Casein

Fermify secures $5 million for its animal-free caseins to make vegan cheese

Image courtesy of Fermify
Fermentation

Fermify Secures $5M for Mission to Remove Cows From Dairy by 2027

In a female-led seed funding round, Austrian biotech company Fermify has secured $5 million for its revolutionary animal-free production system that allows the removal of cows from cheese production. Founded in November 2021 by Eva Sommer and Christoph Herwig, Fermify has developed a fully automated platform to produce precision fermentation-derived casein proteins to make animal-free cheese at scale. Fermify aims to facilitate the “full disruption of cows” by 2027 by enabling the production of real cheese without the cruelty and environmental destruction caused by the dairy industry. Female-led investors Dörte Hirschberg from Article 9 climate tech fund Climentum Capital led the round. Co-investors include Bettine Schmitz from Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund and Nina Wöss from Fund F. Clima Now, Satgana Ventures, Triple Impact Ventures, and existing investors, …

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Organisations and Brands:Fermify
Zero Cow Factory founders developing animal-free casein

Image courtesy of Zero Farm Factory
Investments & Finance

Zero Cow Factory Secures $4M for India’s First Animal-Free Casein 

Zero Cow Factory, an Indian biotechnology startup producing precision fermentation proteins, has announced a $4 million seed round raised to produce animal-free casein at a commercial scale. The round was co-led by Green Frontier Capital, GVFL, and pi Ventures, with participation from Pascual Innoventures, the investment arm of a leading Spanish dairy group Pascual.  In 2021, Sohil and Parini Kapadia established Zero Cow Factory in Surat to revolutionize the dairy industry with sustainable products. “We are developing a technology to reproduce milk proteins to craft real dairy products that are ethical, safe, delicious, and identical to cow milk but without any animal involved,” said Parini, who is also the company’s CSO.  Disrupting the dairy industry The biotech claims it has developed a patented technology to produce animal-free whey …

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Organisations and Brands:Zero Cow Factory
Sergey Solomatin

© Nobell Foods
People

Animal-Free Cheese Producer Nobell Foods Hires Former Impossible VP Sergey Solomatin

Nobell Foods, an animal-free cheese producer based in California, has hired Sergey Solomatin as its Vice President of Food Science and Product Development. Solomatin was previously at Impossible Foods for over a decade, where he created and led the Materials and Texture research group. This group was key in developing and launching Impossible’s Ground Beef products, among others. Solomatin will now bring his expertise in nucleic acid biochemistry, biophysics, polymer chemistry, and pharmaceutical sciences to Nobell Foods. According to the company, his arrival comes during a period of strategic growth. “At Nobell Foods, we harness the power of plants to create animal-free cheese with accessibility and craveability at the forefront,” said CEO and founder Magi Richani. “As we pioneer a new category in food with …

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Organisations and Brands:Nobell Foods
Pigmentum cofounder

©Pigmentum

Cultivated, Cell-Cultured & Biotechnology

Israel’s Pigmentum: Producing Casein in Plants for Next Gen Milk Alternatives

Israel-based Pigmentum, on a mission to “become the leaders in sustainable production of biomolecules for human well-being,” introduces the next generation of a method for creating plants, which will drastically optimize ways for producing plant-based functional casein for the new wave of animal-free dairy. Further to the well-hyped products of cellular agriculture, new developments in plant cell tech are appearing around the world. Pigmentum produces casein in plants, as opposed to in microorganisms or tissues, reports the startup to vegconomist. Tal Lutzky (CEO) and Amir Tiroler (CTO) met during agronomy studies at Robert H. Smith School of Agriculture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Rehovot campus and together they developed the concept of an inducible mechanism in transgenic plants. With the support of Prof. Alexander …

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Organisations and Brands:Pigmentum
an animal-free fresh cheese made with microbial caseins on a wooden board with nuts and rosemary.

