StartSmart CEE’s Post

The number of startups focused on developing cultured meat—and the required cell culture media, supplements, and methods to produce them—has been expanding rapidly year-over-year. Today, there are nearly a hundred companies worldwide developing cultured meat components, services, and end-products, compared to only four companies in 2016. Nearly 40 life science firms have launched products to supply market competitors with the essential inputs they need to support cultured meat and seafood production. Recently released, the "Global Market for Cultured Meat – Market Size, Trends, Competitors, and Forecasts (2023)" explores the following details: -The history and science of cultured meat production -Benefits and advantages of cultured meat production -Production technologies to support cultured meat production -Emerging applications within the cultured meat market -Cost of cell culture medium to support cultured meat production -Cell lines, culture media, scaffolding, and bioprocess designs to support cultured meat production -The geographic distribution of cultured meat research laboratories -Funding opportunities for research into cultured meat production -Rates and volumes of scientific publications about cultured meat technologies -Collaborative researchers within the cultured meat market -Granted and pending patents for cultured meat products and technologies -Capital investments made from 2016 to present into cultured meat companies -Leading investors funding the cultured meat market -The global distribution of cultured meat companies -Current cultured meat products under development -Strategic partnerships within the cultured meat industry -Estimated time for cultured meat products to reach commercialization and widespread adoption -Timelines and requirements for cultured meat to reach cost parity with conventional meat -Government regulation of cultured meat by region -Global consumption and market size for the conventional meat market -Anticipated disruption timeline for the conventional meat market -Global market size for cultured meat, segmented by geography and meat type -Future market size for the cultured meat, segmented by geography, meat type, and year -Profiles of all known cultured meat companies and their products under development Learn more at: https://lnkd.in/gx9aBsbR #cultivatedmeat #culturedmeat #labgrownmeat

Meatly Unveils Ground-breaking Protein-Free Medium for Cultivated Meat Meatly, the leading innovator in cell-cultivated meat production, has introduced a ground-breaking protein-free culture medium, marking a significant leap forward for the industry. This new development promises to make cultivated meat commercially viable and accessible on a large scale. The culture medium is a vital component used by companies in the cultivated meat industry to nurture and grow animal cells. Typically, the production of such media incurs substantial costs. However, Meatly's innovative medium can be produced for just £1 per litre, dramatically reducing production expenses compared to previous alternatives priced in the hundreds of pounds. Investor Jim Mellon highlighted that “This is a huge step forward in bringing the cost of cultivated meat to price parity with conventional meat and, ultimately, toward the mass adoption of cultivated products”. Meatly's protein-free medium is a blend of essential nutrients designed to support cell growth, completely free from serum, animal-derived components and other additives. Notably, it eliminates the need for expensive proteins, growth factors and micro-carriers, crucial for efficient large-scale production. Helder Cruz co-founder and chief scientific officer at Meatly, emphasised the significance of this achievement “Our protein-free culture medium represents a critical milestone for us and the wider cultivated meat industry. By setting this new benchmark, we are driving the cost of production down significantly, addressing a challenge that the industry has been grappling with for years”. This development follows Meatly's recent announcement of the world's first cultivated pet food production, positioning the company as a pioneer in the field. Meatly's advancements underscore a rapid and cost-effective pathway to scaling cultivated meat production, offering a sustainable and accessible alternative to traditional meat products. This breakthrough promises a future where cultivated meat can compete in price and availability with conventional meat, driving towards broader consumer adoption and a more sustainable food industry.

