NEW TECH FOODS

Cell-based meat innovator Upside Foods has announced that it has obtained label approval for its cell-based chicken product from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Upside Foods is now working with USDA to obtain a Grant of Inspection (GOI) for its Engineering, Production and Innovation Center (EPIC) – the last item in the pre-market regulatory process before the company can commercially produce and sell its cell-based chicken in the US. The company says that it has “demonstrated full compliance with all pre-market requirements for labelling” and can begin commercial production and sales “as soon as it obtains a GOI from USDA”. Uma Valeti, CEO and founder of Upside Foods, said: "The USDA's approval of our label marks a major step forward towards our goal of creating a more humane and sustainable food system. We're excited to continue working with the USDA to achieve our next milestone: a GOI for our facility. Obtaining the USDA's GOI will clear the way for commercial production and sales and allow us to bring our delicious Upside chicken to consumers for the first time." Upside Foods joins Eat Just’s cell-based meat division, Good Meat, which received clearance from the USDA and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its cell-based chicken in March this year. The Good Food Institute Europe (GFI Europe) has welcomed the news, which follows the FDA issuing a “no questions” letter to both companies as part of the pre-market review process for the company’s cultivated chicken. Seth Roberts, policy manager at GFI, said: “These announcements demonstrate that the race to bring cultivated meat to our tables is gathering pace, with the US increasingly looking like the first country after Singapore in which consumers will have the option of eating this sustainable food”. He continued: “Cultivated meat has the potential to help satisfy growing global demand for meat while reducing the environmental impacts of our food system. Governments across Europe now need to wake up to the significance of this food, invest in R&D and ensure the benefits are felt here so other parts of the world do not leave behind the continent.” Before a cell-based meat product can be sold in Europe, it must be approved by regulators in a process governed by the Novel Foods Regulation. Once EU regulators approve a cell-based meat product, it can be sold across all 27 EU countries. The approval process will include a thorough and evidence-based assessment of the safety and nutritional value of cell-based meat and is estimated to take at least 18 months. A similar regulatory process is carried out by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in the UK. #UpsideFoods #EatJust #GoodMeat #US

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Novo Nordisk Foundation have joined forces to support a new consortium utilising CO2 to produce proteins for food applications. The new consortium will provide companies and university researchers with the opportunity to create a sustainable source of protein for human food derived from CO2. The consortium aims to help fight the rising global problem of food insecurity and greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Novo Nordisk Foundation are supporting the initiative with an investment of up to DKK 200 million (approx $29.02 million). The consortium combines knowledge and expertise from biotech innovator Novozymes and chemical engineering company Topsoe, Washington University in St. Louis in the US and the Novo Nordisk Foundation CO2 Research Center (CORC) at Aarhus University in Denmark. The first step of the consortium is to optimise, evaluate and mature three potential production technologies with the goal to lift all technologies to demonstration scale within two years. The consortium partners have several production technologies and facilities at their disposal, enabling them to take advantage of existing infrastructure to verify and scale the new developments expected from the collaboration. This provides opportunity to create synergy across the different technologies involved in the collaboration and works to significantly speed up the upscaling process. Claus Crone Fuglsang, chief science officer at Novozymes, said: “With this programme, there is a possibility to develop a completely climate-neutral way of transforming CO2 into protein without the use of land, water and fertiliser. I am excited and proud that we can contribute with technology and know-how that makes this transformation possible – it holds tremendous potential for having bio-solutions solve major world problems.” In a statement, the Novo Nordisk Foundation said: “The technologies are estimated to be able to produce enough protein for more than 1 billion people every year, creating a stable source of nutritious food for people living in areas with limited potential for conventional agriculture”. Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, said: "The technologies offer a big potential to provide food security globally, especially in low- and middle-income countries. It is therefore very important that the technologies can be implemented in areas of the world where they can benefit the most at a fair cost. This is ensured with the setup of this consortium.” The two foundations are each funding half of the activities in the consortium. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding activities at Novozymes and Washington University, and The Novo Nordisk Foundation is funding activities at Topsoe and the CORC at Aarhus University. The total funding of DKK 200 million covers a two-year period, with The Novo Nordisk Foundation stating that if the work in the consortium is successful, there is the possibility to continue the support for later stages of the project, where the technologies could be matured even further. #NovoNordiskFoundation

