rebranded to Neat, dropping the latter word as it diversifies its offerings and prioritises health-focused options.

Courtesy: Neat

In New Zealand, Bruce Craig, owner of the county’s rights to Aussie vegan fast-food chain Lord of the Fries, has put the company up for sale for $1.2M after experiencing sales drops post-pandemic.

Research and manufacturing developments

Chicago-based Believer Meats has expanded its leadership team, appointing Heather Hudson as chief product and growth officer, Frida Grynspan as chief science officer, and Marc Shelley as chief legal officer. The company expects its commercial-scale facility in Wilson, North Carolina to be operational later this year.

Danone has completed the conversion of its dairy-based yoghurt plant in Villecomtal-sur-Arros, France to oat milk production for Alpro, in a €43M move that will see workers retain their jobs. It will be capable of producing 100,000 litres of oat milk daily, eventually rising to 300,000 litres.

Israeli startup ProFuse Technology has launched non-GM bovine cell lines optimised for muscle growth, demonstrating high efficiency in proliferation and differentiation and targeting cultivated meat manufacturers.

Fellow Israeli company Redefine Meat has revealed the technology and science behind its 3D-printed plant-based meat products in a new paper published in the Frontiers journal, focused on its tissue engineering approach.

Courtesy: Redefine Meat

A report by the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change has advised that funding should be redirected from animal agriculture towards “lower-emitting products and activities”. Currently, farmers in the EU receive 50% of their income directly through government subsidies.

A new interdisciplinary study will assess the societal impact of cultivated meat, including production costs, commercialisation, safety and regulation. Funded by the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society with support from the Leverhulme Trust, the research has been selected for an APEX award.

In New York, UPSIDE Foods hosted an exclusive tasting for its cultivated chicken, which received a rousing endorsement from TED head Chris Anderson, who also took a shot at a New York Times piece targeting the industry.

Policy progress and awards

With Plant Based Universities launching in the Netherlands, over 200 Dutch academics have backed calls from students at several universities to transition towards fully plant-based catering. Total signatories – including academics, healthcare professionals, politicians and other public figures – number 1,200.

In Denmark, a lower court in the city of Hjorring has recognised veganism as a protected belief under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, in a case that sparked from a school denying a kindergarten child the right to plant-based meals and refusing to allow her to bring a packed lunch too.

Courtesy: Hungry Planet

Plant-based meat brand Hungry Planet has been nominated for Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, which added vegan experts to judge its 2024 awards, to be announced in November.

French whole-cut plant-based meat maker Umiami has achieved B Corp certification, ahead of inaugurating its factory in Alsace, eastern France later this year.

Finally, McDonald’s says it has reached its 2025 goal of 100% cage-free eggs ahead of time, with all locations in the US now featuring these eggs.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

The post Future Food Quick Bites: Vegan Earthshot Prize, Dr. Praeger’s Turns 30 & A Neat Rebrand appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
February 12, 2024

California Cultured Joins Forces with Japanese Chocolate Giant Meiji for Cell-Based Cocoa Products

5 Mins Read
US startup California Cultured will see its cell-based cocoa incorporated in products by Japanese chocolate giant Meiji, with a 10-year commercial partnership for the former’s Flavanol Cocoa Powder.

West Sacramento-based food tech company California Cultured has linked up with Meiji, Japan’s largest chocolate company, which will see the startup’s cell-cultured cocoa products appear in packaged goods by the latter.

The partnership is headlined by a 10-year-long deal for the supply of California Cultured’s Flavanol Cocoa Powder to Meiji as part of a co-branded collaboration. “There is a progressively growing supply gap in the cocoa industry. This is the beginning of the future of chocolate,” said California Cultured founder and CEO Alan Perlstein. “It marks the first time cell-cultured chocolate will enter any market worldwide.”

Why California Cultured is making cell-based chocolate

Chocolates made with the company’s cocoa powder; courtesy: California Cultured

Founded in 2020, California Cultured is one of the only producers (alongside Israel’s Celleste Bio and Finnish giant Fazer) working on cell-based chocolate. The company collects samples from a cocoa plant with ideal organoleptic properties and harvests its cells, which undergo growth in fermentation tanks that mimic the conditions of rainforests where cocoa thrives. Within three to four days, the cells are ready to be harvested, fermented and roasted.

“With our scalable technology, we’re positioned to excel and dominate in the field of plant-based cellular agriculture, where we pioneer the creation and cultivation of cells to redefine how we grow and produce innovative, sustainable products,” explained Perlstein. “Plant cell culture has a far smaller GHG footprint than other types of cell technologies.”

Speaking of footprints, that is a key reason why innovations like cell-cultured cocoa are key: dark chocolate is second only to beef when it comes to the top GHG-emitting foods. Meanwhile, cocoa beans have one of the highest carbon opportunity costs (the amount of carbon lost from native vegetation and soils to produce food).

And partly due to the widespread use of palm oil, the chocolate industry is also associated with mass deforestation – so much so that the EU banned imported cocoa and chocolate linked to deforestation in June last year. Additionally, scientists have warned that cocoa trees are threatened – and a third of them could die out by 2050 – which could lead to a global chocolate shortage.

