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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

milk

BIOMILQ Has Grown The Main Components of Human Breastmilk in a Lab

A new startup called BIOMILQ today announced that it had successfully produced human casein and lactose, the predominant components found in breastmilk, through their new patent-pending process. In short, they’ve grown the key elements of human breastmilk in a lab.

The startup was founded last year by Michelle Egger, a food scientist who previously worked in dairy R&D at General Mills, and Dr. Leila Strickland, a cell biologist who first conceptualized the technology in 2013 while breastfeeding her own daughter. The two met in the Research Triangle and created a patent-pending technology in which they trigger human mammary gland cells, kept alive by a constant stream of nutrients, to lactate. They then collect the resulting breastmilk.

Then again, the term “breastmilk” may not be strictly accurate. “We’re not calling it breastmilk just yet,” said Egger, explaining that a woman’s breastmilk contains much more than just lactose and casein alone. However, they’re confident that their samples are “quite similar to milk.” The startup’s cultured milk samples are currently readying to go through a detailed molecular characterization to affirm that they have the same nutritional profile as breastmilk.

I never thought I’d type this sentence, but BIOMILQ isn’t the only company working to growing human breastmilk in a lab. TurtleTree Labs, based in Singapore, uses lactating mammary gland cells (from humans or other animals) placed in nutrient-rich baths to encourage them to excrete milk. They then filter out the milk and distill it for a final product. However, Egger claims that BIOMILQ’s process is different from TurtleTree’s in that they don’t need to filter the end result — the mammary gland cells just secrete milk directly, no media bath needed. “It’s a much cleaner technology,” she said.

BIOMILQ has stated that as far as they knew, they were the first company to create the components of human breastmilk outside of a lactating woman. However, when I reached out to TurtleTree their CTO Max Rye said they had created human breastmilk in Q3 of 2019 and had been optimizing it ever since. So it seems fair to say that there are at least two players making strides in the space.

That’s not the only difference between the two companies. BIOMILQ is targeting Western markets, while TurtleTree will likely debut in Asia. BIOMILQ will likely enter the market selling its own product to consumers either through D2C models or through retail channels, while TurtleTree plans to license out its tech to large dairy companies.

TurtleTree has also disclosed a timeline: they plan to enter the market in two years. BIOMILQ, on the other hand, has stayed mum on the question of when they’ll begin selling.

One part of that hesitation is likely due to regulatory issues. The USDA and the FDA are jointly regulating cell-based meat, but BIOMILQ’s technology is unique — it’s not cells grown in a lab, but rather cells produced by cells kept alive in a lab setting through a precise calibration of environment and nutrition. Therefore it’s unclear how regulators will categorize their product.

Egger didn’t release hard numbers around BIOMILQ’s pricing, but did reveal that it would likely cost slightly more than top-end infant formula by the time of their full-scale launch.

Lab-grown breastmilk may be a ways away, but cultivated dairy is not. Perfect Day and New Culture are already creating animal-free dairy by fermenting genetically engineered microbes. Unlike BIOMILQ, which cultivates milk excreted from a lactating cell, both of the aforementioned companies rely on fermentation to create the various components of dairy, which they then combine with water and fat to create milk. Egger claims that their method was more efficient since it can produce all of the elements of milk in a single cell.

All of these companies could potentially have a big impact on the dairy industry. Perfect Day and New Culture are developing an entirely animal-free way to create milk, while BIOMILQ could theoretically replace dairy-based infant formula.

Though they might want to replace formula, Egger and Strickland were clear that they don’t want to replace breastfeeding altogether. “We’re not positioning ourselves to be equivalent to breastfeeding, because we know that immunologically there are some things we won’t be able to do,” Egger told me. Instead, she framed their product as a “supplemental nutrition aid.”

That could especially come in handy in low- and middle-income countries. BIOMILQ plans to eventually use its technology to provide reliable, cost-efficient breastmilk to areas were infants might struggle to get access to good nutrition.

The startup is still in very early stages with no significant funding, so we don’t even know if BIOMILQ will be able to follow through on their plan to commercialize their cultured (cell-based? cultivated?) breastmilk. But considering I hadn’t heard of lab-grown breast milk until a few months ago, and now there are two new companies making it, I think it’s safe to assume that the infant formula space has a shake-up coming its way.

