September 2023: The Month in Review

After a historic summer, this September marked a strong end to the third quarter of 2023 for the cellular agriculture field. Following the landmark launch of the first US cultured meat products, companies continued to look to scale production through partnerships and facility development.

At the same time, this month also showed the challenges and problems that the industry can face while aiming to scale its production processes. From new partnerships and facilities to the first major lawsuit against a cultivated meat player, we look at what happened this September in cellular agriculture.

EIT Foods Grants Funding to Cultivated Meat Supply Chain Startups

To support the development of a cultivated meat supply chain, three startups received €1.8 million in grant funding from EIT Food. The financing of the three selected startups, LenioBio, 3D Bio-Tissues (3DBT), and BioBetter, all follow participation in the Cultivated Meat Innovation Challenge, which the Good Food Institute Europe also backed.

3D Bio-Tissues Cell-Cultured Pork Fillet Prototype

LenioBio leverages tobacco plant cell systems to produce proteins like growth factors, while BioBetter aims to use molecular farming to grow its growth factors in the tobacco crop. 3DBT previously launched its cell culture media supplement, City Mix, to accelerate cell proliferation.

Canadian Food Innovation Network Grants Funding to Canadian Cellular Food Projects

In September, the Canadian Food Innovation Network awarded CAD $3.16 million (USD $2.29 million) in funding to two Canadian cellular food projects. Recipients include cell-based meat company Myo Palate, which focuses on developing and scaling cultivated pork production by harnessing embryonic stem cells, and the Verschuren Centre, which aims to scale up the production of precision fermentation-derived food products.

Good Meat Faces Lawsuits from ABEC and CRB

To start the fall, there are two lawsuits against Eat Just and its cell-based meat subsidiary, Good Meat, for alleged nonpayment for services. It may have major ramifications for the rest of the cellular agriculture industry.

Bioprocess engineering and manufacturing company ABEC sued Eat Just for a breach of its contract over nonpayment of its services. In May 2022, Eat Just announced an exclusive multi-year agreement with ABEC to create the world’s largest bioreactors to produce its cell-based chicken and beef products.

Good Meat's cultivated chicken at the restaurant China Chilcano by Jose Andres

In the lawsuit, ABEC claims Eat Just has failed to pay more than $30 million in invoices despite delivering on all its promises to date, including the construction of bioreactors and support equipment for Good Meat’s facilities in Singapore and the US.

As a result, ABEC seeks to terminate its exclusive bioreactor development and manufacturing agreement with the company and seeks to recover damages. Eat Just is in arbitration with ABEC and requested that the court stay the suit pending arbitration.

In addition, engineering firm CRB also sued Eat Just and its subsidiary Good Meat for alleged nonpayment of $4.285 million in engineering, design, and procurement services. It is reported that Eat Just and CRB are in discussions to solve the issue.

With lawsuits alleging payments owing more than $34 million, Eat Just and Good Meat owe more in payments than what most companies in the cultivated meat field have raised in total. Only 16 cell-based meat and seafood companies have disclosed more than $34 million in total funding to date.

We will continue to share updates as the story progresses.

SuperMeat Receives Kosher Certification for Cultivated Chicken Meat

Israeli startup SuperMeat announced that Orthodox Union (OU) Kosher, the world’s largest kosher certification agency, determined that its chicken cell line meets the Kosher meat standards.

SuperMeat's Cultured Chicken Burger

Specifically, SuperMeat’s chicken cell line meets the Mehadrin standards, which is the most stringent level of kosher supervision. OU Kosher’s recognition followed in-depth halachic discussions and scientific reviews of SuperMeat’s facility.

Moving forward, both OU Kosher and SuperMeat will work to examine the entire production supply chain and production process. In January 2023, Aleph Farms shared that its cell-based steaks will be deemed kosher in a ruling by the Chief Rabbi of Israel.

Islamic Law Scholars Review Good Meat’s Cultured Meat Production Process

Good Meat announced that leading Islamic law scholars reviewed its production process to determine if cultivated meat can be deemed halal. Following the review, the Shariah scholars concluded that cell-cultured meat can be considered halal if specific conditions are met.

