NEW TECH FOODS

French bio-tech company Bon Vivant has completed a new oversubscribed round of equity financing totalling €15 million. The financing round was backed by Sofinnova Partners, Sparkfood and Captech. The animal-free dairy company plans to use the equity to strengthen its R&D teams and to accelerate its development to meet the current challenges of the agri-food market. Bon Vivant harnesses precision fermentation to produce milk proteins, and says it is “one of the only biotechs in the world to work on both whey and casein proteins”. The funding will enable the company to invest in its new laboratory located in Lyon, France, which will produce large amounts of samples to meet demand from Bon Vivant’s partners. It will also be used to accelerate its regulatory approval track, notably for the US, where Bon Vivant plans to commercialise in 2025. Stéphane MacMillan, CEO and founder of Bon Vivant, said: "This round of financing confirms the growing demand for precision fermentation as a solution to the tremendous challenges the agri-food industry, particularly the dairy industry, is facing. The aim is threefold: to increase the number of developments with our customers, to produce on an industrial scale and to prepare for commercialisation by 2025. It should also enable us to grow as the French world leader.” Michael Krel, partner at Sofinnova Partners, added: "Bon Vivant's pioneering work in animal-free dairy proteins through precision fermentation aligns perfectly with Sofinnova's mission to promote sustainable solutions for a healthier planet. We are delighted to support [Bon Vivant] as it continues to transform the dairy sector and contribute to a more sustainable agri-food era.” #BonVivant #France

Months after voting to ban the production and sale of cell-based meat in the country, the Italian government has withdrawn its notification of the proposed bill to the EU. Withdrawing two proposed laws that were under consideration by the EU, the first was a bill seeking to prohibit the production and marketing of cell-based meat, and the second, a regulation aimed at restricting the use of terms like 'steak' on plant-based meat product labels. In March of this year, Italy's government, led by Giorgia Meloni, introduced a draft law with the objective of outlawing cell-based food in Italy, encompassing cell-based meat. The penalties for those involved in the production or trade of such proteins included a €60,000 fine and the possibility of having their production facilities shut down. The bill, which was framed to protect Italian cultural traditions and heritage, secured approval from the Italian Senate in July, with 60% of senators voting in favour of it. However, the bill was still awaiting endorsement by Italy’s Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Italian parliament. Italy had previously submitted what is known as a Technical Regulations Information System (TRIS) notification to the EU. This procedure is designed to prevent the creation of trade barriers among EU member states. In essence, if Italy wishes to enforce a ban on cell-based meat, it requires EU approval, with other member states having the opportunity to express their views. However, in light of ongoing parliamentary deliberations and potential modifications, Italy has withdrawn its TRIS notification.

Mycelium specialist MycoTechnology has announced the launch of its US-based 'Fermentation as a Service' (FaaS) platform. The initiative aims to provide start-ups and innovative enterprises with the opportunity to secure fermentation capacity during a critical industry shortage. Through FaaS, companies can access essential fermentation tools and expertise, enabling them to scale up their fermentation operations from volumes as low as 300 litres to 90,000 litres. This aims to empower companies to overcome challenges related to product quality, yield and cost management as they approach commercial production. MycoTechnology’s CTO, Ranjan Patnaik, said that while fermentation is a “critical process that underpins the production of a wide array of bioproducts,” scaling up can be difficult and competition for capacity is resulting in bottlenecks, delays and escalating costs. He added: “These factors are creating major barriers to entry into the sector. But by opening up our facility to others, we aim to foster breakthroughs and accelerate the pace of innovation”. The company’s FaaS platform accommodates a diverse range of bioproducts, including proteins, enzymes and probiotics. It operates under “rigorous” regulatory standards, MycoTechnology affirmed, adhering to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 21 CFR Part 117 guidelines and has been GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative)-certified by the BRCGS. MycoTechnology said its FaaS initiative not only aligns with growing efforts to enhance the US bioindustrial landscape, but paves the way for other companies facing capacity constraints. Based in Aurora, Colorado, MycoTechnology was founded in 2013 and creates products from mushroom mycelia. Its product portfolio includes ClearIQ, a line of mushroom-derived flavour modulation tools that can enhance nutrient density, and FermentIQ protein, a line of protein products produced through a proprietary fermentation process.

