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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Clara Foods

Clara Foods Becomes The EVERY Company, Launches Animal-Free Egg Protein

Clara Foods, one of the early pioneers building nature-equivalent proteins using precision fermentation technology, announced today it is rebranding to the EVERY Company and is launching its first animal-free egg product called ClearEgg, an egg protein product targeted at the protein beverage market.

The new product, ClearEgg, will be sold through EVERY’s strategic partner Ingredion, a Chicago-based ingredient solutions conglomerate. EVERY describes ClearEGG as a product that “enables brands to add a nearly tasteless protein boost to hot and cold beverages, acidic juices, energy drinks, carbonated and clear beverages, as well as snacks and nutrition bars. Proteins by EVERY will support label claims including kosher, halal and animal-free.”

The rebrand is a familiar path many startups take as they transition out of an early company name which serves them well during the product development phase. In some ways, it’s reminiscent of Hampton Creek’s rebrand to Just (later Eat Just).

“Our new branding, EVERY, conveys our vision to fundamentally transform the food system for the 21st century so that every human, everywhere can enjoy the food they know and love without harming our planet or animals in the process,” said Arturo Elizondo, EVERY Company CEO.

The launch of ClearEgg is a big milestone for one of precision fermentation’s early pioneers. The company, which launched as part of IndieBio’s first cohort, has been working on creating an egg replacement since 2014 after cofounders Elizondo and Dave Anchel struck up a conversation at a conference. It wasn’t long after that first conversation before the two were working on their idea for using microbial fermentation to create eggs without the chicken.

The ClearEgg protein is just the first attempt by EVERY to crack the animal-free egg market. When I talked to Elizondo earlier this year on the Spoon podcast, he told me the eventual goal is to release a nature-equivalent egg white, diversify into other types of egg types outside of the chicken, and even create a platform that enables entirely new products.

“We’re truly entering the age of molecular food,” said Elizondo. “Not just molecular gastronomy, but instead how do we leverage the molecular element of it in producing the next generation of ingredients to build food 2.0 with new textures, new properties, new flavors that are not even possible to achieve right now with our current animals as a technology?”

Food Tech Show Live: AB InBev Enters Alt-Protein Game

The usual Spoon gang got together this week to talk food tech with special guest Riana Lynn, longtime food tech entrepreneur and CEO of Journey Foods.

This stories we discuss on this week’s show include:

You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also just click play below:

Clara Foods Teams Up With AB InBev to Make Animal Protein at Scale

Alt-protein maker Clara Foods announced this week a partnership with ZX Ventures, the innovation arm of beer brewer AB InBev, to “brew” animal-free protein at a large scale via fermentation, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

Clara Foods, which was founded out of the IndieBio accelerator, has been using precision fermentation for years to develop animal-free protein, including an animal-free egg white. But a major challenge is producing such proteins at scale — that is, in large enough amounts to realistically compete with the traditional animal protein industry. 

AB InBev, of course, is no stranger to fermentation at scale, it being the largest beer brewer in the world. The partnership with Clara Foods will combine AB InBev’s “centuries of expertise in scaled, food-grade fermentation and downstream processing gained from large-scale brewing processes” with Clara’s technology to develop more sustainable protein at scale. 

Speaking in the press release, Patrick O’Riordan, founder and CEO at BioBrew, a technology platform venture in ZX Ventures, pointed out that meeting the future food demands of the planet will require cross-industry collaboration that marries the old with the new. In this case, fermentation, a centuries-old process, will get combined with novel technologies from Clara. 

Scalability is key to the advancement of any alternative-protein right now. For Clara Foods and ZX Ventures’ BioBrew team, the goal is to produce alt protein — in this case egg whites — at a similar scale to beer brewing. Since brewing beer and fermenting protein aren’t quite the same thing, O’Riordan noted, in an interview with Food Navigator, that the technology for egg proteins will “probably be an adaptation of existing technology” currently used in beer-making.  

CEO Arturo Elizondo told The Spoon earlier this year that the company hopes to go beyond egg white replacements. “We wanted to have a real kick ass platform that is not just a chicken egg plant protein platform, or an egg protein platform, but a true animal protein production platform, so that we can flex in and out of different products,” he said. 

