Animal-derived products have that familiar taste and texture, and replicating that with fermented, plant-based alternatives has been a challenge for some companies.
Dairy, in particular, is one area where you need to get that “creamy” texture, but without the actual cream. Cultivated Life Sciencesa Swiss food biotech startup, says it has solved this by developing its cream yeast, derived from a specific type of oleaginous yeast, that mimics the texture and mouthfeel of traditional cream.
In 2022, the company raised a pre-seed round of $1.5 million. At that time, he had developed the high-fat ingredient with the texture and stability of dairy-free products, which also replaces additives and maintains the quality of taste.
The company’s technology involves fermentation of yeast biomass. Unlike precision fermentation that tries to replicate proteins at the molecular level, biomass fermentation uses the high protein content and rapid growth of microorganisms to make protein-rich food. This method is also non-GMO and easier to scale, said Lucie Rein, chief commercial officer of Cultivated Biosciences. Rein joined the company in March 2023.
Rein explained that sourdough contains fat, protein and fiber—all from the yeast—and has a “microstructure” of yeast lipid droplets that resemble milk fat droplets. Cultivated Biosciences plans for its finished product to go into consumer products, for example, such as coffee creamers, milk and ice cream.
The company went public in December with its first proof-of-concept coffee creamer, which Rein said is rather difficult to get right. This is because when we add cream to coffee, the creamy consistency, taste and color must be maintained.
“It’s extremely difficult to replicate something that is stable in coffee because coffee is both very hot and very acidic,” Rein told TechCrunch. “When you pour it into your coffee, it has to stay completely stable. So that’s what we did, and it was a game changer for us. We’ve also replaced the bleaching agents, so we’re replacing everything and staying stable.”
Over the past year, Cultivated Biosciences has been working on scaling up. In 2022 it produced 5 or 10 liters of cream. Today, that’s 1,500 liters with the potential to reach 80,000 liters with its production partners, Rein said.
Dairy continues to attract the attention of entrepreneurs and investors. In January, Perfect Day raised a pre-Series E funding up to $90 million. It uses precision fermentation, like Better Dairy and New Culture, to produce the milk proteins. In February, Miruku grabbed $5 million for its plant-based dairy. There’s also Brown Foods, which is developing “cow-free” cell-cultured milk in a lab.
Cultivated Biosciences joins them, having raised another $5 million recently. Navus Ventures led the investment round and was joined by Founderful (formerly known as Wingman Ventures), HackCapital and Lukas Böni, the founder of Planted. The round also introduced new investors including Joyful VC, Mandi Ventures and Zürcher Kantonalbank.
The company is now in the midst of talks with foodservice companies with the goal of bringing its product to market in the United States in 2025, pending approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Rein said.
“We’re in the middle of running tests with the industry’s major key accounts,” Rein said. “Once we have the sign of their approval, we can also start contacting smaller, local companies in the U.S. The fact that we are already in touch with key accounts is a sign that our approach is interesting and now, of course, they want to test the ingredients in several rounds of testing.’
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