🥛🔍 Is precision fermentation getting closer to disrupting traditional dairy? An article from RethinkX suggests it might be. 1️⃣ What's happening? Precision fermentation (PF) is transforming the production of dairy proteins like whey and casein. It’s all about efficiency and sustainability, bypassing traditional dairy farming. 🐄🚫 2️⃣ Why focus on dairy proteins? - Functionality: Dairy proteins are essential for whipping, foaming, and improving texture and nutrition in foods. Just check the back of any packaged good in the supermarket—there's likely some dairy included. 🧁🧀 - Economic impact: The dairy industry is huge, but only 3.3% of milk is protein. Targeting this small yet vital component could significantly impact the market. 3️⃣ What's changing? - Regulatory successes: From the US to Israel, several PF dairy proteins have cleared regulatory hurdles recently, allowing companies to bring new products to market. - Commercialization: Major food brands like Mars and Unilever are incorporating PF proteins into their products, signaling a shift towards wider acceptance. - Big dairy's involvement: Large dairy companies such as Nestlé, Danone, and Fonterra are not just observing—they’re actively investing in and utilizing PF technologies. - Cost: The decreasing cost of PF technology is making it competitive with traditional dairy production. 🧐 My thoughts: The article features a graph suggesting that PF dairy is reaching cost parity. However, it's unclear how they arrived at this conclusion, and critical infrastructure for large-scale production still seems to be lacking. Additionally, while big dairy companies are investing in PF, there's notable pushback from the farmers they work with. Curious to hear your thoughts! Do you see PF overtaking traditional dairy? If yes, when? 🤔 URL to the article in the first comment.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗛𝘂𝗯 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲-𝗼𝗳-𝘁𝗵𝗲-𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝘄𝗶𝘁𝘇𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱 The The Cultured Hub officially opens its doors today, marking a milestone for the global cellular agriculture and food industry communities. The pioneering scale-up and growth service aims to revolutionize the cultivated food and beverage sector by accelerating the development and market penetration of cellular agriculture products. These innovations can address increasingly complex food system challenges, reducing environmental impact and improving food security. Equipped with advanced product development labs, cell culture, and fermentation capabilities and equipment, and with its ecosystem of partners, the Hub is designed to empower start-ups and organizations to scale up and accelerate the development of market-ready, sustainable, healthy, and affordable products. The Hub offers a technology platform that extends beyond food and can support the development of diverse products, such as meat, fish, dairy, pet food, and plant-based cells like cocoa – as well as materials like cosmetics and selective pharma applications. "The launch of The Cultured Hub is a pivotal moment in the global push for sustainable food production," said Yannick Gächter, CEO of The Cultured Hub. "The opening of this facility is not just an achievement for our team, but a landmark moment for the industry. We are excited to open a facility that will enable start-ups to scale up without heavy capital investment and contribute to global food system improvements.” A joint venture between Groupe Migros, Givaudan, and Bühler Group, The Cultured Hub leverages centuries of collective experience in food processing, product development, production, marketing, and market launches. All three companies have shown a strong commitment to sustainability. This combination makes the Hub a unique access point for knowledge, skills, technology, and retail and consumer understanding. To read more: https://lnkd.in/dfGuBNAc Elsa Group, Ian Roberts, Fabio Campanile, Matthew Robin, Stefania Bellaio, Fred Zuelli, RANNOU Alexis, Frederique Lafosse, Ralph Langholz, Nathalie Ludwig, Lucie Kendall, Coralie Boutte, Bernhard Henes, Franziska Wandrey, Thierry Duvanel, Sara Calcagni, Fernando Santiago Cajaraville,

