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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Camille Bond

With Series of Partnerships, Givaudan Positions Itself for an Alt Protein Future

Swiss flavor manufacturer Givaudan recently announced plans to open a new Cultured Food Innovation Hub by 2022. This is the latest in a flurry of new initiatives that suggest the company is positioning itself as a major player in the alternative protein industry.

Givaudan and its partners hope to support cell-cultured protein startups as they perform research and development and bring new products to market. At the Innovation Hub, startups will have access to cell-culture and bio-fermentation equipment, as well as a product development laboratory.

With many countries awaiting regulatory decisions for cell-cultured products, Givaudan appears to be anticipating a growing demand for business-to-business services in the industry. The company already partners with plant-based meat and dairy startups to develop, prototype, and test products. This foray into cultivated protein territory means they’ll stay on the cutting edge as cell-culture products make their debuts.

The facility will be built outside of Zurich, and will be owned in partnership with plant equipment manufacturer Bühler and retail food giant Migros—a partnership that’s interesting in its own right. Pooling their ranges of expertise, the companies should be able to offer comprehensive, turnkey services to would-be cell-cultured meat manufacturers. Fabio Campanile, Givaudan’s Global Head of Science and Technology, Taste & Wellbeing, commented on the partnership in a recent press release:

“Bühler contributes with industry-leading solutions that are used in the scale-up and production of thousands of food products around the world; Givaudan brings in centuries of experience and knowledge in every aspect of taste, including all kinds of meat alternatives, and deep expertise in biotechnology, to product development; Migros is known for its competence in customer interaction and market cultivation.”

Givaudan has also been keeping busy with its own research and development efforts, working on producing sustainable flavor ingredients for alternative meats and other products. Last month, The Spoon reported on Givaudan and Ginkgo Bioworks’ joint effort to develop new flavor and fragrance ingredients through bio-fermentation. More recently, the company announced another partnership with Danish biotech company Biosyntia—this one focused on transforming natural sugars into flavoring agents.

We may see more companies from outside of the alternative protein industry take an interest in cell-cultured meat. German life sciences and electronics manufacturer Merck KGaA is now offering technology solutions (from process design to growth medium formulation) for cell-cultured manufacturers. These big-name partners should help smaller startups to bring their products to market more quickly.

David Welch on GMO Controversy and Its Lessons for the Cell-Cultured Meat Industry

The introduction of GMO crops in the 1990s was a moment of opportunity for international agriculture—yet communications with consumers went wrong.

GMO crops have been called frankenfoods, mutants, and carcinogens. According to the Pew Research Center, roughly half of U.S. adults believe that GMO foods are less healthy than GMO-free foods. The Non-GMO Project reports that its butterfly graphic is “the fastest-growing label in the natural products industry.”

Now Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder at Synthesis Capital, an investment management firm focused on food system transformation, David Welch has a researcher’s outlook on the rollout of GMO crops. He spent his undergraduate years studying plant biology at UC Berkeley. In his later experience as a research assistant, some of his work focused on genetically modified crops like barley and maize.

Last week, I got on Zoom with Welch to unpack the parallels between the launch of GMO crops and the advent of cell-cultured meats today.

Avoiding a communication breakdown

Around the time when GM crops were first introduced to the public, the scientific community was still debating the safety implications of modified foods. Welch believes that some of that early discourse sowed the seeds of public uncertainty about the safety of GMO foods. Even once the scientific community had reached a consensus, it was difficult to clear up the confusion that had already been created.

“I’m not suggesting that you should stop negative discussions from taking place, and I think it’s fine to have some dissenting views,” says Welch. Yet the lack of clear communication regarding the underlying science of GMOs likely had an impact on public acceptance, an important lesson for the cell-cultured meat industry: “There’s an opportunity for the industry to work closely together to make sure that the science is communicated in a non-confusing way.”

Welch hopes to see companies, governments, and academics work together to develop a common language for describing cell cultivation concepts. That language could help to smooth out issues in the regulation and labeling arena, which has already proven to be a contentious zone for plant-based products.

Importantly, that common language would also help to standardize communications with the public—“so that you don’t have 20 companies talking about the science in 20 different ways, which then creates confusion,” says Welch.

Regulation and mistrust

Even in the U.S., where some GM ingredients have been widely adopted, the regulation of modified crops is notoriously arduous.

“It’s a very expensive and multi-year process to get a GMO crop approved in basically any country,” says Welch. “And I think there’s some evidence through consumer research that that leads to distrust in the technology. People think, if they have to regulate this so stringently, then it must be dangerous.”