The industry has been a blight on human rights too, with Indigenous communities losing their lands and workers exploited with poor conditions and pay. There are implications of child slavery as well, with the US government sued in August to block imports of cocoa harvested by children in West Africa, which has been used by the likes of Hershey’s, Mars and Nestlé.

California Cultured claims its process of developing sustainable cocoa in fermentation tanks is a climate-resilient approach to chocolate-making that addresses deforestation and labour exploitation in the industry. This is what sparked its collaboration with Meiji.

“Meiji came to us because unpredictable weather patterns – including heavy rainfall – have disrupted cacao cultivation, leading to a consecutive year of supply shortages,” California Cultured’s head of strategy Steve Stearns told Green Queen. “This scarcity has driven futures prices to unprecedented levels, reflecting the strain on supply and demand dynamics within the chocolate industry.”

Perlstein added: “We need to build a resilient, superior future for chocolate. This partnership is the first step in achieving this.”

Seeking regulatory approval for a targeted late 2024 launch

The company’s Flavanol Cocoa Powder; courtesy: California Cultured

California Cultured, which raised $4M in a funding round in 2021, is targeting products in the nutraceutical, chocolate, and better-for-you snacks markets with the Meiji deal. “Meiji’s collaboration with California Cultured involves the seamless integration of the startup’s cocoa powder, cultivated from cells rather than traditional cocoa beans, into an array of confectionery and wellness products tailored for both the US and Japanese markets,” explained Stearns.

“This comprehensive product line encompasses chocolates, truffles, and wellness-enhancing chocolate products designed for consumer use,” he added. The company is building its manufacturing both internally and externally based on proprietary tech developed in-house.

In terms of price, Stearn revealed that the first products with Meiji will be “very competitive with high-value nutritional products on the market” in the aforementioned categories. “Gaining traction with customers like Meiji will help us bring down our operating costs rapidly,” he added. The company later plans to release chocolate callets as part of the Meiji collaboration too.

Cellular agriculture versus fermented plants

As a cellular agriculture company, it will also need approval from food safety regulators in the countries it plans to sell in. California Cultured has already begun the process to earn a GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) certification from the US FDA, and Stearn confirmed that the producers expect to release the Flavanol Cocoa Powder – a food that has been found to reduce the risk of major cardiovascular disease by 16% and cardiovascular deaths by 27% – in the country in late 2024.

There has been a deluge of activity in the sustainable chocolate space recently, with many companies focusing on alternatives to cocoa and chocolate – much like plant-based analogues to meat or dairy. These include Planet A Foods (ChoViva), Voyage Foods, Foreverland and WNWN Food Labs. “Alternative chocolate companies are using alternatives like shea butter and carob, which gives a waxy undesirable texture,” said Stearn. “During chocolate’s history, consumers have rejected carob chocolate on several occasions.”

He added: “California Cultured is producing real chocolate and cocoa, which gives us a distinct advantage in taste and texture. From a marketing perspective, these products can not be labelled chocolate, which can harm customer acceptance.”

It will be interesting to see how consumers perceive cell-based products like California Cultured’s cocoa flavanol.

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February 7, 2024

Future Food Quick Bites: Valentine’s Specials, Scotch Eggs & Greek Dragons’ Den

6 Mins Read
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Fortnum and Mason’s cultivated scotch egg tasting, a Dragons’ Den deal for carbon-negative ice cream, and a host of executive moves.

New products and launches

South Korean company Armored Fresh has launched its oat milk Cheddar cheese at US fast-food chain Bareburger, with two new menu items using the brand’s Armored Fresh Melt and Impossible Standard cheeses.

Courtesy: Armored Fresh/Bareburger

Israeli precision fermentation startup Phytolon is planning to launch a line of natural colours using genetically engineered baker’s yeast in the US this year (pending regulatory approval), following a breakthrough with partner Gingko Bioworks.

Speaking of breakthroughs, Californian startup Checkerspot has developed a fat analogue from microalgae fermentation, which it claims can mimic the human milk fat called OPO (Oleic-Palmitic-Oleic or sn-2 palmitate). It could help provide essential lipids to offer long-term nutrition benefits for infants.

Barcelona-based UOBO has introduced liquid vegan whole eggs for foodservice in a one-litre format nationwide, which can be used for applications like omelettes, scrambled eggs, pastries, custard and mayo.

Indian plant-based meat brand Shaka Harry is eyeing the foodservice segment with a range called Chefsclusive, which features starters, snacks, meals, and accompaniments.

Also in India, restaurant chains Social and Boss Burger have teamed up with Nestlé‘s across 82 outlets in six cities, using the FMCG giant’s frozen plant-based Maggi line for The New Irresistible Menu and The ImBOSSible Cheeseburger, respectively.

Courtesy: Magnum

In the UK, Unilever-owned Magnum has launched a new Chill Blueberry Cookie SKU, which is a vanilla-biscuit-flavoured ice cream with cookie pieces, alongside a core made from blueberry sorbet.

