The Malaysian government is undertaking research to determine the potential of cultivated meat and alternative proteins as it looks to find “sustainable alternatives to current crop production”.
The Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and the National Institutes of Biotechnology Malaysia have teamed up to conduct feasibility studies on cultivated meat via universities.
The effort aims to bolster the country’s food security and safeguard its farming sector from the effects of climate change. Research has suggested that that grain yields drop by as much as 10% with every 1°C rise in the country, once temperatures reach above 25°C. Average temperatures in recent years have been 27.5°C.
The decision to study the potential of alternative proteins was agreed upon in a cabinet committee meeting on the National Food Security Policy last month.
“The government is committed to the development of the plant industry ecosystem, the adaptation of technology, and exploring the potential of future foods such as cultured meat, cultured meat products, and cell-based food,” Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim wrote on Facebook.
Malaysia joins Asia’s growing policy support for alternative protein
Thailand will soon get its first cultivated meat facility thanks to a tripartite partnership involving Israel’s Aleph Farms. Singapore, a pioneer in this space, recently opened its Food Tech Innovation Centre and granted a food license to fermentation contract manufacturer ScaleUp Bio.
“With South Korea, Thailand, and other Asian innovation hubs making their own moves to capitalise the emerging cellular agriculture space, Malaysian authorities are wise to determine which parts of the value chain they are best positioned to contribute to,” Mirte Gosker, managing director of the Good Food Institute Asia-Pacific, told Green Queen.
In his Facebook post, Anwar said: “Initiatives like modernising agriculture through the development of plant factories will bolster the agricultural technology sector, providing sustainable food alternatives to current crop production.”
He added: “As such, these initiatives must be preceded by thorough studies to ensure food quality and safety are assured.”
Gosker suggested that Malaysia has “long expressed an interest” in cultivated meat, pointing to comments by YB Datuk Arthur Joseph Kurup, the deputy minister of science, technology and innovation, at the country’s first cultivated meat conference last year.
He hailed the novel food as an opportunity to “create job opportunities and revenue while addressing national challenges such as food security, health management, and climate change”.
Malaysia needs to develop novel food framework
Courtesy: Cell Agritech
The development of a local cultivated meat industry is a core strategy of the Malaysia National Biotechnology Policy 2.0 for 2022-30. Under this initiative, the country aims to “build an ecosystem of cultivated meat/fish, food for the future by using new and latest technologies,” wrote Cell AgriTech, Malaysia’s first cultivated meat startup.
The scheme has a list of short-, medium- and long-term goals for the sector, which include developing university curricula to nurture a dedicated talent pool, forming a cellular agriculture association to foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing, developing a halal food standard for cultivated proteins, and establishing cell repositories and seed repositories.
Additionally, the programme aims to create a supply chain for the cultivated meat and seafood industry, develop affordable contract research services, and establish a regulatory framework for novel foods.
“Malaysia regulates new food types produced by ‘modern biotechnology’ under Regulation 3A – Approval for sale of food obtained through modern biotechnology of the Food Regulations 1985,” explained Gosker.
“No person shall import, prepare or advertise for sale or sell any food and food ingredients obtained through modern biotechnology without the prior written approval of the Director,” the policy states.
“Cultivated meat does not fit neatly into Malaysia’s current regulatory framework under Regulation 3A, which primarily addresses genetically modified foods. As such, there is a need for Malaysia to consider developing specific regulations or adapting existing ones to address the unique aspects of cultivated meat,” Gosker said.
“This could involve establishing a novel food framework or extending the scope of Regulation 3A to include new food production technologies like cellular agriculture, ensuring that cultivated meat products are safely and effectively regulated.”
Government support a catalyst for food tech capabilities
In 2023, Cell AgriTech partnered with Singaporean cultivated seafood producer Umami Bioworks to build Malaysia’s first cultivated meat factory. Situated in the state of Kedah, the 96,000 sq ft facility would have an annual capacity of over 3,000 tonnes of cultivated meat and seafood, and is fuelled by an investment of RM20 million (approximately $4.5M at the time) by Cell AgriTech.
The timeline of the government-backed study is unclear for now, but since the two startups have stated their intention to begin exporting products by 2025, Gosker is optimistic that the research “will help government officials determine how they can best accelerate approvals and support domestic growth of a robust ‘future foods’ sector”.
“While Malaysia’s alternative protein industry is still small, there are local innovators active in every technology pillar – plant-based, fermentation, and cultivated – who are driving domestic development,” she said.
This includes plant-based manufacturers Phuture and BaseFood, vegan brand Hoshay (owned by vegetarian food leader Everbest), biomass fermentation startup Ultimeat, and even Starbucks Malaysia (which buys plant-based products from Indonesia’s Green Rebel).
“Malaysia is a manufacturing powerhouse, and food manufacturing and processing is a significant component of the country’s economic growth,” said Gosker. “With the right government and industry support, these capabilities can be tuned to transform Malaysia into a fast-moving food tech follower that can accelerate the scale-up of alternative proteins in APAC.”
She added: “The Malaysian government’s focus on sustainability and innovation in the food sector can also create a supportive environment for the alternative protein industry, since initiatives to promote green technologies and sustainable agriculture may indirectly benefit the sector.”
Dutch food tech startup Mosa Meat conducted the first public tasting of cultivated beef in the EU, another milestone for novel foods amid fierce debate in Europe.
Mosa Meat, the Dutch startup that produced the world’s first cultivated meat burger over a decade ago, hosted a public tasting of its cultivated beef at its test kitchen in Maastricht last week (July 15).
Convening Dutch cattle farmers, food product developers and industry representatives, it marked the first time public members tasted cultivated beef in the EU. It follows the Dutch government’s establishment of a Code of Practice last year, which paved the way for startups to conduct tastings of cultivated meat and seafood before being approved for sale in the EU.
The attendees tasted hybrid beef patties, which combined cultivated beef fat with a custom plant-based mix made in-house by Mosa Meat’s product development team. Much like conventional minced beef that has varying degrees of fat (80/20, 90/10, etc.), the company is still experimenting with the optimal proportion of cultivated fat and plant-based ingredients (which are already widely accepted as food-grade and safe to eat).
Courtesy: Mosa Meat
“We specifically evaluated the potential of cultivated beef fat as an ingredient in a blend with plant-based ingredients as we know it is responsible for the flavour, aromas, mouthfeel and even sizzle people love from beef,” said Maarten Bosch, co-founder and CEO of Mosa Meat, which is awaiting regulatory approval in Singapore.
“We’ve been able to conclude that our cultivated fat has a very positive impact on the product quality,” he said. “This means that in addition to the cultivated beef for which we have submitted a regulatory approval request in Singapore, we can also elevate the culinary experience of plant-based products and delight more beef lovers faster.”
The development comes just three months after fellow Dutch startup Meatable hosted the EU’s first cultivated meat tasting, serving its hybrid pork sausages to chefs, journalists, industry stakeholders and public officials.
Cultivated beef burger impresses taste-testers
Courtesy: Mosa Meat
Mosa Meat said the purpose of the tasting was to the market readiness of products and collect feedback from culinary experts for product development purposes. “We are delighted to finally share our burgers with experts outside of the company, so they can help us create the best burgers possible,” said Bosch.
“The burger really tasted like meat,” said one attendee. “Usually I don’t eat meat, but I miss the taste of meat a lot, and this is the way to ultimately add it back to my diet, I hope.”
Another added: “I thought the burger was delicious. It was juicy, nice and succulent.”
The tasting follows the company’s latest €40M ($42.4M) fundraising round in April, which was the largest investment in a cultivated meat company since November 2022. It took total investment in the company to over $135M, and is helping Mosa Meat scale up its production processes and accelerate its route to market.
In May 2023, the startup opened what it claims is currently the world’s largest cultivated meat facility in Maastricht. 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”.
Courtesy: Mosa Meat
When Mosa Meat first unveiled a cultivated meat burger in 2013, the two proof-of-concept patties cost $330,000. Since then, the company has since managed to slash costs repeatedly. In 2020, it brought down the price of its own growth medium by 80-fold, and the following year, it reduced the cost of its fat medium cost by 66 times.
To further these efforts, it secured a €2M grant from the EU to cut production costs by 100-fold in 2021. And in 2023, it partnered with its investor Nutreco to create a cell feed supply chain and shift to food-grade amino acids to achieve this reduction without affecting yield.
While its exact production costs are not known, the company has indicated that these have continued to decline rapidly, and it’s confident that it will enter foodservice at a price point that works for chefs and restaurants.
Mosa Meat advocates for speed efficiency in EU novel food regulation
Courtesy: Mosa Meat
Mosa Meat’s beef is still undergoing evaluation by the Singapore Food Agency, which was the first regulator to clear cultivated meat for sale with Eat Just’s Good Meat chicken back in 2020. It has since greenlit cultivated quail made by Australia’s Vow.
But the original nine- to 12-month timeline Singapore has touted has been hard to realise for multiple applicants. Apart from Mosa Meat, it’s also assessing dossiers from Meatable, Aleph Farms and Vital Meat, among others.
Like others, Mosa Meat is planning to enter the market via foodservice too, allowing chefs to bring out the true potential of its cultivated beef when consumers first try it. This also allows breathing room to expand operations and meet the volume demands of retail contracts.
While it awaits the regulatory nod in Singapore, Mosa Meat will concurrently submit applications in other markets in 2024, and has highlighted the US, the EU, Switzerland and the UK as top targets. These regions have established regulatory frameworks and represent a billion consumers combined, which would allow the company to make a larger impact.
The UK just issued its (and Europe’s) first approval to cultivated pet food maker Meatly last week. But no company has so far received clearance in the EU, where the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has a complex and stringent framework, thanks in part to the fact that it has 27 member states.
Courtesy: Mosa Meat
“We embrace the robust nature of the Commission’s review because we know it is the gold standard in the world and will inspire broad consumer confidence,” Robert E Jones, VP of public affairs at Mosa Meat, told Green Queen. But he added: “There are some efficiencies that can be achieved in the speed at which dossiers are reviewed without sacrificing safety, and we continue to work with regulators on implementing those administrative reforms.”
One example of this is the EU’s updated guidance documents for novel foods, which reflects recent advancements in the sector and capitalise on the EFSA’s increased experience in assessing novel foods. The document is set to be published in September, and was built on multiple rounds of feedback by groups like Cellular Agriculture Europe. Jones, who is president of this trade association, said: “We see it as a step in the right direction and an indication that the EU is hearing our feedback about ways to improve efficiencies in the novel food process.”
Several other hiccups exist for cultivated meat. In the US, Florida and Alabama have banned cultivated meat, and a number of states are proposing similar measures. But these were preceded by Italy, which announced a ban last November, the first of its kind anywhere in the world. France, Romania and now Hungary are all thought to be mulling restrictions too – despite consumers largely expressing support for these foods.
“While some right-wing governments insist on inserting cultivated meat as a topic in their populist culture war, they are not representative of the vast majority of the European Union,” stated Jones. “The consensus among member states remains to be that innovation and conventional agriculture can coexist in order to boost European competitiveness and food security. I am confident that viewpoint will win the day.”
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 VFC’s ad in response to KFC’s new campaign, a new oat milk company, and an alternative protein week.
New products and launches
Slovenian whole-cut plant-based meat producer Juicy Marbles has introduced its newest product, Baby Ribs, made with a cleaner-label recipe. The 350g pack will roll out tomorrow, and newsletter subscribers who pre-ordered the product could receive prototypes of its lamb rack or bacon.
Courtesy: Juicy Marbles
Shane Stanbridge and C-Y Chia, owners of Oakland’s now-closed Lion Dance Cafe, are working on a cookbook inspired by the vegan restaurant, and have put out an open call to ask customers which dishes they should include in the recipe list.
Catering giant Compass Group‘s Eurest division has linked up with Irish company The Plant-It Food Co to serve the latter’s vegan chicken across non-commercial operations in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia. A national rollout will follow soon.
UK plant-based brand Framptons has unveiled the Wessex Oat Company, a range of discount oat milk in original, unsweetened, oat latte, caramel latte, and chocolate flavours for £1.49-1.99. It will also introduce a single cream alternative later this year.
Courtesy: Framptons
German vegan startup Planteneers has developed a fully plant-based Italian buffet. It showcased the menu with Marriott International, preparing vegan tiramisu, white fish and mortadella sandwiches for 1,450 attendees at the Future Food-Tech trade show in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, German producer Greenforce has linked up with UAE agrifood tech company Silal to bring its dehydrated plant-based meat mixes to foodservice locations in the Middle East and Africa region.
Also in Germany, discount supermarket Kaufland has expanded its own-label vegan, K-Take It Veggie, by around 20%, crossing 100 SKUs. It comes a year after it reduced the prices of its private-label plant-based products to match animal proteins.
In Australia, vegan food maker Plantein has rolled out an affordable line of ready-to-cook meals at Woolworths stores, featuring burgers, mince and meatballs for A$2.95 ($1.97).
Courtesy: Fascin8foods
And fellow Australian company Fascin8foods has expanded its Froom range of whole-food plant-based burgers, mine and meatballs to retailers in New South Wales and Queensland.
Company and event updates
Ingredients giant AAK has received a ‘no further questions’ letter from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the use of shea stearin, a plant-based fat that can replace cocoa butter and coconut oil, among others.
The Plant Based Foods Association has partnered with jobs platform Tälist, enabling its members to post open positions on a specially curated version of the AltProtein.jobs board.
Courtesy: Livekindly Collective
New York-based firm Livekindly Collective – the parent company of Like Meat, No Meat, Oumph! and Alpha Foods – has named David Suarez as CEO. Suarez moves up from his previous role as chief supply chain officer.
The Cultured Meat Symposium and UC Davis’ Integrative Center for Alternative Meat and Protein (iCAMP) have collaborated to host the Alternative Protein Week (September 9-13), which will convene over 300 researchers, policymakers, investors and stakeholders to discuss novel protein production.
Two months after opening its first European plant-based production line in Germany, Dutch drinks company Refresco has acquired Spanish white-label plant-based milk maker Frías Nutrición for an undisclosed sum.
Courtesy: VFC
UK vegan chicken maker VFC has launched a new campaign taking a shot at KFC‘s Believe in Chicken campaign, calling on people to ‘Believe in Chickens’ instead. The plurality aims to highlight the fast-food giant’s “hypocrisy”.
Research, policy and awards
What really drives people away from cultivated meat? One new study suggests it could be people’s morals, with Germans and Americans who care about the purity and naturalness of life are less inclined to eat these proteins. It highlights another pain point around consumer education for the sector.
Minnesota governor Tim Walz has announced a $200M Climate Pollution Reduction Grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the state’s food system
US mycelium meat producer Meati has received the Sustainable Plant of the Year award by Food Engineering magazine for its 100,000 sq ft Mega Ranch in Thornton, Colorado.
Courtesy: Meati
A campus-wide meat-free trial at the University of Bonn in Germany found that up to eight weeks after the trial ended, sales of meat were lower by 7-12% than before the veggie month, with 80% of students saying they want to see more meatless meals in the canteen.
Finally, in the UK, polling by Bosh! has revealed that nearly half (49%) of the country’s vegan population is male, subverting trends seen in previous research, which has suggested that veganism is much more common among women.
Europeans are largely in favour of cultivated meat if food regulators deem it to be safe, despite policymakers debating bans over the novel food.
In Brussels, over an informal lunch that no doubt featured meat, European leaders last week discussed the merits of cultivated meat, stemming from Hungary’s notification to the EU that it plans to ban these proteins within its borders.
But in a sign of consumer intent, a new survey has found that most Europeans are against such restrictions, and want to have the freedom to decide whether they want to eat cultivated meat or not.
Covering over 16,000 people from 15 EU countries, the YouGov poll for the Good Food Institute Europe found that Europeans mostly support the sale of cultivated meat if it passes safety assessments from food regulators. This sentiment is most popular in Portugal (69%), Germany (65%), Netherlands and Austria (both 63%). The German and Austrian results are from a separate survey conducted in March.
Courtesy: GFI Europe
The only countries where less than half of people oppose putting cultivated meat sale even after it’s okayed by regulators are Romania (49%) and France (48%), both countries that have floated the idea of banning the food and supported EU-wide efforts to restrict the industry’s progress.
“Cultivated meat must go through one of the world’s most rigorous regulatory processes before it will be available in the EU. This survey shows people across a wide range of countries believe that once it’s been approved, it should be down to consumers to decide whether or not they want to eat it,” said Seth Roberts, senior policy manager at GFI Europe.
EU citizens support meat-related terms on cultivated meat labels
The cultivated meat industry has some work to do in educating consumers, with the number of people who have heard about the food crossing 40% in only the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Germany. And just 21% of Italians say they know “a lot about cultivated meat”, the highest among the countries surveyed.
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Most Europeans also seem to be against banning cultivated meat, with support for legislation lowest in the Netherlands (24%), Portugal (25%) and Denmark (29%). On the flip side, 52% of people in Italy back a ban – it is the first and only country to have passed legislation to do so.
Italy’s ban on cultivated meat was also accompanied by restrictions on the use of meat-related terms on plant-based product packaging, though this is now being reconsidered. France also introduced a similar ban, but this was suspended by its top court, which questioned the law’s legality.
The survey showed that – despite cited concerns about consumer confusion – Europeans are happy for cultivated meat products to use meaty names, as long as it’s made clear that they aren’t sourced from livestock farming. This sentiment was particularly strong across the EU, with majorities in every country, led by Spain (81%), Portugal, Hungary, Czechia and Greece (all 79%).
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Respondents were more split on whether cultivated meat should receive R&D funding from governments, and if farmers should benefit from its opportunities. That said, Europeans are clear that if cultivated meat does come to market, it should be produced domestically, with only Romanians in the minority here (38%). Consumers further believe that decisions to approve cultivated meat should be independent of any commercial interests.
“It’s great to see so many Europeans are ready for its arrival as part of a diversified food system. Policymakers should recognise cultivated meat’s potential to boost food security by supporting this rapidly growing sector,” said Roberts.
EU leaders divided over cultivated meat
GFI Europe found that most Europeans are open to trying cultivated meat, with support highest in Portugal (63%), Czechia and the Netherlands (59%). Romania was the only country with less than four in 10 consumers willing to try cultivated meat at least once (35%).
However, when it comes to displacing meat, EU citizens are more hesitant. Less than a third (31%) of Dutch nationals would replace some of their current meat consumption with cultivated meat, and this is the highest among all countries. Romania is once again the least willing to do so (17%), alongside Greece. – in fact, both these nations have the highest number of people who say they’ll never eat cultivated meat (53% and 49%, respectively).
Courtesy: GFI Europe
But most Europeans believe they’re eating too much meat, overwhelmingly so in Greece (79%), Portugal (74%) and Italy (70%). The latter two are also where consumer most want to reduce their meat intake (63% and 60%, respectively). It shows that at the moment, cultivated meat is leaving a little to be desired.
At the EU’s Agriculture and Fisheries (Agrifish) Council meeting earlier this month, a note by the Hungarian presidency called for efforts to “protect” Europe’s culinary traditions from novel foods like cultivated meat and plant-based analogues. It was received positively by Italy and Austria, which would come as no surprise given the two were leading similar efforts (alongside France) at the council’s January meeting.
However, leaders from Spain and Germany pushed back. “I was born in Valencia, and I feel very proud of paella, which is a great culinary tradition and a great product,” said Spanish agriculture minister Luis Planas, before adding that these traditional foods “should not be an excuse to put a blindfold on innovation in food production”.
“Allow me a democratic consideration: in the end, the one who is right is the consumer. And if the consumer asks for new products, we will have to take them into account,” he stated.
Courtesy: Meatly
Cem Özdemir, Germany’s agrifood minister, echoed this sentiment. “I’m very proud of my local food… but I am not in favour of forcing people to eat this or that,” he said. “If people want novel foods, what’s wrong with it? It is the people that have to decide.”
Thanks to its rigorous and complex regulatory framework, no company has received approval to sell cultivated meat in the EU so far. Startups have been looking to more receptive markets like Singapore and the US. The pressure was racked up last week after the UK – a former EU member – became the first in the continent to clear cultivated meat for sale (greenlighting Meatly’s chicken for pets). Meanwhile, Switzerland (another non-EU state) is also reviewing an application for cultivated beef.
A new economic bill in Massachusetts pledges investment into alternative proteins, with Senator Barry Finegold calling food science a climate and health priority for the state.