What I learned this week..... We have a food system horizontally optimized for price, not health. Each value chain component is optimized for process efficiency, not product innovation. Consumer preferences are changing. More and more, consumers will price their food decisions based on a calorie and health basis. They will still eat cheap calories, but only when they can’t find affordable nutrition. The supply chain is catching on. ABCD and the CPGs need to catch up on food science, nutrient density, nutritional variability, and supply chain optimization. Every SKU in grocery needs to consider if its cheap calories or affordable nutrition. In a convergence called Food is Health. The cross-product of AgTech and HealthTech. The companies that catch traction in H2 2024 and H1 2025 are positioned to be the best vintage year returns in the sector’s modern history. 1) The CrossFit community is an important early adopter of affordable nutrition. 2) Fairlife is one best-case example of vertical optimization to improve nutritional density. Fairlife succeeded because it improved every step in the value chain, including brand. Fairlife is about 10 SKUS of 60K SKUS in a large grocery store. is every other SKU ripe for a similar vertical optimization? 3) Heritage grains seem like a small market, but perhaps not in aggregate. Non-trait weed control, improved processing, improved soil health, and improved genetics are speeding to a tipping point. Underestimated? 4) Our appendix may have been a critical store for bacteria. As a backup supply of bacteria to refill our digestive system after a pathogenic attack. Could it be a future vessel for microbiome health? 5) There is an opportunity to palletize grain and meat processing equipment. Specifically to help producers grow nutritionally dense grains and livestock. The size of truck containers. Who is the Elon Musk of this market? (Mad Agriculture) 6) At least 35M acres of US farmland are held by institutional investors. These institutional investors should be active investors in agtech solutions that increase asset value. Are investment banks/startups targeting these LPs for growth equity and cross-over funds? 7) There is really only one FAA certified test bed for agriculture unmanned systems. It is based in Kansas (Kelly Hills Unmanned Systems). These test beds are essential to test interoperability and to develop new business models. (Lukas Koch) 8) Foliar application of micronutrients may increase throughput 100x versus soil application. If you tie this to some combination of analysis from EarthOptics, Miraterra Inc., and Edacious, PBC, we might have a closed-loop approach for in-season crop nutrient density. 9) Little Tech’s move to the right likely has less to do with social ideology and more to do with reducing friction. Moving “Little Tech” back to the forces of creative destruction and capitalism.

🚀 India’s Cultivated Meat Ecosystem is Growing! As the global cultivated meat industry continues to accelerate, India is making significant strides in this space. 🌱 From startups to investors, biotech vendors, and incubators, here's a snapshot of the key players driving innovation in cultivated meat in India: 🏢 Startups Leading the Way: ClearMeat® – India’s first cultivated chicken startup MyoWorks – Develop ancillary products for the cell-based meat producers Klever Meat – Pioneering cultivated seafood Mealtech – A rising player in the smart protein industry Neat Meatt Biotech Private Limited – Innovating in cultivated fish Biokraft Foods– Integrating 3D bioprinting technology for cultivated meat Demolish Foods– Specializing in slaughter-free meats using 3D printing 💡 Support: CIIE.CO – IIM Ahmedabad’s incubator supporting food tech and cultivated meat The Good Food Institute India– Spearheading policy and investment in cultivated meat 🔬 Biotech Providers and Vendors: Laurus Bio  – Supporting biotech solutions for cultivated meat MAT BioTech – Providing bioprocessing and fermentation technologies Fermbox Bio – Offering cell culture media for scaling cultivated meat production 🚀 Incubators & Institutions: IKP Knowledge Park – Supporting cultivated meat R&D BIRAC – A government-backed agency for biotech innovations Regulatory Developments: The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is progressing toward establishing a regulatory framework for cultivated meat and seafood. This framework aims to provide a clear path to market for these products, aligning India with countries like Singapore and the USA that are already advancing in this area (Green Queen:https://lnkd.in/gJUCKmMi) 🌱 How the BioE3 Policy Supports Cultivated Meat: - India's BioE3 Policy (Bioeconomy 2030) is a significant driver for growth in the cultivated meat sector. By encouraging investments in bio-manufacturing and bioprocessing technologies, the policy creates an enabling environment for alternative proteins. It provides support through: - Funding and Infrastructure: Facilitating R&D for biotech companies and startups. - Public-Private Collaboration: Encouraging partnerships between academia, industry, and government to scale up cultivated meat technologies. Sustainability Goals: Aligning with India’s sustainability objectives by promoting innovations like cultivated meat, which reduces land, water, and carbon footprints. With policies like BioE3 and strong support from industry leaders, India is poised to be a global leader in cultivated meat. 🌍✨ If we’ve missed out on anyone, please feel free to add your organization in the comments! Let’s continue building a more sustainable, cruelty-free food system! 🍃 #CultivatedMeat #FoodTech #Sustainability #Bioeconomy2030 #AlternativeProteins #SmartProtein #IndiaInnovation

