of Germany Cultimate food, A biotech specialist in cultured fat recently presented a product called Cultifat, featured in a hybrid burger, during a demo testing event hosted by startup accelerator Proveg Incubator.
Cultifat is a functional ingredient for hybrid products that replace flavorings, coconut oil and methylcellulose in plant-based meats. The product is cell-cultured from intramuscular beef or pork fat, appreciated for having fatty acids that give the meat its unique flavor and aroma.
“It’s a game-changing functional ingredient.”
Proveg Incubator Director Albrecht Wolfmeyer said: “This is a game-changing functional ingredient that could help transform the plant-based meat sector. We’re excited to see what the team has already achieved in research, product development and commercialization and what’s next. We are here to support them fully.”
Next-level plant-based meats
Oskar Latyshev, Eugenia Sagu and George Zhelezny founded Cultimate Foods to provide an ingredient that takes plant-based meats to the next level. The company focuses on developing high quality fats using a proprietary cellular farming technology. According to Cultimate Foods, with its new fat, companies will combine the best of each category (plant-based + farming) to create hybrid meat products.
Last November, German specialist Big Idea Ventures LLC, Proveg International, and Realm.Cloud raised €700,000 in a pre-seed round to further advance the technological approach to 3D cultivation of animal fat tissue. The company owns a research and development laboratory in Göttingen, Germany. Startups participate in it 8th cohort of ProVeg Incubator In 2022 and Sixth Big Idea Ventures cohort.
Pure meat taste
“It tasted truly and intensely like a beef burger I haven’t had in years,” said Julia Martin, program manager and scientific lead at ProVeg Incubator, during a tasting at ProVeg’s Berlin office.
According to Proveg, hybrid solutions will appeal to meat lovers. Over the next decade, these products will dominate the market until farming or meat products are feasible on an industrial scale.
Among the latest developments in hybrid products is Saba Fazeli (Beyond Meat’s first R&D engineer) Paul’s Table, which introduced hybrid meat made with 90% plant-based ingredients mixed with Anima collagen and fat. Swiss cultured meat startup Mirai Foods has collaborated with Rügenwalder Mühle to create a hybrid alt meat product with plant protein and cultured beef fat. Spanish company Cubic Foods, backed by US meat giant Cargill, also produces cultured fats for plant-based alternatives.
“Cultimate’s ingredients are a game-changer in the plant-based meat industry. We have successfully harnessed the power of science and technology to bring an authentic meat flavor to plant-based products. This breakthrough will delight meat lovers while driving the global transition towards sustainable and ethical food choices,” said Zhelezny, CEO of Cultimate Foods.