South Korean food giant Nongshim has announced that it is investing KRW 10bn (approx. $7.37 million) in food-tech venture funds, particularly those working with cell-based meat. Nongshim says it will use the capital to help discover and foster emerging food-tech companies in South Korea, particularly in areas like smart farming, digital transformation and cell-based meat, which it says it views as the closest and most viable alternative to conventional meat in the future. The funding will be split equally between two Seoul-based start-up funds managed by Stonebridge Ventures and IMM Investment, with Nongshim aiming to champion start-ups that can transform the food value chain. Nongshim began investing in start-ups in 2018 with the launch of its Nongshim techUP+ programme and says the value of the stakes it has invested in has more than doubled. According to a report by South Korean news outlet JoongAng Daily, a Nongshim spokesperson said: “Investment in startups was decided following internal reviews. We’re investing through specialised investment funds to conduct a more in-depth evaluation and to explore more deeply.” #Nongshim #SouthKorea

Plant cell technology company and producer of sustainable bioactives for consumer products, Ayana Bio, has launched its Plant Cell Advantage (PCA) ingredient portfolio. The latest additions to the portfolio include Dog Rose PCA, Hedge Nettle PCA, and Sage PCA, expanding Ayana Bio’s offering of plant cell-cultivated health and wellness ingredients. The new PCA ingredients are non-GMO plant powders with standardised bioactive compositions and can directly replace dog rose, hedge nettle and sage in dietary supplements and food products. Dog Rose PCA delivers joint health and immune support, Hedge Nettle PCA provides healthy inflammatory response and antioxidants and Sage PCA offers healthy inflammatory response and cognitive support. The PCA ingredient portfolio also includes Echinacea-p PCA for immune benefits and Lemon Balm PCA for sleep and mood support, which launched in April 2023. Ayana Bio’s PCA ingredients are developed using plant cell cultivation. Ayana Bio grows real plant cells in stainless steel tanks, delivering the health benefits of plant bioactives without the quality issues that come from the constraints of conventional agriculture, including climate change. Ayana Bio says that its plant cell cultivation technology produces the full spectrum of bioactives found in nature – or with an even higher potency of beneficial bioactives. PCA ingredients are DNA-fingerprint certified and 100% clean label, with standardised phytocomplex, increased bioavailability, full traceability and a neutral taste and colour. Frank Jaksch, CEO of Ayana Bio, said: “The health and wellness benefits of medicinal plants rarely come from a single bioactive. Our Plant Cell Advantage portfolio maintains the full spectrum of bioactive compounds found in nature that work together in harmony to deliver the most powerful health benefits possible. With our newest Dog Rose PCA, Hedge Nettle PCA and Sage PCA, companies can incorporate high-quality, sustainable ingredients that improve people’s quality of life.” #AyanaBio #US ‍

Food-tech company Nourish Ingredients has unveiled what it says could be the “world’s first” animal-free fat, Tastilux, made through precision fermentation. Tastilux is said to deliver an authentic, meaty flavour and cooking performance without animal ingredients or artificial chemicals. The fat, derived from nature and scaled through precision fermentation, is designed to provide manufacturers with a fat that cooks, smells and tastes just like traditional meat for consumers. Developed over three years by Nourish Ingredients’ scientists, the Tastilux focuses on recreating the most flavourful fats found inside animal meat, using lipids found in nature. The company says that the fat provides the “distinct taste and aroma of traditional meat fats and enables real cooking reactions when used in plant-based chicken, beef, pork and other proteins”. James Petrie, founder & CEO of Nourish Ingredients, said: “Tastilux represents a quantum leap in making plant-based meats live up to the rich, fatty taste and cooking performance consumers want and love. We saw an opportunity to revolutionise plant proteins by focusing on the power of fat. Most alternative fats simply can’t replicate the rich, authentic flavour of cooked meat.” He continued: “Rather than take a plant-based approach, we analysed the most flavourful animal fats in their uncooked state. Then identified where we could find these in nature, without the animal. By fermenting only the most potent fats, we’re able to recreate the authentic meat experience. Our unique process unlocks new possibilities for plant protein foods to deliver the satisfying taste and texture consumers crave.” Nourish Ingredients says it is working closely with global food and ingredient leaders to incorporate Tastilux into a wide range of products. #NourishIngredients #Australia

