In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Alpro’s collaboration with Peter Crouch, a new alternative protein jobs platform, and a host of university-related news.

New products and launches

In the UK, Alpro has partnered with Peter Crouch to kickstart its new Alpro Plant Protein Morning Trials campaign. The former England footballer tests celeb fitness routines, including waking up at 2:30 AM, multiple gym sessions, and plunging into ice baths to promote the recently extended Plant Protein range.

Also in the UK, there’s a new musical about the meat industry. Mad Cow will be coming to Canterbury’s new fully vegan Garlinge Theater next month.

Swiss meat analogues maker Planted has rolled out its fermentation-derived steak in Switzerland at Coop and in Germany at Rewe stores.

Belgian startup Bolder Foods is continuing to showcase its biomass-fermented cheese prototypes, with investors and entrepreneurs getting a taste of its product at an event hosted by ingredients leader Givaudan.

San Francisco-based startup Impact Food has announced its sushi-grade plant-based salmon, with wholesale pre-orders running now. The product premiered at Oisixs Ra Daichi’s annual World Oceans Day event in sashimi and nigiri formats in Japan.

That’s not all for vegan salmon this week – German alt-seafood producer BettaF!sh has also entered the space with SAL-NOM, a hot smoked salmon analogue made from seaweed. It retails for €3.29 per 130g jar, and will be launched as a tinned SKU too in the summer.

As part of its roster of new mini-campaigns, Veganuary ran its Choose Fish-Free Week from June 3-8, shedding light on alternative seafood brands and recipes. A BBQ Month and Choose Dairy-Free Week will be next.

Israeli 3D-printed meat producer Redefine Meat has rolled out its New Meat range of lamb kofta mix, pulled beef, pulled pork, burgers, beef mince and bratwurst in German retail via e-tailer Velivery.

Hybrid meat maker Mush Foods has partnered with French specialty meat purveyor Dufour Gourmet to introduce a charcuterie range made from its 50Cut mycelium meat. Offerings include a bratwurst, breakfast sausage, Italian-style sausage, and chicken sausage.

Californian food tech company MeliBio‘s vegan honey, which retails in some parts of Europe under the Better Foodie brand name, is now available in Switzerland and Liechtenstein through a distribution deal with Swiss wholesaler Honeydew.

Fellow Californian startup Upside Foods served its cultivated chicken at Industry Only LA, as part of buffalo chicken bao buns and cold sesame noodles.

In the US, catering giant Sodexo and the University of Cincinnati have introduced 513 Culinary Group, an immersive campus dining venture to spotlight inclusivity and local ingredients. The partnership entails new menu options with more plant-based foods and special care given to allergens.

If you’re in New York, the Fordham Plaza is hosting the Bronx Vegan Bazaar every third Saturday from noon to 6 PM starting this weekend on June 15.

The Roots drummer Questlove partnered with Stella Artois to host the Questlove’s Cheesesteak Diner pop-up, which features Impossible Foods’ beef. It was the first event of the beer brand’s Let’s Do Dinner: Summer Series, which brings together food, lifestyle and entertainment platforms.

Speaking of which, Impossible Foods‘ new beef hot dog has made its way into Safeway stores in California and Jewel-Osco locations in Chicago – and it’s gone straight into the meat aisle.

And Singaporean beanless coffee startup Prefer has moved into the frozen world with a gelato launched in partnership with local dessert parlour Aphrodite Waffles and Gelato. The ice cream uses Prefer’s bean-free coffee concentrate.

Finance and company updates

Accelerator programme ProVeg Incubator has announced its latest cohort of alternative protein startups, featuring Atlantic Fish Co, Optimised Foods, Friends & Family Pet Food Company (all US), AIProtein (Egypt/US), and Fisheroo (Singapore). The initiative has also been extended from 12 weeks to 20.

Danish startup EvodiaBio has raised €7M to produce natural aromas for the food industry using precision fermentation. Its tech can improve the taste of non-alcoholic beer by producing yeast-derived ingredients that recreate the taste of hops.

Fellow fermentation company The Better Meat Co has slashed the production costs of its mycoprotein, which is now on par with commodity beef when manufactured at scale.

Germany’s Veganz Group – which makes plant-based dairy, meat and snack products – has confirmed the drawdown of a grant from the State of Brandenburg’s investment bank to construct a new facility in Ludwigsfelde.

Fellow German company Tälist has introduced AltProtein.Jobs, an AI-led ‘matchmaking’ platform to connect employers with prospective candidates in the future food sector. Its algorithm has made 2,000 matches with a 9+ score, 9,400 with 8+, and 25,000 with a 7+ rating.

The US Department of Defense has released a call for alternative protein funding proposals under BioMade, the public-private biomanufacturing consortium, with projects receiving between $500,000 to $2M. One of its key focus areas is on fermentation-derived and cultivated proteins for military rations. It has already spawned an outraged response from a cattle association.

Research and policy developments

Researchers at the United Arab Emirates University and the National University of Singapore have teamed up to explore novel plant protein sources that can be incorporated into meat analogues for better taste, texture and nutritional attributes.

In the US, Western Oregon University has signed the Humane Society of the United States‘ Forward Food Pledge, committing to transition its campus dining menus to 50% plant-based meals by 2027.

In more university news, the UK’s Nottingham Trent University has launched a master’s degree in smart agriculture, which will explore how AI, vertical farming and precision agriculture can enhance food security and reduce energy costs. Students will develop ‘recipes’ to produce food crops much more rapidly than currently possible outdoors.

Finally, plant-based food company Strong Roots conducted a 1,000-person survey in the US, the UK and Ireland to find that 52% of consumers are more likely to purchase products with carbon footprints on their packaging, and 82% want to be informed about businesses that contribute to climate change.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

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US hybrid meat startup SciFi Foods has appointed an advisory firm to sell its assets as cultivated meat continues to face a bleak investment landscape.

San Francisco-based startup SciFi Foods, the maker of hybrid meat from cultivated beef cells and plant-based ingredients, is shutting down its operations.

The news comes months after the company successfully completed its first commercial-scale production run in a 500-litre bioreactor. It had also been in consultation with the FDA over its regulatory approval path in the US.

“Given challenges in the fundraising market, we’ve appointed an advisory firm to run a sale process,” co-founder and CEO Joshua March told AgFunderNews.

“Given the nature of the process, I can’t really say much more beyond this,” he added.

