Wagyu Beef

Cultivated meat startup Orbillion Bio has raised venture capital funding to develop further its predictive model or "scale-up algorithm" for cultivated meat.

© Orbillion Bio
Cultivated Meat

Orbillion Bio Secures Funds to Cultivate Beef at Scale With Innovative Algorithm

Cultivated meat startup Orbillion Bio has secured venture capital funding to develop further its predictive model or “scale-up algorithm” for cultivated meat and bring a product to the market “within a year’s time.” Specializing in cultivating heritage breed meats like Wagyu, elk, and lamb, Orbillion is currently focusing on creating a ground beef product that merges cultivated meat with plant-based ingredients to provide a “tasty, nutritious product at the price of conventionally produced meat,” Orbillion CEO Patricia Bubner, told Cultivated X. The Venture Collective led the funding round, with co-leadership from At One Ventures. YCombinator, Metaplanet, and other prominent global food investors backed the company’s cultivated meat algorithm. This capital brings the startup’s total raised funds to $15 million. The algorithm for cultivated meat Instead of solely …

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Blair Bullus headshot

Blair Bullus © Wamame Foods
Interviews

Wamame Foods: “We Believe Alternative Proteins Must Be Of a Higher Quality Than Their Animal-Based Counterparts”

Wamame Foods is the Canadian innovator behind Waygu™, a plant-based alternative to wagyu beef that has been highly praised by renowned chefs. Just this month, Waygu arrived at 7-Eleven stores in Canada, with its plant-based steak strips now featuring in several ready-to-serve menu offerings such as the Southwestern Plant-Based Steak Wrap and Mexican Plant-Based Steak Wrap. Since its launch in 2021, Waygu has seen incredible success, securing millions of dollars in funding and being served at the Ted2022 Conference attended by Bill Gates, Al Gore, and Elon Musk. The beef alternative has now expanded across the US and Canada, with the help of online marketplace GTFO It’s Vegan and other notable partners. Following the 7-Eleven launch, Wamame president Blair Bullus spoke to us about the …

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7-Eleven Waygu Steak Wrap

Southwestern Plant-Based Steak Wrap ©7-Eleven Canada
Products & Launches

Wamame’s ‘Waygu’ Beef Launches in 7-Eleven Canada Plant-Based Steak Wraps

Canada’s Wamame Foods announces it is launching its ultra-premium Waygu™ plant-based meat strips in 7-Eleven Canada locations nationwide. Now available for a limited time, Waygu is featured in several items on the chain’s “ready-to-serve” menu, including the Southwestern Plant-Based Steak Wrap and Mexican Plant-Based Steak Wrap. According to Wamame, its products were chosen as 7-Eleven Canada’s top choice to help drive the chain’s mandate to offer more “ready-to-serve” vegan and sustainable options. Wamame states it worked directly with 7-Eleven Canada for six months to develop the new offerings.  Every 7-Eleven across Canada “We are excited that Wamame products are now available in every 7-Eleven location across Canada,” says Mr. Jarrett Malnarich, CEO of Wamame Foods Inc. “Being able to develop, launch and support 7-Eleven Canada’s …

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Waygu Beef

©Top Tier Foods
Company News

Wamame Foods Welcomes New Partners to Expand Plant-Based Waygu Beef Across Canada and US

Canada’s Wamame Foods, which produces the world’s first plant-based wagyu beef, welcomes Teja Foods and Sierra Meat and Seafood as new consortium partners.  Along with innovation partners Merit Functional Foods, Wismettac Asian Foods and Crush Dynamics, and a co-investment from Protein Industries Canada, the plant-based consortium seeks to develop and distribute Wamame’s plant-based alternatives to wagyu beef. The companies’ efforts will build on the early success of Wamame’s Waygu brand by investing in research and development through partnerships with the University of British Columbia and the Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre.  According to Wamame, the research process will help create a suite of products that can compete against the best beef brands in the world. These offerings would be sold under both the Waygu brand and …

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Orbillion cultivated beef

©Orbillion
Cultivated, Cell-Cultured & Biotechnology

Orbillion Bio Partners with Solar Biotech to Scale Cultivated Wagyu Beef for US Market