Cult Food Science is partnering with Alcheme Bio to leverage AI and machine learning to accelerate cell-based food products to market. The company will use Alcheme Bio’s flavour optimisation platform to speed up the development of cellular agriculture products for Cult and its portfolio companies. Alcheme Bio's proprietary approach utilises AI and machine learning to revolutionise how cell-based food companies optimise for flavour and nutrition. Experience targets are determined early in development, significantly reducing R&D time and costs, while machine learning is utilised to design the best taste experiences and determine how those tastes should be implemented in development. Including the Alcheme Bio platform is part of Cult’s larger strategy to build out product development infrastructure in order to accelerate cellular agriculture start-ups towards market readiness. Lejjy Gafour, CEO of Cult, said: “When it comes to food, taste and cost are king. Regardless of how sustainable a product may be, something that tastes amazing is key for cultivated foods to be adopted. The production process is multistage, and continuous improvement is a pivotal part of high-quality manufacturing and that's why we're a big supporter of what Alcheme Bio is doing.” Vanessa Small, CEO at Alcheme Bio, added: "Flavouring is an after-thought for most cultivated companies right now because of the limitations of today's flavouring approaches. Alcheme Bio is pioneering a unique approach to flavouring that reduces R&D costs instead of increasing them.” Vanessa Small – who has two decades of scientific experience within organisations such as Pfizer and Abbott – founded Alcheme Bio in 2016. #AlchemeBio #CultFoodScience #US

The UK government is considering fast-tracking rules to allow food companies to sell cell-based food products, as part of a significant overhaul of food safety regulations post-Brexit. A report by #Deloitte and commissioned by the Food Standards Agency (#FSA), suggests that the move could help the UK achieve its carbon reduction targets. There are concerns that existing restrictions on novel foods could hinder companies from investing in solutions to environmental and hunger crises. The report proposes an option to permit the sale of alt-proteins in the UK without undergoing the usual lengthy approvals process for novel foods, as long as they have been lawfully sold in other parts of the world. It recommends a "collaborative regulation" system, where the FSA would authorise novel foods for sale based on evidence or decisions from food regulators in other countries. This approach could accelerate the approvals process, reducing the time it takes to bring novel foods to market. The report also suggests placing more responsibility on the food industry to ensure safety. The report acknowledges that a single point of authorisation for novel foods is “not sustainable long-term” due to the rapid pace of innovation. It proposes a conditional authorisation and supervision model similar to that used in other sectors like pharmaceuticals. However, it admitted that the proposed plans would need a “radical reimagining of the Novel Foods Regulatory Framework” and would need to be based on greater consumer awareness of novel foods. Supporters of these plans argue that Brexit provides an opportunity for the UK to safeguard its food security by enabling quicker market access for products. They believe that the current approval process acts as a barrier to investment. The report suggests other solutions, such as prioritising approvals for “high risk” foods and fast-tracking “lower risk” products. The report comes at a time when alternative foods are gaining popularity worldwide, particularly in Asia and the US. Singapore has already approved the sale of lab-grown meat, and the US Food & Drug Administration (#FDA) has granted approval for a lab-grown chicken product, produced by #UpsideFoods. In a statement, the FSA said: “This report will be used as an input to support thinking within the FSA about how we design a future regulatory model, identifying the opportunities that make it easy for businesses to do the right thing and removing unnecessary barriers to innovation”. The Association said it was committed to supporting safety and innovation. #UKgovernment #UK