SciFi Foods had achieved price parity with conventional beef

Founded in 2019 as Artemys Foods, the startup rebranded in 2022 with a cultivated beef product to be used in hybrid meat formulations. Backed by Silicon Valley VC Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and other investors like Coldplay, SciFi Foods has brought in over $40M in total financing.

Hybrid meat, which combines cultivated proteins with plant-based ingredients, is aimed at enabling scalability and driving down the high costs of cultivated meat. Investors say this is the only way it is currently commercially viable – Eat Just, the first company to ever sell cultivated meat, has previously rolled out versions with about 60-70% of cultivated cells, and its latest innovation is a retail offering with 3% of chicken cells.

Startups like Aleph Farms, Meatable and Vital Meat – which are all expecting regulatory approval in various markets over the next few months – are also using the hybrid approach for their products. Aleph Farms, which received the go-ahead from the health ministry in Israel in January, will soon roll out its hybrid beef at restaurants in the country.

Late last year, SciFi Foods opened a 16,000 sq ft pilot facility in San Leandro, California, where it began growing beef cell lines in single-cell suspension, in a 100% serum-free process. This is where it had finished its first run in the 500-litre bioreactor.

Single-cell suspension allows cells to be grown in any standard, stirred-tank bioreactor, without the need to try and scale up novel hardware. It also does away with the need for expensive substrates like microcarriers or scaffolding, which is crucial for cost control.

SciFi Foods, whose hybrid burger was a 90/10 mix of a soy protein base and cultivated beef, announced that it had achieved price parity with conventional beef using a combination of its proprietary high-throughput cell line engineering and CRISPR technology in 2022.

Cultivated meat feels the heat

The development comes amid what has been a highly turbulent time for the cultivated meat industry. As March alluded to, fundraising has been a mountain to climb – according to the Good Food Institute (GFI), investment in cultivated meat companies nosedived by 75% from 2022 to 2023. This came amid a wider decline in food tech funding (-61%), with alternative protein financing dropping by 44% to $1.6B.

The loss of faith among VCs has continued for cultivated meat startups this year, with Q1 witnessing merely 5% of the $226M invested in the sector in all of 2023. It’s why AgFunder has earmarked cultivated meat as a “category to watch” this year.

It has become a major headache for companies in this sector. Just last week, Aleph Farms confirmed it had laid off 30% of its local staff in Israel due to difficulties in securing capital amid its scale-up process, and as part of its asset-light growth strategy. Californian cultivated seafood producer Finless Foods had similarly carried out two rounds of layoffs in less than 12 months.

Also in California, cultivated pork startup New Age Eats ceased operations in March 2023. Eat Just, based in San Francisco, has been caught up in a lawsuit against its former contract manufacturer ABEC, which has claimed over $100M in payments for changes to the scope of the work and unpaid bills in relation to its cultivated chicken arm Good Meat. A judge has sided with both entities in several matters, and the case will now proceed to trial.

Another Californian startup, Los Angeles-based Omeat, has had its workforce cut by 80%, with its founder stepping down as CEO amid allegations of creating a hostile work culture.

Apart from the financial headwinds, the industry has also been met with legislative challenges. Italy became the first country to ban the production and sale of cultivated meat last year, with France and Romania contemplating the same. And last month, the US states of Florida and Alabama both passed similar bills, which were heavily criticised even by the meat industry.

Company closures were predicted to continue this year by alternative protein experts, and SciFi Foods has become the latest on that list. “We are in a phase of consolidation and correction that isn’t over yet. Given that venture capital is so scarce, fundraising and due diligence processes are taking extremely long, and especially lead investors are so hard to find, we expect to see more businesses going down,” Albrecht Wolfmeyer, director of ProVeg Incubator, told Green Queen in April.

He added: “At the same time, we are seeing a lot of exciting innovation in the ecosystem and also growing consumer and corporate interest in markets like Germany. This and parts of next year will be tough, then we’ll see more light at the end of the tunnel.”

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Canada and the EU lead the way in terms of public funding for alternative proteins, while Asia is a region to watch for this year, according to a new policy-centric report.

Governments are investing more capital and implementing more supportive policies for alternative proteins as they recognise their potential as a solution to climate change, food security, public health, and employment – but they still have “plenty of ground to cover”, according to a new report.

Published by industry think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI), the State of Global Policy presents a snapshot of governments’ views on alternative protein across the planet in 2023. Its analysis estimates that public funding in the sector reached $523M last year, though this represented a 12.6% decline from the $599M poured into the industry in 2022.

Breaking this down further, $190M of this figure went to R&D, and another $163M was earmarked for commercialisation efforts. The remaining $170M was for mixed purposes. As for which alternative protein was most popular, it was a close call between plant-based ($189M) and fermentation-derived ($181M) innovations. Cultivated meat trailed behind with just $40M in government investments, while $112M was set aside for a combination of these proteins.

That said, GFI outlined that countries need to invest $10.1B annually for the industry to realise its full potential – this marks a nearly 30-fold increase from the actual investments that were disbursed in 2023 ($348M). But it’s just a fraction of the world’s spending on EVs, renewable energy and other climate-friendly technologies.

“By making public investments on par with other strategic priorities, policymakers can greatly accelerate the pace and scale of protein innovation and position their governments as leaders in a future industry,” the report states.

Here are the countries championing alternative proteins across different segments.

Who were the stars of 2023?

The report picks out Germany and the UK as the stars of 2023 for their dramatic increase in spending on alternative proteins. Germany surpassed its all-time funding into alternative proteins ($35M) with $44M in investment last year. The country is investing up to $20.4M in alternative proteins between 2023 and 2028, which includes a $547,000 grant to Kynda, as well as a new research project for cultivated seafood.

Germany has also set aside €38M ($41.3M) in its federal budget for 2024 to develop alternative protein production capacity and help farmers transition to plant-based agriculture. And, in March this year, it adopted a national nutrition strategy recommending that plant-based foods should make up at least 75% of people’s diets.

The UK, meanwhile, announced a $15.3M cellular agriculture research hub, funded over 20 research projects, and included cultivated meat and fermentation in a $2.2B national biotechnology plan. It also received its first two cultivated meat applications from Aleph Farms and Ivy Farm Technologies in 2023 (followed by Vital Meat last month), and is now overhauling its pre-Brexit regulations to clear the path for novel food companies. Cultivated pet food company Meatly is expecting the greenlight and a market launch imminently.