If you’re caught trespassing or creating a public nuisance in Florida, you could go to jail for two months. Same thing if you sell cultivated meat.
The debate around alternative proteins has become increasingly polarised in the US, with many policymakers trying to create a divide among partisan lines. Florida has banned companies from making or selling cultivated meat in its borders. From October, so too will Alabama.
That said, the White House and states like California and Illinois have been pouring in millions to support alternative proteins, signalling that not everyone finds a modern piece of chicken a threat to farmers, the economy, and the fabric of American society.
Massachusetts – home to Tufts University and its Center for Cellular Agriculture – is one of these proponents. In its new Economic Development Bill, passed last week, the Bay State has put its weight behind climate tech and alternative proteins.
“We feel that food science is going to be a big part of the future. And food science is not only good for the economy, it’s good for the climate, and it’s good for our health,” state Senator Barry Finegold, chairperson of the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, tells Green Queen.
“We are looking at trying to help grow our companies and helping them with research, helping them with infrastructure, and helping them develop their products,” he adds.
“Massachusetts recognises the economic benefits of this sector, the enormous job creation potential, the climate benefits, and the ability for alternative proteins to help tackle food insecurity and a slew of individual and public health issues,” notes Noa Dalzell, state policy director at non-profit Food Solutions Action.
“The state has historically been at the forefront of emerging technologies and innovation, and this alternative protein investment signals it will continue to lead on the most critical new innovations in sustainability,” she says.
Massachusetts looks to be ‘food tech leader’ globally
As part of the Economic Development Bill (S.2856), the Massachusetts Senate is pledging $2.8B in funding, with grants for climate tech and adaptation finance for coastal municipalities. The House version of the bill (H. 4804) – passed in June – is effectively the same.
Alternative proteins appear thrice in the list of investments. First, there’s a $5M grant to local companies in support of developing these novel foods, who can apply for the funding via state VC firm MassVentures’ START programme. This involves the assistance of a Small Business Innovation Research or Small Business Technology Transfer grant from federal agencies like the USDA, the FDA or the National Science Foundation.
Another $5M is earmarked for the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech) – a public agency – to match grants that support alternative proteins among private entities, higher education institutes, NGOs, and other organisations in the state. These grants must be administered in alignment with the goals and priorities of the state’s manufacturing collaborative, and promote “geographic, social and economic equity”.
Finally, the government will pour in $115M for a competitive programme by MassTech, centred on infrastructure support to advance the state’s leadership and increase jobs in key emerging tech sectors. This includes developing alternative proteins – with the bill namechecking plant-based, fermented and cultivated foods – with “sensory characteristics that are consistent with conventional meat and dairy”.
“What we’re focused on right now is trying to encourage companies from all over the country to come here, and we feel that with our package, I think it’s very enticing for people to come to Massachusetts,” says Finegold.
When it comes to food tech, he adds that the state is looking “not only to be a leader in the United States, but also to be a leader around the world”. Countries like Singapore, Israel and now the UK have all made progress with regulatory approvals. And two companies have received clearance to sell cultivated meat in the US, and both are from California.
Meanwhile, as part of a $100M pledge, the Bezos Earth Fund opened a Center for Sustainable Protein in North Carolina State University in May to advance alternative protein research.
‘Lawmakers have to take science seriously’
Courtesy: Alonso Nichols/Tufts University
Massachusetts’ bill is a big vote of confidence for alternative proteins – particularly cultivated meat, which has been marred by dubious claims about being unnatural, unhealthy and even bad for the climate.
This industry needs a win, and Finegold’s recognition that it’s good for the economy, health and environment has delivered that.
I ask the Senator what he thinks about the bans in Florida and Alabama. “I’m not concerned about what other states are doing,” he said. “What I’m focused on is what Massachusetts is doing and I’m very proud that Massachusetts is a leader when it comes to trying to preserve the world, make a healthier society, and create economic opportunity for its people.”
Perhaps not surprisingly given the state of US politics today, he doesn’t believe support for alternative proteins is an issue that would sway a person to vote or not vote for someone. “I think it’s incumbent on us lawmakers to think long-term,” he says. “If we’re concerned about climate change, if we’re concerned about people’s health, then I think we have to take science seriously. And that’s what we’re doing here in Massachusetts.”
Does he believe these restrictions hinder consumer choice and climate action? “I was travelling yesterday. I was at the Delta Lounge and they had plant-based chicken, and I didn’t see anybody hesitating to eat that type of food. So I just think it takes time,” he responds.
“And I think Massachusetts has always been a leader in challenging thought, and getting people to change their behaviours, and how they think about things.”
Finegold said the final points of the bill are still being negotiated, but expects it to be finalised in the next few weeks. When asked about foreign investment and talent, he says the state is ready for “all businesses in food science and technology with open arms.”
“Massachusetts has always been an open state, and welcomes talent from all over the world to come here and work with our companies,” he adds. “Whether the companies decide to take investment from domestic or international, that’s ultimately up to them.”
US states ‘recognising’ the potential of alternative proteins
Courtesy: Green Queen
A recent poll showed that cultivated meat acceptance skews higher among Democrats than Republicans. With Donald Trump picking a climate sceptic in JD Vance as his running mate, how would the upcoming election affect this sector?
“Both Republican and Democratic administrations over the years have supported agencies conducting this research, and we’re grateful to have bipartisan support for this research area needed for a more secure food future,” Dalzell states.
“As you can see in this official statement, under President Trump, USDA secretary [Sonny] Perdue and FDA commissioner [Scott] Gottlieb expressed support for the proposed USDA/FDA framework of overseeing cultivated meat regulation.
Speaking at the IFT First trade event this week, Bruce Friedrich, president of alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute, said he expects the cultivated meat bans in Florida and Alabama to be “quietly repealed”, at least “before they’re meaningful”. He labelled it as “no big loss”, as companies don’t need to sell in these states anytime soon.
But Nusa Urbancic, CEO of the Changing Markets Foundation, suggested otherwise in a chat with Green Queen: “I think the Big Ag has only got started when it comes to bans and restrictions on its competition. Without a very smart and well-resourced counteroffensive, the troubles for the alternative protein industry could continue.”
Dalzell believes it’s hard to gauge exactly where things are going to go. “But what I can say is that states across the country are recognising this is a sector that needs to be invested in because of both the economic potential and its ability to tackle a myriad of social issues,” she explains.
“Perhaps most importantly, because meat demand is projected to double over the next 25 years, states are recognising they need to invest in alternatives to complement existing protein forms.”
Cult Food Science subsidiary Further Foods will submit its design of feeding trials to the FDA later this month, in pursuit of regulatory approval for cultivated chicken for dogs.
Further Foods, a subsidiary of Canadian cellular agriculture platform Cult Food Science, is pursuing US regulatory clearance for cultivated pet food under the Noochies! brand.
The company will soon complete the design of the necessary feeding trials for the approval of dog treats containing cultivated chicken, and expects to submit the protocol to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) later this month.
Further Foods intends to begin the trials in Q4 once the FDA has approved its design. It hopes to receive the regulatory greenlight and launch its initial products early next year, Cult Food Science CEO Mitchell Scott told Green Queen.
How novel pet food feeding trials work
Courtesy: Andresr/Getty Images
In the US, novel pet food sits under the same regulatory umbrella as feed ingredients. This is overseen by the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, which also works in partnership with the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), an independent non-profit that sets standards for these ingredients in the US.
One of the ways to ensure that new ingredients are nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy for animals is to undertake feeding trials using guidelines designed by AAFCO.
Since the cultivated chicken in dog treats is a new ingredient without prior approval, Further Foods has partnered with veterinarian Dr Sarah Dodd to design a target animal safety (TAS) study. The goal is to establish that including cultivated chicken in future Noochies! formulations is safe and effective.
Once it submits the design protocol to the FDA, the federal regulator will respond within 45 days. “The next step after receiving feedback on our feeding trial design from the FDA will be to undertake the feeding trials,” said Scott.
The TAS study is designed to provide evidence that cultivated chicken is safe and useful for its intended purpose as a complementary source of protein in dog food. Under AAFCO guidelines, “adult maintenance” studies must include a minimum of eight dogs aged at least one, and the trial must last 26 weeks.
Further Foods’ design includes 30 healthy, adult dogs of different breeds and ages, who will either receive a control dose, test dose or high inclusion dose for the 26-week period. Among the parameters monitored are feed intake data, haematology, serum biochemistry, urinalysis, weight, faecal analysis, and digestibility factors.
If it meets the criteria – which state that there should be no signs of nutritional deficiency or toxicity, and the group average shouldn’t lose more than 10% of body weight, among others – then the food is classed as “complete and balanced”.
“There will be some additional work required after the approval, some of it can be done in parallel with the feeding trial,” said Scott.
Noochies! cultivated dog treats to cost the same as premium pet food
Courtesy: Veronika Dvorakova
Cult Food Science claims Further Foods is the only company in consultation with the FDA about feeding trials for cultivated chicken dog treats.
“We believe that the implications of a successful trial could change the landscape of pet food as a whole,” Scott said in a statement. “The regulatory pathways have yet to be successfully navigated and as a result, this is not currently an option in North America. We are seeking to be a first mover in changing that and look forward to advancing this trial with Dr Sarah Dodd and the FDA.”
Dodd is part of the founding team of Friends & Family Pet Food Co., another cultivated pet food company that is currently developing white fish for cats with Umami Bioworks. Asked if there was any conflict of interest, Scott said: “My understanding is that Dr Dodd is involved with a large number of different pet-related companies.”
The cultivated dog treats will usher in a new era for Noochies!, which was launched by former Cult Food Science VP Joshua Errett (who is also a co-founder of Friends & Family) in 2019. It produces vegan dog and cat snacks using Cult Food Science’s patented Bmmune ingredient, a blend of nutritional yeast and fermented fungi.
In May, the parent company raised CAD$800,000 ($584,000) to expand the Noochies! lineup. “We are currently building out our sales and distribution network with the Noochies! line of vegan treats and plan on launching the cultivated products into that network,” confirmed Scott.
The cultivated dog treats will also contain the “proprietary blend of bioactive fermentation ingredients and nutritional yeast (Bmmune)” that can be found in the current vegan range. Further Foods is targeting an omnichannel approach instead of focusing purely on B2B or B2C, with Scott describing it as the “most effective way to build and scale a brand”.
“For the current Noochies line, we are able to scale quickly to meet demand and have no production constraints,” he said when asked about the cost and manufacturing challenges. “For this new line of products, we expect to be both profitable and priced in line with other premium alternatives from the outset.”
Cult Food Science’s announcement culminates what has been a seminal week for the cultivated pet food industry. On Wednesday, London-based Meatly announced it had received the regulatory go-ahead in the UK, a first for cultivated meat in Europe and for pet food globally. It aims to start selling cultivated chicken for dogs by the end of the year.
Friends & Family Pet Food Co. has partnered with cultivated seafood company Umami Bioworks to roll out treats and supplements for cats.
It’s a big week for cultivated pet food.
On Wednesday, London-based startup Meatly announced it had received regulatory approval to sell its cultivated chicken for pets in the UK, the first company to receive the greenlight anywhere in Europe.
The same day, in the US, a new alternative protein brand for cats and dogs has come on the horizon, and is hoping to bring cultivated seafood for pets to market next year.
San Francisco’s Friends & Family Pet Food Co. has partnered with Singaporean cultivated seafood producer Umami Bioworks to launch cat treats in both geographies by early 2025.
Part of ProVeg International’s 12th incubator, the pet food startup is the brainchild of CEO Joshua Errett – former VP at Cult Food Science – pet industry veteran COO Jonny Cruz, and veterinarian and chief science officer Sarah Dodd.
“Friends & Family is a brand for cultivated meat and fish, precision fermentation and any sustainable ingredient that can replace animal proteins,” says Errett, who is also the former co-founder of cultivated pet food startup BioCraft Pet Nutrition (previously Because Animals).
“We partner with top-tier startups and scientists making animal-free ingredients, and give them a path to market using our proprietary pet food platform,” he adds. “Umami Bioworks is our first and most important partnership, and we have some other big names in the pipeline.”
He continues: “My team and I have each been in the pet food space for a decade or more, so we have manufacturing, distribution and retail relationships in place. We have plans for treats, supplements and complete and balanced foods for both dogs and cats.”
“I have perhaps a childlike view that there are only two kinds of animals. Friends – wolves, sea bass, porcupines, pigs, giraffes, squirrels, and all the other wild and farmed animals – and family – the beloved animals that live with me, my cats,” Errett explains. “I want them both to live to their full potential. That’s the entire point of our company.”
Cultivated cat treats to contain white fish
Courtesy: Friends & Family Pet Food Co.
The cat treats will be packaged as bars and in bags, and contain a white fish blend “similar to the fish meal that’s in commercial caught-fish pet foods today”, according to Errett.
“We are developing two white fish species,” says Mihir Pershad, founder and CEO of Umami Bioworks, which recently merged with fellow Singaporean cultivated seafood player Shiok Meats.
“Both species have strong existing consumer awareness and market appeal. The rest of the formulation is a proprietary blend developed by Josh and his team to deliver excellent nutrition, health, and flavour.”
Errett says Friends & Family prefers minimally processed foods. “A huge problem in pet food, from my personal perspective, is high-heat extrusion, which produces kibble,” he notes. “For nutritional reasons, I don’t believe it should be a cat or dog’s everyday diet. So we will avoid that.”
Umami Bioworks, which recently established partnerships in India too, is currently scaling up its cultivated fish production in Malaysia, and establishing a pilot line at another site. “Our capacity is in the tens of kgs, but we are rapidly working towards ton-scale capacity for our pilot line,” says Pershad.
Friends & Family, which is now raising capital, enters a market that has seen major advancements recently. Both Meatly and BioCraft Pet Nutrition have slashed the costs of their innovations by reimagining culture media.
Czech startup Bene Meat Technologies, meanwhile, was the first cultivated meat startup to be listed on the EU’s feed register (which is different from regulatory approval for consumption), and showcased its product at the Interzoo trade fair in Nuremberg in May.
Regulatory clearance expected by end of 2024
Courtesy: Friends & Family Pet Food Co.
Like most pet food, these cat treats won’t be 100% cultivated meat, instead being combined with plant-based ingredients and high-value microalgae. They’re said to contain all essential nutrients. “Few, if any, pet food companies will reveal how much meat is in their products. I think most consumers would be shocked at the actual meat inclusion in commercial pet food,” claims Errett.
“We’re building in public and transparency is a pillar for us, so I don’t mind saying we’re aiming for 25-30% cultivated fish inclusion. On the launch of this treat, it will be up to 10%, depending on regulations we’re working through.”
Speaking of which, Errett and Parshad both confirm that the startups are in talks with regulators in both the US and Singapore, which were – before this year – the only two countries where cultivated meat was cleared for sale.
“Both Umami and Friends & Family are working hard to secure our first approval before the end of 2024,” says Pershad. “Given the advanced stage of our discussions and our dossier preparation, we are confident in our Q1 2025 timeline for launch.”
Errett adds: We’ll have production spaces in both the US and southeast Asia, to service the San Francisco Bay Area and Singapore. Our capacity will be limited at launch, much like other cultivated meat production. We’ll be able to feed a lot of pets in our limited markets at launch, and then scale over time.”
An ‘antidote for the slowdown in alternative proteins’
Friends & Family Pet Food Co. founders Joshua Errett, Dr Sarah Dodd and Jonny Cruz | Courtesy: Friends & Family Pet Food Co.
Errett has been in the alternative protein industry for a while. In 2016, he co-founded BioCraft Pet Nutrition with CEO Shannon Falconer. Then, he founded vegan dog treats brand Noochies, which was acquired by Cult Food Science, where he served as a VP until December 2023.
“Obviously, I’m a big believer in that brand,” Errett says of Noochies. “I’m still on all the Noochies packaging and site as its founder, and I consult with Cult weekly on pet food matters. But I am not involved with the day-to-day operations, or in any other way.”
Asked why he left Cult, he explains: “I am an entrepreneur at heart. I learned that over years [of] working in banking, government and venture capital – and over a few different startups in the pet space. I’ve worked with my co-founders Jonny Cruz and Dr Sarah Dodd for years, formulating successful products together over a couple [of] different companies now. So it made sense that we start our own venture.”
When Errett was at Cult Food Science, the company had partnered with Umami Bioworks to co-launch Marina Cat, a cultivated cat food brand. Friends & Family is a separate entity, and Errett confirms he is no longer involved in Marina Cat.
“Our solution will be, I think, the antidote for the slowdown in alternative proteins – we take cultivated and precision fermentation ingredients out of the lab and make commercially viable, profitable products for today’s pet food market,” he explains. “Our partners can get early revenue and product-market fit as they scale to become world-changing ingredient companies. The motto is [to] get to the consumer as fast as possible.”
London-based Meatly is now allowed to sell its cultivated meat for pets in the UK, marking Europe’s first approval for these proteins, and the world’s first for pet food.
Meatly has become the first company to be approved to sell cultivated meat in Europe, after UK regulators gave the green light to the startup earlier this month.
Following the decision by the Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA) on July 2, Meatly can supply its cultivated chicken to dog food manufacturers, marking the first time a cultivated pet food product is cleared for sale anywhere in the world.
It signals the end of Meatly’s 18-month-long consultation process with government bodies in the UK, which joins Singapore, the US and Israel as the fourth country to approve cultivated meat.
The startup plans to launch the first samples of its dog food before the end of the year, beyond which, it will focus on reducing costs. Having secured £3.6M in investment to date, Meatly is now targeting a Series A round, which will help it scale up production to reach industrial volumes in the next three years.
“We’re currently conducting product development and conducting feeding trials on dogs,” Meatly CEO Owen Ensor told Green Queen. “We’re primarily focused on wet pet food for now.”
“Meatly’s regulatory approval is a landmark event for the industry,” said Jim Mellon, founder of Agronomics, an investor in Meatly. “Through its technological innovation and close work with governing authorities, Meatly is helping prove that we can succeed in commercialising cultivated products for pets across the UK.”
“The UK is a world leader in developing cultivated meat and the approval of a cultivated pet food is an important milestone. It underscores the potential for new innovation to help reduce the negative impacts of intensive animal agriculture,” said Linus Pardoe, UK policy manager for alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe.
Meatly to focus on driving down costs
Courtesy: Meatly
Meatly’s approval comes after assessments from the Food Standards Agency (FSA), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the APHA. These government agencies ensured that it complied with all necessary regulations, with the startup’s technology passing the APHA’s rigorous inspection process.
The company has also registered as a feed business operator, and its production facility has been approved by Defra and APHA to produce and handle cultivated chicken.
In addition, it has prepared a comprehensive safety dossier and conducted extensive testing to demonstrate that cultivated chicken is safe and healthy for pets, and contains no GMOs, antibiotics, harmful pathogens, heavy metals and other impurities.
The regulatory approval follows Meatly’s breakthrough in slashing the costs involved with making its cultivated chicken. Culture media, a mix of nutrients that facilitate the growth of animal cells, account for the majority of the production costs. But in May, the startup developed a protein-free version that brought down the price tag from hundreds of pounds to just £1 ($1.25).
“Protein-free media in biopharma is not kind of new, but in cultivated meat is,” Helder Cruz, Meatly’s co-founder and chief scientific officer, told Green Queen in an interview earlier this month. “And it depends also on the type of cells on the species – some are a bit more challenging than others.”
He added that Meatly’s objective had always been to ensure that its processes are “realisable, cost-effective, and food-safe”. The chicken costs in the “double figures” in pounds sterling per kg,
“Currently, we’d price our pet food within the premium market, but we’re aiming to reduce this cost as we scale and develop our product,” Ensor told Green Queen. “One advantage of pet food is that mainstream pet foods are all combinations of meat and other ingredients, so we’re able to further reduce costs here by mixing the meat with other healthy plant-based ingredients.”
First cultivated chicken product will be hybrid meat
Courtesy: Meatly
While Meatly had previously floated cat food as its first product, it pivoted to dog food in recent months. It has already shipped some of its chicken to pet food manufacturers, who can run their own nutrition tests and try different formulations.
Ensor previously revealed to Green Queen that the company had partnered with “one of the UK’s leading dog food brands” for its first launch. Pressed on this, he said: “We’ll be announcing that after the feeding trials are conducted, but we’re actively working with several leading pet food manufacturers.”
But as he alluded to above, this won’t be 100% cultivated dog food. Instead, Meatly will be taking the hybrid meat approach, which involves combining cultivated cells with plant-based ingredients. This helps keep costs low and makes more sense with its current rate of production.