The animal cell line must come from a permissible animal, such as a cow or chicken, and must be extracted from a slaughtered animal according to Islamic law. In addition, the nutrients in the cell culture media formulation must be deemed permissible to eat, therefore forbidding spilled animal blood, materials from animals not slaughtered properly, or alcohol.

TurtleTree to Launch Bovine Lactoferrin Product

Precision fermentation dairy company TurtleTree shared its plans to launch its first cell-cultured dairy protein product, a bovine lactoferrin product, later this year in the US.

TurtleTree's lactoferrin product

Branded as LF+, TurtleTree shared that the company aims to obtain self-affirmed GRAS Status for its lactoferrin in the coming weeks and submit its notification to the US FDA for a letter of no objections in the first half of next year.

According to TurtleTree, lactoferrin currently costs $1,000 per kilogram and requires 10,000 liters of milk to produce. Interestingly, even though TurtleTree pivoted its focus away from cell-based dairy, the company shared it is still developing its platform with a longer timeframe.

Upside Foods Announces Commercial-Scale Facility in Illinois

Last week, Upside Foods announced plans to develop its commercial-scale cell-based meat facility in the greater Chicago metropolitan area in Glenview, Illinois.

The top-funded cultured meat company, Upside Foods will invest $140 million to develop the 187,000 square feet large-scale facility. Upside Foods will also receive $15 million in state grants, loans, and tax credits from the Illinois government through its economic development scheme.

Visual of Upside Foods' future commercial-scale facility

Upside Foods claims its proposed facility will initially be able to produce millions of pounds of its cultivated meat producers per year with the potential to expand to over 30 million pounds annually. Upside Foods previously launched its pilot facility, called ‘EPIC,’ in November 2021.

Calling the new facility ‘Rubicon,’ Upside Foods shared that the commercial-scale facility will include bioreactors with capacities of up to 100,000 liters and will start by producing ground cell-based chicken products, with plans to expand to whole-cut products and other species.

Following a deep dive by Matt Reynolds into the company’s technology, it is not surprising to see the company focus on scaling its cell-cultured ground meat products first while further developing its whole-cut technology platform.

Even though the company launched a whole-cut cell-cultivated chicken product at Bar Crenn this summer, Upside Foods is still producing its whole-cut product at the 2-liter scale while having challenges with scaling its whole-cut bioprocessing platform.

The company claims its platform to produce cell-cultured ground meat products works efficiently at the 2,000-liter scale, which is why the new commercial-scale facility will initially focus on that.

Considering its regulatory approval was for its whole-cut chicken product, Upside Foods would need additional regulatory approval before launching any cell-cultivated ground chicken product.

From cell culture media formulations to bioprocessing, Upside Foods’ challenges highlight the scaling difficulties all companies in the field are working to address to increase production and, ultimately, become commercially viable.

Upside Foods did not share a timeline for when the company will break ground on or complete the facility. Previously, in December 2022, Believer Meats broke ground to build its commercial facility in Wilson County, North Carolina.

BioBetter Launches Molecular Farming Pilot Facility

Molecular farming startup BioBetter announced that it opened its first food-grade pilot facility to produce growth factors for cultured meat production.

Harnessing the tobacco crop, BioBetter stated that its facility can process 100 kilograms of tobacco-crop-derived growth factors daily. The facility is currently securing approval from the Israeli Ministry of Health for its food manufacturing license to produce food-grade growth factors.

As the company plans to cultivate more FGF2 and insulin-expressing plants, BioBetter aims to launch commercially in 2024. In September 2022, BioBetter received $10 million in Series A funding to scale up its production platform.

Hoxton Farm Launches Pilot Plant

Earlier in September, UK startup Hoxton Farms announced the launch of its cell-based fat pilot plant facility in London.

At 14,000 square feet, the new pilot facility contains specialist cell culture laboratories, a food development kitchen, and a hardware workshop, where Hoxton Farms aims to develop its own custom bioreactors optimized for its cell-cultured fat production process.