Here, he says, lies a potential parallel between GM and cell-cultured meat technologies. In the U.S. and most other countries, the alternative meat industry is still awaiting a regulatory framework. That framework could ultimately affect consumers’ views of cell-cultured meats.

“I’m not suggesting that we should have no regulation,” says Welch. “I think that the regulatory authorities and the companies need to work together to create a regulatory pathway that is safe, but not so onerous that the public perceives the technology as very risky because there’s so much regulation attached to it.”

The future of food work

“One of the other tensions that existed with GM crops was how they were rolled out into the market and the impact that had on some farming communities,” says Welch. From the beginning, seeds for GMO commodity crops were controlled by a few large companies, a trend that has only intensified since the technology was first introduced. “Those companies ended up with a lot of control over the farmers, and I think that’s had negative effects on some farmers.”

There’s another lesson there for cell-cultured meat companies: Many consumers’ perceptions of alternative meat products could well be affected by the industry’s impact on their own communities.

“I think it’s important for the entire food industry to start talking about this,” says Welch. “I believe there’s going to be a future where there are far more alternative meats than conventional meats on the market. And we need to think about what that means for all of the people who are employed through the conventional meat and seafood industries, and what the future looks like for them in terms of new jobs.”

As cell-cultured meat makes its first forays into the U.S. market, producers are sure to face communications challenges. However, Welch notes that there are also opportunities to build trust with consumers by being transparent about the cell cultivation process.

“The way we currently produce meat and seafood, there’s that hidden step between the field—if the animal ever lived on a field—and the point where it gets to your plate,” he says. “I think it’s really exciting that consumers will be able to see how their meat is being made much more openly in the future.”

These Four Startups Are Growing Animal-free Scaffolds for Cell-Cultured Meat

It’s one thing to grow an amorphous blob of muscle or fat cells in a bioreactor—and another thing to recreate the structure of animal tissue. In order to make a complex product like a steak or a salmon fillet, cell-cultured meat producers need to provide their stem cells with a scaffold to grow on.

In nature, growing stem cells are housed within a structure of proteins and polysaccharides called the extracellular matrix. The cells’ interaction with this environment guides the way that they adhere, differentiate, and migrate.

Both cell-based meat manufacturers and business-to-business suppliers in the industry are experimenting with different scaffolding materials that can mimic the extracellular matrix. Below, we’ll discuss some scaffolding solutions and the startups that are exploring them.

You might notice that all of the materials we mention are animal-free—a significant development as alternative meat companies seek to reduce their dependence on animal inputs.


1. DaNAgreen is developing extracellular matrix stand-ins for both clinical and food applications. On its website, the South Korean startup describes Protinet™-P, its scaffolding product for cell-cultured meat manufacturing, as “a food that incubates food.” Protinet™-P scaffolds are completely edible, as they’re made from isolated plant proteins.

DanNAgreen currently offers its products in custom sizes and shapes. The company plans to spend the next few years scaling up production.

2. Seawith, a cell-cultured meat company also based in South Korea, is using algae-based scaffolds to grow its products. Along with being nutrient-rich, algae is relatively easy and inexpensive to grow. In The Spoon’s recent interview with Seawith, we learned that the company credits its algae scaffolding with the development of thicker cell-based steaks.

The company hopes to start selling its cell-cultured meat products to restaurants by 2023, though the team is awaiting regulatory decisions from the South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.

3. Excell is exploring the use of fungal mycelium as a scaffolding substrate. Mycelium contains the polymer chitin, which can be made to mimic some of the polysaccharides found in the natural extracellular matrix. Some fungi also have a meaty taste and texture, so it’s possible that mycelium-based substrates could enhance the sensory experience of eating cell-cultured meat.

Excell is currently offering mycelium scaffolding culture kits to researchers and product developers, and collecting feedback on how its products perform.

4. Matrix Meats of Ohio is approaching the challenge in a different way. The company uses an electrospinning technique to build nanofiber scaffolds. As FoodNavigator has reported, Matrix’s scaffolds can be made of a combination of different materials, which could allow cell-based meat producers to grow cultured muscles and fats together on a single structure.

Matrix works directly with cell-cultured meat startups to develop custom scaffolding solutions for their products. Client companies can control the scaffolding material, fiber size, and other factors.

These innovations with plant and fungi-based scaffolds could just be the start. Animal-derived collagen has been widely studied as a cellular scaffold material (which makes sense, as collagen is one of the proteins found in the natural extracellular matrix)—and it may be possible to make animal collagen scaffolds without using actual animals. Researchers have managed to produce animal collagen using gene-edited tobacco plants, and recombinant collagen produced by bacteria and yeast also look promising.

