Nutreco Opens New Facility Dedicated to Food-Grade Cell Feed for Cultivated Meat – vegconomist

Nutreco, a global leader in animal nutrition and aqua feed, has opened a dedicated nutrient facility for cellular agriculture. “This new food-certified production facility is a first for the industry and a first for Nutreco,” announced the company. 
Located in Boxmeer, the Netherlands, the facility has commenced operations and produces a food-grade powder for cell feed specifically developed for cultivated meat.
“One of its biggest challenges is how to feed protein cells cost-efficiently, sustainably, and at scale”
Worth noting in this context is that this January, the British biotech Multus also announced a commercial-scale production plant for serum-free growth media for the cultivated meat industry.
© Mosa Meat
First successful batch
Nutreco says its team has successfully launched its first commercial batch of 50 kilograms of cell feed powder and announces plans to produce several hundred kilograms per week to scale in tandem with the growth of companies.
Historically, the cultivated meat industry has depended on expensive pharma-grade ingredients and fetal bovine serum to develop its products — hindering efforts to produce affordable cultivated meat products.
Susanne Wiegel, Head of the Alternative Protein Program, commented, “The cell-cultured protein industry is in its development stage, and one of its biggest challenges is how to feed protein cells cost-efficiently, sustainably, and at scale.
“We see potential for this industry to be one solution to the challenge of feeding the rising global population and are committed to helping the industry grow by becoming a supplier and a solutions provider.”
© BlueNalu
Proteins for a growing population
Nutreco is an investor and partner of California’s BlueNalu and the Netherlands’s Mosa Meat, serving as an advisor in the development of cell-based products and animal-free feed cell solutions.
With Mosa Meat, Nutreco worked to reduce the costs of cell feed with food-grade ingredients such as amino acids, minerals, vitamins, and glucose, which are capable of fully maturing beef cells. Meanwhile, with BlueNalu, Nutreco has entered various collaborations to establish and scale up a food-grade feed supply chain specifically for cultivated seafood.
Despite being in its development stage and facing several scaling challenges, Nutreco says it sees the potential of cultivated meat as part of the solution to feed a growing global population by 2050.
Investments in cultivated protein are one of several strategies to increase productivity and reduce the environmental footprint in the animal protein value chain, argues David Blakemore, CEO of Nutreco.
He adds, “We must continue to drive productivity and reduce the environmental footprints in the animal protein value chain and produce protein from more and more varied sources – animals as well as alternative sources of protein such as plant-based protein, meat or seafood developed from animal cells, and protein produced through fermentation.”

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