The public investment leaders

While the UK and Germany may be becoming major players, their investment is far eclipsed by a few others. Canada tops the charts with $129M invested in alternative proteins in 2023 (versus $174M in all-time funding before then). This is largely thanks to the allocation of $112M from Protein Industries Canada, a public-private partnership for novel proteins and one of the country’s economic clusters.

It was followed by the EU ($113M) and the US ($82M). Before 2023, Denmark was the leader on this list, investing a total of $223M in the sector – but it fell off last year, with just $891,000 in alternative protein financing.

The regulatory winners

Singapore has always been a flagbearer of progressive regulation when it comes to alternative proteins, but last year the US joined it as the only other country to approve the sale of cultivated meat, with Eat Just’s Good Meat and Upside Foods both launching their cultivated chicken products in restaurants.

The two countries had already given the go-ahead to precision fermentation company Remilk for its recombinant whey proteins, and its home country Israel joined that list, granting approval in April. Israel also became the third country to clear cultivated meat for sale at the start of this year. And Singapore followed its 2020 approval of Good Meat by giving the greenlight to Australia’s Vow.

The plant-based pioneers

GFI pinpointed three countries championing plant-based proteins by boosting local agriculture and manufacturing. Australia, which rescinded a grant for pulse protein factories after delays in enactment made the projects ineligible, saw four of its six states invest in alternative protein. One of them was Western Australia, which poured $3.3M into a factory producing oat milk enriched with lupin protein.

Neighbouring New Zealand, meanwhile, allocated $7M for a project developing alternative proteins from local crops like green peas, oats and hemp.

And in France, the government put restrictions on plant-based meat labels, but also led a $35M Series A fundraise of whole-cut vegan chicken producer Umiami. This was followed by its $8M grant for the company’s commercial-scale factory in 2022, which opened three months ago.

The cellular agriculture supporters

Six countries were highlighted by the GFI report for their biotech, research and infrastructure support for cultivated and fermentation-derived proteins. Two of the four pillars of Singapore’s $117M Food Story 2.0 programme are relevant to alternative protein, with a heavy focus on cultivated meat.

Israel awarded its previously announced funding of $13M for a precision fermentation contract development manufacturing organisation, while in the US, the Cornucopia programme seeks to create microbial foods, with $10.4M given to one of four fermentation projects over four years.

In February 2023, South Korea’s North Gyeongsang Province led a 28-member MoU to advance the cellular agriculture industry. The province also established a regulation-free zone for proof-of-concept prototypes, and a $6.7M Cellular Agriculture Industry Support Center.

The Netherlands, meanwhile, provided $1.1M from its Cellular Agriculture Netherlands programme for research into producing collagen and elastin through precision fermentation. And Finland supported local fermentation startup Solar Foods with the construction of two facilities through investments and grants, while funding a $5.3M research project for microbial fermentation.

The countries to watch

Among the six countries GFI outlined as laying the groundwork for significant investment in the sector, half are in Asia. India’s Ministry of Science and Technology announced a National Biomanufacturing Policy that includes alternative proteins as a key pillar, and created a funding programme to promote millets as a raw material for the plant protein industry, approving a $107,919 project for egg alternatives.

In November 2023, Japan accepted a proposal from three companies for R&D on cultivated wagyu beef, focused on scaling and commercialisation. And China, which included cultivated meat in its 14th five-year plan in 2022, “offered generous incentives to industry players” – while exact investment numbers are not known, its cultivated meat industry has grown as it’s a lower-cost environment than Europe or the US.

Elsewhere, Brazil may not have announced any new funding in 2023, but its new government’s “prioritisation of sustainability, the green economy, and low-carbon agriculture bodes well for the field”, the report suggests.

South Africa became possibly the first country in the continent to make a public investment in precision fermentation, injecting $700,000 into DeNovo FoodLabs’ development of whey protein. Finally, in Spain, the regional government of Catalonia awarded $7M for the construction of a scale-up facility for plant-based and fermented proteins.

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Californian biotech startup Prolific Machines has closed a $55M Series B1 round for its photomolecular platform, which leverages light to create novel proteins at significantly lower costs.

The $55M investment represents the first close of Prolific Machines’ Series B round, and was led by Fonterra’s VC arm The Ki Tua Fund. BreakthroughEnergy Ventures, Mayfield, SOSV, Shorewind Capital, Darco Capital, Conti Ventures, In-Q-Tel (IQT), and several others participated as well.

This means the company – which has previously set out its intention to raise a $170M full Series B round – has so far brought in $86.5M in total investment. Investors in its last round in 2022 included the likes of Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban and model and actress Emily Ratajkowski.

Since being founded in 2020, Prolific Machines has developed a photomolecular biology platform to grow and control cells with light, allowing manufacturers to create products across cellular agriculture for the food and medicine industries. It will use the Series B1 capital to commercialise this platform through industry partnerships.

“Photomolecular biology is the use of light and AI to precisely control and optimise cellular behaviour to more efficiently produce superior bioproduct solutions across wide-ranging applications, from food to pharmaceuticals,” co-founder and CEO Deniz Kent tells Green Queen.

“We set out with a vision to use one of our most abundant resources – light – to create an exponentially better way to control biology,” he says, suggesting that this control is “critical to making cheaper and higher-quality products”.

How does Prolific Machines harness light to create proteins?

Prolific Machines argues that current cellular biology processes are constrained by “expensive, inefficient, and imprecise molecular methods”. But the precision of light allows it to control these processes in “fundamentally new ways”.

“Prolific harnesses light to produce everyday essentials more efficiently, from food and lifesaving drugs to novel biosolutions,” explains Kent. “We use light as a signal to control cellular behaviour with unprecedented precision and instantly instruct cells on what to do, and where and when to do it. Our process creates significant cost, speed, yield, and quality advantages compared to existing processes.”

The company’s technology is inspired by the field of optogenetics, a combination of genetic and optical methods to control the activity and behaviour of cells through light.

“We use ‘non-ionising’ light at relatively low intensities in our process, which means it doesn’t carry enough energy to harm living cells. It is safe for use in the production of both food and non-food products,” says Kent.

How can light improve existing production techniques?

“Methods currently used to make bioproducts are limited to imprecise, inefficient, and expensive control levers – like temperature, chemicals, and proteins – to indirectly control cells,” Kent says. “Prolific’s first-of-its-kind photomolecular platform brings together safe and effective tools – light, bioengineering, hardware, and AI – to unlock unparalleled control and precision.”

