Harnessing the immense potential of precision fermentation to produce animal fats for the next generation of meat and dairy alternatives

Projektinformationen

Melt and Marble

ID Finanzhilfevereinbarung: 101188773

DOI

10.3030/101188773

EK-Unterschriftsdatum 16 Dezember 2024

Startdatum 1 Januar 2025

Enddatum 30 September 2026

Finanziert unter

• The European Innovation Council (EIC)

Gesamtkosten

Keine Daten

EU-Beitrag

€ 2 485 840,00

Koordiniert durch

MELT&MARBLE AB
Sweden

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Melt and Marble (Harnessing the immense potential of precision fermentation to produce animal fats for the next generation ofmeat and dairy alternatives)

Berichtszeitraum: 2025-01-01 bis 2025-09-30

Zusammenfassung vom Kontext und den Gesamtzielen des Projekts

Melt&Marble (M&M) is a Sweden-based company that specializes in developing exceptional fats for plant-based foods. The origins of our company trace back to Jens Nielsen's Systems and Synthetic Biology group at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. Currently, more than 60% of dietary proteins are supplied by animals whose farming takes up ~77% of all agricultural land despite supplying only 17% of the world’s calories. Dependence on animal proteins leads to ecosystem destruction, biodiversity loss, and >15% of GHG emissions. Though there are alternate meat and dairy options available, the plant-based oils and fats used in plantbased meat and dairy analogues simply cannot compete with the functionality and flavour of animal fats. We have created for the first time, a scalable, precision-fermentation-based proprietary technology platform using engineered yeasts that produce animal-like fats with superior functionality and flavour that customers are demanding. The fats have lower saturated fats levels (40-60% vs. 90% of coconut oil) and better functionality than coconut oil to impart a better taste to meat and dairy analogues. The entire technology platform is scalable due to the existing and outsourced fermentation infrastructure. The fats are customizable to various food and non-food applications and will benefit the alternative meat producers within the EU and globally. Our technology is protected by a robust IP strategy and patents. We have 10 granted patents and 2 pending patents across 5 patent families and the innovation stems from 2 crucial components protected by these IPs that allow us to efficiently produce highly tailored fats. We have already scaled up our first product to pilot scale (TRL 5). Within this project, we will improve our production process, scale up further to demo scale, and conduct extensive application tests. This will allow us to advance to TRL 8 and significantly de-risk our investment case.

Arbeit, die ab Beginn des Projekts bis zum Ende des durch den Bericht erfassten Berichtszeitraums geleistet wurde, und die wichtigsten bis dahin erzielten Ergebnisse

We have been working on optimizing our production process and have already achieved the target strain and bioprocess KPIs that we set for this project. This has been achieved ahead of schedule and should translate to attractive unit economics at commercial scale which is critical for marketacceptance. Furthermore we have obtained strong evidence of the value our fat is delivering in applications through both internal and external application tests. These application tests have been across various application areas including meat alternatives (burgers, sausages, chicken nuggets, meatballs) dairy alternatives (cheese analogues, margarines / spreads), chocolate confectionery and even bakery. We have also signed a JDA with a large food player to potentially commercialize our ingredients.

Fortschritte, die über den aktuellen Stand der Technik hinausgehen und voraussichtliche potenzielle Auswirkungen (einschließlich der bis dato erzielten sozioökonomischen Auswirkungen und weiter gefassten gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen des Projekts)

During the first period of this project, we have achieved significant progress in developing improving the strain and bioprocess performance – the key focus of The Strain and Bioprocess Optimization work package (WP1). These results demonstrate the ability to unlock lower costs of production which are critical to unlock the market potential.
To ensure full exploitation and market adoption, the next phase will focus on:
Scaling up and validating the technology under operational conditions.
Strengthening IP protection
Obtaining regulatory approval in the US
Securing customer contracts / launching commercially

Melt&Marble fat on food platter