© Those Vegan Cowboys
Fermentation

Those Vegan Cowboys Unveils its First Cheese Made with Microbial Caseins

Those Vegan Cowboys, a Belgian food tech developing animal-free dairy, announces the successful development of its first animal-free product. The company claims it crafted a small cheese using dairy-identical caseins obtained via its precision fermentation process. The company explains that caseins are milk proteins not found anywhere else in nature but in mammals that provide cheese with its unique qualities.   It is real, and it is here Will van der Tweel, the food tech’s lab chief, said: “It has some ripening to do. But it is real, and it is here. It is comparable to ordinary cheese. And yet it is completely free from animal products. With this cheese, recreating any kind of cow’s milk cheese is now possible.” Microbial caseins will revolutionise the dairy …

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Organisations and Brands:Those Vegan Cowboys

© Standing Ovation

Cheese Alternatives

Babybel Parent Company Bel Group and Standing Ovation Partner for Animal-Free Cheese

Following its acquisition of an equity stake in Standing Ovation this September, multinational cheese leader Bel Group, famous for iconic brands The Laughing Cow, Babybel, and Boursin, announces an exclusive partnership with the food tech startup to produce animal-free cheese. Based in Paris, Standing Ovation is a precision fermentation specialist that produces animal-free caseins – proteins necessary in cheesemaking – using microbes instead of cows. Microbial caseins are identical to those found in dairy milk, and Bel Group will use them to develop its alternative cheese offerings. Standing Ovation raised €12 million to produce its animal-free casein, in this September’s Series A round where Bel Group was the “undisclosed leading player in the food industry” at the time of our reporting. “Committed to future of …

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Organisations and Brands:Bel
new cultures's mozzarella cheese melting in an oven baked pizza on a plate

© New Culture
Investments & Finance

New Culture Secures Investment for its Animal-Free Mozzarella

New Culture has announced an undisclosed investment from Korean food and biotech giant CJ CheilJedang to advance its animal-free mozzarella at scale.    New Culture — which plans to launch its “melty, stretchy mozzarella” at pizzerias in 2023 — explains that the new investment will go towards product development and scale-up. Founded in New Zealand but now based in San Leandro, California, New Culture creates animal-free mozzarella using microbial caseins produced via precision fermentation. The company claims its cheese alternative, made without cows, tastes and functions exactly like traditional dairy. “Invaluable experience and connections” A leading food and biotechnology company and the world’s leading fermentation-based bio-products supplier, CJ CheilJedang is also a 25% market-share holder in the US frozen pizza market. In 2019, the company …

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Organisations and Brands:New Culture
Casein proteins post

© Standing Ovation
Investments & Finance

Standing Ovation Raises €12M for Animal-Free Casein Production

Standing Ovation, an alt protein food tech startup, today announced it has completed a Series A financing round led by Astanor Ventures, to develop and scale the production of animal-free caseins.   Created in 2020 and based in Paris, Standing Ovation aims to become a key player in the food transition by specialising in the development and production of caseins by precision fermentation to make non-animal and lactose-free cheese and dairy products. CEO Frederic Paques said: “Standing Ovation’s technology has tremendous potential. However, bringing the products rapidly to the market requires significant resources, and substantial funding had become necessary. Astanor Ventures, which had already supported us at an earlier stage, understood it, as did the other participants in this round.” Peakbridge, Seventure Partners, Big Idea Ventures, …

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Organisations and Brands:Big Idea Ventures
Cows/ cattle

Courtesy of ProVeg International

Fermentation

Fermify Aims for “Full Disruption of Cows” by 2027 with Real Cow-Free Cheese

Fermify, an Austrian deeptech company developing an alt dairy platform for casein proteins, has announced the closing of its pre-seed funding. A consortium of climate tech and food investors have invested in Fermify’s pre-seed round to accelerate its casein production platform to produce real cheese without cows. The Vienna-based alt dairy company was founded in November 2021 by CEO Eva Sommer, who previously co-founded cultivated fat pioneer Peace of Meat which was acquired by MeaTech. Fermify’s fully automated digitized platform will deliver cultivated casein proteins which the company claims have the same functional properties and nutritional profile of real cheese. This will enable its customers to pursue in-house production of cow-free cheese. Casein protein is a protein found in milk that gives milk its white color, …

