The next generation of brands, ingredient suppliers and processors are placing sustainability at the center of how they do business and making it easier for their partners to do the same as illustrated by the companies showcasing in the Startup Pavilion...
Raleigh-based startup Jellatech has hit a key milestone with the development of a full length, triple helical and functional native collagen (type 1) produced by its proprietary cell lines, which will initially be targeted at the biopharma and biomedical...
US retail sales of frozen meat alternatives were up a solid +10.1% to $76m in May 2022 vs May 2021, with volumes fairly flat at -0.8%; but sales of refrigerated meat alternatives continued their precipitous slide last month, with dollar sales slumping...
San Leandro CA-based Artemys Foods – which claims it has “a pretty clear shot at being the first company to bring cultivated beef to the market in the US” - has rebranded as SCiFi Foods and raised $22m in a series A round* led by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz....
Israeli food tech startup SuperMeat has received grant funding to establish an open high-throughput screening system for optimizing cultivated meat production, helping the company reach commercial viability of its cultivated chicken products.
While much of the press coverage in food tech is devoted to brands making meat, egg, and dairy alternatives, these technologies will only be scalable – and sustainable - if we pay the same level of attention to the enabling technologies underpinning them,...
GOOD Meat, the cultivated meat division of Eat Just, has signed an exclusive seven-year deal with bioprocess equipment specialist ABEC to design, manufacture, install and commission the “largest known bioreactors for avian and mammalian cell culture”...
Plant-based meat analogues are still striving to deliver a genuine ‘meaty’ taste, texture and mouthfeel. Could combining plant proteins with cultured animal fats offer a solution? Food tech innovators ENOUGH and MeaTech3D have launched a collaboration...
GOOD Meat - a division of Eat Just, Inc. currently developing and producing cultivated chicken - has entered into a joint development agreement with global nutrition company ADM to accelerate the production of cultivated meat while driving overall costs...
As cultivated meat gets closer to market, more attention is being paid to enabling technologies, from bioreactors to growth media to edible scaffolding. FoodNavigator-USA caught up with two players trying to replicate the extracellular matrix of meat:...
There is no silver bullet that will singularly transform the economics of cell-cultured/cultivated meat, but technology developed by Israeli startup ProFuse Technology that dramatically speeds up the muscle fiber production process and enhances production...
Halifax-based Smallfood is targeting the alternative seafood market with a novel marine-based whole food ingredient high in protein “with an amino acid profile similar to beef” and meaningful levels of the coveted long-chain omega-3 fatty acids EPA and...
Cultivated meat co UPSIDE Foods has closed a $400m series C round that brings its cumulative funding to $608m (giving it a valuation of >$1bn before it has launched a single product on the market), money that will help support a commercial-scale facility...
Investing in cell-cultured meat is a calculated risk for investors, but “not a wild gamble,” says the co-founder and CEO of Dutch startup Meatable, who says he is confident that Meatable can put a “cost competitive product on the market by 2025.”
A district court in Louisiana has determined that a state law restricting the use of 'meaty' terms on food labels to products derived from slaughtered animals is unconstitutional, in a ruling hailed by Tofurky as "a victory for the entire...
Israeli start-up BioBetter is repurposing tobacco plants in attempt to overcome the greatest hurdle currently facing the budding cultivated meat industry: scaled production.
If churning out milk from lactating bovine mammary epithelial cells in a bioreactor seems a bit, well, unnatural, ask yourself what’s ‘natural’ about the life of a dairy cow in an industrial-scale dairy farming operation, says Opalia co-founder Jennifer...
Emeryville, CA-based Finless Foods has closed a $34m series B round* to fund pilot-scale production of cell-cultured bluefin tuna, and support the national foodservice launch of its first product: plant-based tuna.
While skeptics maintain cell-cultured meat faces “intractable technical challenges at food scale,” and Impossible Foods CEO Dr Pat Brown dismisses it as ‘vaporware,’ Wildtype has just persuaded investors to part with a cool $100m to help it scale up its...
Right now, the pricier components of growth media – the nutrient-rich broth used to feed cells that will turn into cultivated meat – are typically produced by armies of microbes engineered to churn out recombinant proteins in big steel bioreactors. But...
Originally designed to help babies grow, but not much else, traditional infant formula often falls far short of delivering the same benefits as breast milk, which also boosts immunity, contributes to cognitive development, is more easily digested, and...
As concerns about how to feed a growing global population expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030 and consumer demand for health-forward food solutions build, ADM predicts that alternative proteins will soon transition from a niche alternative to center...