Cultivated meat startup Orbillion Bio announces it is partnering with Solar Biotech, a leader in SynBio bioprocessing, to further develop and scale production of premium cultivated Wagyu beef for US consumers. The partners plan to scale to 20,000L bioreactors, which will be capable of producing over 4 million pounds of meat every year. According to Orbillion, the strategic partnership reinforces their commitment to achieve price parity with conventional meat by 2026 and commodity pricing for beef by 2030. Through the collaboration, Orbillion states it now has a clear path to US commercialization of its first product, cultivated Wagyu beef. The effort will combine Orbillion’s proprietary cell culture platform with Solar Biotech’s scale-up bioprocess development capabilities and infrastructure, proprietary AI-driven bioprocess software, biosensing technologies, and vertically …

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Orbillion Bio cultivated meat team

COO & Co-Founder Samet Yildirim, CEO & Co-Founder Patricia Bubner, CTO & Co-Founder Gabriel Levesque-Tremblay © Orbillion
Cultivated, Cell-Cultured & Biotechnology

Orbillion Bio to Bring Cultivated Meats Inc Wagyu Beef to 35 European Countries

Cultivated meat startup Orbillion Bio yesterday announced a new partnership with Dutch specialty meat distributor Luiten Food to go-to-market in 35 European countries. The Silicon Valley-based cultivated meat startup is working on heritage meats such as bison, elk, lamb, and wagyu beef, claiming it will be able to achieve price parity by as early as 2026, as well as commodity pricing for beef in 2030. The startup is dedicated to democratising access to cultivated meat on an international level, with its new partnership opening 35 European markets to introduce the next generation of meat. From cell to product According to Orbillion Bio co-founder Patricia Bubner, developing a path from cell to product is the next level that cultivated meat companies must reach to achieve a marketable …

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Wamame Launches 'Waygu' beef at Germany's biggest sushi chain

Waygu © Top Tier Foods

Retail & E-Commerce

Plant-Based Waygu Beef Launches on GTFO It’s Vegan Across US 

Canada’s Wamame Foods has launched its plant-based Waygu branded beef products across the US with online retailer GTFO It’s Vegan. The vegan version of Japanese wagyu steak is claimed to be the world’s first premium plant-based alternative and will now be available via eCommerce.  Speaking to vegconomist on the launch, founder Blair Bullus said: “What GTFO It’sVegan offers Waygu is an avenue to reach all customers across the US and Canada with an internet connection. Now anyone interested in purchasing a truly premium plant-based meat has a great way to order, via GTFOit’sVegan.com” The new partnership will start with Wamame’s Waygu Premium Sukiyaki Style “Beef” Teriyaki strips, which the company claims have the same tenderness and aroma as conventional wagyu beef, and is made in …

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Wagyu Japanese plate from above

©Top Tier Foods
Company News

Vegan Wagyu Steak to Be Served to Elon Musk, Bill Gates & Al Gore at Exclusive TED Conference

Wamame Foods, a subsidiary of Top Tier Foods Inc., is best known for its leading brand Waygu – creators of alt wagyu steak which the company describes as the “world’s first premium, plant-based beef alternative.” Top Tier announces today that its flagship product will be served at the Ted2022 Conference in Vancouver later this month. The news follows a string of successes for the Canadian producer which last November raised $7.6 million for global expansion and this February announced its launch into Advanced Fresh Concepts, the largest sushi franchise in the US. Musk, Gates and Gore to try? Speakers at this year’s TED2022 Conference in Vancouver will include Elon Musk, former Vice President Al Gore, and Bill Gates. It could be assumed that Gates is …

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Wamame Launches 'Waygu' beef at Germany's biggest sushi chain

Waygu © Top Tier Foods

Investments & Finance

Canadian Alt Wagyu Beef Company Wamame Foods Secures $7.6M to Expand Globally

Canada’s Wamame Foods – the plant-based food producer known for creating Waygu, the world’s first plant-based wagyu beef – forms part of an international collaboration to expand its product line. The $7.6 million project will use ground-breaking plant-based research to create a suite of high-quality meat alternatives with beef textures to be sold under the Waygu brand.  A subsidiary of Top Tier Foods, Wamame Foods will lead a consortium of companies including Protein Industries Canada, Merit Functional Foods, University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Land and Food Systems, and Wismettac Asian Foods – one of the largest Japanese food distributors in North America.  Through honoring traditional Japanese cooking and fermentation techniques, Wamame will use the funding to focus on research and development in taste and …