“What you find typically in pet foods, the meat content… depending on the brand, is typically in that 20-30% window. We’ll probably start slightly lower just because of limited supply,” Ensor has previously explained.
Asked how much of the cultivated meat would make it into the finished products, he said: “The final product will be decided by pet food manufacturers who will sell to. Most pet food on the market are combinations of meat and other plant-based ingredients, to create nutritionally balanced, complete pet food. Products made with Meatly Chicken will be similar.”
Even at lower inclusion rates, the chicken has a great palatability impact, according to the co-founder. “I’ve fed it to my cats several times and they love it! We’re now conducting comprehensive feeding trials on dogs as well and will be sharing the results once complete,” he siad.
One thing is certain: whenever Meatly’s products do come to market, they’ll roll out at Pets At Home, the UK’s leading pet retailer. It invested in the alternative protein startup’s last fundraising round, and represents the “pinnacle” for pet food companies, according to Ensor.
Brits are receptive to cultivated meat for pets
Courtesy: Meatly
Pet ownership is increasing, but so is the carbon footprint attached to feeding our furry friends. While experts disagree over the true emissions stemming from pet food, one study suggests that 20% of all meta produced is used for pet food.
What is undisputed is that meat is the most carbon-intensive food group on Earth, making up 60% of the food system’s emissions (twice more than what’s generated by plant-based foods). In the UK, pets eat more per year than the entire population under 18, and labradors – the most popular pet dogs in the country – consume 70 million kg of meat annually, nearly 60% more than their owners.
The fact that Meatly is focusing on wet food is crucial, given that wet food can emit up to seven times more CO2e than dry pet food. Meanwhile, growing livestock and their feed take up 85% of the UK’s farmland. Meatly’s cultivated chicken, on the other hand, has been found to use up to 64% less land and 28% less water to produce.
And it seems that both farmers and consumers are becoming warmer to the idea of cultivated meat. Reserach by the Royal Agricultural University has found that farmers do recognise the potential benefits of these novel foods. And a 2022 study suggested that even if only a third of Brits would try cultivated meat themselves, nearly half (47%) would feed it to their pets.
The main concern that came out of the latter research was nutrition. “We’ve done a lot of nutritional analysis, safety analysis on the product,” Ensor said. “It shows us a very similar nutritional profile to chicken breast and has all of the essential amino acids, fatty acids, minerals and vitamins that cats and dogs need to thrive.”
Third approval for cultivated meat in 2024
Courtesy: Meatly
Meatly’s approval is a major breakthrough in Europe. For years, the UK has been following the EU’s novel food regulations, even after Brexit. The EU’s complicated framework – partly due to the sheer number of member states – has meant progress on approvals has been non-existent.
The FSA has been attempting to break away from the EU legislation and overhaul the UK’s regulatory process to gain a competitive advantage. Currently, companies face up to 36 months of waiting before they get the go-ahead. But there are concerns that the newly elected Labour government could jeopardise the proposals due to the initial costs involved.
“I think we’re still waiting for a clear perspective from the Labour government. Alternative proteins and biotechnology would seem to fit very well, however, with their push for a sustainable, innovative economy,” said Ensor.
For its part, the FSA said it “welcomes innovations by the animal feed sector” for using alternative proteins like cultivated meat in a safe manner. “The safety of such products, including pet food which is regulated as an animal feed, remains paramount and the FSA closely monitors any new product coming on to the market,” James Cooper, deputy director of food policy at the department, told the Financial Times.
This is the third regulatory approval for cultivated meat globally in 2024. The year began with Israel’s clearance of local cultivated beef producer Aleph Farms, with Australia’s Vow obtaining the go-ahead three months later in Singapore (it is currently under consideration in Australia and New Zealand as well).
Singapore – which was the first country to allow cultivated meat to be sold in 2020 – is also assessing dossiers from Dutch cultivated pork startup Meatly, and French cultivated chicken maker Vital Meat. These followed the US’s clearance of Upside Foods and Good Meat’s cultivated chicken products in June 2023.
Aleph Farms and Vital Meat have also filed applications in the UK, but given that their products are made for human consumption, the process is more complex and time-intensive. “If we’re to realise the full potential benefits of cultivated meat – from enhancing food security to supporting the expansion of regenerative farming – the government must invest in the research and infrastructure needed to make it delicious, affordable and accessible for people across the UK,” said GFI Europe’s Pardoe.
And while some governments – like Italy and the US states of Florida and Alabama – have banned cultivated meat, others have made advancements. South Korea is now accepting applications after developing a framework earlier this year, for example, while India is establishing guidance for approvals as well.
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 Ben & Jerry’s non-dairy ice cream tour, a cultivated seafood grant, and a trio of updates from India.
New products and launches
Unilever-owned ice cream giant Ben & Jerry’s is promoting its revamped vegan lineup (now with oat milk) with a Dreamy Non-Dairy Tour. The brand is touring seven US cities, showcasing all 19 flavours through a dreamscape experience.
Courtesy: Ben & Jerry’s
Pea milk producer Ripple Foods has introduced a range of protein shakes for kids. Called Shake Ups, they come in chocolate and vanilla flavours, boast 13g of protein and 3g of fibre per 8oz bottle, and are available on its website and Amazon.
In more alt-dairy news, New York’s vegan bodega chain Plantega has partnered with Swedish vegan cheesemaker Stockeld Dreamery to add its fermented Cheddar slices on 18 menu items, including breakfast sandwiches, burritos, chopped cheese, and Philly cheesesteak.
In the UK, The Coconut Collab has rolled out Protein Yog, a coconut yoghurt packed with 10g of soy and almond protein, as well as Yog & Granola, an on-the-go snack featuring granola clusters.
Courtesy: The Coconut Collab
Nordic dairy giant Arla has announced it will launch a barista version of its Jörd oat milk in the UK this month, which has been developed in collaboration with coffee professionals.
Vegan confectioner Catherine’s Originals has debuted sharing formats of its plant-based chocolate, with its Selection Tin containing 81 chocolates and Selection Box comprising 31 in nine flavours.
In Italy, KFC has debuted meatless versions of its Classic Veggie sandwich, Twister Veggie wrap, and Tender Crispy meals. But these contain milk and egg derivatives, so they’re not vegan.
Indian vegetarian restaurant chain Spice Grill Flame has introduced a new vegan menu at select locations. It’s divided into two categories, Vegan (based on whole foods) and 100% Plant-Based Protein (addressing India’s protein problem).
Courtesy: Plantaway
Fellow Indian company Plantaway has launched vegan sausage and pepperoni SKUs containing 22g and 16g of protein per serving, respectively, weeks after it rolled out a chicken fillet.
Also in India, P A Footwear has partnered with the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology to develop Vegan Virya, a biodegradable leather alternative made from 95% plant-based materials (mainly sugarcane), including 60% agri-waste content.
Back in the US, botanical drinks maker Jubi Brands has unveiled a three-strong range of plant-based shots at several retailers in the Tri-State Area, targeting focus, energy and relaxation.
Meanwhile, mycelium meat producer Mush Foods continues to make waves with its 50Cut solution for blended meat. It has now partnered with luxury meat purveyor Dufour Gourmet, which is using its mushroom root meat in a bratwurst, breakfast sausage, Italian-style sausage, and chicken sausage.
Courtesy: Dufour Gourmet
And in New York City, Neat‘s Nolita location has launched a Hot Honey Sando with Mellody‘s bee-free honey.
Finance developments
Sweden’s Veg of Lund has now rebranded to Dug Foodtech, reflecting the name of its brand of potato milks.
Agrifood funding dropped by 12.5% year-on-year in the first half of 2024, according to data from AgFunder. But Innovative Food, a category mostly comprised of alternative proteins, was one of the strongest segments, garnering $828M in investments.
Courtesy: The Very Food Co
Speaking of which, French plant-based startup The Very Food Co – which makes vegan analogues like aquafaba and butter – has secured €850,000 in a funding round, taking total investment past €1M.
In similar news, Spain’s Vanetta Food, producer of seitan and soy-based meat, has raised €400,000 in its latest financing round.
Courtesy: University of Waterloo
Two students at Canada’s University of Waterloo have received over $700,000 in grants from the Good Food Institute, Mitacs and New Harvest to scale their AI-led research into developing cultivated seafood.
Company and event updates
At UK tempeh startupBetter Nature, co-founder Elin Roberts has moved from the role of chief marketing officer to co-CEO, sharing responsibilities with fellow co-founder Christopher Kong.
Courtesy: Better Nature
In its new impact report, Spanish plant-based meat startup Heura has announced that it reduced emissions by 23% per kg across its product lines between 2021 and 2023. It will soon bring out the fourth iteration of its packaging, which will cut transportation emissions by 31.5%.
South Korean cultivated meat ingredients producerSimple Planet‘s CEO Dominic Jeong has been named chairman of the Bio Future Food Industry Association under the Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization.
Industry association Cellular Agriculture Europe has seen its membership expand by 150%, welcoming 12 new members in Q3, including Mewery (Czech Republic), BrunoCell (Italy), Re:meat (Sweden), and Cell4Food (Portugal), among others.
With a change of government, the UK’s plans to shake and speed up its regulatory process for novel foods like cultivated meat could be derailed.
Now that the Conservatives have finally been voted out of office after 14 years, climate activists in the UK have breathed a sigh of relief.
Rishi Sunak’s net-zero U-turns and vows to authorise oil projects in the North Sea were deeply unpopular. Sir Kier Starmer’s government has immediately laid down its climate vision – it plans to stop using fossil fuels for electricity by 2030, for starters.
However, the new Labour administration may yet have a negative impact on the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) plans to overhaul its regulatory framework for novel foods, which include cultivated meat and precision-fermented products.
The UK has retained the EU’s regulatory process post-Brexit, which has created a massive backlog and made it virtually impossible for companies to get their products on the market. The Conservative government had viewed a departure from EU red tape as a positive for post-Brexit Britain, and had backed the FSA’s moves to make wholesale changes.
But the election came just as the food safety body’s work got underway, and now, “competing priorities” and concerns over the initial costs could jeopardise the proposals, FSA chair Susan Jebb told a behind-closed-doors meeting, according to the Grocer.
How the FSA plans to revamp its novel foods framework
Courtesy: Vital Meat
Back in March, the FSA said it would create a new public register of regulated products, replacing the current system that requires the parliament to pass statutory instruments before they can be placed on the market.
The existing regulations added up to six months to the process, creating a huge backlog of over 470 applications for novel foods, facing up to a two-and-a-half-year waiting period. The FSA also sought to remove the requirement for products that have already been approved to reapply for clearance every 10 years.
Around the same time, it was revealed that the FSA was seeking £5M in government funding for labs to pilot a ‘sandbox’ testing project for novel proteins, and was in talks to collaborate with food companies and scientists for the same.
And by May, the department was also mulling a system of global cooperation that would involve a “sliding scale of international engagement” to clear the highly congested docket of applications and see cultivated meat and other foods be approved based on their track record in other markets, such as Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.
All these efforts were meant to fast-track approval for startups like those involved in alternative protein. An FSA-commissioned report by Deloitte in 2023 found that speeding up novel foods regulation could help the UK meet its carbon reduction plans (the country has earmarked 2050 as its net-zero target).
“The board has been clear that overhauling the way we authorise new foods is an opportunity for the FSA to drive benefits for consumers by enabling new and innovative products that we assess as being safe to come to market more quickly,” Jebb said in May.
But whether these sweeping changes will actually take place now depends on Starmer’s cabinet, with talks set to be held between Labour ministers and the FSA to persuade the government to go ahead with the plan. “I think there is a good case for it but they may have other priorities,” Jebb told the Grocer.
While the food safety body negotiates with the new government, a report that was due to be presented to the FSA’s board about the overhaul has now been postponed to September.
One major issue is the cost involved, according to Jebb. “Change often comes at a price initially, and whilst this may deliver us a better service in the long run, the cost of developing this at the same time as running the existing service should not be underestimated,” she said.
So far, three cultivated meat companies have publicly announced their submissions of dossiers for approval in the UK. Israel’s Aleph Farms was the first to do so last August for its cultivated beef (which has since been given the go-ahead in its home country), while France’s Vitalmeat applied for its cultivated chicken this May.
The only other dossier was for cultivated pet food. London-based Meatly has been in consultation with the FSA for 18 months for feed material registration, and with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for animal byproducts, legislation and facility treatment since August 2023. Its co-founders Owen Ensor and Helder Cruz revealed to Green Queen last month that the company will first launch cultivated chicken for dogs via a leading pet food brand in the UK, and expects approval by early August.
How the Labour government views the FSA’s move remains to be seen. But it’ll be a test of its pledges to work with businesses, support growth, and mitigate climate change. A report by think tank Green Alliance has suggested that, with the right combination of targeted investments and regulation, the UK’s alternative protein sector could be worth £6.8B annually and create 25,000 jobs by 2035.
Meanwhile, Defra has announced the Starmer government’s five key priorities for the climate, which involve cleaning up Britain’s water bodies, protecting communities from floods, ensuring nature’s recovery, creating a zero-waste economy, and supporting farmers to boost food security.
“Inevitably Labour’s approach to the issue of novel food is different to the previous government. That said, I do think the initiative very much fits into the Labour growth agenda, and I have heard from reliable sources that Keir Starmer is aware of the initiative,” a source told The Grocer.
But they warned that the FSA may have to look beyond state investment to support parts of its plan. “Obviously, getting the funds to make these changes is nonetheless a significant barrier in the current climate.”
Farmers have always been pitted against cultivated meat, but a new report suggests that despite concerns, they recognise the opportunities presented by these proteins.
When Italy, Florida and Alabama announced their respective bans on cultivated meat over the last eight months, the dominant rhetoric was that of protecting farmers and the cattle industry. Florida governor Ron DeSantis was very on-the-nose about it, standing behind a banner reading ‘Save Our Beef’ when signing the bill.
But critics quickly called out such moves as “protectionist” policies that served “entrenched interests”. They also pointed out the hypocritical nature of the farmer-friendly messaging used to justify the bans.
“This legislation has always been about one thing – helping one industry, Big Ag, avoid accountability and competition,” Tom Rossmeissl, head of global marketing at Eat Just, one of only two companies approved to sell cultivated meat in the US, told Green Queen after Florida’s ban became official. “Today, these multinational corporations and their lobbyists won.”
While you could argue that this response is expected from a company with interests in this novel food sector, what would you say if you found out that farmers – the very people these legislators claim to want to protect – themselves exhibited a similar concern?
In the UK, at least, farmers seem to be more worried about social issues brought on by cultivated meat – like Big Food controlling the market or the knock-on effects on rural communities – than its impact on the bottom line. And when pitted against changing weather patterns and global commodity markets, the threat of competition from cultivated meat feels like a “slow burn” to them.
This is according to research led by the Royal Agricultural University (RAU), which discussed cultivated meat with 80 farmers and nine farms to explore how they’d need to adapt their businesses in a future with cultivated meat.
Backed by the Transforming UK Food Systems’s Strategic Priorities Fund (under the government body UK Research and Innovation), the takeaway was a potential win for the alternative protein industry, suggesting that farmers could help the sector grow and lower its environmental impact – and vice-versa.
“They certainly had a lot of concerns, but were also mostly willing to engage in discussion about potential opportunities,” acknowledged study lead Tom MacMillan, who is the Elizabeth Creak Chair in rural policy and strategy at the RAU.
“The message from our research is not [that] farmers are unconcerned, but that this doesn’t have to be a polarised debate, and there is potential for cultured meat businesses, farmers and other stakeholders to find synergies and shape the direction of this technology together,” he told Green Queen.
What are farmers’ biggest concerns about cultivated meat?
Courtesy: Royal Agricultural University
Most of the farmers RAU spoke to reacted first as customers instead of producers, echoing public concerns over whether cultivated meat is safe, natural and healthy, who is in control, and who really benefits from it.
But looking at it through a business lens, there were several worries. The industry’s future is shrouded in uncertainty, with farmers raising questions about cost competitiveness, quality and timeline to market launch, as well as whether it is meant to compete with processed or premium meats, or supplement meat-eating.
British farmers further expressed apprehension about the unreliability of data on the technical viability, economics, and climate and health impacts of cultivated meat, calling for impartial, more transparent information. There were also concerns about the unintended effects on their business or the local community, and the overall impact of these foods.
Some called cultivated meat an unrealistic proposition, citing a lack of attention on the supply chain and on how the “assumed effects on diets or land use” would be realised practically. Others echoed the rhetoric of lawmakers questioning the authenticity and naturalness of these meats, calling it “Frankenstein food”.
Additionally, a common concern related to the beneficiaries of cultivated meat. Does this really support farmers and the public, or just line the pockets of Big Food companies? The fear was that this could intensify the industrialisation and ‘Americanisation’ of food production.
“I do wonder if [with] the production of more… cultured protein, there are going to be much larger companies that are going to… be pushing for this and they will own the intellectual property, they will own the rights to that, they will own the formulations, and that’s something which reinforces a sort of a hegemonic position,” one farmer said.
“The farmers who spoke to us were most concerned about the wider social implications – for example, corporate concentration in food systems, health, and food culture,” said MacMillan. “However, they also highlighted potential unintended consequences that were thrown into relief by their direct experiences of food production.”
How cultivated meat could open up opportunities for farmers
“The nine UK farmers we spoke to in most detail had misgivings about cultured meat, but also faced other bigger challenges or felt fairly resilient, so the technology was not seen as a major business risk by most,” recalled MacMillan. “Several were interested in potential opportunities.”
These are wide-ranging, from supplying inputs and valorising waste streams to building supply chain relationships and harnessing private investment.
For example, farms can supply animal cells as well as food-grade ingredients (like glucose, amino acids and growth factors) for cultivated meat production. And they could do so by repurposing existing crops – such as feed wheat for glucose, rapeseed oil meal for amino acids, and plant extracts for 3D scaffolds – or incorporating new ones into rotation.
Even slaughterhouse byproducts like blood, hooves and horns contain elements that can be used as growth factors and media. This is an important consideration given that “hardly anyone” the RAU spoke to said they’d give up caring for their livestock altogether and make cultivated meat their sole business.
Embracing cultivated meat gives farmers a chance to review their agreements with intermediaries and overhaul the unfair distribution of power found in dairy and poultry supply chains. Plus, they can develop farmer cooperatives to supply ingredients, and even use private investment to produce cultivated meat. On-farm production could present options for direct sale and open up new markets and supply chains.
“The potential opportunities depended heavily on the type and location of a farm and its current business,” explained MacMillan. “Crop and fruit farmers were interested in new markets supplying raw materials. Some livestock farmers saw [the] potential to have higher-value, lower-volume sales, or to repurpose buildings or renewable energy for on-farm cultured meat production.”
The nine farms in focus were asked what they think their businesses would be like in 10 years if they continued business as usual, and if they incorporated cultivated meat. Across metrics like income, jobs, production, waste, biodiversity and climate, most had similar responses to both scenarios – and with cultivated meat, some aspects could be improved upon.
It’s significant because it means farmers don’t think cultivated meat would necessarily make things worse in the longer term. MacMillan, however, cautioned against viewing this pragmatism as a suggestion that farmers think cultivated meat would play a “substantial positive role” in maintaining or improving their businesses. “It is more that some [are] curious, and all have bigger worries,” he stated.
Building common ground with farmers and cultivated meat companies
Courtesy: RESPECTfarms
The RAU highlights the importance of moving away from the polarised debate around cultivated meat to find common ground between the industry and farmers.
There are multiple ways to do this. Much of the polarisation is fuelled by hype and sweeping statements about a radical shift in eating patterns and farming practices, but producers would appreciate a more nuanced conversation that acknowledges uncertainty and champions farm innovation.
Both sides have accused the other of making biased claims for or against cultivated meat using favourable studies. But if research were commissioned by groups including both agricultural and alternative protein organisations, it can breed more trust. Plus, using an ‘all or nothing’ approach can often paint farmers as the enemy, so it’s vital to explore synergies between cultivated meat and farmers.
The report suggests joint research and innovation can help bridge this gap. This would entail looking into waste valorisation, developing fairer supply chains for cultivated meat, and trialling decentralised production on farms – akin to what RESPECTfarms is doing in the Netherlands.
Some farmers were keen to engage further with cultivated meat producers, so developing mechanisms for dialogue is key. RAU is working with the UK Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub) to build a platform to connect farmers with businesses and researchers, and will create a neutral guide to cultivated meat for farmers.