Upside Foods and Good Meat have received final approval from the US Department of Agriculture to sell their cell-based meat products in the country. Following the approvals, the US will become the second country after Singapore to allow the sale of cell-based meat. Both companies have now become the first in the US to complete the FDA’s pre-market multi-step safety evaluation, meaning their production facilities satisfy regulatory standards, and their products can now be sold in the country. "It is a dream come true," said Uma Valeti, CEO of Upside, in an interview. "It marks a new era." Upside Foods and Good Meat both make cell-based chicken products. The companies are aiming to serve their products to high-end restaurants before scaling production to retail and grocery channels. Upside Foods’ chicken will initially be available at Bar Cenn in San Francisco; while Good Meat will sell its first products to the José Andrés Group. An extract timeline for the products is yet to be confirmed, though some have reported that the cell-based chicken could be available in restaurants in a matter of weeks. According to Reuters , Upside will soon announce the location of a new US production facility that is 10-20 times larger than its existing plant in Emeryville, California. Earlier this month, the USDA issued label approval to both companies – and the FDA issued its approvals to Upside in November 2022 and Good Meat in March 2023 . Is Europe falling behind? The sale approvals will enable consumers to eat real chicken made without harm to animals or the environment. This new way of producing meat could also reduce climate impact by up to 92%, compared with traditional farming methods. However, the Good Food Insititute (GFI) – an NGO working to accelerate sustainable protein production, including cell-based meat – has warned that this latest news proves that Europe is “falling behind”. GFI says that European governments must “invest and make regulatory process transparent to release the benefits”. GFI encourages policymakers to act to make sure the environmental, public health and economic benefits of this food are felt in the region. Bruce Friedrich, president of GFI, said: “[This] historic announcement — two American companies earning regulatory approval to bring cultivated meat to US consumers — marks a pivotal moment in food and agriculture. Consumers are now one giant step closer to enjoying the meat they love without compromise." “Global demand for meat is projected to double by 2050. Breakthroughs like cultivated meat enable the world to diversify protein production while slashing emissions, increasing food security, reducing risks to public health, and freeing up lands and waters for restoration and recovery.” He continued: “Given the stakes, a transition toward cultivated meat and other alternative proteins is as essential as the global transition to renewable energy. And just like renewable energy, massive public investment is key to ensuring these new sustainable foods can scale, create future-focused jobs, and benefit everyone.” Alice Ravenscroft, head of policy at the GFI Europe, commented: “This is the strongest evidence yet that Europe is falling behind as the rest of the world accelerates to deliver cultivated meat as part of a more sustainable food system. “American consumers will soon be able to taste real chicken made without farming animals – so European companies are beginning to look across the Atlantic to take their products to market.” She added: “Cultivated meat has the potential to slash emissions, boost our food security and expand consumer choice. The EU must step up its investment in the sector and ensure regulatory processes are robust and transparent, or risk missing out on this crucial climate solution and economic opportunity.”

AI food-tech start-up Climax Foods has announced the discovery of the “first-ever” plant-based protein ingredient that replicates the functional performance – in particular the melt and stretch – of the dairy protein casein. The start-up that leverages data science and machine intelligence to create animal-free products from plants said that it is “the first company in history to successfully replicate the functionality, texture and taste of the major protein in animal milk using only plant ingredients”. The alternative to animal-based casein is free of hormones, antibiotics or any of the top eight allergens. According to the company, its ‘precision formulation’ process allows the protein to be produced sustainably at scale, with price parity to traditional animal-based casein. ‘Precision formulation’ uses data science and AI to significantly speed up the discovery of optimal ingredient and process combinations that fully harness the power of plants. According to the company, while food innovation can take “centuries” of trial and error, Climax’s AI-powered ‘precision formulation’ process “dramatically accelerates innovation and discovery”. Climax CEO and founder, Oliver Zahn, said: "As foodies and scientists, we have a profound appreciation for the complex flavours and textures of dairy products, but also recognise their vast inefficiencies – such as requiring 700 gallons of water to make one pound of cheese. Our production process uses 500 times less water at our current pilot scale." He continued: “We're not changing any ingredients genetically; we're using what is already there. The difference comes from our depth of knowledge of the rich biodiversity of the plant kingdom down to a cellular level. Plants can impart all of the same texture, taste, and performance of animal-based ingredients – our AI-enabled Deep Plant Intelligence platform takes away the guesswork.” “For our casein replacement, our AI platform and precision formulation process helped us uncover a mechanism in specific plant proteins that imparts indistinguishable melt and stretch and mouthfeel from casein while also dramatically improving nutrition." In April, Climax Foods announced it was partnering with Bel Group to innovate cutting-edge plant-based cheeses indistinguishable from dairy cheeses. Bel Group's director of research and applications, Anne Pitkowski, commented: "Caseins are involved in all dairy transformations including cheese, yogurt, cream and others. They are directly responsible for the product texture, stability and, moreover, bring the very unique property of stretchability. Those properties are linked to the specific micellar structure of the casein assemblage that, until Climax Foods' discovery, had not been met anywhere else in nature." Climax Foods says that its ‘precision formulation’ process can eventually be applied to replace other animal-based foods. #ClimaxFoods #US