Lab-Made Cheese Maker Legendairy Raises $4.7 Million

Legendairy Foods, which ferments microorganisms into cheeses with the same process used for making insulin, has raised $4.7 million from a group of investors that include German drugs and tech company Merck KGaA (not to be confused with the American drug company, Merck) and UK-based investment company Agronomics.

The Berlin-based startup told Bloomberg it has already created prototypes of mozzarella and ricotta. The company’s process involves mixing microorganisms and sugar, fermenting them into milk protein and creating dairy products such as cheese. It also plans to integrate plant-based ingredients into its products.

“The food industry has crossed an inflection point — for the first time in human history, we are capable of producing real dairy products without the need of breeding and raising animals,” Raffael Wohlgensinger, co-founder and CEO of Legendairy, said in an investor release. He added that the company will “fully leverage our core technology and bring our delicious, animal-free cheese to market in the coming years.”

Legendairy, which says it is Europe’s first cellular agriculture company developing lab-grown dairy products, joins a growing group of startups dedicated to removing animals from the process of creating milk. Perfect Day, which this month raised $140 million in Series C funding, creates dairy products with genetically engineered microbes and plans to sell its products to foodmakers. Another company that creates dairy from genetically engineered microbes is New Culture, which closed a $3.5 million seed round. It plans to sell its cheeses into high-end restaurants. Meanwhile, TurtleTree Labs is creating milk in a whole different way: actually growing mammary gland cells in a lab to produce milk.

It’s clear that in the coming years, there will be plenty of options besides nut- and soy-based milk and cheeses for those who forgo animal-derived dairy products.

Perfect Day Expands to Develop Animal-Free Milk Fat

Today Perfect Day announced that it’s building a team to develop animal-free fats through genetically engineered microbes. The Berkeley, California-based startup has already developed a fermentation-like process to create key milk molecules which can be used to make animal-free dairy.

A blog post from Perfect Day’s co-founders Perumal Gandhi and Ryan Pandya made clear that these efforts are still super early stage. They indicated that there probably wouldn’t be prototypes of products featuring the flora-based fats for a while since they’ll be laser focused on scaling up their milk proteins in 2020. They also didn’t indicate which products they would develop with their fat, but in an email to The Spoon their team told us that “animal-free dairy is the obvious fit.”

The startup has been going at full force recently. Last year the company partnered with ADM to increase production capacity and raised a $34.8 million Series B in early 2019. As I mentioned above, it also launched its first product — ice cream made with their flora-based milk — in July of this year. 

This expansion shows that Perfect Day’s scope is far wider than just protein. In the post, Gandhi and Panda write that they want their flora platform “to be as broad and powerful” as possible to make “the full dairy experience animal-free.”

Perfect Day’s announcement also goes to show that when it comes to developing sustainable alternatives to animal products, protein is only part of the puzzle. All of the ingredients — from fats to flavorings — have to be environmentally friendly as well.

Right now, that’s not necessarily the case. Many plant-based products rely on palm or coconut oil for richness, since these two fats are saturated (just like butter or beef fat). However, coconut oil and especially palm oil can be exploitative to laborers and the environment, clearing tropical rainforests.

In short, just because a food is animal-free doesn’t mean it’s necessarily sustainable. Perfect Day’s initiative to revamp every aspect of animal alternatives is a good blueprint for other alternative protein companies to consider, if they’re not doing so already.

Dairy Farmers of America Brand Launches First Ever Blended Milk Product: 50% Dairy, 50% Plants

If you’re like me, you might have an entire arsenal of milks — plant-based and otherwise — in your fridge.

Apparently, I’m not alone. Nearly 50 percent of consumers buy both plant-based dairy and old-fashioned cow juice. To answer that demand, last week, Minnesota-based Live Real Farms debuted a product meant to replace the entire dairy shelf. Their new Dairy + Blends are 50 percent dairy milk, 50 percent almond or oat milk.

“This is the first-ever milk blend,” Rachel Kylo, Live Real Farms’ SVP of Growth & Innovation, told me over the phone. They began developing the product a year ago, aiming to make something with the nutty flavor of oat or almond milk with the creamy texture and higher protein content of dairy. All of the blends are lactose-free.

