Consumers who want to mitigate the impact of their meat consumption on the planet are turning to alt-meat products – but many are unsatisfied with the taste or mouthfeel of many alternatives.
What if you could create a protein that blends cell-cultured meat with plant-based ingredients? Thanks to US-based ScFi Foods – which counts supergroup Coldplay among its investors – such a solution is very close.
SciFi Foods has created a 90:10 blend of vegan and cell-cultured ingredients and is expected to produce about 50,000 burger patties a year when it launches imminently – and double that volume a short time after.
The company recently completed construction of its hybrid meat manufacturing plant in San Leandro, California, a facility that will allow the company to scale the production of its cultivated beef efficiently and affordably.
According to SciFi Foods, the facility was designed to meet FDA and USDA regulations to sell its products commercially.
The food-tech company uses a hybrid meat approach, combining cultured proteins’ taste credentials with plant-based ingredients mainly derived from soy.
It is also the only company in the world with beef cell lines that grow in single-cell suspension and don’t require expensive materials like microcarriers or scaffolding, allowing the company to scale up production quickly and affordably.
“We spent the past few months commissioning our facility, and we are excited today to announce the completion of our first 500L bioreactor run,” said Joshua March, co-founder and CEO of SciFi Foods. “And we couldn’t be more excited to start serving them to the public as soon as we get the green light!”
The first 500L bioreactor run of cultivated beef was 100 per cent serum-free and yielded kilograms of product. The company plans to use the product in its blended products, with the first ground beef product consisting of 10 per cent cultivated beef and 90 per cent plant-based ingredients.
The 90:10 blend of vegan and cell-cultured ingredients is expected to produce about 50,000 burgers a year, and the company said it plans to double this capacity soon after the launch.
“We have great cell lines optimised for scale,” added March. “We are confident we can increase yield significantly over the next few years.”
SciFi Foods has raised over $40M in total financing from investors, including Silicon Valley VC Andreessen Horowitz and Coldplay. Previously called Artemis Foods, the company emerged from stealth in 2022 with a cultivated beef product slated to be used in hybrid meat formulations.