Moreover, investors are urged to require companies to commit to a ‘just transition’ for farmers within their ESG commitments, while startups are encouraged to engage farmers in their governance. “The main thing at this point is to make sure farmers are engaged in helping figure that out on an ongoing basis, so that’s something we recommend to companies and investors working in this space,” outlined MacMillan.
“Moving beyond the polarised debate we’ve seen in some countries over recent years could provide a ‘win-win’ – not only benefitting the cultivated meat sector but farmers themselves,” said Linus Pardoe, head of UK policy at the Good Food Institute Europe. “I welcome the report’s call for companies to find meaningful ways of engaging and collaborating with farmers, while remaining sensitive to the uncertainties some farmers have about cultivated meat.”
A team of researchers in South Korea have developed a gelatin-based scaffold that replicates the flavour and aroma effects of the Maillard reaction in cultivated meat.
What if you put Jell-O in your steak?
It may sound like a radical idea, but scientists have found that gels can make meat taste better – cultivated meat, that is.
Researchers from Yonsei University in Seoul have created a gelatin-based hydrogel to form a functional scaffold that can recreate the flavours and aromas generated during the Maillard reaction.
Named after French chemist Louis Camille Maillard, this is a chemical reaction that occurs between amino acids and reducing sugars to create a compound that gives browned food its unique flavours when heated between 140°C and 165°C.
In the paper published in the Nature journal, the scientists argue that while previous versions of cultivated meat have recreated the appearance and texture of conventional meat, taste has so far been overlooked. “Flavor is the most important thing to make cultured meat be accepted as real,” lead author Milae Lee told CNN.
Leveraging flavour compounds that ‘switch on’ when heated
Courtesy: Jinkee Hong/Yonsei University
The researchers managed to simulate the Maillard reaction by adding what they call “switchable flavour compounds” (or SFCs) into a 3D, temperature-controlled gel to form a scaffold. These compounds (comprising a flavour group and two binding groups) remain stable while the cells are cultivated, and release meaty aromas and flavours when cooked.
Scaffolds are 3D structures that allow animal cells to differentiate and mature, forming what Lee called the “basic composition” of cultivated meat products.
“Many researchers have been digging away to develop various bio-scaffolds that can afford livestock cells to produce 3D structured cultured meat,” co-author Jinkee Hong told BBC Science Focus.
But most of these efforts focused on biological requirements instead of taste and texture, the elements consumers care about, according to Hong. “Because the final tissue… should be recognised as food, we believe technologies to regulate these organoleptic properties of cultured tissues should be studied.”
The aroma chemicals in the pink-coloured gel “switch on” when cooked for five minutes at 150°C, releasing “grilled beef flavours” akin to the ones found after the Maillard reaction.
And although the research was centred on adding meaty and savoury notes, the SFCs can be adapted to create different flavour profiles, such as the fattiness of a juicy rib-eye steak. The scientists tested three compounds and said they produced flavours replicating roasted meat, coffee, roasted nuts, onions and potatoes. “We can diversify and customise the flavour compounds released from the SFC,” Hong told New Scientist.
“All the properties and characteristics of the product can be engineered according to needs,” Lee explained. “For example, if the consumers want the meat to have high protein but zero fat, cultured meat can be engineered to have these properties.”
The researchers also plan to work towards an almost entirely animal-free process by replacing the gelatin (typically made from the bones, cartilage and skins of cattle, pigs and fish) used in the hydrogel.
Potential to apply the research on food-safe substances
Courtesy: Jinkee Hong/Yonsei University
Since the research focused on the science behind cultivated meat – rather than ways to commercialise it – the scientists used non-food-grade substances. It’s also why they used an electronic nose (e-nose) that mimics humans’ nosing system to test and compare the aromas of cultivated meat.
“Because the materials and culture medium are not approved as edible materials, we cannot ensure the safety of it,” said Hong. “However, we think that our strategy can also be applied to conventional edible materials, which would be safer than the materials used in this study.”
“Of course, it is not 100% identical to the conventional meat, but it has a meaty flavour and texture,” explained Lee. “But we believe that we can decrease this gap in the future by developing bio-scaffolds that can embody more meaty properties.”
But Hong noted that there’s still a long way to go before such technologies can be commercialised, pointing to the industry’s scalability and cost challenges. Experts suggest that manufacturers have reduced cultivated meat’s cost by 99% in the last decade, but it would still take until at least 2030 for these proteins to reach price parity with conventional beef, chicken, pork, etc.
“There are many researchers developing scaffolds for cultured meat production, but there is still a long way to go to achieve cultured meat that 100% replicates conventional meat,” Hong said.
Lee added: “We believe that we can make significant contributions to the development of cultured meat, which can eventually benefit the global society.”
This isn’t Yonsei University’s only research into novel ways to support the progress of these novel foods. In February, Hong, Lee and their colleagues created a hybrid variety of rice that contained cultivated beef and cow fat cells, and was coated with fish gelatin.
Similar research comes from the Beijing Academy of Food Sciences’ China Meat Research Centre, whose team incorporated cultivated chicken and pork cells into grain varieties to produce rice dishes that release aromas of both meat and rice.
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 Aldi’s zero-waste pineapples, a Charli XCX-inspired marketing drive, and an open letter to Florida’s policymakers.
New products and launches
In its bid to cut food waste, German discount retailer Aldi is trialling a crownless pineapple in the UK’s Midlands, Yorkshire and North East. The crowns will be used to cultivate next year’s crop or converted into animal feed, saving around 1,4000 tonnes of food manually if rolled out across all stores nationwide.
Courtesy: Field Roast
US plant-based meat brand Field Roast has kicked off a new marketing campaign inspired by Charli XCX‘s new album Brat. The company posted a photo of its sausages in a wrapper modelled after the album cover, asking the singer if this is what she meant when she said it’s a brat summer.
Mycelium meat maker Mush Foods, whose 50Cut innovation is used in blended meat applications, has partnered with New York-based fast-casual chain Fieldtrip for the latter’s new Jerk Meatball Bowl. It combines the mushroom root meat with ground turkey, served over a bed of rice, alongside vegetables and coconut yoghurt.
Californian vegan seafood producer ProFillet has created a prototype of a whole-cut plant-based whitefish that is on par with the nutritional credentials of its conventional counterpart.
Courtesy: Doug McNish/LinkedIn
Following a successful launch in Europe last year, global food giant Bunge has released its BeLeaf PlantBetter butter for food manufacturers and bakers in North America. The spread is made from coconut oil, cocoa butter, rapeseed oil and lecithins.
Meanwhile, dairy-free artisanal cheesemaker Climax Foods‘ blue cheese is now available online grocer Good Eggs.
Also in the alt-dairy sector, US startup Credo Foods has introduced what it claims is the world’s first oat milk spray cheese, which is available on its website (and soon at HEB and Wegmans) in Cheddar and Smoky flavours.
Courtesy: Väcka/Ditaly
Spanish vegan cheese producer Väcka, meanwhile, has teamed up with local pizzeria chain Ditaly for its new La Gazpacha pizza, which uses the former’s melon seed Mözza and nut-based Fraïs with Basil offerings.
In Japan, Misola Foods has launched what it calls the country’s first oat milk, which is suitable for both adults and children, given it matches conventional dairy on calcium (110mg per 100g). It comes in 196g cartons made from recyclable paper, with no straws included. A 24-pack costs ¥5,400 ($33.50).
Fellow Japanese company Spiber – fresh from a $65M fundraise – has inked supply chain partnerships and project deals with Italian mills Marzotto, RD Gruppo Florence, and Filatura Papi Fabio to make materials from its fermentation-derived Brewed Protein.
Courtesy: The Moonbeam Co.
And Singaporean upcycled food startup The Moonbeam Co. has rolled out Kopi Siew Dai Chocolate Chip Cookies made from spent coffee grounds exclusively at the Changi Airport‘s SATS Premier Lounge.
Finance and company updates
The Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing (iFAB) Tech Hub, which uses precision fermentation to turn corn and soy into high-value products, has secured a $51M Phase 2 implementation grant via the US Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration. It follows the $680M it received from public and private entities upon its establishment in March.
Denmark’s KMC, which makes potato-based food ingredients, has inaugurated a $14.5M, 5,000 sq m innovation centre to supply ingredients for plant-based foods.
Courtesy: MATR Foods
Fellow Danish company Novo Holdings, the holding company that owns Ozempic and Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk, has made an initial investment in Dutch fungi-based meat company MATR Foods to support its scale-up efforts.
Speaking of Dutch meat analogue makers, there’s change at the helm at The Vegetarian Butcher, with CEO Hugo Verkuil taking a sabbatical. Global commercial director Rutger Rozendaal has been promoted to the top job at the Unilever-owned company.
Courtesy: The Vegetarian Butcher
British entrepreneur Heather Mills, who owns VBites, has acquired plant-based marketplace Alternative Stores, which lists a multitude of vegan products and supports family businesses in launching their own brands.
In more acquisition news, Ahimsa Companies – which recently acquired Wicked Kitchen, the parent company of Good Catch Foods – has bought a plant-based production facility from Gathered Foods, the former owner of Good Catch Foods.
Pulse protein manufacturer Australian Plant Proteins has gone into voluntary administration, with local organisation Food Frontier suggesting that this is a result of a lack of government support for plant proteins, as opposed to an individual company’s failure.
Policy and research developments
Boston-based biotech startup Foray Bioscience, which uses plant cell cultures to make ‘plantless plants’, has closed a $3M seed funding round led by Australia’s ReGen Ventures to expand its predictive platform for plant cell diversity, develop new products, and expand its team.
Germany’s federal court of justice, the Bundesgerichtshof, has ruled that confectionery company Katjes can’t call its fruit gummies ‘climate neutral’. The greenwashing ruling is expected to have a wider impact on food labelling and advertising, with businesses not allowed to use such terms without explaining why.
Courtesy: Katjes
The Vegan Society of Aotearoa and the NZ Vegetarian Society have jointly petitioned the New Zealand government to implement more stringent labelling regulations to prevent confusion stemming from the use of terms like ‘plant-based’ and ‘less dairy’ on products that contain animal ingredients.
How can cultivated meat become more sustainable? The answer may lie in using microalgae as a culture medium to provide glucose, instead of grains like corn and wheat, according to researchers at Tokyo Women’s Medical University‘s Institute of Advanced Biomedical Engineering and Science.
Austria is doubling down on its anti-cultivated-meat stance, railing against the innovation using a study commissioned by the Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry in the Carinthia region finding that 90% of respondents don’t want to eat these proteins, and 82% would support a ban.
Courtesy: Alexander Tengg/Kleine Zeitung
Ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris later this month, welfare group Animal Equality has launched a petition calling for foie gras to be removed from the menu, which has gained over 42,000 signatures. At this year’s event, 60% of food is set to be meat-free.
Finally, with Florida having officially banned cultivated meat last week, Canadian cellular agriculture investor Cult Food Science has written an open letter to the state’s leaders, stating that the “harmful” move relies on “misinformation and trying to slant the public discourse in a negative way”.
Singapore’s Umami Bioworks has partnered with two Indian entities as it aims to advance R&D and reach commercial-scale production for its cultivated seafood.
Months after its merger with Shiok Meats, Umami Bioworks is looking to advance the scale-up efforts for its cultivated seafood through two collaborations with organisations in India.
The Singapore-based startup has teamed up with the IKP Knowledge Park’s newly established Centre for Smart Protein and Sustainable Material Innovation in Bengaluru, India, which will be aimed at accelerating research and scalability for its cultivated seafood.
Additionally, it is set to collaborate with the Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology in Chennai to set up an R&D facility at the university’s campus.
“India has a wealth of experienced talent in biomanufacturing and steel production. We saw this combination as among the best-in-class globally, and given the relative proximity to Singapore, it was an obvious choice,” Mihir Pershad, founder and CEO of Umami Bioworks, told Green Queen.
IKP partnership to validate and transfer Umami Bioworks’ tech
Courtesy: Umami Bioworks
As part of the incubation collaboration with the IKP’s alternative protein centre, Umami Bioworks’ India-based team will lead the engineering and validation of its plug-and-play manufacturing hardware, supporting the tech transfer from the demonstration line to customer sites.
“IKP provides a hub for our team to work on this scale-up R&D, including meeting and lab space, and a facilitator to help us connect with the supply chain partners that will enable us to deliver a complete production solution,” explained Pershad.
“The partnership is initially scoped for a year, with opportunities to extend and expand over time. Our end goal is to successfully deliver a production-ready manufacturing system, led by our team in India, that is ready for deployment to customer sites around the world,” he added.
“We are excited about the novel technology platform that they bring to our community of entrepreneurs and founders in their pursuit of growth in the smart protein sector,” IKP Knowledge Park chairman and CEO Deepanwita Chattopadhyay said of Umami Bioworks. “This collaboration will not only accelerate Umami’s growth in India, but will also propel the smart protein ecosystem that we are building in the country.”
The Centre for Smart Protein and Sustainable Material Innovation was established in May, born out of an MoU between IKP Knowledge Park and alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI) India. The facility aims to support startups with incubation and product development via access to state-of-the-art equipment, and expert mentorship on the technical, IP, regulatory, marketing and business strategy domains.
“This landmark partnership between Umami Bioworks and IKP’s newly launched centre is a prime example of how India’s booming biotech industry and growing smart protein ecosystem are attracting global players,” said Aiyanna Belliappa, senior innovation and entrepreneurship specialist at GFI India.
“We are confident that this collaboration will pave the way for further innovation and investment in India, ultimately contributing to a safe, secure, and just future for food.”
South India leads the country’s cultivated seafood scene
Courtesy: Umami Bioworks
The partnership comes the same week researchers at the Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology developed prototypes of cultivated seafood using milkfish, grouper, red snapper and tilapia cells. The university is also partnering Umami Bioworks, with Sheela Rani, the institute’s director, telling The New Indian Express that the startup will help “set up a full-fledged facility at the campus to develop more cultures and push for commercial-scale production”.
“We are establishing a collaboration with Sathyabama University to expand our pipeline of marine species cell lines in partnership with their newly established National Facility for Coastal and Marine Research,” Pershad told Green Queen.
“We will be doing collaborative research to establish cell lines from new fish, crustaceans, and other species. This work will include seeking [a] deeper understanding of the fundamental biology of these species to enable first-ever cell lines to be established for some species,” he added.
Sathyabama University has earned authentication from the National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources, meaning its cultivated meat has no recombinant DNA. It will now pursue statutory approvals from the National Biodiversity Authority, the environment ministry, and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
The latter, in fact, has been working to establish a regulatory framework for cultivated meat and seafood companies to file dossiers for approval. In a regulatory conclave held in New Delhi in April, the FSSAI confirmed its willingness to work with the government’s Department of Biotechnology and Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council to set up a framework.
“The FSSAI can institute a working group on cultivated meat. This working group will be able to recommend strategic priorities for cultivated meat (and inputs such as culture media and cell lines) for the FSSAI to consider for regulatory interventions and a strategy for a dynamic regulatory framework,” wrote Astha Gaur, regulatory policy specialist at GFI India. “Ultimately, instituting a scientific panel on novel smart proteins would ensure progressive rule-making and risk management.”
Umami Bioworks’ partnerships symbolise the fast-growing cultivated meat sector in South India. In January, the ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (based in Kochi, Kerela) inked a deal with biotech startup Neat Meatt to develop cultivated fish.
Having raised $2.4M to date, Umami Bioworks has previously outlined its plans of submitting regulatory dossiers in several countries this year. Its merger with Shiok Meats will see it bring cultivated unagi (eel) and white fish (grouper) to the market via hybrid applications.
“We are now in active review with the Singapore Food Agency, including regular engagements to review data and address any questions that arise during their review,” revealed Pershad. “We are also making rapid progress in two other geographies and anticipate being able to share an update in the near future.”
Meatly CEO Owen Ensor and CSO Helder Cruz take us behind the scenes of the UK’s regulatory process for cultivated meat, and reveal that it will start with dog food first.
As the UK speeds up its novel foods regulation process, Meatly is on the brink of what would be the first regulatory approval for the sale of cultivated meat in all of Europe.
But the London-based startup isn’t making food for humans – instead, it’s producing cultivated chicken for pets. In March, it was reported that the company was expecting to get the greenlight in about three months with tinned cat food co-created with fellow British company Omni.
Meatly (formerly Good Dog Food) has since changed direction for its first product launch, as its co-founders Owen Ensor and Helder Cruz tell me in a wide-ranging conversation.
Ahead of the company’s debut on UK shelves, its team goes behind the scenes of the regulatory process, explains why a protein-free culture medium is the key to affordable cultivated meat, outlines the importance of humanising cultivated meat, and illustrates why hybrid meat is the way to go.
How the UK’s regulatory process works
Courtesy: Meatly
Since its inception in 2022, most of the time has been spent on R&D and getting operations running. But one thing that was important to Meatly engaging with the regulatory authorities right from the beginning “to explain to them what we’re doing, and what approaches might make [the] most sense”.
“The pathway wasn’t entirely clear. And we’ve helped kind of clarify that and work with regulators to establish that,” says CEO Ensor.
He explains that there are two different phases for novel food approvals in the UK. “There’s the stage with the Food Standards Agency, where you need to understand whether this’ll be an additive or feed material. And then there’s a process with Defra, which is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,” he says. “And with that, it’s about animal byproducts, legislation, which risk category this is in, and how your facility should be treated.
Meatly has been in consultation with the FSA for 18 months, and clarified that its pet food ingredient is a feed material with no genetic modification. As for the animal byproducts approval from Defra, that dossier was filed in August 2023.
There was a bit of controversy about feed materials after Czech cultivated pet food startup Bene Meat had listed its product on the EU Feed Materials Register in November. It was initially misconstrued as an official regulatory approval, but what it meant was that the startup’s product was now officially classified as a feed material.
The FSA’s regulatory overhaul and upcoming UK election
Courtesy: Food Standards Agency
The UK retained EU regulations post-Brexit, but is now finally breaking away and speeding up its own process. The FSA is now set to announce a sliding-scale mechanism for novel foods approval that will take into account products’ track record internationally.
“We’ve been engaging the FSA very closely, with a big scientific contingent in the FSA coming and visiting our lab. And they’re very supportive of what we’re doing and other people in the industry are doing,” says Ensor.
“They’re looking to create this sandbox – so get central government funding to really commit to a cultivated meat pathway. I think that will really help. I think they’re being very intentional and careful about how they legislate and regulate cultivated meat, which is great to see them putting that thought in.
“I think all the cultivated meat for human food companies are just kind of waiting for a clear pathway. And it might still take a bit of time for them to establish that. But it’s great to see how engaged and enthusiastic they are being about it… You see biotech as a key strand in the UK government’s economic strategy, and so I think that will continue.”
On that subject, the UK this Thursday will head to the ballots to vote in its national election, with the Labour Party expected to form a government for the first time in 14 years. Does the election impact Meatly’s regulatory process at all?
“I don’t think so. I think we’re far enough down the line that the pathway has been established. And we’re now in the more nitty gritty aspects of site inspections and that kind of stuff,” Ensore suggests. “I think the long-term trends transcend daily politics. Everyone kind of wants to move to a more sustainable food system. Everyone wants healthy food for themselves and their pets.
“And I think the trends in alternative proteins – and cultivated meat in particular – fit with that perfectly. And so I don’t expect any major hiccups.”
When pressed on the timeline for approval, then, Ensor says Meatly hoped to be cleared around the election, whether that’s “weeks before or weeks after”. “I have a strong confidence level [that] it will be this summer… whether it’s July, whether it strays into early August, I hope it doesn’t go beyond that. But I think that’s the window,” he tells me.
A protein-free media for cheaper cultivated meat
Courtesy: Harriet Constable/Meatly
One of the major bottlenecks of cultivated meat is the cost associated with producing it. Meatly claimed to have slashed this significantly by developing a protein-free culture medium for its pet food. While these media usually costs hundreds of pound (and make up the most expensive part of cultivated meat production), the British company brought it down to £1 ($1.25).
“Protein-free media in biopharma is not kind of new, but in cultivated meat is,” says Cruz, who is Meatly’s chief scientific officer. “And it depends also on the type of cells on the species – some are a bit more challenging than others.” From the beginning, Meatly had an objective to ensure that everything it does is “realisable, cost-effective, and food-safe.
“We had the experience of working with protein-free media before, although – I don’t want to be negative – there’s lots of noise around the media and the cells and so on. But depending on the cell types and the species, you can grow them very well, without any protein.”
