● Melt&Marble successfully scales up its precision fermentation process for designer fats to over ten thousand litres.
● Target bioprocess performance was maintained at >10-fold increase in bioreactor volume.
● Large quantities of fat produced from the demo run will pave way for application pilots and JDAs, moving Melt&Marble closer to commercialization.
Gothenburg, 9th September 2024 - Melt&Marble, a leader in precision-fermented designer fats, has reached a critical milestone by scaling its fat fermentation process to the tens of thousands of litres range, paving the way for commercial scale production and broader application testing in the alternative protein, confectionery, bakery and personal care industries.
The production scale-up of Melt&Marble’s innovative, tailor-made fat product, designed to replicate animal-derived fats for use in alternative meat and personal care products, builds on a successful trial of the fermentation process at cubic metre bioreactor scale this spring. Melt&Marble’s scientific team successfully maintained comparable strain and bioprocess performance achieved in previous tests, demonstrating the robustness and scalability of its process.
“Scale-up of fermentation processes can be tricky, and we’re extremely proud of what our scientific team has managed to achieve in such a short amount of time,” said Melt&Marble CEO Anastasia Krivoruchko. “The scale-up is a key milestone which proves that our process can create precision-fermented fats in much larger quantities than we had done previously. The success of this was driven by the collaboration of both internal and external teams to ensure that our process is translatable to a larger scale,” adds Melt&Marble CSO Florian David.
The success of the trial opens the door for broader application testing of the fat across various culinary contexts, allowing Melt&Marble to fine-tune the use of their fat for optimal performance in different food and personal care products.
Melt&Marble CBO Thomas Cresswell added: “This milestone is a pivotal step toward our goal of launching Melt&Marble’s fats commercially. It enables us to accelerate the pilot projects we’ve already initiated with some of our partners, bringing innovative, sustainable fat solutions to market and aligning with global demand for better alternatives sooner rather than later. We are committed to getting Melt&Marble’s fats onto consumers’ plates and enabling the transition to a more sustainable food system.”
Melt&Marble leverages precision fermentation to engineer the metabolism of yeast to create designer fats with precisely controlled composition and properties. Building on recent successes, including securing €2.76m in EU grants earlier this year, Melt&Marble’s successful scale-up puts the company in a strong position for its next steps. The company will continue to further develop its designer fat products, with applications in alt-meat, cheese, butter, confectionary, and bakery products, aiming to bring these sustainable alternatives to market in the coming years.
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