He explains that living organisms can sense light because of light-sensitive proteins (LSP), which are naturally occurring proteins found in everything from plants and bacteria to human retinas. These exist to detect and respond to light, and can do this very quickly, causing action in cells within seconds.

“Proteins are at the heart of everything a cell does, from perceiving signals from other cells to switching genes on or off. By attaching LSPs to proteins that you want to control within the cell, Prolific makes it possible to precisely control subcellular biology using light,” he says. When met with light, which acts as a signal, the LSPs can control cells across key functions.

“Prolific unlocks dynamic control by pulsating light in specific patterns, intensities, and wavelengths to activate cellular functions when and where it matters most, which is a game-changer for biotechnology,” adds Kent.

What kind of products can Prolific Machines create?

So what kind of products can you produce using light? “Prolific is co-developing the future of biology with innovators across cultivated meat, nutritional and therapeutic proteins, disease models, tissue engineering, cell and gene therapy, and beyond,” he reveals.

“Examples include nutritional proteins used in supplements and infant formula, antibodies to treat diseases, whole cuts of cultured meat, higher fidelity disease models, and other innovations never before possible.”

Kent calls the process a “boon” for cultivated meat, with companies able to achieve “massive cost, scale, and sterility benefits without the need for recombinant proteins or growth factors”.

“Using light, our process can create structured or marbled products, like steaks. We can create all cuts of meat that would be impossible to make in a scalable manner with existing cultivated production methods,” he says. “Our process provides unparalleled spatial control, creating the patterning and structure to make alternative protein products with first-of-its-kind texture, taste, and affordability.”

As for “nutritional proteins”, this could entail many “high-value proteins”, including those found in infant formula, such as lactoferrin (whose precision-fermented version has only recently been commercialised).

Can light help make cultivated meat cheaper?

Prolific Machines suggests that the first applications of its technology will be announced via partnerships with manufacturers in the coming months. The company has already established two “robust” mammalian cell lines to support its food and pharmaceutical partners.

While more details on pricing will be available once these link-ups are established, Kent offers: “One of the key benefits of our photomolecular platform is cost efficiency due to our use of light, which is the cheapest possible input into biology. Our process also removes the need for costly growth factors, which are the most expensive part of the cultivated meat process.”

Reducing the cost and scaling up production are the two key manufacturing challenges facing producers in this space. While companies have managed to reduce costs by 99% in less than a decade, forecasts show these proteins won’t price parity until 2030. But startups like Meatly and BioCraft Pet Nutrition (both making cultivated pet food) have announced breakthroughs in their culture media to drastically bring down the cost of their products.

“Our platform elevates our partners’ existing cell lines and product approaches, providing a critical infrastructure layer for biology,” says Kent. “Think of us as the ‘NVIDIA for biology’. We are already co-developing the future of biology with a number of partners.”

While some countries and US states have imposed bans on cultivated meat, these proteins have been championed by UN climate bodies like the IPCC and the UNEP, since they have a much smaller environmental footprint, can secure the food system against climate and disease shocks, and feed an ever-hungrier planet poised to have 10 billion people by 2050.

The post Prolific Machines Nabs $55M to Create Cultivated Meat & Novel Proteins by Harnessing Light appeared first on Green Queen.

Israeli cultivated meat producer Aleph Farms has let go of 30% of its domestic workforce, reportedly due to difficulties in securing capital amid its scale-up process.

Aleph Farms, one of only four companies cleared to sell cultivated meat, has laid off about 30 of its 100 local employees, owing to difficulties in raising capital amid a wider investment decline in the sector, according to Israeli food tech publication CTech.

An Aleph Farms spokesperson confirmed the news. “As we transition towards larger-scale production and commercialisation, we are maintaining R&D and production in Israel while expanding globally through co-manufacturers, in line with our capital-efficient and asset-light approach,” they told Green Queen.

“We are adapting our organisation to align with this next growth phase, and need to part ways with approximately 30% of our local employees. We care for all affected employees and will be supporting them in the new job search.”

Aleph Farms had ‘expected significant expansion’ this year

Around the same time CTech reported the news last night, Aleph Farms posted an update on social media. “The ability to adapt is fundamental at all levels of life, enabling us to navigate change and foster growth over time,” it read. It’s unclear whether this was in reference to the restructuring, but it did mark a departure from the style of its other posts.

Aleph Farms started the year with the biggest milestone in its seven-year history, earning regulatory approval to sell its cultivated beef in Israel. The startup had announced its intention to roll out its Black Angus Petit Steak under the Aleph Cuts brand at select restaurants in the country, with a longer-term goal of making it available to retailers.

Since then, it has struck a deal to produce cultivated meat in Thailand, and partnered with a biotech startup to leverage AI to reduce costs and enable scalability. These advancements followed the 2022 opening of its 65,000 sq ft plant in Rehovot, Israel, allowing it to initially produce 10 tonnes of cultivated steak annually, the acquisition of another manufacturing facility in Modi’in, as well as the agreement with ESCO Aster in Singapore (the world’s first approved industrial manufacturer for cultivated meat).

The company has previously outlined its aim to reach $1B in revenue by 2030, and has so far raised $118M in funding. Its last investment round was in 2022, bringing in a sizeable Series B amount of $105M. But struggles in securing investment, the global decrease in alternative protein funding, and the geopolitical tension with the Israel-Hamas war have put pressure on the company, according to CTech.

The publication cited strategic plans and investor promises to suggest that Aleph Farms had hoped for a different year. One industry insider was quoted as saying: “They expected a very significant expansion this year, but the situation in Israel is difficult for the entire market. All companies are reexamining their expenses.”

Israel’s alternative protein challenges – and potential

Alternative protein investments saw a marked downturn in 2023, among a wider VC fallout from food tech. According to the Good Food Institute (GFI), food tech companies received 61% fewer VC dollars last year than in 2022, while alternative protein funding dropped by 44% to $1.6B.

Cultivated meat companies were hit especially hard, with investment down by 75% from 2022. And this loss of faith among VCs has continued, with the first quarter of 2024 seeing merely 5% of the $226M invested in the sector in all of last year. It’s why AgFunder has earmarked cultivated meat as a “category to watch” this year.

Within Israel, VC fundraising was down by 74% in 2023, hitting an eight-year low. Coupled with the struggles of the fintech sector, several other startups have been forced to make cutbacks in their workforce.