In another UK launch, plant protein bar maker Trek has linked up with Biscoff for a co-branded SKU with soy protein isolate, vegan chocolate and Biscoff spread, retailing in Sainsbury’s from Valentine’s Day, before a wider rollout in March.

If you’re looking to take vegan Valentine’s Day up a notch, meal kit startup Grubby has partnered with Redefine Meat to introduce the latter’s whole-cut beef flank for home cooks until March 22. Following this, a second Chimichurri steak dish will be introduced.

Also for Valentine’s, US chains Next Level Burger and its now-subsidiary Veggie Grill have partnered with Colorado-based mycelium meat producer Meati to offer a Sliced Steak Sandwich at all locations from February 9. Additionally, there are two new vegan sweet treats: a strawberry whoopie pie and a strawberry cookies and cream shake.

And San Francisco’s vegan fat tech startup Lypid has launched its plant-based meatballs for foodservice, which can be used in various cuisines, including American, Italian, and Asian fusion.

Courtesy: Lypid

Finance and corporate moves

UK plant-based meat company THIS is seeing a change in leadership, with co-founders Andy Shovel and Pete Sharman stepping back from their roles as co-CEOs and being replaced by former Ella’s Kitchen boss Mark Cuddigan. Shovel and Sharman will remain involved in the day-to-day business and at board level.

UK cultivated fat company Hoxton Farms has appointed former Impossible Foods chief strategy officer Nick Halla to its board, following other strategic hires in recent weeks to prepare for commercialisation and expand its team of 40 to 100.

North Carolina-based food tech company Tiamat Sciences, which is making animal-free recombinant proteins at a fraction of the cost, has an all-female executive team – a rarity in the biotech world.

Meati has appointed former Patagonia and Wild Idea executive Phil Graves as its new chief financial officer, who will oversee the capital expenditures needed for the company’s omnichannel expansion, and help deliver positive environmental and social impact alongside profit.

In Spain, food companies Familia Martínez, Capsa Vida and Helados Estiu, alongside startups Väcka, Wevo, Grin Grin Foods, Gimme Sabor, and Quevana, have formed The Flexitarian Project to increase the availability of plant-based products to the market.

Greek company Plan(e)t Foods, which claims to be the world’s first carbon-negative vegan ice cream company, grabbed a deal on Dragons’ Den Greece for €42,000 for a 1% equity, which would rise to 3% if it goes to the NYSE.

German alternative oil startup Colipi has raised €1.8M in seed funding to accelerate the development of its precision-fermented, carbon-captured Climate Oil using organic sidestreams as feed.

NFL quarterbacks Justin Fields (Chicago Bears) and Daniel Jones (New York Giants) have invested in Chipotle founder Steve Ells’ new robot-powered vegetarian restaurant Kernel, which will open its first location in the Flatiron District of New York City on February 12.

Cultivated meat developments

In London, Fortnum and Mason hosted a scotch egg tasting for journalists in collaboration with cultivated meat company Ivy Farms, which contained the latter’s beef made from cultured Angus cow cells.

Innovate UK and the Biological Sciences Research Council, meanwhile, have invested £15.6M to support a cultivated meat project by Campden BRI and cellular agriculture specialist Cellular Agriculture. It will be used to develop a hollow-fibre bioreactor system prototype and test production samples.

The EU Commission has closed the TRIS notification process about Italy’s cultivated meat and plant-based labelling bans because the laws did not comply with the procedure’s rules, rendering them unenforceable.

Courtesy: Finless Foods

Finally, Californian cultivated seafood company Finless Foods, has reduced its headcount in reportedly a fresh round of layoffs. It has also terminated its lobby farm in Washington, DC.

Policy, research and manufacturing news

In a major regulatory breakthrough, Israeli startup Remilk has become the first precision fermentation company to receive a Letter of No Objection from Health Canada, allowing it to sell its dairy proteins in the country.

Danish bioproduction leader 21st.BIO is granting access to its precision fermentation technology platform to ingredient manufacturers, helping them enable the production of sustainable dairy proteins at competitive costs.

Belgian precision fermentation startup Paleo has opened a new R&D facility in Leuven, expanding its lab facility to 500 sq m.

Courtesy: Paleo

In the US, fermentation startup Superbrewed Food has secured a patent for its proprietary Postbiotic Protein ingredient, which – alongside a self-affirmed GRAS status – will enable the company to accelerate its use in CPG applications.

Also in the US, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has endorsed the FAIR Labels Act (led by US Senator Roger Marshall), which aims to eradicate “deceptive labelling practices” on plant-based meat products.

Meanwhile, the City of Amsterdam has become the first capital city in the EU to endorse a Plant Based Treaty, targeting a 40-60% plant protein ratio in the city’s diet by 2030.

Finally, research funded by the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth and the European Cooperation in Science and Technology has found that consumers associate fungi-based foods with sustainability and wellbeing.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

The post Future Food Quick Bites: Valentine’s Specials, Scotch Eggs & Greek Dragons’ Den appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.