Bioprocessing solution provider Cultzyme has opened an investment round to fund the development and commercialisation of its intelligent bioreactor. Formed last year, Cultzyme was founded to cater to the need for a new generation of multipurpose bioreactors that integrate the latest technology, accelerating bioprocessing for R&D. The firm’s intelligent R&D bioreactor, BION (Bioreactor Intelligent Operative Nanotechnology), integrates the latest hardware, AI and quantum computing to deliver precise control of reaction conditions, real-time monitoring and optimisations and scalable methods. The intelligent bioreactors are said to overcome the greatest challenges in bioprocessing, empowering R&D driven businesses to produce high-quality bio-tech products efficiently and effortlessly. Juan Garzón, CEO and founder of Cultzyme, told The Cell Base: "We founded Cultzyme after identifying a need for new technologies to allow the biotechnology sector to advance. Our intelligent bioreactor BION will accelerate R&D in life sciences and food technology, helping to deliver sustainable solutions across these industries." He continued: “Cultzyme’s technology is easier to use and more efficient than existing bioreactors and reduces capital and operating expenses. It has quickly gained attention and support, and we are now opening our investment round to accelerate our commercial agenda.” Cultzyme aims to targeting 10% of the global reusable bioreactor market by 2028 and is seeking investment to support this. The company has been self-funded to date and says it will use the additional funding to facilitate the continued development of BION, support the expansion of partnerships with leading organisations, and enable commercialisation of the product in this high-growth market. #Cultzyme #Spain

UK-based ag bio-tech start-up Moolec has announced a $30 million raise in cash and in-kind contributions from strategic investors via convertible notes. Moolec is a spinout of Bioceres Crop Solutions, an integrated bio-tech company of crop productivity solutions, including high-impact technologies for seeds. Moolec is known for its molecular farming platform, which bio-engineers plants such as yellow peas and soybeans to express bovine and porcine proteins. The proteins are said to improve the taste, texture, nutrition, flavour, and colour of meat alternatives. Moolec’s CEO Gastón Paladini told media outlet AgFunder News that it plans to focus on more meat molecules and proteins in multiple R&D projects. He said that instead of extracting and purifying the animal protein from these ingredients, Moolec plans to sell the soy and pea proteins with the meat proteins embedded in the matrix. #Moolec #UK

Fermentation specialists Cauldron and Boston Bioprocess have launched a new partnership, aiming to help fermentation-based companies scale from lab to manufacturing. The two companies will work together to create ‘economically viable paths’ to industrial-scale production for companies that would benefit from Cauldron’s continuous fermentation technology. Cauldron is a precision fermentation manufacturer specialising in food, feed and fibre. The company said its ‘hyper-fermentation’ manufacturing technology unlocks precision fermentation for commodity application by achieving significantly lower cost of goods sold with less capex investment. The Australian startup raised $10.5 million earlier this year to support expansion of its facilities in New South Wales, and its broader goal to expand with a national production network of precision fermentation plants. Boston Bioprocess offers a platform for bringing microbes to industrial scale, providing services including strain evaluation, process development and scale-up solutions to companies in the bio-ingredient and biologics space. The company partnered with animal-free fat developer Nourish Ingredients this month to help scale its fungi-based fat solution, suitable for use in plant-based meat products. Boston Bioprocess CEO, Michael Tai, said the partnership with Caudlron aims to find the best possible combination of technology and assets for each client. “Transitioning to industrial-scale production is about finding the best partner for a client’s particular strain and particular product,” Tai said. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all process, which means that we need to work hard to form a network of talented and reliable CMOs, all of whom can be the best fit for some portion of our client base.” Tai added that working with Cauldron allows it to “minimise the pain” of tech transfer and shorten time-to-market for clients. #Cauldron #BostonBioprocess #Australia

Better Bite Ventures has announced investments in three APAC food-tech startups as part of its early-stage ‘First Bite’ initiative. The three start-ups are part of the latest ‘First Bite’ funding round – which offers early-stage investments of between $50,000 and $150,000. The three companies are Singapore's Fattastic, Australian firm Pivot Eat and South Korea-based Everything But. Fattastic is a start-up engineering plant-based fats to enhance the sensory and functional attributes of plant-based meat and dairy. Its oil structuring technology transforms plant-based oils into solid states to resemble animal fats. Pivot Eat is developing a novel process to improve the structure and scalability of whole-cut meat alternatives. Everything But is “Asia’s first” cell-based meat startup focused on pet food, working on sustainable, protein-rich pet food with high taste, texture and nutritional quality. Simon Newstead, founding partner of Better Bite Ventures, said: “Bold technology innovation is needed to reduce the climate impact of our current food system in Asia. The response to the First Bite initiative has been encouraging – to date we’ve invested in seven food tech startups and are now open for more.” Founding partner Michal Klar added: “Food production is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, more than all transportation combined. As part of the broader transition to a net zero economy, we need new, more sustainable ways of making food. But these new products must also be tasty - only then will consumers truly buy-in. The startups we are announcing today are pioneering new solutions to improve the taste and texture of meat and dairy alternatives.” To date, Better Bite Ventures has invested in over 20 food-tech startups in Singapore, China, India, Australia, Indonesia and other APAC markets. #BetterBiteVentures #NewZealand