Live Real Farms began testing Dairy + Blends in the Minneapolis market in late June. The blended product will roll out to more areas later on this fall through retail partner HEB, as well as certain Targets. The suggested retail price is $3.49-$4.49 for a half-gallon, which is slightly more expensive than conventional, non-organic cow milk but on par with many almond and oat alternatives.

This might be the first blended milk product, but startups and major corporations alike are already experimenting with other blended animal products — namely meat. The primary arguments for blended meat are a) environmental impact, and b) nutrition. By cutting the amount of meat in, say, a burger with plants, companies can make a product that has a small(er) environmental footprint and also less cholesterol, saturated fat, etc. Tyson’s forthcoming Raised + Rooted line features a beef burger blended with plant protein, and startup Better Meat Co. has developed a vegan protein intended to blend with pork.

According to Kylo, however, the main reason consumers are embracing plant-based milk is taste. They value the nutty flavors of alternative milk but also want the creaminess and nutritional profile of regular milk. That may certainly be one motivation, but it conveniently leaves out environmental or ethical arguments for getting off of moo juice.

It’s not surprising that Live Real Farms steers very clear of mentioning the environmental impacts of dairy farming. The brand is a subsidiary of Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), a milk marketing collective made up of 8,000 family farms.

Regardless of the PR schtick, the fact that a brand owned by DFA is launching a blended milk product is significant. It shows that milk alternatives are here to stay. Farmers may be trying to beat back their progress with labeling laws, but they clearly acknowledge that their popularity is not only inevitable, but is also a lucrative business opportunity. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

DFA is exploring multiple ways to bolster milk sales amid a recent decline in the U.S. dairy industry. Just a few months ago the organization launched an accelerator program to incubate young dairy-focused startups and bring new technologies to the agricultural industry.

“The idea that people are either in the dairy or plant-based alternative camp is not the case,” Kylo told me. (Vegans excluded, presumably.) With the Dairy + Blends line, Real Live Farms is betting that consumers’ recent interest in milk alternatives is not just a stopover on their way to cutting out cow milk completely.

Live Real Farms is sending me some samples of their new Dairy + Blends, so check back in soon to read my product review.

Perfect Day Partners with ADM to Scale up Production of Cow-Free Dairy

Perfect Day, the startup which makes milk without the animal, today announced that it has entered into a partnership with global food processing company Archer Daniels Midland (ADM).

The two forged a Joint Development Agreement to scale up implementation of Perfect Day‘s tech, which uses fermentation to create dairy proteins without any involvement from a cow. Their initial product will be an animal-free whey protein

By taking advantage of ADM existing fermentation infrastructure, Berkeley-based Perfect Day is expecting to scale up and gain price parity with conventional whey protein relatively quickly. They plan to enter the market within the next few years.

Eager customers might not have to wait that long to try animal-free dairy, however. A statement from the founders revealed that Perfect Day is currently forming relationships with food & bev companies “big and small” to develop new products with their animal-free dairy, some of which might be available as early as next year.

Back in March of this year Perfect Day raised $24.7 million, just a month after it received a patent to use their animal-free dairy tech in food applications. This announcement comes roughly a year after the startup shifted to a technology as a service model, partnering with food and drink companies in order to scale and bring their goods to market more quickly.

And wow, did they start off with a big one. As co-founder Perumal Gandhi told us, he wanted Perfect Day’s products to “be national from Day One.” Now, with this ADM partnership, it looks like those ambitions might come true.

The FDA Wants Your Opinion on What Should be Called “Milk”

Have you ever gone to the grocery, bought a carton of milk only to get home and find that you grabbed soy milk instead of the more traditional cow’s milk? The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to know!

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb posted a statement on his organization’s website today saying that his agency is seeking public comments on the ongoing debate over what can and can’t be labeled as “milk.” In explaining the rationale for this discussion about labeling, Gottlieb writes:

The rising demand for plant-based products, like soy-based alternatives to cheese and nut-based alternatives to milk, has created a growing number of new food choices in supermarket aisles. However, these products are not foods that have been standardized under names like “milk” and “cheese.” The FDA has concerns that the labeling of some plant-based products may lead consumers to believe that those products have the same key nutritional attributes as dairy products, even though these products can vary widely in their nutritional content. It is important that we better understand consumers’ expectations of these plant-based products compared to dairy products.