🍗💰 CULTIVATED CHICKEN COULD COST JUST $6 PER POUND STUDY SHOWS If you speak to anybody from the cultivated meat sector – be it a startup founder, an investor, or a think tank expert – most of them will likely tell you that scalability and costs are the two biggest bottlenecks of the industry’s progress. As it stands, there’s simply not enough infrastructure to make cultivated meat in batches that will drive costs closer to conventional meat. According to McKinsey & Company, startups in this space would need over 17 times the fermentation capacity that currently exists in the global pharmaceutical industry to meet the growth demands of the industry. The consulting giant further states that it’ll take until at least 2030 for these proteins to reach price parity, and this is despite companies having brought down costs by 99% in less than a decade. One investor told Reuters that these products need to reach manufacturing costs of $2.92 per pound to be price-competitive with conventional meat. Now, a new study by Israel’s Believer Meats and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) demonstrates how cultivated meat can be produced in a manner that is cost-effective, describing it as a potential “breakthrough” for the industry. Published in the Nature Food journal, the research is based on a technology called tangential flow filtration (TFF) – an efficient way to separate and purify biomolecules – for the continuous manufacturing of cultivated meat. It can potentially bring down the cost of producing cultivated chicken to $6.20 per pound, in line with the retail price of conventional organic chicken. For context, the only cultivated meat currently found in supermarkets, GOOD Meat’s chicken, has a retail price equivalent to over $20 per pound – and cultivated cells only make up 3% of the product. Many companies have been making efforts to decrease the cost of culture media, including pet food producers Meatly and BioCraft Pet Nutrition. The former has created a protein-free medium to get costs to just £1 ($1.30), while the latter has developed a plant-based medium that could bring market prices down to $2-2.50 per lb. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/etybznYa #GreenQueen #altprotein #futurefoods #foodsystems #sustainability #climatechange

The chief commercial and product officer at Ivy Farm Technologies talks to Clare Nicholls about how quickly cultivated meat is likely to reach chefs in the foodservice sector How is cultivated meat created? We take a small biopsy from a pig or a cow, like taking a plant cutting. Rather than putting it into soil, we put it into a vat with some proteins, vitamins and minerals to feed those cells, and then we harvest meat at the end of that. Why do we need cultivated meat? People love eating meat! One solution to reduce climate impact is for all of us to give up meat, but that isn't happening fast enough, so we feel cultivated meat is a new solution to help people have a sustainable option for enjoying the meat they love. How does it compare to livestock meat in terms of sustainability? There was a peer-reviewed study last year in the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment that took data from cultivated meat companies and compared it to farming practices. It found that, for beef in particular, cultivated meat creates 92% fewer emissions, 90% less land use and 66% less water use, and it's almost six times more efficient at converting organic matter into meat. So there are some quite good sustainability advantages. And what about flavour comparison? We've not seen a lack of flavour – we've grown pork and beef and they are both very characteristic of their meat counterparts. We are a very new industry, so we've really played on how we can affect flavour by using different things in our media, or the material we use to grow our cells. For example, if we put more unsaturated fatty acids in there, we have more Omega-3 in the finished product. So we know we can tailor nutrition – whether we can tailor taste I think is yet to be seen. Cultivated meat is not currently regulated in the UK – how is that process progressing? We are quite advanced now with authorisation in the UK, so we hope that within 12 months or so we could get approval. Since Brexit, the Food Standards Agency [FSA] has been working hard at novel foods reform and it has been consulting the industry. [Novel foods are new foods that don't have a history of consumption before 15 May 1997, such as phytosterols in cholesterol-reducing spreads]. We've had some constructive conversations with the FSA and more recently we know it is going to apply for a Regulatory Sandbox [where firms test new products with real consumers under regulatory supervision] to look at a faster novel foods process, in particular for cultivated meat. There's some real pragmatism coming through from the FSA. If you'd have asked me the approval question six months ago, I wouldn't have thought it would be within 12 months – I would have gone for more like two years. But I really feel there's a bit of a fair wind with the FSA where it is now open to working faster with companies like ours. Read more at: https://lnkd.in/dqUrBH44