Roslin Technologies, a food-tech company based in Edinburgh, UK, has announced Kickstart Ventures as a new investor in the company. A spokesperson for Roslin Tech told FoodBev the investment was "multi-million dollar". Philippines-based venture capital firm Kickstart Ventures’ investment was made through the Ayala Corporation Technology Innovation Venture (ACTIVE) Fund, to support Roslin Technologies’ mission to become the leading provider of animal cell lines to the global cell-based meat industry. Roslin Technologies said that it is “leading the field” in its development of pluripotent animal stem cells. The cells have the capacity to self-renew indefinitely and differentiate into desired end-tissues for the cell-based meat industry, such as fat and muscle cells. Roslin Technologies is making these cells available to cell-based meat producers globally, currently with customers in North America, Europe and Asia. The strategic investment from Kickstart Ventures is set to strengthen Roslin Technologies’ footprint in Asia, while expanding its international shareholder base which already includes investors from the UK, Europe, Asia and the US. Minette Navarrete, president and co-founder of Kickstart Ventures, said: "The ACTIVE Fund’s investment in Roslin Tech feeds into our thesis of ‘A World of Plenty,’ which invests in the future of resource availability – particularly in innovative technologies that reframe the scarcity and abundance of resources”. She continued: “This investment is meaningful for the future of food security globally, especially in emerging markets like the Philippines. The persistent and complex issue of food insecurity demands multiple transformative solutions. The world's capacity to feed a growing population is limited.” “Roslin Tech offers a solution that augments this limited capacity at scale, and with speed. Roslin Tech, with its scalable, IP-rich approach and innovative technology, offers a compelling and commercially attractive solution.” Kickstart is wholly owned by Globe Telecom, the Philippines' leading mobile operator. #RoslinTechnologies #UK

Singapore-based restaurant Fico has created the “world’s first” Solein gelato, made from Finnish food tech company Solar Foods’ novel microbial protein, Solein. Solein is hailed as “the world’s most sustainable protein” as it is made from air. Solein is a microbial protein-rich powder that contains all the essential amino acids. It can be used to replace existing proteins in a variety of foods, such as in alt-dairy and meat, different snacks and beverages, noodles and pasta, or breads and spreads. Solein is produced using a bioprocess where microbes are fed with carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen and small amounts of nutrients. Solar Foods received regulatory approval to sell Solein in Singapore in September last year. Fico – a concept by hospitality company The Lo & Behold Group – has developed Solein Chocolate Gelato, an ice cream that combines the novel ingredient with chocolate. It is available to purchase now from the restaurant. Solar Foods’ CCO Shilei Zhang said: “If you didn’t know, you could not guess this gelato includes an entirely new, unique and nutritious ingredient just by tasting it. It looks, feels and tastes just like any other Italian gelato – and that is exactly the idea. Solein is the ‘intel inside’ of the food industry.” Last month, Solar Foods and Japanese food and biotech corporation the Ajinomoto Group announced a strategic alliance, Solar Foods’ first partnership with a global food brand. The alliance includes an agreement to develop products using Solein and to conduct a marketability study, set to begin in Q1 2024. Solar Foods’ new facility, Factory 01, is under construction in Finland and is expected to begin production in 2024, bringing the company's Solein production to a commercial scale. #SolarFoods #Solein #Singapore #Finland

Los Angeles-based startup Omeat has revealed its entry into the cell-based meat market, with an approach that reduces input costs and that can be “scaled sustainably” to meet the global demand for beef and other types of animal protein. Omeat’s process – which has been in development for four years – uses regenerative cells that are extracted “humanely” from living cows to derive growth media, which the company says is the “number one cost driver” of cell-based meat. Omeat states that the media can cost-effectively grow any kind of meat, such as beef, pork, chicken or fish. The company’s founder and CEO Ali Khademhosseini shifted his focus from growing human tissues for medical applications to developing a scalable method for growing cell-based meat as he came to understand the challenges presented by conventional animal agriculture practices. Khademhosseini said: "The approach we uncovered and are currently scaling is a simple and elegant solution that taps into the natural biology of animals to let nature do its work. The result is real meat that's pure, delicious and can satisfy a growing population's demand for meat in a sustainable and humane way." Omeat sources growth media from its herd of cows that graze freely on its farm in California – the farm is designed with the goal of being carbon negative and employs a number of regenerative practices for soil health, including no tilling, planting cover crops, rotational grazing and natural fertilisation by Omeat's herd. Omeat worked with an animal-welfare scientist to design its farm and approach to animal care. The work led to the development of processes for collecting plasma, a nutrient fluid that is the source of Omeat's proprietary growth media. The company says its collection practices employ positive reinforcement and are designed to ensure the holistic wellbeing of the animals. The collection happens weekly and as plasma regenerates quickly, it does not deplete the animal. Khademhosseini added: "With one cow providing plasma weekly, we can create many cows' worth of meat annually. This means we can feed the planet with only a fraction of the current number of animals used in beef production. We see ourselves as a meat company, and our goal is to be a bridge to the future of the meat industry.” He continued: “We're perfecting a sustainable operation that existing farms and ranches can implement, generating the same volume of product but with a fraction of the overhead. It's way more efficient, and we don't have to sacrifice the cow." #Omeat says it chose beef as it is the segment with the largest global land and water footprint, in addition to research conducted by Good Food Institute which says that ground beef is the cell-based meat in which consumers expressed the greatest interest.

