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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Change Foods

Change Foods Raises $875,000 for Its Precision Fermentation Cheese

Alternative protein company Change Foods has raised $875,000 in an oversubscribed pre-seed round of funding, surpassing its initial target of $600,000. Green Queen Media was first to break the news. Participating in the round were Twitter’s Asia-Pacific VP Maya Hari, abillionveg founder Vikas Garg, game developer Tom Crago, and existing investors Newstead and Klar. 

Change Foods plans to use the funds to scale up its precision fermentation technology, which the company is using to develop an initial prototype of an animal-free cheese it says will look, taste, and cook like dairy-based cheese.

Most alt-cheese products currently available still fall well below the bar in terms of replicating the real thing in terms of taste, texture, and functionality. That’s largely because those products don’t contain the casein compound, which is found in cow’s milk and is an essential ingredient of cheese. To get that compound and others, Change Foods genetically modifies microorganisms and ferments them with sugar in a process known as precision fermentation. 

Speaking to Green Queen, Change Foods founder David Bucca said better precision fermentation technology could lead to a less vulnerable dairy supply chain, since products can be made locally, have a longer shelf life, and don’t require cold chain infrastructure to transport. 

Fermentation has been called “the next pillar” of alternative protein alongside plant-based and cell-based proteins. Precision fermentation is one method within that larger fermentation category, and is also used by companies like Perfect Day and Impossible Foods. 

To start, Change Foods is developing mozzarella and cheddar cheeses, though it plans to branch out into other dairy products in the future. The plan is to sell products via B2C channels by 2023. 

In the meantime, Change Foods will also use some of the pre-seed funding to expand its core team. It also has ambitions to raise a $4 million seed round in 2021.

Change Foods Creates Cheese Through Fermentation

Add Change Foods to the growing list of companies using fermentation to recreate dairy products without the cow. The company’s headquarters are based in Palo Alto, and it is currently in its R&D phase at its Australian subsidiary. To learn more about their product, I spoke with David Bucca, the Founder and CEO of Change Foods last week.

Bucca has worked for companies like Boeing, Hemple, and Hungry planet; after transitioning to a plant-based diet, he wanted to start a company that addressed the issues of climate change and animal welfare. To start Change Foods, Bucca brought on co-founder and now CTO Associate Professor Junior Te’o from the Queensland University of Technology to develop the fermentation techniques.

To create its cheese, Change Foods uses a fermentation technique, called precision fermentation, that is actually used to make insulin and animal-free rennet. Change Foods takes a variety of microorganisms (including yeast and filamentous fungi), genetically modifies them, and then ferments them with sugar. In turn, this produces key compounds like casein that are nearly bio-identical to those found in dairy and then can be combined with plant-based ingredients to create different products. The production cycle takes about one week to complete.

Companies in the plant-based cheese space are using cashews, legumes, and tapioca as the key ingredients in plant-based cheese products. However, for those who are omnivorous or flexitarian may not find that these alternative cheeses get the flavor, texture, or “meltability” right. Companies that create a hybrid dairy protein and plant-based cheese may be the solution to these particular consumers. San Francisco-based start-up Perfect Day ferments microbes and released a flora-protein based ice cream through the brand Brave Robot. Legendairy in Germany also ferments microbes and created a prototype for feta and mozzarella.

Change Foods is focusing on creating cheddar and mozzarella cheese, and the initial products will be priced about the same as artisanal cheeses. The company aims to be at market by 2022.