Hoxton Farms Co-Founders Max Jamily and Ed Steele

According to the startup, the new pilot facility can produce up to one tonne of cultivated fat annually and aims to achieve this output by 2025. The company claims it could expand production to produce up to ten tonnes in the future if Hoxton Farms fully optimized the efficiency of its bioreactors.

Fat is a key part of the taste and flavor of meat, and Hoxton Farms intends to initially partner with plant-based meat companies to use its cell-based fat as an ingredient to improve the taste profile of their plant-based products.

For its first product, Hoxton Farms plans to launch a cultivated pork belly fat that can used as an ingredient to develop plant-based burgers and sausages. The company will then look to expand into chicken and fish fats and eventually explore structured, whole cuts of fat.

An important stepping stone for scaling production, Hoxton Farms plans to use its pilot facility as a proof of concept to evaluate the commercial viability and price point of its production process, develop partnership agreements, and seek regulatory approval.

Considering the previous regulatory approvals of cell-cultivated meat in Singapore and the United States, Hoxton Farms aims to launch its fat product in one of those markets first.

The company did not clarify a timeline for launch or whether it would develop a future commercial-scale facility in the UK or either of those markets.

In October 2022, Hoxton Farms raised £20 million ($22 million) in Series A funding to develop its pilot plant. The startup previously raised £2.7 million ($3.7 million) in seed funding in February 2021.

Extracellular Launches Cultivated Meat CDMO Facility in Bristol

Cultivated meat CDMO Extracellular announced the launch of its contract pilot plant in Bristol to support scaling production. As the first European contract plant dedicated to the cell-based meat field, Extracellular claims its UK-based food-grade production facility is the largest in Europe for the field.

Extracellular team

Currently operational at a 200-liter scale, the startup expects to reach 2,000-liter operational capacity by December 2023. The facility will hold multiple bioreactors from 50L to 5,000L, with a planned future facility capacity of 10,000 liters.

With existing capabilities, Extracellular claims the facility has a production capacity of up to 50 tons of cultivated meat per year and, with predicted future capabilities, up to 100 tons of cultured meat per year.

JBS Begins Construction of Cultured Meat Research Center

Global meat conglomerate JBS began constructing Brazil’s first research facility focusing on food biotechnology, including cell-based meat. Called the JBS Biotech Innovation Centre, the new facility will aim to model how to produce cultivated meat in an efficient, scalable, and competitively priced way.

JBS states that the new facility will require $62 million in investments over 3 phases, including $22 million for phase one to establish the laboratory facilities. Phases two and three include developing a pilot plant and an industrial-scale plant to evaluate cultured meat's technical and economic viability, respectively.

In June, JBS announced plans to build a pilot plant for cell-cultured meat in Spain for BioTech Foods.

The Cultivated B and DenovoMatrix Announce Partnership to Scale Cultivated Meat

Bioprocessing startup The Cultivated B (TCB) and scaffolding startup DenovoMatrix announced a collaborative partnership to help scale cell-based meat production.

According to the partnership, the German companies will conduct a feasibility study to explore combining their technologies. DenovoMatrix will contribute its microcarrier technology to test the proliferation of cells in suspension in TCB’s bioreactors and cell medium.

DenovoMatrix will also contribute its coating technology for functionalizing scaffolding to enable a final structured cultured meat product. Once complete and successful, TCB intends to integrate DenovoMatrix’s technology into its product offerings.

In addition, TCB initiated the pre-submission process with the European Union Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for a cell-based sausage product. While the company still needs to submit a scientific dossier to EFSA, TCB aims to be the first or one of the first to receive EFSA certification for its production process.

According to the announcement, TCB seeks approval for a hybrid sausage product made in collaboration with its sister company, The Family Butchers, consisting of plant-based ingredients and cell-based meat.

The announcement did not clarify the product’s composition breakdown or the type of meat. As of May 2023, no cellular agriculture food company has submitted a scientific dossier to EFSA for regulatory approval.

The Cultivated B Partners with Natural Products Canada to Promote Precision Fermentation

Bioprocessing startup The Cultivated B (TCB) announced a partnership with Natural Products Canada (NPC) to accelerate the growth of Canadian startups leveraging precision fermentation.