Back to the Future...Food Weekly Live! __________________________________________________________________ Was that a dad joke to tell you that our podcast is back? You bet it was! 👨 It feels great to be back at it with Sonalie talking about the top sustainable food news items of the week 🌩 To kick it off, we did a lightning round on some of the top stories from the past 2 month hiatus we took from the show, which included: ⚡$40M Raise for Mosa Meat ⚡Gov DeSantis' Florida Cultivated Meat Ban ⚡$40M for Precision Fermentation Egg Onego Bio ⚡Impossible Foods Rebrand and IPO Talk ⚡Aussie Vow Regulatory Approval ⚡Meatable's EU Tasting ⚡The Good Food Institute 2023 Alt Protein Industry Report ⚡Moolec Science Piggy Sooy USDA approval ⚡Shiru Protein Discovery Platform We then went into this week's news that stood out most: 🍄 meati™ raising $100M in a Series C-1 to continue its market expansion alongside its internal headcount restructuring. I see this as an incredibly promising opportunity for Meati to become a long-lasting company, and I also share my thoughts on the chances they hit that lofty $1B revenue mark by 2025 ( 🤔 ) 💵 The World Bank issuing a landmark report calling out the need to redirect subsidies away from livestock farming and toward low-emission products. I love the signal this sends to the market, and there's a lot of interesting data they present that can help prioritize sustainability efforts in food 🆕 Walmart launched Bettergoods, a 300 product-strong private-label brand that has 3 core pillars, with one being plant-based foods. I said it on the show, and I'll say it again - I think this is potentially one of the biggest developments for the plant-based space for 2024, as it will be the perfect case study to see how much PRICE impacts consumption of alt-animal products. There won't be cheaper priced products that are more widely distributed than those coming from this new private-label brand 🙌 To end on a positive, Sonalie hits on how outgoing Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong mentioned “novel food biotechnologies” as a promising job prospect – a nod to the country’s food tech pedigree. The country has already been a leader in the shift toward a sustainable food system, and it sounds like this may continue far into the future Full podcast episode here: https://lnkd.in/drGPzXrA This week's newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/duvjcp7k

🇫🇷🌱🥩 UMIAMI OPENS LARGE-SCALE PLANT-BASED MEAT FACILITY IN FRANCE In the presence of government officials, regional representatives and local leaders, Umiami this week inaugurated its new 14,000 sq m facility to produce whole-cut meat alternatives on a commercial scale and enable its European and North American expansion. It comes 14 months after the startup announced the takeover of the former Unilever factory near Strasbourg in France’s Alsace region, which has been rehabilitated through a €38M ($41.3M) investment. This includes €7.5M ($8.2M) in financing from the Fonds SPI - Sociétés de Projets Industriels – overseen by Bpifrance for the French government as part of the France 2030 economic investment plan – as well as €1.5M ($1.6M) each from the Grand Est Region and the EU’s European Regional Development Fund. The result of three years of development and scaling up, the factory employs 53 people and can produce 7,500 tonnes of plant-based meat annually, which is slated to increase to 20,000 tonnes eventually. It will allow Umiami to expand its presence in Europe and North America, with plans to launch its soy-protein-based whole-cut chicken into French retail this year. “The opening of our factory in Alsace represents the culmination of years of innovation, research and dedication to transforming the food industry,” co-founders Tristan Maurel, Martin Habfast and Clémence Pedraza said in a joint statement. “We sincerely thank our partners, teams, and communities for their support as we work towards a more sustainable and ethical future in food.” Umiami makes whole-cut meat and fish alternatives through its proprietary plant-based meat texturising tech, called “umisation”. The brand previously told Green Queen that this technology “perfectly mimics the taste and texture of meat and fish, with equivalent nutritional value”, with the resulting meat product containing fewer than 10 ingredients. Whole cuts are touted as the “holy grail” of plant-based meat, delivering a more realistic texture by recreating animal muscle fibres, as well as a more rounded flavour. There are many companies creating such products, including chunk foods (US), Juicy Marbles (Slovenia), Redefine Meat (Israel), Libre Foods (Spain), Green Rebel Foods (Indonesia) and Revo Foods (Austria), among others. #GreenQueen #altprotein #futurefood #plantbased #foodtech #sustainability #foodsystems