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Organisations and Brands:Fermify
ProProtein founder Kaisa Orgusaar

Founder and CEO Kaisa Orgusaar © ProProtein
Cultivated, Cell-Cultured & Biotechnology

Estonia: ProProtein Opens Seed Round for Cow-Free Casein

ProProtein, the female-driven Estonian alt dairy startup, has initiated a seed funding round to develop its precision fermentation platform. Looking for €700,000, ProProtein aims to develop scalable biotech to produce dairy proteins from yeast. Through March and April, ProProtein will be raising its seed round funding, following the company’s announcement of a successful casein expression by co-founder and CSO Tiina Tamm PhD. Caseins are essential functional proteins in milk that give cheese the ability to melt and stretch as well as traditional flavors. Casein without the cow Calling the latest casein expression a “big milestone”, ProProtein hopes the next funding round we will focus on optimizing its yields and going through safety analysis, with the ultimate goal to produce real dairy cheese without cows. Female-led …

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Organisations and Brands:ProVeg

© Follow Your Heart/Danone
Cheese Alternatives

Danone North America Supports Innovation Challenge Around Properties of Casein to Improve Vegan Cheese

Danone North America is partnering with Future Food Tech to launch an innovation challenge aimed at improving the properties of vegan cheese. Startups are invited to develop innovative solutions, including animal-free casein, to help solve for the functionality, including melt and stretch, of plant-based cheese alternatives. Casein is a milk protein that gives cheese its stretching and melting properties. While many companies have tried to replicate its properties with plant-based ingredients, most attempts have fallen short. Danone hopes the development of animal-free casein could be one solution to improve the quality of plant-based cheeses, though the company has no plans to change its current product manufacturing process. Precision fermentation technology has already made it possible to develop vegan versions of other milk proteins such as …

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Organisations and Brands:DanoneFuture Food Tech
vegan casein using fermentation

© Fooditive Group
Fermentation

Fooditive Develops Food Industry’s “First Ever” Vegan Casein Using Fermentation

Dutch plant-based ingredients company Fooditive Group has developed vegan casein using fermentation. Previously, the protein could only be obtained from milk. Casein is responsible for much of the texture and functionality of dairy products, such as the stretchiness of cheese, and this is one reason why vegan alternatives sometimes struggle to hit the mark. An animal-free source of casein could potentially lead to huge improvements in alt-dairy. According to Fooditive, the ingredient will be the first vegan casein available for applications in the food industry when it launches next year. The company already has a list of food developers and businesses lined up to test the product. While companies such as Nobell Foods and New Culture have also developed vegan casein, they only use the …

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Organisations and Brands:fooditive
Nobell cheese platter

©Nobell Foods
Investments & Finance

Nobell Foods: Plant-Based Casein For Realistic Vegan Cheese Endorsed by Robert Downey Jr Raises $75M

Plant-based cheese company Nobell Foods has raised $75 million in a Series B funding round. Founded by Lebanese entrepreneur Magi Richani, the San Francisco-based startup claims to have unlocked the secret to stretchy, realistic vegan cheese. “Magi Richani and her Nobell team are putting the eco in queso… milking a crop instead of a cow” – Robert Downey Jr. An engineer by training, Richani understood that dairy proteins called caseins are fundamental to providing cheese with the qualities that consumers are accustomed to with traditional dairy, such as the melt and the stretch. Richani and her team developed a method to recreate the genetic code of casein in soybean seeds and grow plants that have the same dairy caseins found in conventional dairy and can …

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Organisations and Brands:Footprint Coalition