Today there are multiple startups making dairy proteins without cows. But back in 2014, Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi were in a field of one…
Is there a market for ‘animal-free’ dairy? Is making it via precision fermentation commercially viable, and how do you talk to consumers about it?
New Culture says it is on track to produce ‘animal-free’ mozzarella at cost parity with its conventional counterpart within three years.
Perfect Day plans to sell its consumer brands so it can focus on its core business as a b2b supplier of whey protein via precision fermentation.
US dairy farmers have urged the FDA to crack down on ‘animal free dairy milk’ labels “before this situation spins out of control.”
Danone’s corporate venture arm Danone Manifesto Ventures has taken a minority stake in Imagindairy, an Israeli startup making ‘animal-free’ dairy proteins via precision fermentation (using microbes instead of cows).
US regulators have warned startups in the emerging field of ‘molecular farming’ that expressing animal proteins such as casein in genetically engineered plants will require strict allergen management protocols.
“Right now, a lot of plant-based products are no better than animal products, and in some cases they are actually worse,” claims the CEO at Climax Foods, a data-driven startup reverse engineering animal foods and rebuilding them with plants.
In part two of our whistlestop tour of foodtech at Expo West, we look at startups from Brightseed, which is exploring new bioactives for gut health, to Epogee, which has found intriguing new applications for EPG: a plant-based oil restructured in such a way that virtually none of it is absorbed by the body.
While alt-protein investment has cooled, there’s still plenty of interest in replacing eggs, says Maija Itkonen of precision fermentation startup Onego Bio.
Thanks to advances in synthetic biology, startups are now programming microbes to express everything from egg albumin without chickens to whey protein without cows. But when animal products are no longer made by animals, what do we call them?
General Mills has pulled the plug on its animal-free dairy brand Bold Cultr (cream cheese featuring whey proteins made by microbes, not cows, via precision fermentation).
A US patent recently granted to Perfect Day— the highest-profile startup in the ‘animal-free’ dairy field—has been challenged by an anonymous petitioner
Nine foodtech startups—from animal-free dairy companies to firms making meaty flavors for meat alternatives—have joined forces to create a new trade association: the Precision Fermentation Alliance.
Israeli startup Remilk—one of the best-funded players in the nascent animal-free dairy space—has hit pause on plans to build the world’s large-scale precision fermentation facility in Denmark and is instead ramping up production with a contract manufacturer in western Europe.
