Cultivated Biosciences wants to make plant-based dairy ‘feel’ more like the real McCoy

The vegan food market is expected to double within a decade. This hasn't gone unnoticed by the major food and beverage incumbents such as Nestlé, which launched a plant-based dairy line under the Wunda brand.

There are challenges when trying to replicate goods traditionally made from animal-based ingredients. Existing dairy-free solutions such as coconut oil or palm oil aren't all that sustainable from an environmental standpoint.

This is something that Swiss startup Cultivated Biosciences is trying to solve by creating a high-fat cream that is free of yeast.

Mouthfeel

Cultivated Biosciences was founded in 2021 by Tomas Turner and Dimitri Zogg, and is one of many companies in a sustainable food space that is working to reduce humans dependence on animals for food. Brown Foods recently raised money to develop cell-cultured cowless milk in a lab, while Better Dairy and New Culture are using precision fermentation techniques to provide the necessary milk proteins.

Cultivated Biosciences is tackling the problem from a slightly different angle, focusing on thetexture to help vegan food producers create goods that feel closer to the real person.

Tomas Turner is the CEO of the company that is working on the fat component. A fat-rich ingredient that you can imagine as a 20% fat cream with a mouthfeel and colour indistinguishable from dairy has been developed by us.

Turner said that the company uses a one-step process that starts with Oleaginous yeast and ferments depending on the needs of its vegan dairy-brand clients and the specific products they're making.

Turner said that they could concentrate, suck, or dry the cream in a similar way to how dairy is processed.

Turner said that Cultivated will use the pre-seed funding to carry out additional R&D and enter product development trials with its first customers. Regulatory approval processes for Novel Food in the EU and GRAS in the U.S. are required for the company to move forward.

Turner said that they will start doing test launches in the U.S., expand in Europe in 2025, and continuously expand commercialization.

Switzerland's Wingman Venture led the pre-seed round for Cultivated Biosciences.