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Ohayo Valley wagyu steak

© Ohayo Valley
Cultivated, Cell-Cultured & Biotechnology

A Strategic Stake in Steak: CULT Food Science Buys Into Wagyu Ribeye Producer Ohayo Valley

CULT Food Science Corp announces has completed a strategic investment into Berekely’s Ohayo Valley Inc., a cultivated meat science and cell biology company focused on developing and commercializing intellectual property to facilitate the sustainable production of A5-grade cultivated, wagyu ribeye beef. As we reported in August, food innovators around the world are beginning to get involved in alt wagyu across the plant-based, cell-based and even 3D printed spheres. Founder of Canada’s Top Tier Foods, Blair Bullus, noted in an interview with vegconomist that wagyu is hugely appealing to alt meat innovators because “Wagyu beef is widely considered the best beef in the world by meat-eaters and is renowned for its fat marbling and tender qualities.” Ohayo’s unique take on the steak: it claims to have …

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Ohayo Valley wagyu steak

© Ohayo Valley
Cultivated, Cell-Cultured & Biotechnology

A Strategic Stake in Steak: CULT Food Science Buys Into Wagyu Ribeye Producer Ohayo Valley

CULT Food Science Corp announces has completed a strategic investment into Berekely’s Ohayo Valley Inc., a cultivated meat science and cell biology company focused on developing and commercializing intellectual property to facilitate the sustainable production of A5-grade cultivated, wagyu ribeye beef. As we reported in August, food innovators around the world are beginning to get involved in alt wagyu across the plant-based, cell-based and even 3D printed spheres. Founder of Canada’s Top Tier Foods, Blair Bullus, noted in an interview with vegconomist that wagyu is hugely appealing to alt meat innovators because “Wagyu beef is widely considered the best beef in the world by meat-eaters and is renowned for its fat marbling and tender qualities.” Ohayo’s unique take on the steak: it claims to have …

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©Top Tier Foods

Printed Technology

How Would You Like Your Wagyu Beef? 3D-Printed, Cell-Cultured, or Plant-Based? 

Scientists from Osaka University claim to have created the world’s first 3D-printed wagyu beef in Japan this week, using bovine satellite cells and adipose-derived stem cells isolated from Wagyu cows to 3D-print a realistic steak piece containing muscle, fat, and blood vessels. Wagyu can be translated literally to “Japanese cow,” and is famous around the globe for its high content of intramuscular fat. Known as marbling or Sashi, this fat provides the beef with its distinctive flavors and texture. As Wagyu beef has become an interesting and vibrant niche in the alt meat innovation landscape, vegconomist takes a look at the biggest alt Wagyu developments to date.  Alt Wagyu – 2018 to present December, 2018: Eat Just, producer of JUST Egg, was one of the …

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Top Tier Foods by Brice Ferre Studio
Interviews

Top Tier Foods: “Chef Toju Thought He Was Eating Real Wagyu Beef, Not Something Made of Plants”

Based in Canada, Top Tier Foods produces a vegan Wagyu beef called Waygu – a product so authentic that a renowned master chef reportedly could not tell the difference between the two. We spoke with founder Blair Bullus on what sets this vegan beef apart and makes it “not just another plant-based ground beef company.

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Australian Waygu Association

©Australian Waygu Association

Agriculture / Agribusiness

Australia’s JAT Oppenheimer Launches Vegan Wagyu Beef, Australian Meat Farmers Call it “Offensive” and “Nonsensical”

Meat lobbyists globally have been fighting vegan companies using names traditionally associated with animal products, ie meat, dairy and seafood. Now, Sydney-based food company JAT Oppenheimer, has produced a tofu-based Wagyu ‘beef’ that beef farmers have referred to as “offensive” and “nonsensical”.

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JUST Wagyu

©Eat Just
Products & Launches

JUST Partners With Japanese Beef Producers to Create Lab-grown Waygu Beef

JUST, the company formerly known as Hampton Creek, had an incredibly successful year in 2018 with their plant-based offerings, including their flagship product, a mayo made from yellow split peas, and their egg substitute created from mung beans. Now the company has announced a “clean meat partnership” with Japanese beef producer, Toriyama, to produce lab-grown waygu beef.

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