The Hub is located in The Valley in Kemptthal, a ‘hotbed of innovation and technology’ near Zurich. It will operate as a stand-alone company providing ‘facilities and knowledge’ to companies working in the cultured meat and seafood space. It will be equipped with a product development lab as well as cell culture and bio fermentation capabilities to help start-ups develop and go to market with the right product.
“The focus of the Hub is to support established food companies and start-ups to both develop new cultured meat products but also to support them to take these products to market. Ultimately the goal of the new company is to create an infrastructure which supports and accelerates the overall development of the future cultured food sector, importantly including scale up,” Fabio Campanile, Global Head of Science and Technology at Givaudan explained.
Each partner brings a unique perspective and expertise to the project, according to Campanile. “Bühler contributes with industry leading solutions that are used in the scale-up and production of thousands of food products around the world; Givaudan brings in centuries of experience and knowledge in every aspect of taste, including all kinds of meat alternatives, and deep expertise in biotechnology, to product development; Migros is known for its competence in customer interaction and market cultivation. The combination of the three partners is remarkable.”
Bringing scale to cultured meat
Cell-based meat has attracted a huge amount of interest in recent years, resulting in a US$700m influx of investment – $400m of which was pumped into the sector in 2019 alone. However, the challenge of scaling up production levels remains significant. And it is this pain point that The Cultured Food Innovation Hub hopes to help address.