He adds that growth factors aren’t going to become 1,000 times cheaper to make cultivated meat really affordable, which is what prompted Meatly to take this approach.
This has lots of advantages when it comes to cost and quality controls, explains Cruz. “But in the composition of the cells, not so much,” he adds, touching upon the nutrition aspect. “Of course, we can always play with some nutrients, but not necessarily proteins, to finetune the composition – like fatty acids, some amino acids and so on.”
But the functions of proteins that are absent from the medium can be replaced by small molecules that are safe and affordable, he says.
“We’ve done a lot of nutritional analysis, safety analysis on the product,” Onser chimes in. “It shows as a very similar nutritional profile to chicken breast and has all of the essential amino acids, fatty acids, minerals and vitamins that cats and dogs need to thrive.”
Meatly to begin with cultivated dog food
Courtesy: Meatly
Asked if the new culture medium could open up a potential revenue stream as a licensor, Ensor said: Media is notoriously challenging to patent and protect from an IP perspective, because it’s very difficult to prove someone’s using the same media and quite easy to circumnavigate, which are two challenging aspects.
“We have other kinds of key IP pillars that we might look to licence sooner than the media. Down the line, we’ll look to licence a full factory solution, using ourselves and the equipment and processes that we’ve developed.”
Does changing the growth media also affect how quickly cultivated meat can be made? “When you start developing media, cells sometimes slow down a little bit, but you need to adapt them. So it’s all about the execution. And the time it takes at the end, the performance is the same as in expensive media,” says Cruz.
Meatly is now solely producing with the protein-free media in its bioreactors. Currently, it’s producing between five to 10 kgs per month – this capacity is 50 times what it was 18 months ago. And although still not mass-production level, this is enough to begin testing the cultivated chicken in pet food formulations.
While the startup has already shipped samples to partners who are creating prototypes and conducting initial production runs with the previous culture medium, any fresh biomass created for Meatly’s product launch will be with the protein-free version.
Currently, it has cells of one species, which can be an ingredient for both cat and dog food. “We’re seeing very good results, very similar performance,” says Ensor. Speaking of which, when Meatly’s impending approval was first announced, it was meant to be a cat food product that would cost £1.50 per 150g can. But now, the company will first roll out dog food instead.
“We’ll see whether we want to launch additional products after that,” he says. “We might just stick with the dog food.” Asked about the cat food product, he adds: “It depends on the manufacturing capacity… That’s part of the product development and prototyping we’re doing at the moment, deciding which we launch with, and how much emphasis we put on either of them, or both.”
This will likely feature a different partner than Omni, and while the CEO wouldn’t be drawn on a name, it is “one of the UK’s leading dog food brands”, he offers.
Hybrid meat shows a lot of promise
Courtesy: Annette Shaff
Currently, most cultivated meat that has been served to customers or taste-testers has been a hybrid product combining cultivated animal cells and plant-based ingredients, in an effort to tackle the scale-up challenges and lower the costs.
This was illustrated best by Eat Just (the world’s first startup to be allowed to sell cultivated meat), which debuted a new version of its Good Meat chicken in retail in Singapore. This edition had 3% cultivated cells, compared to 60-70% for its previous chicken (which was sold in foodservice).
Meatly’s cultivated dog food will be hybrid too. “What you find typically in pet foods, the meat content… depending on the brand, is typically in that 20-30% window. We’ll probably start slightly lower just because of limited supply,” suggests Ensor.
“But even at lower inclusion rates, that has a great palatability impact. So acceptance of the food is increased, it adds some of those key nutrients, and we can advertise it as having chicken in the recipe.”
One of Meatly’s key partners has been Pets At Home, the UK’s leading pet retailer, which invested in its last fundraising round. “They’re incredibly forward-thinking and focused on what the future of this industry looks like,” Ensor explains. “We’re not currently looking for other retail partnerships in the UK, because Pets At Home is the pinnacle.”
Looking internationally, the brand is exploring collaborations in North America too, currently conducting R&D with a pet food manufacturer there. It may look at retail agreements too, but Meatly doesn’t expect to launch in the region at least for the next 18 months, mainly due to production reasons. “We’re just kind of building those R&D relationships where we can have strategic players that we might want to work with in the future,” says Ensor.
Alongside North America, the EU is another market Meatly is keeping an eye on, but where it heads next will be “largely dictated by regulatory barriers”. “North America is likely to be most attractive – so both Canada and the US – to probably go there next, and then come back across to the EU. Once hopefully, there’s a bit more of a streamlined process established there.”
Meatly to close Series A fundraise soon
Courtesy: Meatly/Canva AI/Green Queen
Meatly has raised £3.6M to date, much lower than many of its counterparts across the world. The startup is now raising a Series A round – but it comes after a year where investment in cultivated meat dipped by 74%. And in the first quarter of 2024, only $12M was injected into startups in this sector.
“We’ll be closing [the Series A] the summer,” says Ensor. But it won’t be a huge raise. “We want to continue to show that there is a low capex, fast way to commercialise profitable cultivated meat, and so we’re not looking at monster fundraisers.
“We’ll use that to continue our R&D efforts. And really, you know, there’s a lot of information out there about cultivated meat. But when you boil it down, there are a couple of key factors, which are your media cost, your yield, and your capex costs. This additional capital will continue to focus on those and basically minimising the cost base as much as possible before we start scaling up.
“As we look at the industry, that’s kind of what we describe as ‘wave one’ companies, which are those that raise a lot of capital, went very hard on scaling fast, but have hit roadblocks with that. And then ‘wave two’ companies, like Vow, us, who have raised less capital and found creative routes to find a low-cost, fast way to scale.”
Tackling consumer acceptance
Courtesy: MDPI
Ensor notes that while surveys have shown consumers to have an interest in cultivated meat – a third of Brits were open to trying it even in 2022 – there are some hurdles to overcome.
“No one has ever really explained to a consumer what this is, how it’s made and what the benefits are. There is an education step and an explanation step,” he says. “Whenever we’ve explained to people that this is a safe, healthy, sustainable and kind way of feeding us and our pets, and [that] we don’t use antibiotics or steroids or hormones, there’s no contamination risk, there’s no GMOs involved – that goes a long way to providing people reassurance.”
Ensor continues: “We’re not going to convince everyone [from] day one. It is a process, but we have all the information, we can make clearly make those points to people, and I hope that they will be receptive to that. And again, I think these trends of wanting to move to a healthy, sustainable and kind food system transcend people’s politics or perspectives.”
Is the consumer messaging something Meatly will be focusing on with the new capital and its packaging “We’re not gonna have significant capital towards that. We’re a B2B player, so the specific packaging and messaging will depend on the manufacturer,” outlines Ensor. “But certainly, we’ll want to emphasise those points.”
He points to how cultivated meat has become part of the culture wars in the US (where two states have banned it), with politicians painting a picture of people in lab coats and talking about the “global elite”.
Ensor says: “One of the other things we’re thinking about doing is just humanising cultivated me more… from an individual perspective and why we’re passionate and excited about it.”
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 7Up’s new vegan sauces, a bunch of plant-based milk facilities, and layoffs at Ginkgo Bioworks.
New products and launches
Soft-drink brand 7Up has introduced a three-strong lineup of vegan BBQ sauces in the UK: a Zesty Mayo, a Zesty Hot Sauce, and a Tangy Salad Dressing. The limited-edition range is only available at several pop-up locations across the country.
Courtesy: 7Up
UK natural foods company Kallø has added three organic tomato-based dips to its portfolio in lentil, olive and spicy variants, which are available on Ocado for £3 per 135g jar,
Indonesian plant-based meat leader Green Rebel has launched Korean BBQ slices in its home market, as well as Malaysia. The frozen product contains zero trans fat, and is made from a base of soy and wheat protein.
Indian vegan startup Plantaway has unveiled a chicken fillet SKU made with pea protein. It boasts 19g of protein per pack of two, and is available on its e-store and Swiggy and Zomato in select cities for ₹399 ($4.78).
Courtesy: Plantaway
In the US, Crafty Counter has launched its vegan Deviled WunderEggs at Whole Foods locations nationwide. Each pack comes with a ready-to-mix filling sachet made with Fabalish Foods‘ aquafaba mayo.
In Healdsburg, California, chefs Kyle Connaughton and Daniel Humm of three-Michelin-starred restaurants SingleThread and Eleven Madison Park, respectively, will host a 10-course, fully plant-based dinner featuring local produce. Reservations start at an eye-popping $486 per person.
Oatly has inked a multi-year sponsorship deal with US cycling team EF Pro Cycling, which will see the oat milk giant become the Official Performance Partner of the women’s and men’s teams, as well as the title sponsor of the former (which will be known as EF-Oatly-Cannondale). The training camps of the team – which is currently at the Tour de France – will now be called Oatly Performance Camps.
Courtesy: Violife
Meanwhile, vegan cheese giant Violife has released what it says is Canada’s first dairy-free cream cheese block. The Creamy Block is available at retailers nationwide, including Save-On-Foods and Longo’s, and will continue to be rolled out at select Loblaws banner stores.
Chilean food tech startup NotCo has introduced a line of vegan protein shakes in Brazil, with flavours including banana pancakes with cinnamon, strawberry with dates, as well as chocolate, coffee caramel, and vanilla with coconut.
And in Europe, Slovenian whole-cut plant-based meat maker Juicy Marbles has secured a foodservice listing with MTNV in Germany for a revamped version of its controversial ribs (which feature edible bones).
Finance and company updates
Two years after announcing the move, Lactalis – the world’s largest dairy company – has reopened a former dairy manufacturing plant in Sudbury, Canada as a plant-based milk factory for its new brandEnjoy.
Courtesy: Enjoy
SunOpta – the food supplier behind plant-based milk dairy brands Dream, Sown and West Life – has invested $26M in a new oat milk facility in Modesto, California. The second-largest expansion in company history, it will allow SunOpta to increase the production of oat milk bases for milk, yoghurts and ice creams by 60%.
In more manufacturing news, New Zealand oat milk maker Otis has opened a purpose-built facility in East Auckland, allowing the company to finally move production locally after five years of operations in Sweden.
Following a 37 million kroner ($5.3M) grant – which includes state funding – Danish food company Palsgaard is seeking partners to participate in its Plant-based Ingredients for Egg Replacers (PIER) project to develop vegan alternatives to fresh and dried egg ingredients, in partnership with Aarhus University and R&D firm Nexus.
Courtesy: Palsgaard
The UC Berkeley Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET) has received a two-year grant worth $800,000 from Open Philanthropy, which will support programmes under its Alternative Meats Lab, where student researchers will explore sustainable food solutions.
NASDAQ-listed synthetic biology firm Ginkgo Bioworks – the parent company of Motif Foodworks – has initiated a round of layoffs, with 35% of its workforce expected to be let go by June 2025. The move is expected to cost the company $12M, and it further plans to consolidate its facilities.
Speaking of public listings, Canada’s Above Food is now trading on the NASDAQ following a merger with Bite Acquisition Corp, days after it acquired Spanish plant-based meat brand Brotalia (trading as Foody’s).
Courtesy: Sant’Anna School
In Italy, the Sant’Anna School and its Institute of Plant Sciences will contribute to an ongoing two-year-long project funded by the Ministry of University and Research-European Union to boost the production of plant proteins like beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils, etc.
In Singapore, Cellivate Technologies – a startup making cell-based solutions for cultivated meat, leather and cosmetics – nabbed the biggest investment on Channel News Asia‘s reality show The Big Spark, with S$4.15M ($3.05M) in potential funding from five VCs.
Policy and research developments
A judge in Oklahoma has ruled that the Plant Based Foods Association has no standing to challenge a vegan meat labelling law, stating that the organisation failed to show that its members – including Tofurky – face a credible prosecution threat, because the Meat Consumer Protection Act only applies to those who sell meat.
Meanwhile, following a change in consumption taxes this April, plant-based milk sales declined by 7% in the Netherlands. The new law increased the VAT on milk alternatives, but not conventional milk, which meant the former has become 12 cents more expensive, while the latter is now four cents cheaper.
Graphic by Green Queen
Also in the Netherlands, two more supermarkets – SPAR and Picnic – have joined animal rights organisation Wakker Dier‘s pledge to have half of all proteins sold be plant-based by 2025, with the share increasing to 60% by the end of the decade.
A YouGovsurvey on behalf of the Good Food Institute Europe has revealed that 68% of Italians believe plant-based companies should be able to use meat-related terms on product packaging. It follows Italy’s announcement that it was reconsidering its labelling ban, which was imposed alongside its cultivated meat ban in November.
Finally, after all the brouhaha about plant-based meat, UPFs and heart health recently, a new review has found that when directly compared to animal-based meat, vegan analogues consistently lower cardiovascular disease risks.
The perception of cultivated meat is more positive among Democrat and Independent voters in the US, as opposed to Republicans.
On Monday, Florida officially banned cultivated meat, making it a felony to sell, manufacture, produce or distribute these proteins in the state.
It comes three months before a similar law by Alabama comes into effect. These legislative measures have been playing to the culture wars surrounding meat in the US during an election year.
Describing cultivated meat as ‘fake meat’ and/or ‘lab-grown’ (a term despised by the alternative protein industry), the messaging around these bans has been hostile, protectionist and misleading.
And while certain bills hoping to restrict cultivated meat do have bipartisan support, the majority of these proposals have skewed Republican. Florida and Alabama are both Republican-majority states, but bans or restrictions are also being discussed in Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, Nebraska and Wisconsin – all of these are controlled by Republicans for now.
This year has perhaps one of the highest-stakes US elections in recent memory, and while broad support for cultivated meat is low, partisan politics has – unfortunately – played a major role in the way things have gone so far.
Conservative media has stroked the fire even further, painting a US government grant for cultivated meat research as a move to treat troops as “guinea pigs” and force them to eat these proteins. (We won’t link these stories, as they deliberately spread misinformation, but a quick Google search will get you there if you’re curious.)
A new survey by Morning Consult confirms the reality of how cultivated meat is perceived across the American political spectrum. Asking 2,201 adults about their views on this food, it found a disparity between the left and the right, underscoring how conspiracy theories about the “global elite” have shaped perceptions in the US, where 15% of people don’t believe climate change is real.
Democrats more positive about cultivated meat
Courtesy: Morning Consult
The Morning Consult poll found that while similar shares of Democrats, Republicans and independents had seen, read or heard about cultivated meat, how they perceive the innovation differs greatly.
Democrats are far more likely to have a net-positive opinion on cultivated meat (the difference between the number of people who like a product versus those who don’t). For example, the net share of Democrats who say cultivated meat is good for the environment is 36, versus nine for independents and seven for Republicans.
This is the only metric that had a net-positive response from Republicans and independents, although Republicans are far more likely to say that conventional meat is climate-friendly (a net-positive share of 41).
But even Democrats are much more divided over other aspects of cultivated meat, highlighting the need for greater awareness about this food. When asked whether cultivated meat is nutritious, the Democrat net share is 15, while the Republicans have a more negative opinion (-7). Similar perceptions exist about the healthfulness of cultivated meat for both Democrats (net 10) and Republicans (-4).
Meanwhile, a net share of Democrats who find cultivated meat tasty is 10 as well, versus -5 for independents, and -4 for Republicans, highlighting the challenges facing producers in this space.
Cultivated meat trails behind plant-based in people’s minds
Courtesy: Morning Consult
If there’s one thing all voters agree on, it’s that cultivated meat isn’t minimally processed, with net-negative scores across all three sects of respondents. Overall, the net share of Americans who think this is a minimally processed food is -10, compared to 14 for plant-based meat and 33 for conventional meat.
“And while at the core, this may not be a positive or negative trait, the challenge is that consumers define foods that are more processed as being more unhealthy,” writes Morning Consult analyst Lindsey Roeschke. “In order to win over mainstream consumers, companies in this space will have to be clear about the production process; even if it raises concerns for some, the transparency may help to build trust among others,” she adds.
Affordability is another key aspect. Currently, cultivated meat is much more expensive than conventional or even plant-based versions. This is reflected in the fact that the net share of Americans who find farmed meat affordable is 27, versus -4 for plant-based and -5 for cultivated.
But despite the low score, a significantly higher number of respondents (net 12) say vegan meat analogues have a good value. This has increased over the last year, which suggests that “brands in the space have done a good job of demonstrating the value of higher price tags”, according to Roeschke.
The largest gap concerns taste – a net share of 85 find conventional meat tasty, versus just 11 for plant-based meat and -1 for cultivated meat. But where the opportunity lies for the latter is the climate front. Plant-based meat scored the highest (net 38) when it comes to being good for the environment, but this is a six-point decrease from early 2023.
“Given declining perceptions of plant-based meat as environmentally friendly, brands in the cultivated meat space have an opportunity to position themselves as a sustainable alternative to win market share – that is, if they can prove that it is actually true,” says Roeschke. Analysis has shown that cultivated meat produced via renewable energy lowers the impact on global heating by 92%, requires 95% less land, and uses 78% less water than farmed beef.
That said, more people believe conventional meat is more climate-friendly (net 24) than cultivated meat (net 19).
Older demographics emerge as surprising audience
Courtesy: Morning Consult
While there is a school of thought that associates alternative protein consumption with younger demographics, Morning Consult’s results found something surprising.
Only small fractions of consumers said they follow diets such as vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, etc., and of those who do, younger Americans were more likely to be practising these.
However, things take a turn when you look at who is trying to reduce meat consumption in their diets. Baby boomers (usually those aged 60 and above) are the group most likely to be cutting back on meat. This trend likely exists because older consumers are being advised to decrease saturated fat and cholesterol, which are both found in high quantities in conventional meat. Since the reduction in meat is driven by health over other aspects, cultivated meat could prove to be a good stand-in.
But this will only be possible through a major uptick in education for boomers. Only 31% of them have heard about cultivated meat, versus 45% of millennials and 54% of Gen Zers. Plus, this is the only age group that has a net-negative perception about the nutritional qualities of cultivated meat.
And once again, affordability is a major hurdle. Baby boomers are 19 points less likely than all Americans to say cultivated meat represents good value, and 21 points less likely to find it affordable.
Nevertheless, this is an opportunity for cultivated meat companies, which Roeschke suggests would “want to focus not just on consumers who represent an obvious best fit, but also those who may represent incremental gains”.
Californian cultivated chicken maker Upside Foods has conducted a round of layoffs as it looks to overcome financial and legislative obstacles.
Leading cultivated meat company Upside Foods – one of only two to be approved for sale in the US – has made some cutbacks to its workforce, citing “political, regulatory and macroeconomic headwinds”.
First reported by Wired, Upside Foods co-founder and CEO Uma Valeti told employees in an email that 26 people would depart the startup, and that the executive and leadership teams would be restructured to “reduce top-heavy structures”.
“Our focus must now narrow to a tighter set of priorities that pave the way for our product launches in the next two years,” Valeti wrote. “We need to deliver on the work that remains, especially on critical milestones that are yet to be hit or are delayed.”
The development comes days after Upside Foods held a public tasting for its cultivated chicken in Miami, in response to Florida’s then-impending ban on cultivated meat within state borders. The legislation came into effect on Monday, making it a second-degree misdemeanour to manufacture, transport, commercialise or sell these proteins.
The event featured a “public offer to engage with the governor and the government of Florida to learn about and experience cultivated meat at a place of their choice”, according to Valeti.
“Uncertainty related to political, regulatory and macroeconomic headwinds requires us to be even more deliberate and conscious with our focus and resources,” Valeti wrote in the email. A host of US states are considering restrictions on cultivated meat – a week after Florida’s ban, Alabama followed through with its own.
A rollercoaster year for Upside Foods
Courtesy: Upside Foods
This is the second round of layoffs made by Upside Foods this year, with the Californian startup making “selective role eliminations” and “other changes” impacting 16 people in February.
“Upside is focused on our next chapter of scale and commercialisation. To stay agile in the face of an uncertain macroeconomic environment and preserve the resources needed to reach our milestones, we made the difficult decision to eliminate a number of positions,” interim head of communications Melissa Musiker told Wired.
“We’re deeply grateful for the hard work, commitment, and dedication of our departing team members and remain steadfast in our mission to bring cultivated meat to the world,” she added.
The last 12 months have been a rollercoaster period for Upside Foods, which is among the best-funded startups in the cultivated meat industry, having raised $608M to date. The company became the first to serve cultivated meat in the US through a partnership with Bar Crenn in California – that partnership has since ended, but Upside Foods is now focusing on serving its chicken at public events.