From precision fermentation to plant-based diversification and cultivated meat regulatory approval, the Good Food Institute (GFI) shares its predicted trends across the alternative protein landscape.
Leaders in the cultured protein category, including BlueNalu and Upside Foods, are making waves with key partnerships and acquisitions announced this week that will boost production and access to cultivated seafood.
As demand for plant-based products rises, large players looking for a piece of the action likely will continue to buy their way in, but one market analyst predicts that the checks they will cut and stakes they will take in innovators in the space will...
Dutch start-up Mosa Meat has revealed how it achieves muscle differentiation without the use of foetal bovine serum (FBS) in the interest of ‘openness’ and ‘transparency’.
Fresh off of closing a $120m Series B funding round, Remilk is scaling the production and availability of its dairy-identical milk protein (minus the cows) while engaging with high-profile CPG brands looking to develop alternatives to conventional dairy...
Israeli startup Future Meat Technologies has raised $347m in a Series B round of financing, fueling its plans to open a US plant next year and drive down the cost of cultivated meat below its current price of $7.70 per lb.
FoodNavigator travels to Paris to take its first bite of a cell-based chicken ingredient, asking the chef: ‘What’s it like to cook with cultivated meat?’
Will 2022 be the year the FDA finally weighs in on CBD regulations, or defines 'natural'? Will we see guidance from the FDA on the pre-market consultation process for cell-cultured meat? Is compliance with the bioengineered food disclosure standard...
UPSIDE Foods’ cell media – the nutrient-rich broth it uses to feed cells that will turn into cell-cultured or cultivated meat – is now 100% ‘animal component free,’ says the California-based firm, which described the milestone as a “biological breakthrough.”
Comments submitted to USDA over how best to label meat and poultry made from animal cells grown outside of animals reflect the challenge facing US regulators as they seek to nail down nomenclature in this nascent market as startups in the space edge closer...
Estonian start-up Gelatex says affordable and scalable cell-cultured meat could ‘soon turn into reality’ thanks to its innovative scaffolding technology.
Meat major JBS has said that it expects to bring cultivated meat to the European market by 2024 after acquiring control of Spanish start-up BioTech Foods,
Six weeks after the publication of an article arguing that cell-cultured meat faces “intractable technical challenges at food scale,” industry pioneer UPSIDE Foods has opened what it claims is the “most advanced cultivated meat production facility in...
From Nestle's vegan 'Vrimp' in Europe to Good Catch's crab cakes on trial at Long John Silver's in the US, many players believe plant-based seafood represents a significant untapped opportunity in a sector dominated by beef, pork...
BIOMILQ – a North Carolina-based startup culturing human mammary cells that lactate – has closed an oversubscribed $21m series A round to support its ambitions to bring cell-cultured human milk to market.
Berkeley-based startup Mission Barns – which has developed a platform to cultivate fat from animal cells, outside of the animal - has teamed up with gourmet sausage maker Silva Sausage Co to produce hybrid sausages combining cell-cultured fat and plant...
A consumer study funded by Israeli startup Future Meat Technologies suggests US consumers are surprisingly open to cell-cultured or ‘cultivated’ meat (from animal cells grown outside an animal), although the firm acknowledges the true test will come when...
Can we reverse engineer every dairy product and rebuild it with plants, molecule by molecule, or are there some applications such as yogurts or cheese where plants just don’t deliver the taste, functionality, or nutrition consumers are looking for?
“The potential growth and beneficial impacts of cell-cultured meat and seafood are significant,” but only if the public can have confidence that these products are produced sustainably and safely, which will require ongoing scrutiny of environmental claims,...
TurtleTree, a biotech company using cell-based technologies to create dairy ingredients, has opened a new US-based research facility in Sacramento, California, accelerating its commercialization plans to bring its cell-based milk and dairy ingredients...
From 'whole cuts' of seafood from fungi, to plant-based lamb, to highly functional proteins from brewers' spent grains, here's a quick snapshot of some of the alternative protein startups participating in a virtual pitch slam at last...
New Age Meats has raised $25m in series A round* led by Hanwha Solutions of South Korea that will allow it to begin manufacturing sausage products combining cell-cultured and plant-based meat at a 20,000-square-foot pilot facility in Alameda, California,...
Addressing the lack of public investment in the alternative proteins space, the Good Food Institute (GFI) is awarding nearly $5m to 22 research projects that the organization says will get closer to unlocking “the holy grail” of alternative proteins:...