Advancements in animal-free scaffolding should help cell-cultured meat producers to cut costs and reduce their environmental impacts. (And this isn’t just a hypothetical: With its algae scaffold, DaNAgreen has been able to produce cell-based steaks at near price-parity with conventional products.) We’re likely to see much more innovation in the field as cell-cultured companies explore hybrid production options.

With Pea Protein on the Rise, Producers Aim for Innovation in Fields and Factories

It’s easy enough to identify pea protein in nutritional powders and shakes in grocery store aisles. But if you look closely at product labels, you’re also likely to find pea protein as the main ingredient in many plant-based meats (including the Beyond Burger®), as well as energy bars and snacks.

The pea protein market is projected to more than double in size between now and 2028. Most of that growth will likely come from the nutritional supplements industry, but rising consumer interest in alternative meats will also create new opportunities for pea protein. Hoping to appeal to plant-based meat manufacturers, food tech companies are working to optimize the ingredient at every stage of production—from the peas grown in the field to the technology for extracting the protein.

Benson Hill, a Missouri-based company, is working on pea protein improvement at the most fundamental level. Last month, the company launched a new yellow pea breeding and commercialization program to develop plants that produce better peas. They’re focused on improving two key attributes: nutritional density and flavor.

“The element people care about most in plant-based protein ingredients is the actual protein,” said company CEO Matt Crisp in a phone interview with The Spoon. Current protein extraction processes are water and energy-intensive. By upping the protein content in a raw yellow pea, the company hopes to eliminate some of those processing steps—which could in turn help to reduce production costs.

More protein-rich yellow pea plants could also make farming more efficient in terms of land use. “If we can take a yellow pea that normally yields 21-23% protein content, and create a yellow pea that has 31-33% protein content,” said Crisp, “then we won’t need to produce as much crop to get the same protein production output.”

According to Crisp, today’s yellow pea protein is held back by undesirable taste characteristics. The yellow pea strains currently grown in fields contain “some pretty nasty flavor compounds that folks have to mask in the formulations for foods that they’re making, so that’s why you’ll see them use some additives, masking agents, or sodium,” he said. If Benson Hill can breed a better-tasting yellow pea, they could help food manufacturers to produce consumer products with shorter, cleaner ingredients lists.

Benson Hill uses a machine learning and AI-powered platform to guide its crop improvement efforts. The company’s software simulates the outcomes of different breeding programs, and then its plant scientists execute the programs with the best-simulated outcomes. The technology helps the company to optimize existing plant genetics through highly efficient breeding, rather than veering into gene editing or genetic modification territory, which might repel consumers.

After yellow peas are harvested, they need to be unshelled and then ground and milled into powder. Then fibers and starches are removed, leaving behind pea protein.

Merit Functional Foods opened a 94,000 square foot plant to process pea and canola protein this year. Merit uses a proprietary manufacturing process that’s more expensive than the industry standard. The process requires more equipment and more filtration but results in a higher-purity end product with improved taste and texture.

In a recent phone interview, CEO Ryan Bracken told us that the company is working on developing pea protein ingredients with differentiated taste, texture, and other attributes.

“We believe that there’s a need for higher quality, higher functionality, and improved sensory characteristics associated with plant-based proteins,” said Bracken. By delivering better protein ingredients, Bracken hopes to help food manufacturers create “the best consumer outcomes in terms of their experience with new products, whether they be dairy alternatives, meat alternatives, or lifestyle nutrition products like ready-to-mix powders.”

For example, the company might take a closer look at a protein that shows strong gelation properties—making it a potential replacement for methyl cellulose, a thickening and emulsifying agent commonly found in plant-based meats. “So we’d say, how can we add more gelation,” said Bracken, “so that an alternative meat brand can use less protein and reduce the cost of making a burger, and then pass on the lower costs to the consumer?”

Other extraction companies are also investing in pea protein. Early this year, ingredients giant Roquette began operations at its brand-new pea protein plant in Manitoba, the largest of its kind in the world.

Pea protein isn’t the only plant-based protein powder that’s on the rise. Market forecasts signal a bright future for plant proteins from the ubiquitous soy to spirulina. As these spaces become more competitive, we’re likely to see further investment in new crop and extraction technologies that will optimize the ingredients for use in different end products.

Meet Three Startups Developing Growth Mediums to Feed Cell-cultured Meat

Culture medium is one of the key building blocks for cell-cultured meat production: In order to grow stem cells into blobs of muscle and fat, you need a nutritious serum to feed and raise the cells.

