While investor sentiment has soured on alternative proteins, last month’s Future Food Tech summit in San Francisco attracted a record number of foodtech startups showcasing everything from foodie chatbots to upcycled prebiotic fibers.
Australian startup Cauldron has raised AUS $10.5m to scale a platform enabling firms to produce high-value ingredients via precision fermentation more efficiently via a continuous process.
The #1 priority for new trade association Food Fermentation Europe is helping startups navigate the regulatory pathway for approving novel foods in the EU: a lengthy and uncertain process that right now, they argue, is “completely unclear.”
Shiru has identified plant proteins that can be combined with unsaturated oils to create a solid fat that can replace highly saturated animal or tropical fats such as palm and coconut oil.
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?
Is it more efficient to make “animal-free” proteins in plants or fermentation tanks? Motif FoodWorks, which currently makes myoglobin via precision fermentation, is now exploring whether corn could also serve as an effective host via a partnership with molecular farming startup IngredientWerks.
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
Future Fields has raised US $11.2 million to scale up fruit flies as production vehicles for high value ingredients including growth factors for cultivated meat production and human recombinant proteins for medical research and biopharmaceuticals.
Wild Microbes has raised $3.3m in a pre-seed round to help unlock the potential of precision fermentation via gene editing technology it claims can enable the use of a broader range of microbial hosts.
The alternative protein sector was ‘overhyped, but now its demise is being over exaggerated,’ said investors at a recent industry event as the GFI unveiled results of a global investor survey suggesting a mood of cautious optimism.
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.
Billions of dollars have flowed to precision fermentation and biomass fermentation companies in recent years, says Synonym Bio. “But achieving commercial adoption requires a network of large-scale infrastructure, which does not yet exist.”
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.