The company broke ground on a commercial-scale facility in September last year, but decided to pause construction in February to focus on its existing pilot plant instead.
Courtesy: Upside Foods
It has also been the subject of a swarm of negative press, most notably in Bloomberg, which published a scathing story about Upside Foods and the cultivated meat sector, but made a number of misleading and inaccurate claims and failed to address a lot of the progress made by the industry.
In response, the alternative protein startup outlined how Bloomberg “ignored our repeated requests (and blog post)” that stated its whole-textured tissue is not ready to scale in the near term. The company’s debut product was a whole-cut chicken, but it is now focusing on commercialising suspension products, which include chicken nuggets, pâtés and other ground meats.
But Upside Foods’ move to adjust its strategy is a good sign, according to Steve Molino, principal at impact investment firm Clear Current Capital (which is not an investor in Upside Foods). “Too often we see companies wait until it’s too late to make difficult changes,” he told Wired.
In a statement sent to Green Queen, Valeti said: “We are being proactive, as Steve Molino said. We are laser-focused on getting to scale. I am happy my statements were written there without twisting them.”
Cultivated meat rocked by financial and political trials
Courtesy: GFI
The latest round of layoffs follows similar trends across the cultivated meat industry. Last month, it was reported that Israel’s Aleph Farms – another leading startup that has been approved to sell cultivated meat – let go of 30% of its local workforce.
“As we transition towards larger-scale production and commercialisation, we are maintaining R&D and production in Israel while expanding globally through co-manufacturers, in line with our capital-efficient and asset-light approach. We are adapting our organisation to align with this next growth phase,” an Aleph Farms spokesperson told Green Queen, reflecting Upside Foods’ reasons for the layoffs.
In California, cultivated seafood producer Finless Foods had similarly carried out two rounds of layoffs in less than 12 months, while Omeat stripped back its employee count by 80%, with its founder stepping down as CEO amid allegations of creating a hostile work culture.
This all comes amid a sharp decline in the venture capital flowing into cultivated meat. Last year, investments were down by 75%, as part of a wider dip in food tech and overall VC funding. The sector hasn’t recovered yet, with the first quarter of this year seeing only $12M being pumped into cultivated meat startups (5% of the $226M invested last year).
This is why AgFunder has earmarked cultivated meat as a “category to watch” this year. This has been exacerbated by the legislative challenges in a critical political year when half the world will vote – before Florida, Italy banned cultivated meat, with France and other European countries mulling similar laws.
With the far-right gains in the EU elections (and now France), and the recent boosts to climate-sceptic Donald Trump’s US presidential candidacy, the impact of policy on alternative proteins may yet cut deeper. Upside Foods itself fought back with its Miami tasting – but even there, the meat lobby was out to keep up its misinformation campaign. Valeti described it as a “protest truck parked outside unsuccessfully trying to detour folks in line”.
And of course the shills are right outside to make sure their competition is strangled in the cradle. pic.twitter.com/QEq2NNPPKa
These hurdles have also forced some companies to cease operations. Cultivated pork startup New Age Eats shut down in March 2023, and hybrid meat startup SciFi Foods began selling off its assets last month.
“The funding environment is as closed as I’ve ever seen, so only a select few in the cultivated space will be able to keep pushing for progress,” warned Molino, suggesting that there could be more closures in the sector this year
In three days, selling cultivated meat will be a felony in Florida – to celebrate food freedom, though, Upside Foods served its chicken at a pre-ban party in Miami.
On Thursday evening, at a rooftop in Miami, Upside Foods served customers some forbidden chicken.
Forbidden, that is, from Monday, July 1, when Florida’s ban on cultivated meat comes into effect. Announced in May by the liberal-elite-hating mayor Ron DeSantis, the law will make a second-degree misdemeanour to manufacture, transport, commercialise or sell cultivated meat.
“Take your fake lab-grown meat elsewhere. We’re not doing that in the state of Florida,” said DeSantis.
But just to show Floridians what their state is forcing them to miss out on, Upside Foods took its meat straight to its capital. The pre-ban event featured recipes from Miami chef, restauranteur and TV personality Mika Leon, with drinks from mixologist Gio Gutierrez.
Courtesy: Upside Foods
The tasting was free of charge, which Upside Foods said was the first time cultivated meat has been offered to the public at no cost. This was deliberate. “We wanted to give as many people as possible the opportunity to taste cultivated meat in Florida before it’s banned,” the company’s COO, Amy Chen, told Green Queen.
The first-come, first-served event fed cultivated chicken to around 100 people, giving them the last “taste of freedom” before these novel proteins are officially prohibited in the state.
“The goal of this pop-up event is to provide Floridians with the opportunity to taste cultivated meat before it’s banned,” said Chen. “What’s more, we strongly believe that cultivated meat is an important part of our food future in Miami, Florida, and beyond. This event aims to celebrate and advocate for food freedom, innovation, and Florida’s potential to contribute to a growing industry and help shape the future of food.”
So how did Upside Foods present its chicken? Leon cooked up tostadas with the chicken made a la Plancha con Sazón, topping a corn tostada and accompanying avocado, chipotle crema, beet sprouts, and fresh lime zest.
“Chef Mika leans heavily into her Cuban roots and Miami culinary favourites to create beautiful, delicious, seasonal dishes and honour Caribbean traditions,” said Chen. “For our event, she used that lens to create a variety of vegetarian offerings in addition to her UPSIDE Chicken Tostada with house-made Sazón, avocado, and crema.”
Additionally, her restaurant Caje Caliente also catered some dishes. “Having had the opportunity to work with UPSIDE’s cultivated chicken, I can attest that their products are delicious,” said Leon.
“From appearance to aroma and taste, their products provide the same experience you’d expect from chicken. As a chef, I love the idea of preserving the foods we love while using innovation to figure out ways to create a better future of food,” she added.
What’s next for Upside Foods?
Courtesy: UPSIDE Foods/Canva AI/Green Queen
The event was co-hosted by the Brick and Timber Collective, a leading real estate company with properties in Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles. “The state’s ban on cultivated meat is short-sighted and damaging to its tech ecosystem,” said Jesse Feldman, a partner at the firm.
“This policy not only affects cultivated meat but also stifles progress in biotech, life sciences, and other innovative industries that can thrive here. Opposing such policies is crucial to protect Florida and Miami as vibrant tech hubs,” he added.
Upside Foods co-founder and CEO Uma Valeti agreed. “This law disregards food safety experts, limits consumer choice, and stifles American innovation. It’s a setback for progress, job creation, and Florida’s potential in a new industry,” he said. “We believe in a future where everyone has access to delicious food options, and this event is our way of showcasing what’s possible.”
Courtesy: Upside Foods
A host of other states are deliberating restrictions on cultivated meat, from Arizona, Texas and Tennessee in the south, to Nebraska in the midwest and Wisconsin in the Great Lakes. Chen noted that any legislation that “discriminates against cultivated meat” is “disappointing”, whether it’s a ban, defamatory labelling (calling it ‘lab-grown meat’, for example), or research limitations.
“We hope that the Florida legislature will revisit and reverse this legislation in their next session. Either way, these bans are unconstitutional, and we’re confident that the courts will ultimately restore food freedom for Floridians,” she said.
A week after DeSantis signed the bill in Florida, Alabama followed through with its own ban, threatening $500 in fines and up to three months in jail if you manufacture, sell or distribute cultivated meat. This will take effect on October 1. Asked if Upside Foods intends to host a similar public tasting in Alabama, Chen said: “Nothing is planned at the moment.”
Apart from the legislative mess, cultivated meat has also had its fair share of financial challenges, following a steep 75% dip in investment, reaching $226M in 2023. As of Q1 2024, startups in the space have only raised $12M. Upside Foods itself decided to pause construction on the commercial-scale facility it announced in September, laying off some employees to double investment in its existing pilot plant instead.
“The next chapter for us is focused on scale and commercialisation,” Chen said. Hinting at the future, she added: “We’re looking forward to bringing our next-generation products to market, pending regulatory clearance, and are excited that more consumers will have the chance to experience the future of food.”
A group of lawmakers have reintroduced the REAL Meat Act, this time targeting federal investment in the cultivated meat industry.
In the House Representatives, a group of politicians have co-sponsored a bill that would prohibit the US government from investing in cultivated meat.
It is the latest version of the Real Marketing Edible Artificials Truthfully Act – or the REAL Meat Act – which has been introduced by Ohio representative Warren Davidson.
The draft legislation targets cultivated meat, specifically federal support of these proteins. “Fake cell-cultured meat not only poses a health risk to the human body, but it also threatens the livelihoods of America’s hard-working ranchers, livestock farmers, and butchers,” Davidson said in a statement, invoking a familiar rhetoric and escalating the misinformation about the health credentials of cultivated meat.
“Congress must act to ensure US taxpayers are not footing the bill for this inferior, experimental product,” he added.
Bill would prohibit low-income families from accessing cultivated meat
Courtesy: John Minchillo/AP
The REAL Meat Act was first introduced in 2019 by Nebraska senator Deb Fischer, which aimed to mandate the use of the word ‘imitation’ on plant-based meat labels, alongside a statement that indicated the products don’t contain meat. A companion bill was brought in the House by Kansas’s Roger Marshall.
Those bills went nowhere, but the act was reintroduced by Fischer last year. It has since been read twice by the Senate and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Now, Davidson has reintroduced the Real Meat Act in the House, which is controlled by the Republican Party. HR 8757 is supported by eight other lawmakers in the House, all of whom belong to the GOP: Kevin Hern, Matt Rosendale, Greg Steube, Harriet Hageman, Jim Baird, Ronny Jackson, Thomas Massie and Keith Self.
The bill aims to prohibit federal funding for the research and advancement, promotion, advertisement, and production of cultivated meat. If passed, the legislation would also prevent these foods from being part of federal nutrition programmes like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for low-income families.
The REAL Meat Act of 2024 has been referred to the House Committee on Agriculture now. It is reminiscent of the Fair and Accurate Ingredient Representation on Labels Act introduced by Marshall earlier this year, which seeks to restrict how alternative protein products are labelled.
Cultivated meat in the election-year culture wars
Courtesy: UPSIDE Foods/Canva AI
Davidson’s bill is the latest in a series of legislations and proposals designed to curtail the progress of cultivated meat in the US, which was approved for sale last year after rigorous food safety testing by the FDA and the USDA.
Only last month, Florida became the first state to ban the production and sale of cultivated meat within its borders, a move that was swiftly followed by Alabama a week later. Similar proposals are being debated in Arizona, Wisconsin, Texas, Nebraska and Tennessee.
The general messaging around most of these bills has been one of protecting farmers, though it really serves to protect the interests of the industrial meat sector. It is smallholder farmers that stand to face the most severe impacts of climate change, a global issue foods like cultivated meat – whose emissions, water consumption and land use are fractional compared to conventional meat – are trying to curtail.
These attacks against cultivated meat have ramped up over the last few months, and the timing doesn’t feel coincidental. We’re just over four months from the national election, and alternative protein has become part of the culture wars in American political discourse. The rhetoric surrounding cultivated meat builds on the fact that 15% of US citizens don’t believe climate change is real, and that 74% don’t associate meat with global heating.
The White House has been supportive of cultivated meat. The Biden-Harris administration signed an executive order in 2022 to promote biomanufacturing and biotech, which involved “cultivating alternative food sources”. And last year, alternative proteins were included in chapters from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy in a national biotech report. The USDA, meanwhile, poured in $10M in grants to open the National Institute of Cellular Agriculture at Tufts University.
Even the meat industry has been against bans like the ones issued by Florida and Alabama. The North American Meat Institute, the country’s oldest and largest trade association (representing 95% of the US’s meat output, has argued that such legislation “limits consumer choice” and denies people “access to food options”.
“Some of America’s largest meat companies have been early investors in cultivated meat,” Sean Edgett, chief legal officer at Upside Foods – one of two companies who have commercialised cultivated chicken in the US – told Green Queen after Florida’s ban, calling it a “protectionist policy for entrenched interests” that “violates free market principles and limits consumer choice”.
He suggested Florida’s bill “ignores food safety experts and science, stifles consumer choice, and hinders American innovation”. The same could be said of the REAL Meat Act.
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 Little Spoon’s partnership with Oatly, a spate of government investments into alternative proteins, and a Ted Talk about cultivated meat.
New products and launches
US vegan startup Brooklyn Delhi, which makes vegan Indian pantry staples, has debuted at Whole Foods nationwide with four of its products: sweet potato coconut dal, red bean rajma masala, black bean butter masala, and chickpea tikka masala.
Courtesy: Brooklyn Delhi
New York startup Blackbird Foods has released has expanded its range of vegan wings with two new flavours – tangy and smoky Texas BBQ and sweet and spicy Thai Chili.
Also based in New York, kids nutrition brand Little Spoon has unveiled two limited-edition smoothies in partnership with Oatly. The Apple Cinnamon Swirl and Peach Berry Bliss flavours will debut on June 25 on the former’s website.
Califia Farms has launched Complete Kids, a multi-ingredient milk for children featuring 8g of protein per serving from peas, chickpeas and fava beans. It’s available at Target for $5.99.
In more alt-dairy news, Elmhurst 1925 has rolled out a line of cashew creamers, which it describes as an industry-first. Available in sweet cream, cinnamon churro, caramel brûlée and unsweetened flavours, they can be used for coffee as well as cooking applications, and are available on its website and at Sprouts.
Courtesy: Elmhurst 1925
UK vegan artisanal cheese brand Julienne Bruno has launched into Ocado’s flash delivery service Zoom, shortly after its Superstraccia won Gold at the Free From Food awards.
On July 2, US vegan restaurant chain Plant Powered Fast Food will launch a limited-edition American BBQ rib sandwich, The Ribby, across its 10 locations. It features a jackfruit meat patty, BBQ sauce, onions and pickles.
Germany’s Endori has announced that its vegan Chicken Natural product has now been permanently added to the menu of Italian restaurant chain L’Osteria. It means customers can choose to use the pea protein and broad bean chicken as a topping across its 170 restaurants in nine countries.
Fellow German company Rügenwalder Mühle has reformulated its vegan Mühlen Salami, and updated the recipes of its entire salami range to remove methylcellulose.
Courtesy: Made With Plants
And Australian vegan startup Made With Plants has expanded distribution for its plant-based bacon, chicken, ham, and grated mozzarella into more than 500 Coles stores nationwide.
Policy and finance developments
Canadian economic cluster Protein Industries Canada has announced a new project to optimise and use locally grown pea and fava bean protein ingredients, in partnership with Lovingly Made Flour Mills, TMRW Foods and Dutton Farms.
The government of Brussels has awarded a €400,000 ($429,000) subsidy to Maastricht-based plant protein producer Dutch Structuring Technologies, which will use the capital to quintuple production capacity to 1,000 kg per hour.
The Israeli Innovation Authority has invested nearly 1.5M shekels (about $400,000) into microalgae protein maker Brevel, which will support its R&D efforts on its next product, functional lipids for food applications.
Courtesy: Brevel
Another microalgae tech company, France’s Fermentalg, has raised €12.8M ($13.7M) to accelerate sales of its natural colourants and omega-3 ingredients and development of its alternative protein and lipid products., with European precision fermentation leader HuvePharma becoming a reference shareholder.
In more precision fermentation news, Singapore’s National Research Foundation has awarded a $14.8M grant to the city-state’s Illinois Advanced Research Center, an affiliate centre of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the US, to develop a Centre for Precision Fermentation and Sustainability.
South African biotech startup Immobazyme has secured R24.5M ($1.35M) to scale up its production capacity for precision-fermented proteins.
UK vegan company Allplants has raised £1.8M ($2.3M) and launched its frozen meals into foodservice through a partnership with leading wholesaler Bidfood.
In Australia, member of parliament Lisa Baker has released a new report recommending the Western Australia government create a working group for food systems transformation, with a focus on supporting alternative proteins through investment, policies and regulation.
Courtesy: Algae Cooking Club
Over in the US, five months since launch, Algae Cooking Club has slashed the price of its algal cooking oil by 20%. It has made its way into over 150 retail stores and experienced sales growth of 50% month-over-month.
Research and manufacturing updates
Cultivated steaks, burgers, tuna and lobsters could replace Sunday roasts and fish and chips on British plates by 2054, according to research by FixOurFood and the University of York for UK grocer The Co-op‘s Responsible Retailing Report.
French extrusion specialist Clextral has introduced a patented Galaxy Texturisation Technology for plant protein extrusion, which can produce softer, more flexible textures for whole-cut meat analogues.
Courtesy: Clextral
Sproudz is new innovation hub established in Bern, Switzerland, which offers startups space and facilities for rent to develop plant-based products. Vegan companies BakeryBakery and Outlawz Food – which helped develop the concept – are already on board.
The Good Food Institute India has released the fourth report in its series of guides for alternative protein companies to navigate the country’s regulatory landscape. This edition focuses on the labelling and display requirements for pre-packaged foods.
Finally, is cultivated meat the future of food? That’s the question Upside Foods co-founder Uma Valeti explores in his Ted Talk for the Ted Countdown 2024 Dilemma Series.
Israeli biotech firm Ever After Foods has secured $10M to accelerate the growth of its bioreactor platform that allows cultivated meat producers to scale up manufacturing while driving down costs.
Ever After Foods has received $10M from strategic investors in the EU and the US to support its scalability platform for cultivated meat, which offers a cost-effective and highly efficient manufacturing solution for producers.
The funding round includes a second investment from Israeli cellular agriculture company Pluri and the Tnuva Group (the country’s largest food company), which formed Ever After Foods as a joint venture in 2022.
“The current investment round in Ever After Foods is led by new global partners, and includes Tnuva’s renewed commitment as well. We believe this validates Pluri’s strategy and underscores the quality of our technology and solutions,” said Pluri CEO and president Yaky Yanay.
Making more efficient cultivated meat at low costs
Courtesy: Ever After Foods
Formerly called Plurinuva, Ever After Foods has exclusive licencing rights to use Pluri’s technology and intellectual property to develop, manufacture and commercialise cultivated meat. It is starting with beef and poultry cells, but the latest investment has extended the licence to include seafood as well.
The startup launched its bioreactor platform last year, with the ability to produce 10kg of cultivated meat mass with just a 10-litre tank at the time. Since then, however, it says it has “swiftly advanced” its technology and manufacturing platform, demonstrating the natural production of muscle and fat tissues for various animal cells, hitting the taste and texture touchpoints so crucial to consumers.
This tech enables Ever After Foods to offer a 90% reduction in costs for its B2B clients, compared to “the second-best technology in the field”. Moreover, the bioreactors yield up to six times more protein and 700 times more lipids from each cell, offering better flavour and nutritional value.
The cell cultivation process is also much, much lighter on the planet than industrially raised livestock, boasting 93% less air pollution, 95% less land, and 94% less water.
“Ever After Foods’ unique and innovative production platform empowered the change to our business model. The shift to a technology enabler will allow us to serve more players in the value chain,” said Ever After Foods CEO Eyal Rosenthal.
“Securing funding from new global partners is a testament to our team’s tireless dedication to solving the primary production barriers for the next step toward a more sustainable meat industry. In addition to the funding, working with new partners in the space will deepen our industry network and speed up our expansion into international markets as we drive the next era of scalable cultivated meat production.”
Tackling the cost and scale hurdles
Courtesy: GFI Israel
Scalability and costs are two of the most pressing challenges holding back the progress of the cultivated meat industry. One investor told Reuters that these products need to reach manufacturing costs of $2.92 per pound to be price-competitive with conventional meat. But while companies have managed to bring down these costs by 99% in less than a decade, analysis by McKinsey suggests it will still take until 2030 for these proteins to become as cheap as conventional meat.
This is a problem both locally and internationally. “Scaling up manufacturing for Israeli startups is challenging due to infrastructure costs, mirroring challenges encountered by startups worldwide,” Alla Voldman, VP of strategy and policy at industry think tank the Good Food Institute Israel, told Green Queen last month.
“Consequently, most new Israeli startups tend to focus more on business-to-business (B2B) solutions, aiming to fill these industry gaps and overcome scalability obstacles,” she added.
McKinsey further notes that cultivated meat companies would need over 17 times the fermentation capacity that currently exists in the global pharmaceutical industry to meet the growth demands of the industry. Responding to this need, in Israel, contract development and manufacturing organisations that have traditionally served pharmaceutical companies have now begun to expand to the cultivated meat sector.