That said, despite a dip in alternative protein financing, interest in the industry remains strong in Israel. The country was responsible for 10% of the sector’s investments globally in the last decade, second only to the US, according to a recent report. Last year, a record 15 new startups began working on novel proteins, taking the total to 73. And in 2022, the Israeli Innovation Authority (IIA) established an $18M research consortium for cultivated meat, comprising 14 companies and 10 academic laboratories.

The analysis also outlined the industry’s long-term potential, forecasting that it will generate 10,000 additional jobs (a third of which would be manufacturing roles), have more than 200 companies and over a dozen manufacturing facilities, and contribute $2.5B to Israel’s economy by 2030. The report’s authors encouraged investors to take confidence in the IIA’s efforts and pump significant capital into the sector

But as Aleph Farms pointed out, challenges remain, especially for companies trying to expand their production capacity. “Scaling up manufacturing for Israeli startups is challenging due to infrastructure costs, mirroring challenges encountered by startups worldwide,” Alla Voldman, VP of strategy and policy at GFI Israel, told Green Queen last month.

She added that the geopolitical situation is heartbreaking. “However, the Israeli entrepreneurs proved their resilience in ensuring their companies meet the milestones,” she said. “We believe that the increasing need for food security solutions locally and across the globe will drive additional private and public investments in this sector toward innovative technological solutions.”

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Finnish researchers have come up with a way to make cultivated meat without expensive growth factors, relying on stem cell metabolism instead.

As the race to produce cost-effective cuts of cultivated meat continues, researchers at the University of Helsinki are proposing an alternative to one of the most expensive parts of the manufacturing process.

“All companies run into problems at roughly the same point of scaling up production,” said Pekka Katajisto, who is leading the team at the Helsinki Institute of Life Science (HiLife).

The solution, then, lies in the technology developed under its Myocopia project, which relies on stem cell metabolism instead of growth factors. Can it help companies bring costs on par with conventional meat?

Cells grow meat only when instructed

Culture media are an essential part of cultivated meat production, comprising a mix of nutrients to facilitate the growth of animal cells. This accounts for the majority of the costs involved in the entire process, with growth factors – which help the cells differentiate – responsible for the bulk of those.

Companies have been working on ways to bring these prices down – typically, culture media cost hundreds of dollars per litre. Last month, UK company Meatly, which is on the verge of receiving regulatory approval for its cultivated pet food in the country, announced it had reduced the cost of its culture medium to $1.25 per litre by developing a protein-free version.

And just last week, fellow cultivated pet food producer BioCraft Pet Nutrition announced it had reached price parity with premium conventional meat by developing a nutrient medium composed of plant-based ingredients.

At Katajisto’s lab, which is connected to the Centre of Excellence in Stem Cell Metabolism, researchers studied how cell metabolism regulates the division and differentiation of stem cells. This led to an innovation that can keep the cells expanding longer than with current methods, and grow meat only when instructed to do so, enabling precise control in bioreactors.

“The cells can be kept multiplying in a financially viable way until the reactor is full. The cells are then guided to form meat – again using their own metabolism,” said Katajisto.

Myocopia plans to spin out in two years

The idea was first tested using capital from HiLife’s proof-of-concept funding. Once they achieved promising results, the team received state financing from Business Finland to commercialise its technology. Under the latter, Myocopia will validate the tech on “commercially interesting” meat products like beef, pork and poultry.

“We want to increase our understanding of the market and finetune our technology,” said Swetha Gopalakrishnan, scientific lead of the Myocopia project, who made the original observation that led to the innovation.

The goal is to become a B2B provider that can license its technical knowhow to cultivated meat producers. Olga Balakina, commercialisation specialist for the project, is assessing the market for potential partners. “Our top priority is to identify the companies with which we can launch a pilot,” she said.

Technology companies are of particular interest, since they can help the Myocopia team tailor the innovation based on market needs. The team has already begun the patenting process, and aims to speak to VCs and impact investors for financing next year.

“After two years, we can strive to establish a spinout,” said Balakina. As a “tech enabler” of the industry, one of its solutions could be “a cell-growing cocktail” that could stimulate growth effectively in existing bioreactors.

“I believe our innovation is going to be a game changer in the emerging industry as a whole,” added Katajisto.

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In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Starbucks’ upcoming Oatly collaboration, a vegan certification for hospitality operators, and Bezos Earth Fund’s alternative protein centre.

New products and launches

For its summer menu, Starbucks is reportedly launching a vegan cinnamon crumble Frappuccino with Oatly‘s vanilla Oat Whip, which will be available for a free swap – a welcome policy change from the coffee chain. It will also offer a non-dairy vanilla sweet cream cold brew, and free plant-based cold foam substitutes for all core drinks.

Speaking of which, Oatly has now launched its 1.5-litre barista milk in the UK, which was teased in its latest earnings call to investors.

Also in the UK, The Coconut Collaborative has unveiled what it says is the country’s first vegan yoghurt and granola topper.

British vegan pet food maker Hownd has gained a listing for three hypoallergenic functional treat ranges – Keep Calm for stress relief, Got an Itch? for healthy skin and coat, and Yup You Stink! for bad breath – at Pets at Home, which will be available in stores nationwide in September.

Fellow UK startup Sun Bear Biofuture has joined the expanding roster of companies offering sustainable alternatives to palm oil. Its deforestation-free innovation is derived from fermentation and makes use of agricultural sidestreams as feedstocks.

Meanwhile, plant-based giant Beyond Meat has rolled out a new SKU in the UK. The spicy jalapeño burger is available at 280 Tesco and Sainsbury’s stores each, with a frozen version coming to 200 locations each in September.

In the US, Tomorrow Farms‘ animal-free milk Bored Cow, which uses Perfect Day‘s precision-fermented whey protein, has expanded into 2,000 new stores nationwide, with additional 11oz packaging for the original flavour plus four-packs now available in Albertsons, Safeway, Sprouts, Fresh Thyme, Central Market, and Shaws, among others.

Consultancy network Vegan Hospitality has launched a global certification programme for tourism and hospitality companies, offering companies expert strategy consulting, online staff training, promotional support, and free auditing.

In Germany, plant-based producer Planteneers has introduced a lineup of vegan desserts, comprising tiramisu, cheesecake, fermented oat dessert, pudding, and soft ice cream. They’re positioned as “healthy but indulgent” alternatives to their dairy counterparts.