For most of the nascent industry’s history, fetal bovine serum (or FBS) has been the only viable growth substrate. This reliance on FBS presents a quandary for startups seeking to market their products as ethical and sustainable: The serum is extracted from cow fetuses after slaughtering pregnant cows. FBS is also expensive—an issue for companies seeking to scale down production costs.

To get around the problems of FBS, some of the big names in cell-cultured meat have been developing their own alternative growth mediums. Mosa Meat announced last year that it had converted to a new medium that costs 88 times less than FBS. But there’s also a smattering of growth medium startups developing growth mediums to sell as stand-alone products. Here are some names to know in this space:


1. Multus Media’s Proliferum M serum is formulated with a proprietary mixture of proteins and other ingredients. Designed to facilitate growth for mammalian cells, the serum demonstrates what the company calls universibility: It can support a range of different cell lines.

Multus is currently working with partner companies to test Proliferum M. The company hopes to bring its first product to market later in 2021. (For more on Multus, check out our recent interview with company CEO Cai Linton.)

2. Back of the Yards Algae Sciences manufactures food ingredients like dyes and protein powders—all from algae. The company is experimenting with an algae-based culture medium in their research and development lab, seeking solutions for beef, pork, chicken, and fish cell growth. (And they’ve had some success, as Food Dive reported earlier this year.) Back of the Yards hasn’t yet released details about when their medium might become commercially available.

Seawith, a South Korean company, is also using algae to create culture medium and scaffolding for its cell-based meat products.

3. Biftek is working on a microorganism-based growth medium, although the Turkish startup hasn’t revealed what kinds of microorganisms it’s using. Biftek recently received a financial boost from CULT Food Science, a Canadian investment platform. They’ll use the money to send out culture medium samples to cell-based meat producers and apply for patents.


These aren’t the only serum ideas out there. There’s been some academic research around the use of platelet lysate (a liquid derived from blood platelets) as an alternative culture medium. Agulos Biotech is working on a simulated version of porcine platelet lysate. Driven by the theory that growing muscle cells in blood would produce better-tasting meat, Cultured Blood is developing a substrate of cell-cultured blood.

The cell-cultured meat industry is expected to be worth $248 million by 2026, and many industry leaders believe that cell-based products will reach price parity with conventional meat by then. In order to live up to these expectations, the industry will need to identify sustainable, cost-efficient culture mediums. One of the approaches above might be the key to unlocking more affordable, ethical, cell-based meat.

MeaTech 3D Files Provisional Patent Application For Cell-Cultured Fat Process

MeaTech 3D announced last week that it has filed a provisional patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to cover its new stem cell manipulation technology. The Israel-based company’s proprietary process uses plant inputs to transform embryonic mesenchymal stem cells (or eMSCs) into fat cells.

The patent-pending process can be used to produce intramuscular fat: the fat structures that ribbon through a sophisticated cut of meat such as a ribeye steak. The company envisions the technology working hand-in-hand with its meat bioprinting process, which involves extruding bio-inks made from muscle and fat cells to create complex structures.

This isn’t the first patent application that MeaTech has filed in the U.S. In June, they applied for a patent to secure their bioprinting process. This push to accumulate intellectual property should help the company to protect its investments in research and development as international cell-cultured meat producers prepare to compete for consumers’ affections. (The company spent $2.5 million on R&D in 2020, up from $0.2 million the year before.)

This latest patent application marks a milestone in MeaTech’s push to reduce its dependence on animal-derived materials. The most common method for turning eMSCs into fat cells involves the use of animal hormones insulin, dexamethasone, and isobutylmethylxanthine.

Yet despite this advancement, the company’s production process isn’t free of animal inputs. The eMSCs that the company relies on are generally derived from bone marrow or fat, and are most commonly grown in a substrate of fetal bovine serum.

Meanwhile, other food tech startups are vying to find alternative fat solutions that will further scale down animal intensivity. We recently reported on Nordic startup Melt&Marble’s ambitions in this arena: The company uses a fermentation process to produce fatty acids, and can customize its recipe to create fats that complement different plant-based proteins. Motif Foodworks is pursuing a different approach, tweaking plant oils to taste and feel more like animal fat.

Excell, a spinoff of Ecovative Designs, is working on another solution to the industry’s animal fat problem. The startup is currently working with cell-cultured companies to test its mycelium (or mushroom root system) materials as alternative growing scaffolds for their meat products.

Despite MeaTech’s eagerness to secure its fat production process against competitors, it’s hard to predict whether the stem-cell reliant technique will remain relevant for long in the rapidly advancing industry. As cell-cultured meat startups like MeaTech seek out ways to scale up production while cutting costs and reducing environmental impacts, it may ultimately make more sense to go hybrid, turning to plant-based fat sources.