To address the cost challenge, government agency the Israel Innovation Authority established a research consortium in 2022, comprising 14 companies and 10 academic labs equipped with an $18M investment to develop cost-effective methods to produce cultivated meat.
Israel is one of only three countries to approve the sale of cultivated meat, greenlighting local startup Aleph Farms‘ application in January. The country has made food tech one of its top five priority R&D areas, and attracted 10% of all VC funding ($1.2B) in the alternative protein sector in the last decade.
By 2030, the industry is expected to produce 10,000 additional jobs (a third of which would be manufacturing roles), have more than 200 companies and over a dozen manufacturing facilities, and contribute $2.5B to Israel’s economy through exports, local wages, corporate taxes, and more.
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 Upside Foods’ cultivated meat tasting in Florida, a fermented sweetener from upcycled fruits, and Impossible Foods’ patent dispute with Motif FoodWorks.
New products and launches
Californian cultivated meat giant Upside Foods is fighting back against Florida’s ban on these novel proteins with a public tasting event in Miami on June 27, four days before the law comes into effect.
Courtesy: Upside Foods
It has been a big week for Californian precision-fermented egg producer The Every Company. After forming the Fermy brand with Landish Foods for beverage mixes, it announced a partnership with Spain’s Grupo Palacios, which will incorporate the animal-free egg in its Spanish omelettes.
More news from California: nut-free spread maker Voyage Foods‘ peanut and hazelnut butter innovations are now available in bulk sizes on Amazon to support the needs of foodservice operators.
Plant-based dairy pioneer Miyoko’s Creamery has launched two new versions of its oat milk butter in Garlic Parm and Cinnamon Brown Sugar flavours, which are priced at $4.99 per 6oz tub at Whole Foods.
Courtesy: Miyoko’s Creamery
Dutch plant-based ingredient company Fooditive Group has introduced a low-calorie, sustainable sugar substitute called Keto-Fructose in the US. It’s made from upcycled apples and pears via a fermentation process, which is now undergoing FDA GRAS assessment.
In the Netherlands itself, retail giant Jumbo has replaced gelatin with plant-based alternatives in all its fresh pastries. The renewed lineup is now available at all 700 locations in the Netherlands and Belgium.
In search for plant-based M&M’s? UK vegan chocolatier Mummy Meegz has rolled out dairy-free M’z Gems in chocolate and peanut flavours, joining its range of alternatives to classics like Cadbury’s Creme Eggs and Freddo bars.
Courtesy: Mummy Meegz
Swiss plant-based meat company Planted has entered the foodservice market in the Middle East, with its products being featured on menus of certain UAE restaurants. It now plans to expand into hotels.
Fellow German company Billie Green has debuted a plant-based mortadella range in classic, garden herb, and cherry pepper flavours.
Courtesy: Billie Green
And in Singapore, oat milk startup Oatside has expanded its ready-to-drink coffee line with Caramel Macchiato and Mocha flavours, which will be available at NTUC FairPrice, Don Don Donki, Shopee and other retailers from Friday at S$1.80 per pack.
Finance and company updates
Canadian plant-based producer Phytokana Ingredients has announced that it’s initiating a C$38M ($27.7M) Series C investment round, just as it introduced a new 70% faba bean protein concentrate that provides emulsification and gelling properties to vegan meat formulations.
Australian plant-based startup The Leaf Protein Co has brought in $850,000 in pre-seed funding to develop nutritional additives for food applications with rubisco protein.
Courtesy: The Leaf Protein Co
Mycoprotein giant Quorn has added egg white to the three new flavours of its previously vegan Sweet Chilli Mini Fillets, with no plant-based variants of the snack available.
Fellow mycoprotein player Mycorena, meanwhile, has discontinued its large-scale factory project for one of its core ingredients to focus on a long-term circular upcycling production model, citing an “unfavourable investment climate” and an unsuccessful Series B fundraising effort.
Israeli cultivated meat producer Believer Meats has signed an MoU with Abu Dhabi’s brand-newAgriFood Growth and Water Abundance cluster to establish research opportunities, pursue regulatory advancements, and explore commercial facilities.
Courtesy: Believer Meats
Global investor network FAIRR and Tufts University have released a Protein and Nutrition Factsheet for investors to gain more knowledge about sustainable nutrition, the scientific evidence of the health impacts of different proteins, and the risks and opportunities involved with the protein supply chain.
Also at Tufts University, the Center for Cellular Agriculture has received an “unprecedented investment” from the institute to hire five new dedicated cellular agriculture professors.
Policy and event news
Impossible Foods has been dealt a blow in its legal battle with Motif FoodWorks over precision-fermented heme proteins. The US Patent and Trademark Appeal Board has invalidated one of the former’s patents, which covers a plant-based “ground beef-like food product” that “results in the production of at least two volatile compounds which have a beef-associated aroma” when cooked.
In Spain, a coalition of over 20 seafood producers is accusing plant-based seafood companies of misleading consumers via their product labelling. The companies, which include Apromar, Interfish and Conxemar, intend to join SAFE Food Advocacy Europe to lobby for stricter regulations on vegan seafood, citing “unfair competition”.
UK biotech firm Sun Bear Biofuture has announced that its precision-fermented alternative to palm oil is safe to eat, with independent research showing its product outperforming conventional palm oil on flavour.
German food trade show Anuga has announced a new event for alternative proteins in 2025. Called Anuga Alternatives, it will feature cultivated, plant-based and fermentation-derived proteins, alongside ingredients like algae, mushrooms and insects.
Israeli alternative protein companies Imagindairy and Wanda Fish have been selected as the 2024 Global Technology Pioneers by the World Economic Forum.
Finally, UK plant-based meat startup THIS has partnered with former England footballer John Barnes, to release THIS Is The One, a new parody track for Euro 2024, which features vegan food at stadiums across Germany.
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 Alpro’s collaboration with Peter Crouch, a new alternative protein jobs platform, and a host of university-related news.
New products and launches
In the UK, Alpro has partnered with Peter Crouch to kickstart its new Alpro Plant Protein Morning Trials campaign. The former England footballer tests celeb fitness routines, including waking up at 2:30 AM, multiple gym sessions, and plunging into ice baths to promote the recently extended Plant Protein range.
Courtesy: Alpro
Also in the UK, there’s a new musical about the meat industry. Mad Cow will be coming to Canterbury’s new fully vegan Garlinge Theater next month.
Swiss meat analogues maker Planted has rolled out its fermentation-derived steak in Switzerland at Coop and in Germany at Rewe stores.
Belgian startup Bolder Foods is continuing to showcase its biomass-fermented cheese prototypes, with investors and entrepreneurs getting a taste of its product at an event hosted by ingredients leader Givaudan.
Courtesy: Ilana Taub/LinkedIn
San Francisco-based startup Impact Food has announced its sushi-grade plant-based salmon, with wholesale pre-orders running now. The product premiered at Oisixs Ra Daichi’s annual World Oceans Day event in sashimi and nigiri formats in Japan.
That’s not all for vegan salmon this week – German alt-seafood producer BettaF!sh has also entered the space with SAL-NOM, a hot smoked salmon analogue made from seaweed. It retails for €3.29 per 130g jar, and will be launched as a tinned SKU too in the summer.
As part of its roster of new mini-campaigns, Veganuaryran its Choose Fish-Free Week from June 3-8, shedding light on alternative seafood brands and recipes. A BBQ Month and Choose Dairy-Free Week will be next.
Courtesy: Veganuary
Israeli 3D-printed meat producer Redefine Meat has rolled out its New Meat range of lamb kofta mix, pulled beef, pulled pork, burgers, beef mince and bratwurst in German retail via e-tailer Velivery.
Hybrid meat maker Mush Foods has partnered with French specialty meat purveyor Dufour Gourmet to introduce a charcuterie range made from its 50Cut mycelium meat. Offerings include a bratwurst, breakfast sausage, Italian-style sausage, and chicken sausage.
Californian food tech company MeliBio‘s vegan honey, which retails in some parts of Europe under the Better Foodie brand name, is now available in Switzerland and Liechtenstein through a distribution deal with Swiss wholesaler Honeydew.
Courtesy: Better Foodie
Fellow Californian startup Upside Foodsserved its cultivated chicken at Industry Only LA, as part of buffalo chicken bao buns and cold sesame noodles.
In the US, catering giant Sodexo and the University of Cincinnati have introduced 513 Culinary Group, an immersive campus dining venture to spotlight inclusivity and local ingredients. The partnership entails new menu options with more plant-based foods and special care given to allergens.
If you’re in New York, the Fordham Plaza is hosting the Bronx Vegan Bazaar every third Saturday from noon to 6 PM starting this weekend on June 15.
Courtesy: Stella Artois
The Roots drummer Questlove partnered with Stella Artois to host the Questlove’s Cheesesteak Diner pop-up, which features Impossible Foods’ beef. It was the first event of the beer brand’s Let’s Do Dinner: Summer Series, which brings together food, lifestyle and entertainment platforms.
Speaking of which, Impossible Foods‘ new beef hot dog has made its way into Safeway stores in California and Jewel-Osco locations in Chicago – and it’s gone straight into the meat aisle.
Courtesy: Jake Berber/LinkedIn
And Singaporean beanless coffee startup Prefer has moved into the frozen world with a gelato launched in partnership with local dessert parlour Aphrodite Waffles and Gelato. The ice cream uses Prefer’s bean-free coffee concentrate.
Finance and company updates
Accelerator programme ProVeg Incubator has announced its latest cohort of alternative protein startups, featuring Atlantic Fish Co, Optimised Foods, Friends & Family Pet Food Company (all US), AIProtein (Egypt/US), and Fisheroo (Singapore). The initiative has also been extended from 12 weeks to 20.
Danish startup EvodiaBio has raised €7M to produce natural aromas for the food industry using precision fermentation. Its tech can improve the taste of non-alcoholic beer by producing yeast-derived ingredients that recreate the taste of hops.
Courtesy: The Better Meat Co
Fellow fermentation company The Better Meat Co has slashed the production costs of its mycoprotein, which is now on par with commodity beef when manufactured at scale.
Germany’s Veganz Group – which makes plant-based dairy, meat and snack products – has confirmed the drawdown of a grant from the State of Brandenburg’s investment bank to construct a new facility in Ludwigsfelde.
Fellow German company Tälist has introducedAltProtein.Jobs, an AI-led ‘matchmaking’ platform to connect employers with prospective candidates in the future food sector. Its algorithm has made 2,000 matches with a 9+ score, 9,400 with 8+, and 25,000 with a 7+ rating.
Courtesy: Tälist/Green Queen
The US Department of Defense has released a call for alternative protein funding proposals under BioMade, the public-private biomanufacturing consortium, with projects receiving between $500,000 to $2M. One of its key focus areas is on fermentation-derived and cultivated proteins for military rations. It has already spawned an outraged response from a cattle association.
Research and policy developments
Researchers at the United Arab Emirates University and the National University of Singapore have teamed up to explore novel plant protein sources that can be incorporated into meat analogues for better taste, texture and nutritional attributes.
In the US, Western Oregon University has signed the Humane Society of the United States‘ Forward Food Pledge, committing to transition its campus dining menus to 50% plant-based meals by 2027.
Courtesy: Nottingham Trent University
In more university news, the UK’s Nottingham Trent University has launched a master’s degree in smart agriculture, which will explore how AI, vertical farming and precision agriculture can enhance food security and reduce energy costs. Students will develop ‘recipes’ to produce food crops much more rapidly than currently possible outdoors.
Finally, plant-based food company Strong Rootsconducted a 1,000-person survey in the US, the UK and Ireland to find that 52% of consumers are more likely to purchase products with carbon footprints on their packaging, and 82% want to be informed about businesses that contribute to climate change.
US hybrid meat startup SciFi Foods has appointed an advisory firm to sell its assets as cultivated meat continues to face a bleak investment landscape.
San Francisco-based startup SciFi Foods, the maker of hybrid meat from cultivated beef cells and plant-based ingredients, is shutting down its operations.
The news comes months after the company successfully completed its first commercial-scale production run in a 500-litre bioreactor. It had also been in consultation with the FDA over its regulatory approval path in the US.
“Given challenges in the fundraising market, we’ve appointed an advisory firm to run a sale process,” co-founder and CEO Joshua March told AgFunderNews.
“Given the nature of the process, I can’t really say much more beyond this,” he added.
SciFi Foods had achieved price parity with conventional beef
SciFi Foods founders Joshua March and Kasia Gora | Courtesy: SciFi Foods
Founded in 2019 as Artemys Foods, the startup rebranded in 2022 with a cultivated beef product to be used in hybrid meat formulations. Backed by Silicon Valley VC Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and other investors like Coldplay, SciFi Foods has brought in over $40M in total financing.
Hybrid meat, which combines cultivated proteins with plant-based ingredients, is aimed at enabling scalability and driving down the high costs of cultivated meat. Investors say this is the only way it is currently commercially viable – Eat Just, the first company to ever sell cultivated meat, has previously rolled out versions with about 60-70% of cultivated cells, and its latest innovation is a retail offering with 3% of chicken cells.
Startups like Aleph Farms, Meatable and Vital Meat – which are all expecting regulatory approval in various markets over the next few months – are also using the hybrid approach for their products. Aleph Farms, which received the go-ahead from the health ministry in Israel in January, will soon roll out its hybrid beef at restaurants in the country.
Late last year, SciFi Foods opened a 16,000 sq ft pilot facility in San Leandro, California, where it began growing beef cell lines in single-cell suspension, in a 100% serum-free process. This is where it had finished its first run in the 500-litre bioreactor.
Single-cell suspension allows cells to be grown in any standard, stirred-tank bioreactor, without the need to try and scale up novel hardware. It also does away with the need for expensive substrates like microcarriers or scaffolding, which is crucial for cost control.
SciFi Foods, whose hybrid burger was a 90/10 mix of a soy protein base and cultivated beef, announced that it had achieved price parity with conventional beef using a combination of its proprietary high-throughput cell line engineering and CRISPR technology in 2022.
Cultivated meat feels the heat
Courtesy: GFI
The development comes amid what has been a highly turbulent time for the cultivated meat industry. As March alluded to, fundraising has been a mountain to climb – according to the Good Food Institute (GFI), investment in cultivated meat companies nosedived by 75% from 2022 to 2023. This came amid a wider decline in food tech funding (-61%), with alternative protein financing dropping by 44% to $1.6B.
The loss of faith among VCs has continued for cultivated meat startups this year, with Q1 witnessing merely 5% of the $226M invested in the sector in all of 2023. It’s why AgFunder has earmarked cultivated meat as a “category to watch” this year.
It has become a major headache for companies in this sector. Just last week, Aleph Farms confirmed it had laid off 30% of its local staff in Israel due to difficulties in securing capital amid its scale-up process, and as part of its asset-light growth strategy. Californian cultivated seafood producer Finless Foods had similarly carried out two rounds of layoffs in less than 12 months.
Also in California, cultivated pork startup New Age Eats ceased operations in March 2023. Eat Just, based in San Francisco, has been caught up in a lawsuit against its former contract manufacturer ABEC, which has claimed over $100M in payments for changes to the scope of the work and unpaid bills in relation to its cultivated chicken arm Good Meat. A judge has sided with both entities in several matters, and the case will now proceed to trial.
Courtesy: Eat Just
Another Californian startup, Los Angeles-based Omeat, has had its workforce cut by 80%, with its founder stepping down as CEO amid allegations of creating a hostile work culture.
Apart from the financial headwinds, the industry has also been met with legislative challenges. Italy became the first country to ban the production and sale of cultivated meat last year, with France and Romania contemplating the same. And last month, the US states of Florida and Alabama both passed similar bills, which were heavily criticised even by the meat industry.
Company closures were predicted to continue this year by alternative protein experts, and SciFi Foods has become the latest on that list. “We are in a phase of consolidation and correction that isn’t over yet. Given that venture capital is so scarce, fundraising and due diligence processes are taking extremely long, and especially lead investors are so hard to find, we expect to see more businesses going down,” Albrecht Wolfmeyer, director of ProVeg Incubator, told Green Queen in April.
He added: “At the same time, we are seeing a lot of exciting innovation in the ecosystem and also growing consumer and corporate interest in markets like Germany. This and parts of next year will be tough, then we’ll see more light at the end of the tunnel.”
Canada and the EU lead the way in terms of public funding for alternative proteins, while Asia is a region to watch for this year, shows to a new policy-centric report.
Governments are investing more capital and implementing more supportive policies for alternative proteins as they recognise their potential as a solution to climate change, food security, public health, and employment – but they still have “plenty of ground to cover”, according to a new report.
Published by industry think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI), the State of Global Policy presents a snapshot of governments’ views on alternative protein across the planet in 2023. Its analysis estimates that public funding in the sector reached $523M last year, though this represented a 12.6% decline from the $599M poured into the industry in 2022.
Breaking this down further, $190M of this figure went to R&D, and another $163M was earmarked for commercialisation efforts. The remaining $170M was for mixed purposes. As for which alternative protein was most popular, it was a close call between plant-based ($189M) and fermentation-derived ($181M) innovations. Cultivated meat trailed behind with just $40M in government investments, while $112M was set aside for a combination of these proteins.
That said, GFI outlined that countries need to invest $10.1B annually for the industry to realise its full potential – this marks a nearly 30-fold increase from the actual investments that were disbursed in 2023 ($348M). But it’s just a fraction of the world’s spending on EVs, renewable energy and other climate-friendly technologies.
“By making public investments on par with other strategic priorities, policymakers can greatly accelerate the pace and scale of protein innovation and position their governments as leaders in a future industry,” the report states.
Here are the countries championing alternative proteins across different segments.
Who were the stars of 2023?
Courtesy: Ivy Farm Technologies
The report picks out Germany and the UK as the stars of 2023 for their dramatic increase in spending on alternative proteins. The former surpassed its all-time funding into alternative proteins ($35M) with $44M in investment last year. The country is investing up to $20.4M in alternative proteins between 2023 and 2028, which includes a $547,000 grant to Kynda, as well as a new research project for cultivated seafood.
Germany has also set aside €38M ($41.3M) in its federal budget for 2024 to develop alternative protein production capacity and help farmers transition to plant-based agriculture. And in March this year, it adopted a national nutrition strategy recommending that plant-based foods should make up at least 75% of people’s diets.
The UK, meanwhile, announced a $15.3M cellular agriculture research hub, funded over 20 research projects, and included cultivated meat and fermentation in a $2.2B national biotechnology plan. It also received its first two cultivated meat applications from Aleph Farms and Ivy Farm Technologies in 2023 (followed by Vital Meat last month), and is now overhauling its pre-Brexit regulations to clear the path for novel food companies. Cultivated pet food company Meatly is expecting the greenlight and a market launch imminently.
The public investment leaders
Courtesy: New School Foods
While the UK and Germany may be becoming major players, their investment is far eclipsed by a few others. Canada tops the charts with $129M invested in alternative proteins in 2023 (versus $174M in all-time funding before the year). This is largely thanks to the allocation of $112M from Protein Industries Canada, a public-private partnership for novel proteins and one of the country’s economic clusters.
It was followed by the EU ($113M) and the US ($82M). Before 2023, Denmark was the leader on this list, investing a total of $223M in the sector – but it fell off last year, with just $891,000 in alternative protein financing.
The regulatory winners
Courtesy: UPSIDE Foods/Eat JUST
Singapore has always been a flagbearer of progressive regulation when it comes to alternative proteins, but last year, the US joined it as the only other country to approve the sale of cultivated meat, with Eat Just’s Good Meat and Upside Foods both launching their cultivated chicken products in restaurants.
The two countries had already given the go-ahead to precision fermentation company Remilk for its recombinant whey proteins, and its home country Israel joined that list, granting approval in April. Israel also became the third country to clear cultivated meat for sale at the start of this year. And Singapore followed its 2020 approval of Good Meat by giving the greenlight to Australia’s Vow.
The plant-based pioneers
Courtesy: Umiami
GFI pinpointed three countries championing plant-based proteins by boosting local agriculture and manufacturing. Australia, which rescinded a grant for pulse protein factories after delays in enactment made the projects ineligible, saw four of its six states invest in alternative protein. One of them was Western Australia, which poured $3.3M into a factory producing oat milk enriched with lupin protein.
Neighbouring New Zealand, meanwhile, allocated $7M for a project developing alternative proteins from local crops like green peas, oats and hemp.