Earlier this year, Gottlieb indicated that his agency would begin to enforce the existing regulation around what can be marketed as milk. Gottlieb made headlines when he noted that the current standard for defining milk is that it comes from a lactating animal before going on to say “almonds don’t lactate” (a comment soundly mocked by Stephen Colbert).

While you may not have your own late night talk show, you can make your voice heard on the topic. As Gottlieb goes on to explain, the FDA is reaching out to the public for comment on the topic:

We’re on a fast track to take a fresh look at the labeling of products that are being positioned in the marketplace as substitutes for dairy products. And, today, we’ve taken the first step in this process by issuing a request for information (RFI) in the Federal Register to solicit comments and feedback from the public to gain more insight into how consumers use plant-based alternatives and how they understand terms like “milk” or “cheese” when used to label products made, for example, from soy, peas or nuts. We’re interested to know if consumers are aware of, and understand, the nutritional characteristics and differences among these products — and between these products and dairy — when they make dietary choices for themselves and their families.

While it’s being framed as a discussion around consumer information and protection, the whole debate smacks more of protecting existing industries. Sales of plant-based milks are up while cow milk sales have dropped. Dairy and other agricultural associations have lobbied Gottlieb to enforce the existing regulation. Forcing plant-based “milks” to instead refer to themselves as “beverages” on all their branding could have a negative impact on sales.

Milk isn’t the only product label looking at being disrupted. There is a whole other debate raging about what can and can’t be called “meat” as cell-based meat and other plant-based meat alternatives come to market. The lines there are similarly drawn, with traditional ranchers and cattelmen lobbying to keep the status quo.

And just so there’s no confusion on this, if you have thoughts on the topic of “milk,” you can visit the Federal Register tomorrow, Sept. 28, and leave a comment.

The Weekly Spoon: Laboring over Labels and Go Go Robo Restaurants!

This is a the post version of our weekly (twice-weekly, actually) newsletter. If you’d like to get the weekly Spoon in your inbox, you can subscribe here. 

By now we are all inured to the “fake news” label casually thrown about on a daily basis. But now the discussion over what is real and what isn’t is seeping into the labels we give our meat and milk. Science has brought about a wave of innovation in those fields, and traditional makers of those products are none too happy.

Groups representing cattlemen and ranchers sent a letter to President Trump asking his administration to bring regulation of lab-grown, or cultured, meat under the USDA. This follows a different letter from farm bureaus and agricultural groups sent to the FDA asking them to crack down on what types of drinks can actually be called milk. (The hullabaloo over milk even earned a mocking segment on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show.)

These moves reveal that we are on the cusp of a societal leap in how we eat, and incumbents are digging in. While cultured meat hasn’t hit store shelves yet, it’s a hot sector for investment and the technology keeps improving and coming down in price. Meanwhile sales of plant-based milks have soared over the past five years while the dairy industry grapples with surpluses and falling prices.

To be fair, having a discussion over what we officially label the food we put into our bodies is a worthy one to make sure we know what we are consuming. Case in point: this week the FDA gave the green light to Impossible Foods saying its heme-burgers are safe to eat, and Beyond Meat can officially slap a “non-GMO” label on its pea protein burgers.

But if we spend all our time and energy (and money) dithering over details over what we call something, before you know it, the robots will have taken over and they will decide for us.

Don’t believe me? We broke the news this week of the launch of robot food startup, Ono Food Company, which is headed up by the former VP of Operations at Cafe X. Details on Ono are slim, but it’s backed by Lemnos, Compound and Pathbreaker. It joins other restaurant robots coming online like those in Spyce Kitchen, Ekim, and Bear Robotics’ Penny.

Robots and automation are expanding into more of our everyday routines. Long John Silvers announced plans to make its drive-thrus fully automated, Pizzametry is working to put pizza vending machines in high-traffic areas like airports and dorms, and Flippy just got a new job making chicken tenders at Dodgers stadium.

Finally, there were some unexpected moves in the meal kit market this week. True Food Innovations is breathing new life into Chef’d, which abruptly shut down earlier this month. Chef’d 2.0 actually involves a number of ex-Chef’d execs, who plan to forego e-commerce and focus on retail. And Chick-Fil-A, of all places, announced an experiment to offer meal kits at a limited number of its stores in Atlanta. While I applaud the effort, I’m not sure it will work.

