The Cultured Hub Facility Finally Opens, Positioning Switzerland as a Leader in Scaling Cell-Based Foods
The Cultured Hub has launched a “scale-up as a service” facility for cell-based foods in The Valley in Kemptthal, Switzerland, and celebrated its opening yesterday with the State of Play Cultured Foods 2.0 event. The Cultured Hub is a joint venture between three Swiss industry giants — Migros, Givaudan, and Bühler Group as first announced in 2021 — that aims to leverage their extensive food processing and product development experience to …
Liberation Labs to Advance Precision Fermentation Facility with $3.5M Fundraise
US biomanufacturing company Liberation Labs has raised $3.5 million via a Secured Promissory Note (“Note”), including a $2.0 million subscription from the VC firm Agronomics Limited (LSE: ANIC). With this note, Agronomics’ total investment in the precision fermentation company amounts to $19.6 million, holding 37.5% on a fully diluted basis. Other participants in the fundraising, each contributing $0.5 million, include New Agrarian Company Limited (an affiliate of Agronomics), Galloway Limited, …
Believer Meats & GEA Partner to “Produce Cultivated Meat Products at the Right Cost”
Israel’s Believer Meats and GEA Group, one of the world’s technology and equipment suppliers for food manufacturers, have announced a strategic partnership to make cultivated meat more affordable, accessible, and sustainable. The collaboration will focus on co-developing technologies and processes to improve the unit economics and sustainability of cultivated meat production, starting with chicken and potentially expanding to other products. The collaboration follows Believer Meats’ recent MOU with AGWA, Abu Dhabi’s new food …
Guest Post: GEMÜ Positions Itself as Leading Provider of Valve Designs for the Cultivated Meat Industry
Cell-based foodstuffs have developed into a promising sector that will significantly impact the future of the foodstuff industry. The use of suitable valve designs is also a significant contributing factor to the success of this industrial sector. As a reputable leading valve manufacturer, GEMÜ offers innovative solutions for the specific requirements of the cultivated meat industry. The GEMÜ Group develops and manufactures valves, measurement and control systems for liquids, vapours …
Mission Barns Revamps Single-Cell Suspension Pharma Bioreactors to Scale Cultivated Meat Production
Cultivated fat startup Mission Barns has engineered a new bioreactor to optimize cultivated meat production, aiming to replace the single-cell suspension bioreactors traditionally used in the pharmaceutical industry. “We’ve invented a novel bioreactor that allows us to scale the production of cultivated meat, whether it’s pork, beef, chicken, fat, or muscle,” Mission Barns explains in conversation with Cultivated X. Founded in Berkeley by Eitan Fischer, former director of cellular agriculture at fellow …
Ohly to Open State-of-the-Art Fermentation Plant in Hamburg
Ohly, a manufacturer of yeast-based specialities, is opening a new state-of-the-art fermentation plant in Hamburg next year, as consumer and investor interest in fermentation derived products and yeast-based ingredients continue to surge. The new fermentation plant will be built according to the latest hygiene design standards, which guarantee sustainable cleaning, says the company. A key feature of the new plant is the heat recovery system, which conserves and reuses enough …
Foray Bioscience Raises $3M to Restore Forests With Plant Cell Culture Tech
Boston-based Foray Bioscience, a startup leveraging plant cell culture to restore forests and, thus, secure plant supply chains, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by the Australian VC ReGen Ventures. Other participants, including Engine Ventures, Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, Understorey, Superorganism, and additional investors, backed the biotech in this round, bringing its total to $3.875 million. With a background in plant-based materials research from MIT and Draper Laboratory, Dr. Ashley Beckwith (CEO) founded Foray …
Danone to Open Precision Fermentation Center ‘Biotech Open Platform’ in France with Strategic Players
French dairy giant Danone, engineered materials group Michelin, the US startup DMC Biotechnologies, and Crédit Agricole Centre France have partnered to create the Biotech Open Platform. The new center will focus on precision fermentation, a technology pivotal for innovation in agri-food and materials with the potential to address the need for sustainable alternatives to animal and fossil-based products, according to the announcement. Located in the commune of Clermont-Ferrand in Auvergne, at the …
Mycorena Pauses Large-Scale Mycoprotein Facility: “Investors are Hesitant to Back Projects with Heavy Capital Requirements”
Pioneering mycelium-based solutions company Mycorena announces it is discontinuing its large-scale factory project in Sweden for Promyc, its flagship mycoprotein ingredient. Planned in 2022 and designed with Tetra Pak, the large-scale production factory aimed to supply the then “booming” plant-based market with volumes of mycoprotein: 5,000 tons by the end of 2023, with a total production volume of up to 100,000 tons in multiple stages. Despite significant growth and raising …
Prolific Machines Raises $55M to Offer “Never Before Possible Biosolutions” Including Cultivated Meat Whole Cuts
Emeryville-based Prolific Machines, a US company pioneering the use of light as a tool to grow and control cells in biomanufacturing, has announced it has closed a $55 million Series B1 funding round. The new capital will help Prolific Machines scale and commercialize its photo molecular biology platform, which it claims can significantly improve the production and lower the costs of bioproducts, including cultivated meat, nutritional and therapeutic proteins, pharmaceuticals, …