And in France, the government put restrictions on plant-based meat labels, but also led a $35M Series A fundraise of whole-cut vegan chicken producer Umiami. This was followed by its $8M grant for the company’s commercial-scale factory in 2022, which opened three months ago.
The cellular agriculture supporters
Courtesy: Solar Foods
Six countries were highlighted by the GFI report for their biotech, research and infrastructure support for cultivated and fermentation-derived proteins. Two of the four pillars of Singapore’s $117M Food Story 2.0 programme are relevant to alternative protein, with a heavy focus on cultivated meat.
Israel awarded its previously announced funding of $13M for a precision fermentation contract development manufacturing organisation, while in the US, the Cornucopia programme seeks to create microbial foods, with $10.4M given to one of four fermentation projects over four years.
In February 2023, South Korea’s North Gyeongsang Province led a 28-member MoU to advance the cellular agriculture industry. The province also established a regulation-free zone for proof-of-concept prototypes, and a $6.7M Cellular Agriculture Industry Support Center.
The Netherlands, meanwhile, provided $1.1M from its Cellular Agriculture Netherlands programme for research into producing collagen and elastin through precision fermentation. And Finland supported local fermentation startup Solar Foods with the construction of two facilities through investments and grants, while funding a $5.3M research project for microbial fermentation.
The countries to watch
Courtesy: CellX
Among the six countries, GFI outlined as laying the groundwork for significant investment in the sector, half are in Asia. India’s Ministry of Science and Technology announced a National Biomanufacturing Policy that includes alternative proteins as a key pillar, and created a funding programme to promote millets as a raw material for the plant protein industry, approving a $107,919 project for egg alternatives.
In November 2023, Japan accepted a proposal from three companies for R&D on cultivated wagyu beef, focused on scaling and commercialisation. And China, which included cultivated in its 14th five-year plan in 2022, “offered generous incentives to industry players” – while exact investment numbers are not known, its cultivated meat industry has grown as it’s a lower-cost environment than Europe or the US.
Elsewhere, Brazil may not have announced any new funding in 2023, but its new government’s “prioritisation of sustainability, the green economy, and low-carbon agriculture bodes well for the field”, the report suggests.
South Africa became possibly the first country in the continent to make a public investment in precision fermentation, injecting $700,000 into DeNovo FoodLabs’ development of whey protein. And finally in Spain, the regional government of Catalonia awarded $7M for the construction of a scale-up facility for plant-based and fermented proteins.
Californian biotech startup Prolific Machines has closed a $55M Series B1 round for its photomolecular platform, which leverages light to create novel proteins at significantly lower costs.
The $55M investment represents the first close of Prolific Machines’ Series B round, and was led by Fonterra’s VC arm The Ki Tua Fund. BreakthroughEnergy Ventures, Mayfield, SOSV, Shorewind Capital, Darco Capital, Conti Ventures, In-Q-Tel (IQT), and several others participated as well.
This means the company – which has previously set out its intention to raise a $170M full Series B round – has so far brought in $86.5M in total investment. Investors in its last round in 2022 included the likes of Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban and model and actress Emily Ratajkowski.
Since being founded in 2020, Prolific Machines has developed a photomolecular biology platform to grow and control cells with light, allowing manufacturers to create products across cellular agriculture for the food and medicine industries. It will use the Series B1 capital to commercialise this platform through industry partnerships.
“Photomolecular biology is the use of light and AI to precisely control and optimise cellular behaviour to more efficiently produce superior bioproduct solutions across wide-ranging applications, from food to pharmaceuticals,” co-founder and CEO Deniz Kent tells Green Queen.
“We set out with a vision to use one of our most abundant resources – light – to create an exponentially better way to control biology,” he says, suggesting that this control is “critical to making cheaper and higher-quality products”.
How does Prolific Machines harness light to create proteins?
Courtesy: Prolific Machines
Prolific Machines argues that current cellular biology processes are constrained by “expensive, inefficient, and imprecise molecular methods”. But the precision of light allows it to control these processes in “fundamentally new ways”.
“Prolific harnesses light to produce everyday essentials more efficiently, from food and lifesaving drugs to novel biosolutions,” explains Kent. “We use light as a signal to control cellular behaviour with unprecedented precision and instantly instruct cells on what to do, and where and when to do it. Our process creates significant cost, speed, yield, and quality advantages compared to existing processes.”
The company’s technology is inspired by the field of optogenetics, a combination of genetic and optical methods to control the activity and behaviour of cells through light.
“We use ‘non-ionising’ light at relatively low intensities in our process, which means it doesn’t carry enough energy to harm living cells. It is safe for use in the production of both food and non-food products,” says Kent.
How can light improve existing production techniques?
Prolific Machines founders Max Huisman (CTO), Deniz Kent (CEO) and Declan Jones (CSO) | Courtesy: Prolific Machines
“Methods currently used to make bioproducts are limited to imprecise, inefficient, and expensive control levers – like temperature, chemicals, and proteins – to indirectly control cells,” Kent says. “Prolific’s first-of-its-kind photomolecular platform brings together safe and effective tools – light, bioengineering, hardware, and AI – to unlock unparalleled control and precision.”
He explains that living organisms can sense light because of light-sensitive proteins (LSP), which are naturally occurring proteins found in everything from plants and bacteria to human retinas. These exist to detect and respond to light, and can do this very quickly, causing action in cells within seconds.
“Proteins are at the heart of everything a cell does, from perceiving signals from other cells to switching genes on or off. By attaching LSPs to proteins that you want to control within the cell, Prolific makes it possible to precisely control subcellular biology using light,” he says. When met with light, which acts as a signal, the LSPs can control cells across key functions.
“Prolific unlocks dynamic control by pulsating light in specific patterns, intensities, and wavelengths to activate cellular functions when and where it matters most, which is a game-changer for biotechnology,” adds Kent.
What kind of products can Prolific Machines create?
Courtesy: Prolific Machines
So what kind of products can you produce using light? “Prolific is co-developing the future of biology with innovators across cultivated meat, nutritional and therapeutic proteins, disease models, tissue engineering, cell and gene therapy, and beyond,” he reveals.
“Examples include nutritional proteins used in supplements and infant formula, antibodies to treat diseases, whole cuts of cultured meat, higher fidelity disease models, and other innovations never before possible.”
Kent calls the process a “boon” for cultivated meat, with companies able to achieve “massive cost, scale, and sterility benefits without the need for recombinant proteins or growth factors”.
“Using light, our process can create structured or marbled products, like steaks. We can create all cuts of meat that would be impossible to make in a scalable manner with existing cultivated production methods,” he says. “Our process provides unparalleled spatial control, creating the patterning and structure to make alternative protein products with first-of-its-kind texture, taste, and affordability.”
As for “nutritional proteins”, this could entail many “high-value proteins”, including those found in infant formula, such as lactoferrin (whose precision-fermented version has only recently been commercialised).
Can light help make cultivated meat cheaper?
Courtesy: Ark Biotech
Prolific Machines suggests that the first applications of its technology will be announced via partnerships with manufacturers in the coming months. The company has already established two “robust” mammalian cell lines to support its food and pharmaceutical partners.
While more details on pricing will be available once these link-ups are established, Kent offers: “One of the key benefits of our photomolecular platform is cost efficiency due to our use of light, which is the cheapest possible input into biology. Our process also removes the need for costly growth factors, which are the most expensive part of the cultivated meat process.”
Reducing the cost and scaling up production are the two key manufacturing challenges facing producers in this space. While companies have managed to reduce costs by 99% in less than a decade, forecasts show these proteins won’t price parity until 2030. But startups like Meatly and BioCraft Pet Nutrition (both making cultivated pet food) have announced breakthroughs in their culture media to drastically bring down the cost of their products.
“Our platform elevates our partners’ existing cell lines and product approaches, providing a critical infrastructure layer for biology,” says Kent. “Think of us as the ‘NVIDIA for biology’. We are already co-developing the future of biology with a number of partners.”
While some countries and US states have imposed bans on cultivated meat, these proteins have been championed by UN climate bodies like the IPCC and the UNEP, since they have a much smaller environmental footprint, can secure the food system against climate and disease shocks, and feed an ever-hungrier planet poised to have 10 billion people by 2050.
Israeli cultivated meat producer Aleph Farms has let go of 30% of its domestic workforce, reportedly due to difficulties in securing capital amid its scale-up process.
Aleph Farms, one of only four companies cleared to sell cultivated meat, has laid off about 30 of its 100 local employees, owing to difficulties in raising capital amid a wider investment decline in the sector, according to Israeli food tech publication CTech.
An Aleph Farms spokesperson confirmed the news. “As we transition towards larger-scale production and commercialisation, we are maintaining R&D and production in Israel while expanding globally through co-manufacturers, in line with our capital-efficient and asset-light approach,” they told Green Queen.
“We are adapting our organisation to align with this next growth phase, and need to part ways with approximately 30% of our local employees. We care for all affected employees and will be supporting them in the new job search.”
Aleph Farms had ‘expected significant expansion’ this year
Courtesy: Aleph Farms
Around the same time CTech reported the news last night, Aleph Farms posted an update on social media. “The ability to adapt is fundamental at all levels of life, enabling us to navigate change and foster growth over time,” it read. It’s unclear whether this was in reference to the restructuring, but it did mark a departure from the style of its other posts.
Aleph Farms started the year with the biggest milestone in its seven-year history, earning regulatory approval to sell its cultivated beef in Israel. The startup had announced its intention to roll out its Black Angus Petit Steak under the Aleph Cuts brand at select restaurants in the country, with a longer-term goal of making it available to retailers.
Since then, it has struck a deal to produce cultivated meat in Thailand, and partnered with a biotech startup to leverage AI to reduce costs and enable scalability. These advancements followed the 2022 opening of its 65,000 sq ft plant in Rehovot, Israel, allowing it to initially produce 10 tonnes of cultivated steak annually, the acquisition of another manufacturing facility in Modi’in, as well as the agreement with ESCO Aster in Singapore (the world’s first approved industrial manufacturer for cultivated meat).
The company has previously outlined its aim to reach $1B in revenue by 2030, and has so far raised $118M in funding. Its last investment round was in 2022, bringing in a sizeable Series B amount of $105M. But struggles in securing investment, the global decrease in alternative protein funding, and the geopolitical tension with the Israel-Hamas war have put pressure on the company, according to CTech.
The publication cited strategic plans and investor promises to suggest that Aleph Farms had hoped for a different year. One industry insider was quoted as saying: “They expected a very significant expansion this year, but the situation in Israel is difficult for the entire market. All companies are reexamining their expenses.”
Israel’s alternative protein challenges – and potential
Courtesy: GFI
Alternative protein investments saw a marked downturn in 2023, among a wider VC fallout from food tech. According to the Good Food Institute (GFI), food tech companies received 61% fewer VC dollars last year than in 2022, while alternative protein funding dropped by 44% to $1.6B.
Cultivated meat companies were hit especially hard, with investment down by 75% from 2022. And this loss of faith among VCs has continued, with the first quarter of 2024 seeing merely 5% of the $226M invested in the sector in all of last year. It’s why AgFunder has earmarked cultivated meat as a “category to watch” this year.
Within Israel, VC fundraising was down by 74% in 2023, hitting an eight-year low. Coupled with the struggles of the fintech sector, several other startups have been forced to make cutbacks in their workforce.
That said, despite a dip in alternative protein financing, interest in the industry remains strong in Israel. The country was responsible for 10% of the sector’s investments globally in the last decade, second only to the US, according to a recent report. Last year, a record 15 new startups began working on novel proteins, taking the total to 73. And in 2022, the Israeli Innovation Authority (IIA) established an $18M research consortium for cultivated meat, comprising 14 companies and 10 academic laboratories.
Courtesy: GFI Israel
The analysis also outlined the industry’s long-term potential, forecasting that it will generate 10,000 additional jobs (a third of which would be manufacturing roles), have more than 200 companies and over a dozen manufacturing facilities, and contribute $2.5B to Israel’s economy by 2030. The report’s authors encouraged investors to take confidence in the IIA’s efforts and pump significant capital into the sector
But as Aleph Farms pointed out, challenges remain, especially for companies trying to expand their production capacity. “Scaling up manufacturing for Israeli startups is challenging due to infrastructure costs, mirroring challenges encountered by startups worldwide,” Alla Voldman, VP of strategy and policy at GFI Israel, told Green Queen last month.
She added that the geopolitical situation is heartbreaking. “However, the Israeli entrepreneurs proved their resilience in ensuring their companies meet the milestones,” she said. “We believe that the increasing need for food security solutions locally and across the globe will drive additional private and public investments in this sector toward innovative technological solutions.”
Finnish researchers have come up with a way to make cultivated meat without expensive growth factors, relying on stem cell metabolism instead.
As the race to produce cost-effective cuts of cultivated meat continues, researchers at the University of Helsinki are proposing an alternative to one of the most expensive parts of the manufacturing process.
“All companies run into problems at roughly the same point of scaling up production,” said Pekka Katajisto, who is leading the team at the Helsinki Institute of Life Science (HiLife).
The solution, then, lies in the technology developed under its Myocopia project, which relies on stem cell metabolism instead of growth factors. Can it help companies bring costs on par with conventional meat?
Cells grow meat only when instructed
Courtesy: Eat Just
Culture media are an essential part of cultivated meat production, comprising a mix of nutrients to facilitate the growth of animal cells. This accounts for the majority of the costs involved in the entire process, with growth factors – which help the cells differentiate – responsible for the bulk of those.
Companies have been working on ways to bring these prices down – typically, culture media cost hundreds of dollars per litre. Last month, UK company Meatly, which is on the verge of receiving regulatory approval for its cultivated pet food in the country, announced it had reduced the cost of its culture medium to $1.25 per litre by developing a protein-free version.
And just last week, fellow cultivated pet food producer BioCraft Pet Nutrition announced it had reached price parity with premium conventional meat by developing a nutrient medium composed of plant-based ingredients.
At Katajisto’s lab, which is connected to the Centre of Excellence in Stem Cell Metabolism, researchers studied how cell metabolism regulates the division and differentiation of stem cells. This led to an innovation that can keep the cells expanding longer than with current methods, and grow meat only when instructed to do so, enabling precise control in bioreactors.
“The cells can be kept multiplying in a financially viable way until the reactor is full. The cells are then guided to form meat – again using their own metabolism,” said Katajisto.
Myocopia plans to spin out in two years
Courtesy: University of Helsinki
The idea was first tested using capital from HiLife’s proof-of-concept funding. Once they achieved promising results, the team received state financing from Business Finland to commercialise its technology. Under the latter, Myocopia will validate the tech on “commercially interesting” meat products like beef, pork and poultry.
“We want to increase our understanding of the market and finetune our technology,” said Swetha Gopalakrishnan, scientific lead of the Myocopia project, who made the original observation that led to the innovation.
The goal is to become a B2B provider that can license its technical knowhow to cultivated meat producers. Olga Balakina, commercialisation specialist for the project, is assessing the market for potential partners. “Our top priority is to identify the companies with which we can launch a pilot,” she said.
Technology companies are of particular interest, since they can help the Myocopia team tailor the innovation based on market needs. The team has already begun the patenting process, and aims to speak to VCs and impact investors for financing next year.
“After two years, we can strive to establish a spinout,” said Balakina. As a “tech enabler” of the industry, one of its solutions could be “a cell-growing cocktail” that could stimulate growth effectively in existing bioreactors.
“I believe our innovation is going to be a game changer in the emerging industry as a whole,” added Katajisto.
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 Starbucks’ upcoming Oatly collaboration, a vegan certification for hospitality operators, and Bezos Earth Fund’s alternative protein centre.
New products and launches
For its summer menu, Starbucks is reportedly launching a vegan cinnamon crumble Frappuccino with Oatly‘s vanilla Oat Whip, which will be available for a free swap – a welcome policy change from the coffee chain. It will also offer a non-dairy vanilla sweet cream cold brew, and free plant-based cold foam substitutes for all core drinks.
Courtesy: Big Box Vegan
Speaking of which, Oatly has now launched its 1.5-litre barista milk in the UK, which was teased in its latest earnings call to investors.
Also in the UK, The Coconut Collaborative has unveiled what it says is the country’s first vegan yoghurt and granola topper.
British vegan pet food maker Hownd has gained a listing for three hypoallergenic functional treat ranges – Keep Calm for stress relief, Got an Itch? for healthy skin and coat, and Yup You Stink! for bad breath – at Pets at Home, which will be available in stores nationwide in September.
Fellow UK startup Sun Bear Biofuture has joined the expanding roster of companies offering sustainable alternatives to palm oil. Its deforestation-free innovation is derived from fermentation and makes use of agricultural sidestreams as feedstocks.
Courtesy: Beyond Meat
Meanwhile, plant-based giant Beyond Meat has rolled out a new SKU in the UK. The spicy jalapeño burger is available at 280 Tesco and Sainsbury’s stores each, with a frozen version coming to 200 locations each in September.
In the US, Tomorrow Farms‘ animal-free milk Bored Cow, which uses Perfect Day‘s precision-fermented whey protein, has expanded into 2,000 new stores nationwide, with additional 11oz packaging for the original flavour plus four-packs now available in Albertsons, Safeway, Sprouts, Fresh Thyme, Central Market, and Shaws, among others.
Consultancy network Vegan Hospitality has launched a global certification programme for tourism and hospitality companies, offering companies expert strategy consulting, online staff training, promotional support, and free auditing.
Courtesy: Planteneers
In Germany, plant-based producer Planteneers has introduced a lineup of vegan desserts, comprising tiramisu, cheesecake, fermented oat dessert, pudding, and soft ice cream. They’re positioned as “healthy but indulgent” alternatives to their dairy counterparts.
German airline caterer LSG Group has teamed up with Unilever-owned plant-based meat brand The Vegetarian Butcher to offer vegan meals for onboard dining.
More news from the skies: Spanish meat analogues maker Heura and vegan cheese giant Violife have partnered with Vueling Airlines to launch a plant-based burger on the carrier’s summer menu, which is priced at €8.50.
Courtesy: Bernat Anaños/LinkedIn
There’s a new plant-based butchery in Prague. Located in the Czech capital’s Letná district, Bezmasnafeatures meatloafs, cold cuts, deli salads, as well as chlebíček (Czech sandwiches).
Singaporean startup Jiro-Meat is aiming to commercialise its upcycled plant-based meat made from okara – the fibrous pulp leftover from soy milk and tofu production – in the next six months.
And in India, Nestlé has rolled out a limited-edition edible plant-based fork for its Maggi cup noodles. The two-piece fork is made from wheat flour and salt.
Finance and company updates
The Bezos Earth Fund has opened its first Center for Sustainable Protein at North Carolina State University, supported by a $30M fund. The facility aims to advance alternative protein production and commercialisation, and has onboardedBeliever Meats (which is due to open its own cultivated meat facility in the state later this year) as a partner.
Germany’s Planteneers has also opened a Customer Center of Excellence in Aurora, Illinois as part of its North American expansion. The facility will let customers collaborate on product development and create ingredient solutions via a plant-based meat laboratory (it will soon have one for alt-dairy too).
Courtesy: PROT
Indian vegan seafood player SeaSpire has rebranded to PROT, as it diversifies into other plant protein sources. Its alt-seafood lineup is being relaunched as a ‘Gill-t Free’ range ahead of World Ocean Day (June 8), supported by Veganuary India‘s Fish-Free Week campaign.
Danish plant protein powder Nutrumami has closed a €450,000 seed funding round to expand its team and prepare for market launch.
Policy and research developments
A 9,272-person survey by YouGov shows that if cultivated meat was on par with conventional meat, only half would continue eating the latter (nearly a quarter remain unsure of what they’ll do). It’s an improvement from the 40% who would otherwise ‘definitely not’ eat cultivated meat. Meanwhile, Americans remain very split over bans on these products.
Courtesy: YouGov
In the UK, Calderdale Council in West Yorkshire – which adopted a climate change emergency policy in 2020 – wants to make its menus fully plant-based, with a preference for seasonal, non-processed foods.
A joint venture between the Artevelde University of Applied Sciences and the City of Ghent has seen a food waste monitor installed in several restaurants, which will use the smart scale to better measure how much food is being thrown away.
Courtesy: Eat Differently
Finally, advocacy group Eat Differently has rolled out a parody ad campaign called Hate Vegans? in Los Angeles. It aims to highlight the reasons people care about plant-based diets and their impact on the planet – ‘injuries’ sustained from preachy vegans could turn into settlements with the help of fictional attorney Seymour Loudermilk.