So far, the company has launched an animal-free pepsin. Other future products include an egg protein for beverages and the aforementioned egg white replacement.  

Meanwhile, the Clara Foods partnership is AB InBev’s first-ever with a food company, though it’s not likely to be the last.

Podcast: Arturo Elizondo on Hatching A Startup That Makes Eggs Without the Chicken

If you were to ask Clara Foods CEO Arturo Elizondo what came first, the chicken or the egg, the answer you’d get is probably not the weighty philosophical waxing you might expect from a former intern for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer.

Instead, chances are you’d probably hear about how it’s time to do away with the factory farming system we currently use to produce the trillion plus eggs consumed annually and how he may just have the answer for how to do that.

That answer would be Clara Foods, the company Elizondo cofounded with Dave Anchel in 2014 after the two struck up a conversation at a conference. It wasn’t long after that first conversation before the two were working on their idea for using microbial fermentation to create eggs without the chicken as part of biotech accelerator Indiebio‘s inaugural cohort.

Fast forward almost seven years and Clara released their first product in 2020 – a digestive supplement. The company plans on launching its second product later this year, a protein targeted at protein beverage market. After that, the company will release it’s flagship product, an egg white replacement.

But Elizondo doesn’t plan to stop there. When I talked to the Clara Foods CEO for the Food Tech Show, one of the first questions I asked was whether Clara’s technology could emulate more than just a chicken egg. The answer is yes.

“We wanted to have a real kick ass platform that is not just a chicken egg plant protein platform, or an egg protein platform, but a true animal protein production platform, so that we can flex in and out of different products,” said Elizondo.

From there, he and Clara hope to bring forth new flavors and combinations that aren’t even possible with old fashioned eggs.

“We’re truly entering the age of molecular food,” said Elizondo. “Not just molecular gastronomy, but instead how do we leverage the molecular element of it in producing the next generation of ingredients to build food 2.0 with new textures, new properties, new flavors that are not even possible to achieve right now with our current animals as a technology?”

If you’d like to hear about our chicken-less egg future, you can listen to the podcast below, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or on wherever you get your podcasts.

Clara Foods Raises Series B, Partners with Ingredion to Launch Animal-Free Egg Whites

Today Clara Foods, a startup using cellular agriculture to develop animal-free proteins, announced it has raised a Series B funding round. The round was led by ingredients corporation Ingredion with participation from Hemisphere Ventures, SOS Ventures and B37. The amount of funding was not disclosed.

Based in San Francisco, Clara Foods has been working to create animal proteins without the animals. They use a similar technology to Perfect Day or New Culture, feeding sugar to genetically engineered yeast to “ferment” protein in various forms. So far, Clara Foods has been focused on creating egg whites to use as vegan alternatives in baking.

Under the agreement, Ingredion will work with Clara Foods to distribute and market multiple animal-free proteins means to be used as egg substitutes.

Photo: Meringues made with animal-free egg whites from Clara Foods.

This partnership gives a big leg up to Clara Foods. The startup has been developing its chicken-less egg whites since 2014. When I visited the Clara Foods team a few months ago at the Winter Fancy Food Show, they told me it would likely still be a while before they brought a product to market. Now, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that their “egg” proteins could be available as soon as 2020.

Clara Foods’ partnership with Ingredion is a smart way for them to leverage the massive ingredient provider’s manufacturing capabilities, supply chain, and retail partnerships to get to market much more quickly. Perfect Day made a similar strategic partnership last year when they teamed up with ADM to accelerate production of their animal-free whey.

This is also a smart move on Ingredion’s part. The ingredient supplier has had its eye on the vegan protein space for a while. In fact, its investment in Clara Foods comes months after Ingredion committed to investing $140 million in plant-based proteins. True, Clara Foods’ proteins are made through fermentation, not from plants, but still: Ingredion knows that alternative proteins are a hot investment opportunity, and it’s making moves.

In its press release Clara Foods stated that it had raised a $15 million Series A in 2016. (Though Crunchbase reports that the startup’s total funding — prior to the Series B — was only $3.5 million.) In addition to jumpstarting manufacturing, Clara Foods will also use its new funding to expand beyond egg proteins and develop other animal-free products.