German airline caterer LSG Group has teamed up with Unilever-owned plant-based meat brand The Vegetarian Butcher to offer vegan meals for onboard dining.

More news from the skies: Spanish meat analogues maker Heura and vegan cheese giant Violife have partnered with Vueling Airlines to launch a plant-based burger on the carrier’s summer menu, which is priced at €8.50.

There’s a new plant-based butchery in Prague. Located in the Czech capital’s Letná district, Bezmasna features meatloafs, cold cuts, deli salads, as well as chlebíček (Czech sandwiches).

Singaporean startup Jiro-Meat is aiming to commercialise its upcycled plant-based meat made from okara – the fibrous pulp leftover from soy milk and tofu production – in the next six months.

And in India, Nestlé has rolled out a limited-edition edible plant-based fork for its Maggi cup noodles. The two-piece fork is made from wheat flour and salt.

Finance and company updates

The Bezos Earth Fund has opened its first Center for Sustainable Protein at North Carolina State University, supported by a $30M fund. The facility aims to advance alternative protein production and commercialisation, and has onboarded Believer Meats (which is due to open its own cultivated meat facility in the state later this year) as a partner.

Germany’s Planteneers has also opened a Customer Center of Excellence in Aurora, Illinois as part of its North American expansion. The facility will let customers collaborate on product development and create ingredient solutions via a plant-based meat laboratory (it will soon have one for alt-dairy too).

Indian vegan seafood player SeaSpire has rebranded to PROT, as it diversifies into other plant protein sources. Its alt-seafood lineup is being relaunched as a ‘Gill-t Free’ range ahead of World Ocean Day (June 8), supported by Veganuary India‘s Fish-Free Week campaign.

Danish plant protein powder Nutrumami has closed a €450,000 seed funding round to expand its team and prepare for market launch.

Policy and research developments

A 9,272-person survey by YouGov shows that if cultivated meat was on par with conventional meat, only half would continue eating the latter (nearly a quarter remain unsure of what they’ll do). It’s an improvement from the 40% who would otherwise ‘definitely not’ eat cultivated meat. Meanwhile, Americans remain very split over bans on these products.

In the UK, Calderdale Council in West Yorkshire – which adopted a climate change emergency policy in 2020 – wants to make its menus fully plant-based, with a preference for seasonal, non-processed foods.

A joint venture between the Artevelde University of Applied Sciences and the City of Ghent has seen a food waste monitor installed in several restaurants, which will use the smart scale to better measure how much food is being thrown away.

Finally, advocacy group Eat Differently has rolled out a parody ad campaign called Hate Vegans? in Los Angeles. It aims to highlight the reasons people care about plant-based diets and their impact on the planet – ‘injuries’ sustained from preachy vegans could turn into settlements with the help of fictional attorney Seymour Loudermilk.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

The post Future Food Quick Bites: Non-Dairy Starbucks, Vegan Flights & A Bezos Protein Centre appeared first on Green Queen.

Israeli alternative protein startup Forsea Foods held an intimate tasting event for its cultivated unagi in Tel Aviv, with plans to launch the eel meat in Japan by 2026.

Investors, journalists, food manufacturers, opinion leaders and government representatives all convened at A, the Japanese restaurant in Tel Aviv, to get a taste of cultivated unagi yesterday.

The event, hosted by Forsea Foods, showcased three dishes featuring the Israeli startup’s cultivated freshwater eel as a centrepiece, nearly five months after it debuted the first prototype of the seafood innovation.

The highlight of the menu was unagi kabayaki, a traditional Japanese dish featuring a grilled eel fillet on a bed of rice. The preparation of the eel was supported by Yuval Ben Neriah, head chef and owner of A, and Katsumi Kusumoto, owner of Tokyo vegan restaurant Saido. It was an extension of the latter’s collaboration with Forsea Foods, having created two unagi dishes as proof of concept back in January.

“This project with Forsea has been particularly exciting as it marks my first venture into future food and the world of cell-cultured seafood and its resonating sustainability message,” said Ben Neriah. “The feedback from the diners was indeed uplifting. Several remarked that they wouldn’t have guessed that the unagi was cell-cultivated had they not been informed.”

Now, the company plans to hold further tasting events outside Israel this year, in preparation for regulatory applications and a market launch slated for 2026.

Hybrid seafood tasting pinpoints the cost challenge

Forsea Foods’ patented method for cultivated seafood uses organoid technology to create 3D microtissues comprising fat, muscle and connective tissues, which can mimic the functions and structure of organs. These spontaneously differentiate into edible cells, replicating the natural process of cell formation.

Moreover, the cell lines can self-organise into tissue structures without scaffold support. This simplifies the production process, eases supply chain bottlenecks for eel meat, and enhances the potential for scalability. And by significantly reducing the reliance on growth factors, the startup can produce in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

A $4.3B market, eel has always been a luxury seafood product, commanding wholesale prices between $40 and $60 per kg in Japan (which consumes over 70% of all eel catch). But overfishing, poaching, illegal trading, breeding troubles and pollution have ravaged supplies of the fish, with consumption declining from about 160,000 tonnes in 2000 to just over 60,000 tonnes in 2021 in Japan.

All this has made eel a critically endangered species and likely to become more expensive as demand doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Tackling costs is crucial, and it’s something that has been a major challenge for cultivated meat companies ever since the advent of the technology.

This is why most cultivated meat products that have come to the market or been showcased in public tastings are actually hybrids of plant-based ingredients and cultivated cells, which helps lower costs and makes them commercially viable. The eel presented in Forsea Foods’ tasting also contained plants, revealed co-founder and CEO Roee Nir.

While he didn’t disclose the amount of eel cell biomass used, he told Green Queen that “it was very evident in the tasting experience”. But Forsea Foods, which is working to scale up its process now, is confident about the price equation, with Nir suggesting that its technology will allow it to bring costs below price parity once it reaches larger production levels.

“The current R&D cost of the dishes we served is not really relevant to the price of the future product,” he argued. “Our organoid technology has several remarkable advantages related to the price parity challenge – it reduces the use of growth factors, eliminates the need for the scaffolding stage and makes the production process much more scalable.”

He added: “Forsea’s unique organoid technology has the potential to overcome many of the industry bottlenecks in bringing cultivated meat to the consumer plate… This event was a great opportunity for us to present our unprecedented achievements to partners and industry stakeholders.”