Last week The Cell Base attended Cultivate UK’s event in Bath, UK, the eighth event held by the forum since its conception in 2016. From expert panels to quickfire poster presentations, break time discussions to legislative predictions, the day was jam-packed full of buzzing conversations covering all corners of the cell-based food industry. Held below the opulently decorated high ceilings of the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, located in Bath's magnificent Grade 1-listed Queen’s Square, the contemporary topic of conversation certainly felt lightyears away from the room's backdrop of Georgian paintings and pillars. Over 20 speakers took to the microphone, with contributions from #Naturbeads, #Qkine, #RoslinTechnologies and #DragonBio to name a few. Thomas Vincent, head of food policy at the Food Standards Agency (FSA) stressed that cell-based meat would undergo more scrutiny than other novel food applications. He mentioned that the #FSA is working in the US with the #FDA and with food safety authorities in Canada and Israel to better understand the process of ensuring cell-based foods are safe for human consumption. New Harvest research fellow and PhD student at the University of Bath, Alice Esperanza, spoke about how she was experimenting with isolating cells from chicken breasts purchased in a local shop. She noted that slaughterhouses – one method of acquiring cells for cell-based meat production – are often located far away from laboratories and that being able to use meat from the shop could potentially speed up the process as well as increase reliability. William Blackler, senior project engineer at Kayser Space – a company that designs and manufactures hardware to support scientific and technological research in space – told us why there is a need to investigate the potential of cellular agriculture in space. He said, the current approach to space food is prepackaged food that declines in nutrients over time, due to mass and volume limited food can be stored, and that crews often rely heavily on resupplies which is not feasible for interplanetary travel. He enthused that cell-based meat could help improve food for space missions as producing food in space could result in fresh nutrient-rich produce that is dense with essential amino acids, could reduce the reliance on resupplies and promote self-sufficiency, and that it has a low manufacturing footprint when compared to alternatives such as algae and wheat. The presentation is part of a wider project by The European Space Agency (ESA) who is supporting researchers to explore the possibility of growing cultured meat to feed astronauts. Two teams were selected to work in parallel; one is composed of UK companies Kayser Space, Cellular Agriculture and Campden BRI, and the other of German startup yuri and Reutlingen University. Blackler presented the design of a small bioreactor that would fit and function within a spacecraft and identified short-, medium- and long-term knowledge gaps and how to overcome them, and then explained a mission that would help us to understand the bioreactor’s performance in microgravity. Watch this 'space'! While we debated the out-of-this-world idea of launching bioreactors in space, we also touched base on a new university mapping project, designed to establish a successful and internationally-competitive environment for cellular agriculture in the UK. Estere Seinkmane of Cellular Agriculture UK (Cell Ag), presented the ‘Mapping the potential for UK universities to become research and teaching hubs for cellular agriculture’ project, a resource aimed at providing an overview and understanding of the existing cellular agriculture academic landscape in the UK and its potential for future growth, identifying key components for the establishment of a cellular agriculture institution, and build an evidence base to support a debate around how the cellular agriculture field could develop within the country. From the systemic mapping, the researchers observed and highlighted the potential of multiple UK universities to lead the way in research and teaching in cellular agriculture. While known research and technology hubs such as Oxbridge and London universities have a lot of necessary components to also become hubs in this field, they noted that there are also clear positive prospects for cell ag anchor institutions in the Midlands and the north. The analysis showed that UK universities with high overall potential in cellular agriculture vary considerably in their strengths in different domains. For instance, UCL, Imperial and Cambridge have the strongest bioscience and chemical engineering research, while Nottingham has a dedicated focus on food science and the sustainable future of food specifically; similarly, Nottingham, UCL and Imperial already have ongoing research within cellular agriculture, although focused on different areas, while Cambridge has most extensive targeted initiatives from students and considerable support for spin-outs, but no directly employed scientists working in the field. Out of the top 17 universities, Cell Ag selected five as case studies, in order to explore the current environment in more detail and understand how close each of them are to becoming anchor institutions for cellular agriculture, if resources are allocated in the appropriate direction. Those five universities were the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, the University of Nottingham, Aston University and the University of Edinburgh. Such domain-specific mapping could point to opportunities for specialisation (eg. in research, training talent, commercialisation) and for targeted resource allocation to fulfil the full potential of a particular university as a cellular agriculture anchor. The researchers hope that the findings could serve well to different stakeholders, such as academics looking to start cellular agriculture research programmes, students looking to apply for courses or research projects, companies looking to collaborate with universities, as well as funders and policy-makers. Overall, the event provided a platform for knowledge sharing, networking and strategic discussions among experts, researchers, students and industry stakeholders interested in the advancement of cellular agriculture in the UK. Cultivate is a multi-voiced forum intended to support informed dialogue about the emergent field of cellular agriculture from UK perspectives. The forum was established seven years ago by a small interdisciplinary group of UK professionals – Illtud Dunsford, farmer, agri-food consultant and CEO of Cellular Agriculture, Prof Marianne Ellis, biochemical engineer at the University of Bath, Abigail Glencross, Dr Alexandra Sexton, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow in Geography at the University of Sheffield and Dr Neil Stephens, sociologist and senior lecturer in technology and society at the University of Birmingham. #CultivateUK #UK

