NEW TECH FOODS

French cultivated food companies Gourmey and Vital Meat have merged to create PARIMA, a new entity focused on developing cell-based animal products including duck and chicken.

The merger brings together Gourmey’s cultivated duck platform and Vital Meat’s poultry cell-line technology, which stems from nearly 25 years of avian cell research at Groupe Grimaud.

Together, the companies aim to scale production of animal protein directly from cells for use in food and nutrition.

PARIMA will integrate Gourmey’s industrial operations – where production costs for cultivated duck have been verified below €7 per kilogram – with Vital Meat’s 2,000-litre bioreactor facility and research infrastructure in Nantes.

The company inherits Gourmey’s regulatory leadership, including nine ongoing filings under the EU’s Novel Food framework and in other global markets, covering both duck and chicken.

PARIMA holds more than 15 patent families and around 70 patent applications, giving it one of the larger intellectual property portfolios in Europe’s cultivated food sector.

Gourmey will continue as PARIMA’s culinary and innovation arm, while the new group focuses on scaling production and expanding into additional species and market segments.

Nicolas Morin-Forest, CEO of PARIMA, said: “This is the right moment for consolidation and scale. We’ve proven economic viability and are now expanding across species. By uniting two pioneering teams, we’re strengthening Europe’s ability to lead the global shift toward efficient and sustainable animal production through innovation, complementing existing methods and building more resilient value chains.”

Etienne Duthoit, founder of Vital Meat, commented: “Joining forces enables us to reach the critical mass needed to serve global, multi-channel markets, from premium foodservice to large-scale B2B ingredients. By bringing together world-class teams in cell line development, bioprocessing and food science, we are accelerating our path to profitability and unlocking powerful drivers of innovation and growth."

Frédéric Grimaud, CEO of Groupe Grimaud, added: “Vital Meat’s technology, built on our decades of expertise in animal genetics and bioproduction, is strengthened through its integration into PARIMA. This partnership brings together the technical depth and production economics to make cultivated poultry commercially viable.”