Forsea Foods hopes to debut cultivated unagi in Japan by 2026

One of the 40 attendees of Forsea Foods’ tasting event was Takahashi Seiichiro, Japan’s deputy chief of mission to Israel. It’s a marker of the startup’s commercialisation plans, targeting the main consumer of eel meat globally. “While we Japanese have been eating eel for more than 5000 years, we understand that cultivating eel is no simple task. Therefore, I believe that introducing the first cell-cultured eel is the accomplished result of great comprehensive corporate efforts,” said Seiichiro.

Forsea Foods is developing relationships with strategic partnerships in Japan as it targets a commercial debut of its cultivated eel in 2026. Saido – which already serves a vegan version of the fish – has previously indicated its intention to offer cultivated unagi once regulatory approval comes through. The startup previously told Green Queen it’s in talks with food safety authorities in Singapore too, but Nir said the plan is to introduce its product in Japan first, since it’s a “far larger” market.

Japan is among the countries advancing regulatory progress for novel foods. In April, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (which will continue to oversee food safety) transferred its food hygiene standards division to the Consumer Affairs Agency. Companies now must liaise with two agencies on regulatory conversations, but this puts the ultimate responsibility in prime minister Fumio Kishida’s hands.

“The Japanese regulatory process establishment is being drafted these days. That takes time. However, there is a strong backwind from the government to promote this industry,” Nir said, pointing to Kishida’s comments last year that called cellular agriculture an important part of “realising a sustainable food supply”. “Our assumption is that cultivated meat will be approved, if not late 2025, in early 2026,” he added.

Looking forward, the company is now working to enhance its recipes. Since the start of the year, we made significant advancements in improving our cell lines,” said Nir, who added that Forsea Foods is working on six different cell lines.

The startup, which has so far raised $5.2M in seed financing, will soon launch its Series A funding round, with plans to use the capital to establish a commercial pilot plant (the location of which is yet to be decided). It’s a tough funding environment for cultivated meat, where investments declined by 78% in 2023.

“Investors are now more selective and looking for companies with technological and commercial advantages. Forsea has a very unique organoid technology that allows it to reach price parity faster and bring its product to the consumer’s plate,” said Nir. “In addition, the company’s focus species at risk, which have a high price point and large market potential, allow it to target a very attractive market. Our first product, the cultivated eel, is very attractive in the Asian, European and American markets.”

Forsea Foods is the only known company working on cultivated eel, but others are producing plant-based versions. Fellow Israeli startup Steakholder Foods showcased a 3D-printed alternative in December (it plans to include cultured eel cells in the product at a later stage, if costs allow). Meanwhile, New York’s Ocean Hugger Foods and Japanese giant Nissin already have vegan eels on the market (using aubergines and soy protein, respectively).

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Israeli startup Kokomodo has emerged from stealth with a $750,000 investment to produce cocoa and chocolate products via cellular agriculture.

As the future of chocolate becomes increasingly uncertain, Kokomodo is the latest startup innovating to protect cocoa from climate change, and climate change from cocoa.

Armed with a $750,000 investment from The Kitchen FoodTech Hub and the Israeli Innovation Authority, the Rehovot-based player has come out of stealth to produce cell-based cocoa for the food and beverage, supplements and cosmetics industries.

Kokomodo derives its climate-resilient product from the cells of premium cocoa beans grown in Central and South America. Having successfully completed lab-scale production, it will use the capital to expand to pilot scale and utilise its bioprocessing systems to get closer to price parity with conventional chocolate, according to co-founder and CEO Tal Govrin.

“We are moving to produce biomass in a scalable bioreactor to further increase production volume and optimise it,” she tells Green Queen. “In 18 to 24 months, we plan to produce hundreds of litres in bioreactors, working toward reaching commercial scale.”

Speaking about the funding round, she added: “We will also focus on client engagement and widening our range of products, as well as regulations and IP submissions to extend our go-to-market.”

Why Kokomodo is making cell-based chocolate

Kokomodo is the result of a joint venture between The Kitchen FoodTech Hub and Tel Aviv-based Plantae Bioscience, whose technology has been developed behind closed doors for the last two years. “Kokomodo is promoting a variety of causes such as preservation of cacao, fair trade and shorter supply chains, to name only a few,” said Amir Zaidman, chief business officer of The Kitchen FoodTech Hub.

As an industry, cocoa is getting decimated by climate change, with scientists saying a third of cocoa trees could die out by 2050. Extreme weather events have ruined harvests and led to a shortage of cocoa, pushing prices up to all-time highs this year. In April, a tonne of cocoa was priced at over $12,000 – for context, it was under $2,500 in January 2023. Farmers in Ivory Coast, the largest cocoa producer, are truly feeling the heat, where more than 85% of the forest has been lost since 1960.

Meanwhile, producing cocoa products themselves has a highly detrimental impact on the planet. Only beef pollutes the atmosphere more than dark chocolate, and cocoa beans have one of the highest carbon opportunity costs (the amount of carbon lost from native vegetation and soils to produce food).

“Kokomodo was born from a profound passion for preserving the supply of cocoa,” says Govrin. “Our cellular agriculture technology ensures a steady flow of premium, health-boosting cocoa, aligning consumer enjoyment with global responsibility.”

Current trends point to price parity potential

The startup chose to source from Latin America as the region is known for its premium cocoa beans. “We aimed to obtain different varieties and genotypes to explore and take advantage of the potential of natural variance. We also obtain different cell lines originating from different parts of the cacao seedling while creating a cacao cell library and analytical capabilities to seek out the best cacao cells to produce,” explains Govrin.

“These carefully chosen cells are then cultivated using state-of-the-art cellular agriculture technology, nurturing them into a thriving cell culture. As the biomass grows, the production process moves to advanced bioreactors, where the cacao is harvested and processed according to the specific requirements of each application.”

She adds that Kokomodo’s “technologically systematic” approach ensures that its cocoa retains the quality and authenticity of the beans. “Through the company’s technology process, Kokomodo ensures cocoa that matches traditional chocolate flavours and textures, offering the genuine taste and characteristics of real cocoa (aroma, flavours, and sweetness), while capturing the nutraceutical values and health benefits of cacao.”

One of the biggest hurdles for any cellular agriculture company – but particularly one aiming to disrupt an already volatile market – is cost. While cocoa prices have been skyrocketing, matching it on price is still a tall order for cell-based producers.