A report by UK corporate finance house Oghma Partners has found that the cell-based meat sector has seen an explosion in interest and deal activity. Since its emergence in 2010, the cell-based meat category has snowballed. £144.4m was invested in the sector between 2016 and 2019, with £1.77 billion invested during 2020 and 2021. In total Oghma estimates that over £2.6 billion has been invested in the area since 2016. The report states that a handful of companies have scooped up the lions-share of funding, with Upside Foods receiving more than $555 million to date, representing 21.5% of total global funding. In all, the top five cell-based meat manufacturers (Upside, Believer Meats, Wildtype, Aleph Farms and Mosa Meat) account for 46.9% of all funds raised from 2016 to 2023. The report also says that 68% of deal activity is directed toward companies whose activity includes the development and production of cell-based meat. With the remaining activity spread across cell-based seafood at 17%, ingredients at 11% and pet food at 4%. Currently, cell-based meat can only be sold in two countries, Singapore and the US, where only two companies have received regulatory approval – Good Meat and Upside. Oghma says that approval in the US is a “critical development” given the size of the consumer market. The regulatory progress looks promising in other nations, where governments have already shown interest and support for cell-based meats, including government-backed programmes in Israel, the UK, the Netherlands and China. According to the report, many nations have also set out or are developing frameworks by which companies will gain regulation for sales within the market; mostly through existing ‘novel foods’ frameworks. Mark Lynch, partner at Oghma Partners, said: “Cell-based agriculture has substantial potential as an alternative to traditional agriculture. We believe that this potential has driven interest and speculative investment into the industry. Significant investment into the cell-based meat industry has led to increasing CAPEX spend with many companies scaling up production capacity and R&D facilities. These investments, some of which are yet to be completed, have the potential to accelerate the launch of products to consumers in the cell-based meat space.” He continued: “However, money for new investment is now harder to come by, as the slowdown in funding so far in 2023 demonstrates. The industry will be challenged to deliver sales to consumers and to stretch funding runways to the point of delivering profitability. We see a shake-out similar to that we are seeing in the plant-based meat sector, with consolidation amongst the players most likely.” “The US is paving the way for the cell-based meats industry globally with the largest number of investors, and producers. A favourable regulatory environment and ease of business is seeing the US become a hub for industry activity. Multiple overseas companies are looking to relocate or move certain operations to the US. Israel and the UK are the second and third most active countries in terms of the level of funding for cell-based meat start-ups which reflects a combination of the level of innovation going on in their respective food industries/ universities as well as the capital market pool available, combined with a flexible regulatory environment.”

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released an update on the potential for cultivating meat in space, stating that the research “looks promising”. ESA has supported two research teams investigating the possibility of growing meat in space, with the primary goal to determine whether cell-based meat is a viable option for space, as a protein food source that can be produced in-situ. Over the last year, the selected teams, one made up of German company Yuri and Reutlingen University, and the other of UK companies Kayser Space, Cellular Agriculture and Campden BRI, had the chance to develop this idea further with funding from the ‘Discovery’ element of ESA's ‘Basic Activities’. ESA engineer Paolo Corradi said: "The focus is to provide astronauts with nutritious food during long-term missions far from Earth, overcoming the typical two-year shelf-life of traditional packaged supplies. Given the limited resources in space, growing fresh food in situ would be necessary to increase the resilience and self-sufficiency of a mission, and could also provide psychological support to the crew." To tackle the challenge, the British and German teams have proposed different cell-based meat production methods and bioreactor technologies. The ESA said that the research results are in – and they look promising. "After their analysis, both teams have come to similar conclusions and suggest that the idea of producing cultivated meat in space is not far-fetched and calls for further research," Corradi added. ESA is also working to develop technologies to improve bioprocesses and metabolic resource use onboard the spacecraft. Christel Paille, ESA life support engineer and part of its cell-based meat activities, said: "ESA is investing significant efforts in researching advanced life support systems. We are creating ground prototypes to investigate, for instance, closed-loop systems that recover nutrients and recycle metabolic wastes. This could also be applied to cultivated meat production to recover the nutrient medium that we give to the cells. Corradi continued: "It's something that is still in its infancy, so we proposed a roadmap that outlines the steps required to progress the necessary technologies and fill current knowledge gaps.” “This includes understanding how cells adapt to altered gravity and radiation," Garcia added. “By using facilities available at ESA, we will soon start experiments to understand these effects." #EuropeanSpaceAgency