Whew. It was a big week! And that was just the news. We’re also hard at work assembling an awesome Smart Kitchen Summit: North America. The lineup of speakers is fantastic, the schedule is thoughtful and forward looking for food tech and tickets are on sale now!

As always, we’d love to hear from you! If you’ve got news, send us a tip, or join our Slack channel.

Have a great weekend!

Be kind. Always.

Chris

In the 07/27/2018 edition:

Traditional Meat Producers Lobby Trump Over Cultured Meat
Agricultural professional groups including the American Sheep Industry Association, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Chicken Council, National Pork Producers Council and the National Turkey Federation fired off a letter to President Trump today, asking for parity when it comes to the regulation of cultured meat.

Got Milk? Are You Sure? Labeling Debate Moves on to Plant-Based Drinks
It looks like the debate over what we label cultured/lab grown/clean “meat” will not be isolated to the deli case. If the comments made by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb today are any indication, there will be another drawn out battle over what we label as “milk.”

Stephen Colbert Mocks FDA’s Crackdown on Plant-Based Milks
On The Late Show host Stephen Colbert turned his biting wit towards a subject that’s been generating a lot of media buzz lately: the question of what to call dairy alternatives. He was referencing last week’s Politico Pro Summit, in which FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced that his agency would start cracking down on the use of the term “milk” for non-dairy products.

Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Get Label Wins, Score Big for Plant-based Meat
Plant-based burger startup Impossible Foods officially got the green light from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that their patties are safe to eat. Impossible voluntarily submitted their burger to the FDA for testing last year and was surprised when the regulatory body came back to them with a big red flag concerning the burger’s not-so-secret star ingredient: heme.

Lemnos Backs Robot Restaurant Startup Ono
Restaurant robots are kinda hot. The latest evidence of this? Yet another robot restaurant startup called Ono Food Company just got funded, this time from Lemnos, Compound and Pathbreaker ventures. The amount of the funding round was undisclosed.

Now That Delivery Is All the Rage, What Happens to the Drive-Thru?
Long John Silver’s, that bastion of quick-service seafood, made a bold claim today by announcing their intent to “install the most technologically advanced digital drive-thru platforms in the restaurant industry.”

Will You Try Pizzametry’s Pizza Vending Machine?
The Pizzametry is the size of a beefy vending machine. For around $5 – $6 (prices will vary depending on location), you can order either an eight-inch cheese (no sauce), or cheese (with sauce) or pepperoni pizza. The machine is pre-loaded with canisters of frozen dough which are then thawed, cut, pressed, topped and cooked at 700 degrees to make a pizza in three and a half minutes (that time actually goes down to 90 seconds on subsequent pizzas if you order more than one).

Chef’d Assets Acquired by True Food Innovations, to Focus on Retail
True Food Innovations, a food technology, CPG and manufacturing company, today announced that it has acquired the assets of meal kit maker, Chef’d, which abruptly shuttered operations earlier this month. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Chick-fil-A is Paving the Way for Fast Food Meal Kits
Each Chick-fil-A box will contain fresh, pre-measured ingredients to make one of five meals, from chicken enchiladas to chicken flatbread to pan-roasted chicken. (Sense a theme here?) The kits will cost $15.89, feed two people, and can be prepared in 30 minutes or less.

Chick-Fil-A’s Uncanny Valley Problem with Meal Kits
When popular fast food chain, Chick-Fil-A announced it would be experimenting with meal kits next month, I agreed with my colleague, Catherine Lamb, that this could pave the way for a new meal kit sales channel. But in the days since the announcement I’ve soured on the notion. Now, I think consumers will have certain expectations of what a Chick-Fil-A meal kit should taste like, but will instead experience the uncanny valley.

Stephen Colbert Mocks FDA’s Crackdown on Plant-Based Milks

Last night on The Late Show host Stephen Colbert turned his biting wit towards a subject that’s been generating a lot of media buzz lately: the question of what to call dairy alternatives. He was referencing last week’s Politico Pro Summit, in which FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced that his agency would start cracking down on the use of the term “milk” for non-dairy products.

Now I love Colbert as much as the next person (read: a lot), so I was thrilled to see him bringing attention to a worth issue. Especially one that’s so clearly begging to be made fun of. While Colbert doesn’t take an outward stance on the naming issue per se, he does do what he does best: rip it to shreds with sarcasm.

