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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Jellatech

Podcast: Talking Cell-Based Collagen with Jellatech’s Stephanie Michelsen

Over the past few years, a number of startups have popped up to develop new and more sustainable alternatives to animal-derived collagen.

The reasons are obvious: Collagen is used everywhere, from cosmetics to food to health and wellness applications, and because animal-derived collagen is a by-product of the animal farming industry, it has all the same downsides as factory farming.

While some companies, like Geltor, use precision fermentation technology to create animal-identical collagen, a relatively new arriver to the alt-collagen space by the name of Jellatech is using the same cell-based technology powering many of the new cultivated meat startups’ products. Only instead of using bioreactors to reproduce animal cells for consumption or microbial hosts to generate collagen protein (like Geltor), Jellatech instead uses cells to produce collagen and then harvests the collagen produced by those cells. In other words, the cells are not the end-product, but instead the engine producing Jellatech’s collagen.

It’s an interesting new approach, so I decided to catch up with the CEO of Jellatech, Stephanie Michelsen, to hear more about this young company and its effort to reinvent the collagen industry.

You can listen to the podcast here or just head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Jellatech Raises $2M for Its Animal-Free Collagen and Gelatin

Jellatech, a company making animal-free gelatin and collagen ingredients, announced today it has raised $2 million in pre-seed funding. Green Queen was first to break the news. The round included participation from Big Idea Ventures, Sustainable Food Ventures, Iron Grey, YellowDog, 7 Hound Ventures, Capital V, Sentient Investments and Bluestein Ventures. 

Raleigh, North Carolina-based Jellatech came out of stealth mode in November 2020. The company grows gelatin and collagen in bioreactors, rather than sourcing those ingredients from the bones and skin of animals and fish. The company says it does not need to ship animals anywhere or slaughter them in order to develop its products. Rather, it uses animal cells to grow the collagen and gelatin.

Once inside a bioreactor, these cells produce the collagen, which can then be isolated and used in a range of different products in the food, skincare, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals, to name just a few areas. As Green Queen points out, plant-based alternatives like pectin or agar haven’t yet been able to replace traditional collagen and gelatin because of their limited functionality.

Jellatech’s cell-cultured method isn’t completely animal free, since animal cells are required. However, as noted above, the cell-based method doesn’t require ant animal slaughter. 

Geltor is another company developing alt-gelatin, albeit via an entirely different method. Geltor uses microbes to “grow” collagen and its constituent proteins, including gelatin, via fermentation.

Both startups aim to decrease dependence on the traditional collagen/gelatin market, which Jellatech says is worth $3.5 billion dollars is expected to grow 9 percent annually.  

Funds from this pre-seed round will go towards further developing products for the food, skincare and medical industries. Jellatech also said its first samples will be sent out by the end of April 2021.  

Jellatech to Make Animal-Free, Cell Culture-Based Gelatin

Most folks are probably familiar with gelatin from making Jell-O as a kid. (It’s fun!) But gelatin is an ingredient actually used to make a variety of food products such as certain candies, yogurts, cream cheese and even wine. The process of making gelatin is definitely not vegan, as it requires the boiling of skin, cartilage and bones of animals. (Not as much fun!)

Jellatech, a startup that just came out of stealth last week, is looking to change that by creating animal-free, cell culture-based gelatin and collagen. In other words, the company grows gelatin, slaughter-free, in a bioreactor (hat tip to CellAgri). Jellatech says that because the company designs, grows and purifies gelatin in the same place, it can better ensure quality, purity and sustainability.

In a world where companies are using labs to create cell-based beef, cell-based chicken and cell-based fish, creating cell-based gelatin seems like a no-brainer.

The knock on those cell-based meats, however, has been whether they will ever reach a big enough scale to bring the cost down enough to make it viable (though others disagree). Additionally, there are regulatory issues and potentially public perception problems around eating “lab-grown” facsimiles of the “real” thing.

In this regard then, Jellatech’s decision to go after an ingredient like gelatin seems like a smart play (Geltor is basically doing the same thing). While it will still have regulatory issues to overcome, it’s not a standalone item that people will eat. Instead, it would be an unsung ingredient that goes into other, presumably more delicious products like gummi bears.

Jellatech has already made a proof-of-concept jelly made from cell-based marine collagen that was processed into gelatin. The company expects it will be 18 months before its first commercial-grade product is available.