Climate biotech company Brevel is lighting a path for the commercialization of the nascent plant cell culture sector through a series of partnerships spanning coffee, cocoa and bioactive ingredients that show its “illuminated fermentation” platform could improve growth, boost yields and enhance the compounds that give products nutritional and sensory value.
Three brothers founded the company in 2017 to support sustainable, resilient and affordable ingredient production by “bringing fermentation into the light, to unlock nature’s inherent advantage of photosynthesis at scale.”
The company’s “illuminated fermentation” is an alternative production method to counter “climate disruption, land degradation and resources scarcity” that it says “are destabilizing traditional agriculture.”
The effects of these pressures can be seen in the availability and accessibility of everyday commodities – including cocoa and coffee, the price for which has become increasingly volatile in recent years as rising temperatures, inconsistent rain and disease decimate crop yields.
Companies eager to ease supply constraints have used plant cell culture for decades to cultivate plant cells or tissues in a bioreactors with feedstocks to create ideal growing conditions for targeted compounds rather than relying on conventional growing techniques in soil with sun, water and fertilizer that are subject to volatile weather changes.
While effective and safe, the technology is limited in part by slow growth rates compared to microbial counterparts, genetic instability that compromises consistent cell lines and high operating costs for large-scale media and infrastructure.
Brevel claims its “illuminated fermentation technology” can ease these constraints by adding light to closed controlled fermentation systems, which conventionally operate in the dark.
“By applying precise light profiles that gently trigger cells to produce valuable compounds,” Brevel says its technology “supports higher and more consistent growth rates, reduces costs and improves the metabolite profile, including phenols and other bioactive ingredients.”
The state of fermentation and cultivated ingredients: Where are we now?
This story is part of a larger collection of stories focused on the state of alternative agriculture and ingredient production across categories – from coffee and cocoa to meat and seafood. We explore tech breakthroughs, commercial applications and regulatory updates, as well as stubborn challenges and how stakeholders are addressing them.
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Establishing proof of concept
The company first tested its tech by creating three in-house brands:
- Purallis – a broken cell chlorella ingredient launched in March that the company said is rich in antioxidants, chlorophyll and a complete protein, and which is “ultra-pure” because it is produced in closed, sterile fermentation systems compared to the conventional open pond method that exposes the algae to pollutants and heavy metals in the surrounding water and air.
- Brevel Protein – a neutral tasting, non-allergenic protein that the company says delivers “excellent functionality,” including emulsification, gelation and foaming, without sensory impact even at high inclusion rates. It has a high protein concentration up to 87% and 95% solubility in neutral pH.
- Brevel Lipids – naturally produced by non-GMO chlorella microalgae, the polar lipids are suitable for food, wellness, pharma, cosmetics and biomaterials, according to the company.
Coffeesai partnership highlights Brevel’s benefits
With clear proof of concept, Brevel now works with companies across categories to develop fermentation-based products – including most recently coffee cells through a partnership with Coffeesai announced today.
“Our work in coffee cell cultures serve as a case study for the capabilities of our illuminated fermentation infrastructure,” Yonatan Golan, Brevel CEO and co-founder said in a statement. “Our recent work has demonstrated the platform’s ability to achieve high cell densities while sustaining continuous growth through an advanced semi-continuous cultivation process, paving the way for scalable and efficient production.”
Coffeesai CEO Ami Herman added the initial results from the duo’s collaboration show Brevel’s platform can influence sensory profile.
“It was observed that manipulating the specific light profile can enhance the flavor and aroma characteristics of the resulting biomass by modulating the expression of desirable value-added compounds,” according to Brevel.
It also declared the collaboration a success because it achieved stable, high-density cultivations output and improved biomass qualities.
Partnerships across categories underscore Brevel’s potential
The collaboration with Coffeesai is the latest in a string of partnerships that demonstrate the technology’s capabilities.
Earlier this month, Brevel and Ayana Bio announced a strategic joint development partnership to build “a predictable, scalable and indoor manufacturing pipeline for high-value bioactives” by combining Brevel’s illuminated fermentation platform with Ayana Bio’s plant cell cultivation and synthetic biology platforms.
The partnership is funded in part by the Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) foundation, which earmarked $1.25 million to support scale up.
In February 2025, Brevel announced a 10-year partnership with The Central Bottling Company (CBC Group) in Israel to develop functional beverages and dairy alternatives with Brevel’s microalgae protein, lipids and antioxidants.
This agreement illustrates the strategy for commercial deployment of ingredients produced through illuminated fermentation.
These partnerships show the diverse potential of Brevel’s illuminated fermentation as an enabling technology for the emerging plant cell culture sector, but its long-term success depends on economics as much as biology.
However, with climate pressures continuing to disrupt conventional agriculture, companies across the food and ingredient supply chain are increasingly willing to explore alternatives and technologies.