But Govrin believes cell-cultured cocoa can be price-competitive due to two trends. “On one hand, the scalability of cell culture cacao production is expected to increase, leading to lower prices as the technology matures,” she says. “Simultaneously, traditional cocoa farming faces mounting economic and environmental pressures, which could drive up the prices of conventionally grown cocoa.”

She adds: “As the rising prices, costs and supply challenges of traditional cocoa cultivation intensify due to climate change impacts, disease, and overreliance on a few producer countries like Ghana and Ivory Coast, cell-cultured cocoa will provide a more sustainable and resilient solution for the industry.”

Choosing a non-agricultural solution over cocoa-free chocolate

Govrin suggests that Kokomodo is targeting premium brands that prioritise sustainable and ethical cocoa products, while actively exploring innovative technologies for cocoa cultivation. Its first product is a “high-value cocoa powder” that can be integrated into various products, followed by cocoa butter.

The idea is to use its cell-based cocoa products across different CPG categories, including chocolate, beverages, spreads, and protein bars. Its potential customers can get access to “custom-fit cocoa for diverse market demands”, the CEO says.

But, before any of that, the company will need to pass regulatory barriers in the countries it wants to commercialise in. Govrin indicates that a US launch may be more suitable, given that the self-affirmed GRAS process there is much simpler and quicker than the EU’s novel food regulations. “We are currently working with regulation advisors who can provide the required support to build our regulation strategy and application. Submission will take place once the growth process in bioreactors is established,” she reveals.

Kokomodo is among just a handful of companies working on cell-based chocolate, alongside fellow Israeli startup Celleste Bio, US producer California Cultured, and Finnish giant Fazer. More companies – such as Voyage Foods, Planet A Foods, Win-Win and Foreverland – are instead making cocoa-free alternatives to chocolate, using plants and fermentation to create chocolate-like products.

What does Govrin think about this approach? “We master the very essence of cacao as we select and cultivate cacao cells from a variety of real premium beans. It is the real thing. Not ‘like’ cocoa, nor is it a ‘substitute’,” she says, reiterating the nutraceutical values of cocoa to illustrate how Kokomodo’s innovation differs from “chocolate substitutes that contain a high level of refined sugar and vegetable fat”.

“Kokomodo uses science and technology to develop real cocoa in a way that is most impactful to human health and makes it readily available for use in consumer products. Cellular agriculture technology is a game changer in being able to bring cocoa to the market all year round,” she adds.

“With climate change threatening cocoa, a non-agricultural solution to produce it could ensure its survival for future generations, as we don’t want to give up on this powerful plant.”

The post With $750,000 in Funding, Kokomodo Emerges as Latest Cell-Based Chocolate Player appeared first on Green Queen.

South Korea’s Pulmuone is making its move into cultivated seafood with an R&D partnership with robotics company ABB.

Seoul-based plant protein giant Pulmuone has partnered with Swiss robotics company ABB to advance AI-assisted research and development into cultivated seafood production.

ABB’s expertise lies in electrification, automation and digitalisation technologies, and Pulmuone plans to leverage these capabilities to inform its efforts towards commercialising cultivated seafood.

The manufacturing process involves isolating cells from living fish, which are then used to make cell cultures. Pulmuone aims to automate this process with ABB’s robotics tech as part of its strategy to become a global future food leader.

“By combining Pulmuone’s specialised seafood cell cultivation core technology with ABB’s world-leading AI robotics technology, we expect to strengthen our technological competitiveness and create more synergy in advanced seafood food tech R&D,” said Sang-Gu Kim, head of food safety at the Pulmuone Technology Center.

Pulmuone looks to cultivated seafood to drive future growth

Pulmuone claims the partnership will be the first time AI and robot automation tech have been used for cell cultivation. “We will accelerate the establishment of an innovative mass production system for sustainable seafood cell-cultured food in the near future, leading to groundbreaking technological innovation,” said Kim.

In addition to the joint R&D for automating seafood cell cultivation, the collaboration will also see them analyse the production efficiency and productivity improvements achieved through the automaton process.

Plus, the partnership entails the protection of intellectual property for co-technologies and products, allowing both companies to safeguard their innovations. And they’ll also be able to mutually utilise research facilities and equipment, as well as exchange professional expertise.

Pulmuone, a market leader in tofu production for 40 years, hopes to reach mass production of cultivated seafood by 2026. The move is part of its drive to become an ESG leader internationally, as it aims to break even overseas this year. Last year, its sales reached nearly ₩3T ($2.1B). Its growth strategy is based upon four pillars: sustainable food expansion, global market expansion, strengthening ESG management, and future readiness through food tech.

The company has previously partnered with the likes of fellow Seoul-based startup Simple Planet (which it’s an investor in) to develop hybrid meat – a mix of cultivated and plant-based ingredients – and California’s BlueNalu to bring cultivated seafood to South Korea.

South Korea’s booming cultivated meat sector

The Pulmuone-ABB deal is yet another development in South Korea’s burgeoning cultivated meat sector. There has been a new wave of activity ever since the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety established a framework for regulatory approval of novel foods in February.

It came a year after the opening of the North Gyeongsang Cellular Agriculture Industry Support Center, a 2,309 sq m facility built over six years with a ₩9B ($7M) investment to develop biomaterials and support cultivated meat companies.

In April, the government created a regulatory-free special zone for the development of cultivated foods in the eastern province of Gyeongsangbuk-do. It harbours 10 startups that are working towards the commercialisation of cultivated meat, with ₩19.9B ($14.4M) set aside for the project.

And earlier this month, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced that it will invest ₩28.6B ($21M) in research funding for plant-based and cultivated seafood technologies.

“Korea’s leaders see the writing on the wall and understand that making meat more efficiently is a critical part of building a secure and sustainable food system in Asia,” Sam Lawrence, vice president of strategy and policy for Asia at the Good Food Institute, told Green Queen in April.

“There’s no pathway to decarbonising our protein supply without a rapid acceleration in future food manufacturing, which creates an enormous economic opportunity for nations that lead the way. By making bold public investments in cultivated meat development, Korea is signalling to food innovators around the world that they’re open for business,” he added.

A 1,110-person survey by the APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture in October revealed that 90% of South Koreans were willing to try cultivated meat at least once, and 39% were supportive of it being sold at supermarkets and restaurants. Price, however, is a key purchase driver, cited by 65% of respondents, followed by taste and texture (62%) and health/nutrition (48%).

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