“If it ain’t from a mammal, you can’t call it milk; it has to be ‘soy juice’ and ‘almond sweat,” he quipped. He also latched onto the oft-quoted phrase from Gottlieb: “an almond doesn’t lactate.” It was almost too easy to make fun of.

Towards the end of the segment, Colbert addressed dairy farmers — a group whose perspective has been relatively ignored in the hullabaloo of mocking lactating nuts. He pointed out that if the FDA decides that alternative milks can’t be called “milk,” it will be a boon for dairy farmers, who have been struggling recently with milk surpluses and consequent low prices.

We also have to question whether things like soy milk and hemp milk actually care if they’re called “milk” or not. After all, their whole appeal is that they’re not milk. At the same time, we’ve grown so used to asking for oat “milk” with our lattés that it seems almost too late to change the nomenclature here.

Also, it seems pretty pointless. In a statement released this morning, Gottlieb returned to the idea that we need to explore the implications of calling non-dairy products “milk.” He wrote:

Because these dairy alternative products are often popularly referred to as ‘‘milk,’’ we intend to look at whether parents may erroneously assume that plant-based beverages’ nutritional contents are similar to those of cow’s milk, despite the fact that some of these products contain only a fraction of the protein or other nutrients found in cow’s milk.

He also pointed out potential consequences to labeling non-dairy products “milk,” stating:

“…feeding rice-based beverages to young children resulted in a disease called kwashiorkor, a form of severe protein malnutrition. There has also been a case report of a toddler being diagnosed with rickets, a disease caused by vitamin D deficiency, after parents used a soy-based alternative to cow’s milk.”

I am extremely skeptical that any parent — or anyone at all — is accidentally purchasing alternative milks. (So is the Good Food Institute, who recently conducted a pilot study on just this issue.)

Also, while rice-based beverages might indeed result in kawshiorkor (AKA protein malnutrition) in certain rare cases, milk isn’t all sunshine and rainbows either; many cows are fed hormones to continually produce milk, which humans ingest when they pour it over their cereal or into their coffee. Milk also contains quite a bit of saturated fat, and some people are lactose intolerant and can’t have milk to begin with. Plus — as Chris Albrecht pointed out on his post reacting to Gottlieb’s comments last month — the dictionary definition of “milk” actually includes plant-based options.

The question of naming is far more applicable in the case of products of cellular agriculture, like the cow-free dairy made by Perfect Day. Though it didn’t come from an animal, their “milk” is made with the same proteins as the real thing — and apparently tastes and acts the same, too.

When we spoke to Perfect Day co-founder Perumal Gandhi a few months ago, he actually told us that they want to call their product something other than “milk.” “We’re trying to come up with a nomenclature to show the consumer that this is produced in a new way, without animals,” he said. “If we call it milk then we’re not being transparent.”

This makes sense for an emerging alterna-milk, especially one so mollecularly similar to true milk, but it seems pretty ridiculous to completely change the terminology for existing plant-based products. Apparently, Colbert agrees — we’ll see if the FDA eventually does, too.

Watch the full episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert here.

 

Got Milk? Are You Sure? Labeling Debate Moves on to Plant-Based Drinks

It looks like the debate over what we label cultured/lab grown/clean “meat” will not be isolated to the deli case. If the comments made by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb today are any indication, there will be another drawn out battle over what we label as “milk.”

Speaking at the Politico Pro Summit today, Gottlieb said that his agency would start more strictly enforcing rules over what can be marketed as “milk.” This could potentially be bad news for companies behind plant-based milks such as soy and almond, etc..

Just last week the FDA held a public meeting on what to label lab grown meat, spurred on in part by complaints from the US Cattleman’s Association which believe only products derived from animals born and raised should be labeled “beef.” The public meeting was a move by the FDA to get ahead of the debate as lab-grown meat is not available commercially yet.

Gottlieb’s comments today reflect just how far behind the curve the FDA is when talking about or enforcing regulations regarding “milk,” as plant-based varietals are pretty well entrenched in supermarkets right now. In fact, non-dairy milk sales have shot up 61 percent since 2012, and new “milk” varietals keep popping up: cashew milk, quinoa milk and even something like Perfect Day is on the way, which makes true milk from yeast.