European biotech company Bluu Seafood has announced it has raised €16 million in Series A funding to bring cell-based fish to market. The German startup says it will use the capital to advance the work on its technology and the market launch of its first products. The funding will drive regulatory approval of its first products, expanding research work and initiating pilot production. The company’s focus will be on hybrid products such as fish balls and fish fingers made from cultivated fish cells blended with plant-based proteins, which Bluu first unveiled last year. Sebastian Rakers, co-founder and CEO of Bluu Seafood, said: "Our successful Series A demonstrates the enormous potential that lies in cultivated fish as a platform technology for sustainable animal protein and underlines the strong scientific development that we at BLUU Seafood have delivered so far. Together with our strong, international investor base, we can start the next stage of development and bring our first products to market." Bluu aims for market entry in Singapore by 2024, where the sale of cultivated chicken has already been approved by regulators in 2020. Last week in the US, cell-based meat startups Good Meat and Upside Foods both received USDA and FDA approval for their chicken products. Bluu Seafood has initiated the approval process in the US with the FDA and is awaiting approval, the company says “Europe will follow next”. Bluu is preparing to open its pilot production plant with construction expected to be completed in autumn this year – the plant will enable Bluu to scale-up its production process into larger fermenters of 500 litres. The Series A funding round was led by Sparkfood and LBBW VC and included further participants SeaX Ventures, Manta Ray Ventures, Norrsken VC, Delivery Hero, Innovationsstarter Fonds Hamburg and Dr. Oetker. #BluuSeafood #Germany

Czech food tech startup Mewery has introduced what it says is the “first-ever” burger made with cell-based pork. The company plans to enter the US market with its burger that combines porcine (pork) cells with microalgae cells. Mewery uses its own cultivation medium based on microalgae in place of foetal bovine serum (FBS) – a component of animal origin and commonly used in cell-based meat production. Mewery says that the “co-cultivation with microalgae adds previously impossible nutritional value to the final meat”. The burger prototype was introduced during the Rock for People festival, a cultural event in the Czech Republic with 40,000 people in attendance. Though a public tasting is not possible in the EU yet, around 90% of the event´s attendees stated they would be interested in tasting the burger. Mewery’s founder Roman Lauš said: “We have managed to get the price of the culture medium down to a few dollars per litre, which allows us to gradually increase the testing of our co-culture in larger volumes and to expand our parallel sensory laboratory for the final texture and taste of our products”. He continued: “We are working with the Czech government on the so-called “non-employee” tastings, which could be possible as early as next year. This could make the Czech Republic the second country in the EU after the Netherlands to accelerate the introduction of alternative proteins. However, it is still a matter of a few years before legislation is in place at the EU level to allow the sale of cultivated meat to end consumers, so we want to focus on the US and Asian markets first.” “Globally, it is the second most demanded type of meat in the world. In Europe and Asia, it is the number one meat. Currently, 48 pigs are killed every second around the world, amounting to 1.5 billion animals a year. They produce 14.5% of all emissions, which is more than all the transport in the world. Our goal is to try to reduce these numbers dramatically.” Singapore and the US are currently the only two countries in the world where cell-based meat is approved for sale. Mewery notes that US companies Upside Foods and Good Meat are focusing on chicken production and that it, therefore, plans to enter the US market with its novel cell-based pork products within the next two years. #Mewery #theCzechRepublic