The Cultivated B previously launched a facility in Burlington, Ontario

According to the announcement, Canadian startups within the NPC pipeline will have access to TCB’s innovation hub at its manufacturing facility in Burlington, Ontario, as well as customized guidance and advice to take their products to the next level.

The TCB Innovation Hub was first launched in partnership with Ontario Genomics to support the cellular agriculture field in Canada in October 2022

IntegriCulture Partners with JT Group to Develop I-MEM 2.0

Japanese cellular agriculture company IntegriCulture announced the development of ‘I-MEM 2.0’, a food-grade basal media for cell-based meat production.

IntegriCulture's CulNet System

Developed in a joint effort with the JT Group under the CulNet Consortium, ‘I-MEM 2.0’ aims to minimize the use of highly refined materials, like amino acids, that have been the main cost driver of the basal media and, instead, replace them with yeast extracts.

IntegriCulture tested its product on cell types from four potential species to demonstrate the potential universality of its solution. According to IntegriCulture, ‘I-MEM 2.0’ is currently patent pending, with a product to launch soon. 

Newform Foods Partners with MANE to Explore Cultured Meat Flavors

Formerly known as Mzansi Meat, South African startup Newform Foods announced a partnership with international flavor and ingredients company MANE. The companies will work together to improve the flavor of Newform Foods’ cell-based muscle and fat, which will be combined with plant-based components to develop hybrid meat products.

In addition, Newform Foods shared that the startup launched the nonprofit Plenty Foundation to address food insecurity and malnutrition across Africa. The foundation will work with Newform to explore integrating cell-based protein in hybrid foods.

Formo To Launch Alternative Egg Product

Precision fermentation startup Formo announced its plans to launch a new egg alternative product later this year, calling the product ‘What Came Third.’

Harnessing a protein made using a koji mold, Formo stated that its egg alternative is not an identical replica of egg proteins like ovalbumin but instead uses a protein with the same functional properties.

Formo's alternative egg product

Interestingly, considering the history of koji consumption in the EU, Formo claims its egg alternative product would not be regarded as a novel protein under EU regulation.

Formo stated it has confirmed its assessment with a number of national Food Safety Authorities in Europe. It is unclear whether Formo uses the same methodology to produce its new egg alternative product as its dairy proteins.

CellX Advances Cell-Cultured Seafood Progress

After previously showcasing a cultivated pork prototype, cultured meat startup CellX announced progress in developing cell-cultivated seafood. According to the startup, CellX claims it has achieved suspension differentiation of its fish cells in only six months. CellX states this process can typically take one to two years in industry.

In addition, CellX stated it successfully scaled its cultivated fish production to a 200-liter bioreactor with a max cell density of 20 million cells per milliliter. While the type of fish was not clarified, CellX stated the cost of its first batch of cell-cultivated fish was approximately 400 yuan “per unit.”

CellX previously launched its pilot plant in Shanghai at the start of August.

Profuse Technology Accelerates Muscle Differentiation in 3D Environments

Israeli startup Profuse Technology announced its cell culture media supplement for cell-based meat production successfully accelerated muscle differentiation and growth in 3D environments.

Considering that cultivated meat will be produced in bioreactors, technology enablers need to ensure their solution works in those 3D environments beyond lab settings.

To test that, the startup stated its media supplement reduced the differentiation and growth time of muscle cells, one of the main parts of meat, by 80% to 48 hours when tested with 3D scaffolding. Profuse Technology stated the company is currently supplying its supplement to other startups in the field.

Mosa Meat Receives Sustainable B Corp Certification

Mosa Meat announced that the Dutch cell-based meat company received its B Corp Certification. As the first cultivated meat company to receive the certification, Mosa Meat stated that the recognition highlights its goal and focus on developing a more sustainable food system.

Mosa Meat's cell-cultured beef burger

According to the certification board, Mosa Meat received an overall score of 84.3 in its rating criteria, where a company requires 80.0 points to qualify. During the over-a-year certification process, Mosa Meat was also recognized with two Impact Business Models for Resource Conservation and Mission Locked.