Much like the cattlemen, dairy farmers are none too happy with these upstarts getting labeled as milk. Last week, 37 state farm bureaus and other agricultural associations sent the FDA a letter rebuking the agency for not enforcing its guidelines when it comes to labeling milk. Among the complaints was that “Plant-based beverages are not held to the same ‘Standards of Identity’ and yet they share in the benefits of using the term ‘milk’ on their packaging.”

Standards of Identity is a key phrase here, and one that Gottlieb mentions in his talk. It’s the rules set out by the government to define what a product is (how many tomatoes need to be in a product to make it “ketchup,” etc.) Gottlieb mentions that in the FDA’s standard of identity for milk, the regulations say it needs to come from a lactating animal. “An almond doesn’t lactate,” he said jokingly.

Gottleib said that up until now, the FDA had not been enforcing its own standard of identity, but will start doing so. But before he can do that, he has to go through some bureaucratic hoops like notification and public comment. This process, Gottlieb said, will probably take a year and he concedes will most likely result in his agency getting sued by those behind plant-based milk, which could extend the process even further.

Though he made the almond lactation quip, Gottlieb seems to understand that the fight over milk is going to be a tough one. He points out that while the FDA has a definition of what milk is, so does the actual dictionary, which Webster’s defines as:

  1. a : a fluid secreted by the mammary glands of females for the nourishment of their young
    b (1) : milk from an animal and especially a cow used as food by people
    (2) : a food product produced from seeds or fruit that resembles and is used similarly to cow’s milk, coconut milk, soy milk
  2. : a liquid resembling milk in appearance: such as
    a : the latex of a plant
    b : the contents of an unripe kernel of grain

You can watch all of Gottlieb’s comments on milk in a queued up video here.

Milk, it seems, will be yet another area of our complicated modern lives that will become controversial and force us to pick sides (I’m Team plant-based MILK all the way!). And it surely won’t end there. As science creates new methods of recreating existing foods (meat, fish, milk, yogurt, ice cream…), established players will fight to hold on to their dominance and do what they can to thwart disruption.

What do you think? Are you pro soy milk, or would you prefer a soy-derived non-dairy beverage?

How Now, No Cow: Animal-Free Dairy Startup PerfectDay Raises $24.7M

Someone’s moo-ving up in the world.

PerfectDay, a food startup developing technology to make animal-free milk, just raised $24.7 million in series A funding. This brings their total funding to $26.8 million. The round was led by Temasek, a Singapore state-owned investment company, with participation from Horizon Ventures, Iconiq Capital, and Lion Ventures, among others. Berkeley-based Perfect Day is on a roll: earlier this month, they received a patent to use their animal-free dairy technology in food applications.

Though it’s been attracting a good bit of attention as of late, PerfectDay has been around for a while. The company launched in 2014 under the name Muufri, but rebranded to PerfectDay in 2016. (Fun fact: The new name comes from a study which found that cows produced more milk when listening to soothing music like the eponymous Lou Reed tune.) They plan to use their new funding to expand their staff (currently 32 people strong) and accelerate commercial marketing of their product with dairy & food companies.

Unlike other milk alternatives, which are made of plants like soy, almond, or peas, PerfectDay uses fermentation to create the exact same elements found in cow’s milk. Scientists give genetically altered yeast a “blueprint” so that, when fed with certain nutrients, they produce two key proteins in milk: casein and whey.

The resulting proteins can be used to make lactose-free, gluten-free, soy-free, and nut-free milk. They can also be used to make a myriad of dairy products such as cheese, yogurt, and ice cream. While there are plenty of vegan dairy products already on shelves, no cashew cheese or coconut-based gelato will ever taste exactly the same as the dairy original. Products made with PerfectDay’s milk proteins, however, taste just like the “real thing”—after all, the proteins are genetically identical.

When they first launched, PerfectDay was trying to do two things: create a supply chain for animal-free dairy components and put a single brand of cow-free milk on supermarket shelves. In November of 2017 co-founder Perumal Gandhi announced on LinkedIn that they would shift course to focus on a B2B model, creating a supply chain for animal-free dairy products and partnering with food and drink companies to bring their technology to market.

And this, in my opinion, is where things start to get really interesting. “Nobody else was working on the supply chain side,” Gandhi told The Spoon. “We started this company to have the largest possible impact on the effects of animal agriculture on our planet, and now we can do that by working with grocery stores across multiple channels. We can be national from Day One.”