Precision Fermentation Dairy and Life Cycle Assessments

One of the central premises of cellular agriculture is to make a more sustainable food system, including cell-cultured dairy via precision fermentation. To support that, several precision fermentation companies have conducted life cycle assessments (LCA) on their production process.

In April 2021, Perfect Day published its LCA that showed its cell-cultured whey production process led to 85% to 97% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than conventional dairy protein production.

More recently, French precision fermentation startup Bon Vivant said it conducted a life cycle assessment (LCA) on its cell-cultured whey proteins. Performed independently by a third-party group, the LCA compared one liter of animal-free dairy made with Bon Vivant’s cell-cultured whey protein to one liter of conventional dairy milk with the same total protein amount.

The LCA showed that Bon Vivant’s milk generated 96% fewer emissions while using 99% less water, 92% less land, and 50% less energy. 

Future Fields Launches CDMO Service for Biopharma Companies

Canadian company Future Fields announced that it has launched a new CDMO (contract development and organization) service for small- to medium-sized biopharma companies.

 Through its EntoEngine platform in fruit flies, Future Fields currently produces growth factors for the cell-based meat industry and aims to support other players in creating their proteins of interest.

After raising a funding round in February, Future Fields aims to scale to 1.2kg of daily production before the end of the year.

Zero Acre Farms Partners with Shake Shack for Cell-Cultured Oil

US burger chain Shake Shack announced a partnership with cell-cultured oil company Zero Acre Farms. According to the announcement, Shake Shack will use Zero Acre Farms’ oil product for frying in two locations in New York City.

The limited-time collaboration was announced during the start of Climate Week NYC. Zero Acre Farms produces its cultured oil by feeding its cell culture sugars from sugarcane, converting it into a sugarcane-derived oil product.

Interestingly, while the company explains how it uses sugarcane and cell cultures to produce its oil on its website, the concept of fermentation to produce its cultured oil was not mentioned in the official press release.

Singaporeans Prefer the Term Cultivated Meat Over Cell-Cultured Meat

According to research conducted by the Singapore Management University, consumers preferred the term cultivated meat when describing meat products produced via cellular agriculture.

According to the team, adopting cultivated meat as a universal term could foster greater consumer understanding and positive attitudes toward the novel foodtech field.

When consumers were asked which beneficial framework (environment, health, animal welfare) was the most attractive about cell-cultured meat, no clear framework appeared the most effective.

In 2020, Singapore became the first country in the world to give regulatory approval for selling cell-cultivated meat.

Eat Just Receives Funding and Announces Layoffs

At the start of September, alternative protein company Eat Just announced raising $16 million in funding.

As one of the top-funded alternative protein companies, the funding came from the nonprofit Ahimsa Foundation, which has also previously invested in the company, to provide a “short-term boost.” At the time of the announcement, it was unclear how much of the funding was dedicated to its cultured meat subsidiary, Good Meat.

In addition, Eat Just laid off approximately 40 employees. While the company did not disclose which part was impacted, the announcement suggested that the layoffs were primarily from the plant-based Just Egg team. Eat Just previously laid off 18% of employees in February 2023.

Conclusion

From partnerships and company milestones, September was a strong start to the fall for the cellular agriculture field. Even though there were no notable investment announcements this month, a major theme throughout September was scaling – both via partnerships and pilot facility development.

From Upsides Foods’ announcement of its new commercial-scale facility to Hoxton Farms and Extracellular launching facilities, cultivated meat companies will continue to scale their production processes and technologies to make their products commercially viable.

As part of that journey, partnerships will be instrumental in ensuring the industry can scale and become part of our future food system. While many partnerships have benefited cellular agriculture startups and their partners, this month showed the challenges that can arise through the lawsuits against Eat Just and Good Meat.

While there are still many questions about the lawsuits, the litigation and its results could significantly impact the cell-based meat industry and the broader cellular agriculture field.

From facility design to scaling manufacturing, partnerships and collaborations with industry experts are critical for the field’s success. Lawsuits may make these larger companies reconsider their strategies and opportunities in the industry.

If one of the top-funded companies in the field cannot guarantee to pay its bills, why would any of these large, established engineering and life science firms collaborate or partner with smaller or newer players in the field?