 

Animal-free milk has significantly lower environmental impact than cow’s milk.

By joining forces with existing food manufacturers, especially large dairy companies, PerfectDay hopes to alter the system from the inside. With the recent trends for vegan products and milk alternatives, this disruption could prove to be pretty profitable—both for PerfectDay and the planet. And given their investors’ connections with large-scale food and beverage brands, PerfectDay will likely be able to commercialize their “milk” protein technology relatively quickly.

Gandhi said that, while they’re also partnering with smaller, family-owned businesses, they need to team up with big companies to truly change the food industry. He hopes that their lab-grown casein and whey will eventually be like pea protein is today: an ingredient that used to be rare, but is now fairly commonplace in animal-free products.

The path ahead is not without obstacles. PerfectDay will have to convince consumers that cow-free dairy products can taste and function indistinguishably from traditional dairy, and can be produced at a competitive price. They will also have to figure out what their new products will be called.

In fact, the PerfectDay team is currently in talks with the FDA to determine what sort of labeling use for their cow-free dairy. Unlike lab-grown meat, which is fighting Big Beef to be able to use “meat” on their labels, Gandhi said that they want to call their product something other than “milk.” “We’re trying to come up with a nomenclature to show the consumer that this is produced in a new way, without animals,” he said. “If we call it milk then we’re not being transparent.” This makes sense, especially if their products are more expensive; people want to know why they’re paying a premium.

Challenges aside, their technology as a service model has the potential to be hugely successful. By choosing to use a B2B model, PerfectDay will no doubt be able to scale more quickly than with a B2C model. It will be interesting to follow their progress and see how they compare in, say, 5 years with other food tech startups who chose to market directly to consumers.

If the current trend towards animal protein alternatives continues, PerfectDay will no doubt take home some serious (cow-free) cheddar.

SomaDetect Uses AI to Help Dairy Farmers Improve their Milk

There is a milk glut in the U.S.. Technology has allowed dairy farmers to produce more milk than ever, but all this abundance has caused milk prices to plummet. It’s getting so bad that some farmers face selling off their cows.

While technology helped create this crisis, perhaps SomaDetect‘s technology can help struggling dairy farmers get out of it.

SomaDetect uses a combination of optical sensors and machine learning to help dairy farmers analyze the milk each cow produces to determine its quality. As SomaDetect CEO Bethany Deshpande explained it to me, farmers attach a small sensor box to the milking hose, which shines a light through the milk as it flows. Based on the scatter pattern of that light coming through, SomaDetect’s software can analyze what’s in the milk.

The company measures fat and protein as well the reproductive status of a cow and any residual antibiotics. More importantly, SomaDetect can look at somatic cells to detect Mastitis, a serious bacterial infection of the udder that is the most common disease among dairy cows and the number one cause of their early death. By quickly identifying cows with high somatic cell counts, farmers can better target treatment and to help prevent the spread of Mastitis.

Additionally, one cow can throw off somatic counts for an entire batch of product. By removing high-somatic cows, the farmer can lower the overall somatic counts of their milk and earn more money: “Farmers with low somatic cell counts get a bonus from the milk processor,” said Deshpande.

This type of deep inspection of milk has only recently become possible. According to Deshpande, the optical technology has “been around for a hundred years,” but advances in computer vision and machine learning means SomaDetect’s software can analyze vast sums of information in ways that were not possible even five years ago.

SomaDetect isn’t the only company using light to help dairy farmers. EIO Diagnostics uses multispectral imaging for Somatic cell counting, and Consumer Physics is putting its handheld SCiO device to use on farms to detect levels of dry matter in cow feed, which can also impact milk production.

SomaDetect was founded in 2016 in New Brunswick, Canada. The company won a 43North startup competition, earning them $1 million in funding and office space in Buffalo, NY. SomaDetect makes money by selling the equipment to farmers and charging $5 per month per cow for the software. The company is currently running pilot programs and is searching for seed funding as it looks to expand into New York state.

Deshpande says she came from the dairy side of the industry and wants SomaDetect to work closely with farmers. With milk prices expected to stay low throughout this year, dairy farmers could use all the help they can get.

You can hear about SomaDetect in our daily spoon podcast.  You can also subscribe in Apple podcasts or through our Amazon Alexa skill.