IngateyGen LLC

During the meeting, the Believer Meats executives reaffirmed the company’s unwavering commitment to investing in the state of North Carolina, promoting local employment opportunities, and fostering economic growth. As the cultivated meat industry gears up for commercialization and wider consumer adoption in 2024, the Senators expressed their enthusiasm for learning more about the industry’s potential to address food insecurity and the pivotal role that North Carolina can play in this regard.

Believer Meats is currently constructing its first U.S. commercial production facility in Wilson, North Carolina, with an anticipated opening in Q2 2024. Once operational, the 200,000-square-foot facility will be the largest cultivated meat production center in the world with the capacity to produce at least 10,000 metric tons of cultivated meat. The Senators expressed their eagerness to support Believer Meats as the company progresses towards commissioning its facility and launching product within the U.S. market.

“It was an incredibly rewarding experience to introduce Believer Meats to U.S. Senators Ted Budd and Thom Tillis,” said Gustavo Burger, CEO of Believer Meats. “During our meeting, we had the opportunity to discuss the commitments we are making in their home state of North Carolina, the plan for commercialization, and the partnerships we have been cultivating with local research institutions and universities. We look forward to serving both senators their first taste of Believer soon.”

“It was great to meet with Believer Meats as they expand their presence in North Carolina. Believer Meats’ more than $120 million investment in Wilson County for their first U.S.-based production facility that will employ over 100 North Carolinians represents a major economic win for the state and region,” said Senator Tillis. “North Carolina remains one of the best states in the country for innovative new businesses, and Believer Meats investment reflects that.” 

When selecting the location for its first U.S. production facility, Believer Meats explored several well-established manufacturing corridors across the country. Ultimately, the company chose Wilson County due to its abundance of highly skilled STEM professionals, thriving ecosystem of biotech and food tech companies, and the region’s success in implementing technology-driven solutions to enhance residents’ lives. These factors closely align with Believer Meats’ mission of making it possible for all future generations to eat meat.

The company is making an initial planned investment of over $120 million in Wilson County, located approximately 40 miles east of Raleigh, N.C., which includes plans to create over 100 new jobs over the next three years. The facility will feature proprietary, custom-made bioreactors capable of achieving high cell densities and yields using patented processes. Additionally, the state-of-the-art facility will house a product and food development center, a modern kitchen for tastings, as well as office and conference spaces.

For more information, visit believermeats.com and follow @believermeats on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

About Believer Meats
Believer Meats (formerly Future Meat Technologies) is a cultivated meat company pioneering the first scalable cultivated meat production system that can feed the world. Founded in 2018, Believer’s mission is to ensure that future generations can enjoy the meat we know and love. Believer is building a better future for people, animals and the planet with meat that is delicious, sustainable, nutritious, and broadly accessible. For more information, visit us at believermeats.com.

Original Article Source: PRNewswire

As a girl growing up on the coasts of Denmark and Sweden, Nikita Michelsen treasured delicious seafood dishes made in her grandmother’s kitchen. Today, however, many of those ocean delicacies are becoming scarce due to overfishing, habitat loss, pollution, disease, acidification and climate change.

“The state of the ocean has just kind of dwindled, and it’s quite contaminated these days,” Michelsen says. “Access to fresh and affordable seafood is difficult.”

The 30-year-old entrepreneur is on a mission to replicate saltwater treasures through her new alternative seafood company, Pearlita Foods.

The Raleigh-based company, founded in 2022, is developing sustainable, plant-based versions of seafood with plans to incorporate cell culture technology for enhanced taste and nutrition.

“We’re starting with shellfish,” says Michelsen, Pearlita’s founder and chief executive officer. “They’re probably the most threatened species.”

They are also the most lucrative. Shellfish fetch a much higher price by weight than beef, chicken, pork and most other seafood.

The global market for shellfish was over $51 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach nearly $66 billion by 2030, according to a report by Verified Market Research, a global market-intelligence consulting company. Fishing and farming meet only about 25% of the growing demand for shellfish, Michelsen says.

FIVE PRODUCTS READY FOR MARKET

Pearlita has spent “months and months” experimenting with shellfish alternatives in its leased commercial kitchen at the Piedmont Food Processing Center in Hillsborough. Using seaweed, mushrooms and natural flavorings, the company has developed five market-ready products: crab, shellfish pieces, shucked oysters, ceviche and clam chowder.

The foods imitate the ocean taste and texture of shellfish but are gluten free and pose no danger of shellfish allergies or illnesses such as vibriosis, an intestinal ailment caused by bacteria.

“There isn’t a lot of great tasting vegan or plant-based seafood on the market that doesn’t have sort of an off flavor,” Michelsen says. “Ours has no off flavor.”

Pearlita’s products also appeal to health-conscious consumers who read food labels.

“Our ingredients are very clean,” she says. “People don’t want lots of overly processed ingredients. We have a very clean label.”

Pearlita has been gathering feedback on its alternative seafood from chefs and diners at restaurant tastings on the east and west coasts.

“People are very eager to try it, which is very nice,” Michelsen says. “Everyone who tries it wants to purchase it.”

Pearlita has a wait list of about 500 chefs, restaurants and diners wanting to sample or buy its products. In April the company had its first restaurant launch of oysters on the half shell ─ served in recycled, sterilized oyster shells ─ at Fern, a vegan restaurant in Charlotte.

Photo credit: Patou Ricard, Pixabay

Pearlita’s goal is to be supplying products to 10 restaurants in the state by the end of this year, Michelsen says.

CELL CULTURE ON HORIZON

Eventually Pearlita plans to incorporate cell culture, or cell agriculture, into its foods, starting with oysters. Each year Americans eat about 2 billion oysters, but wild oyster reefs have declined 85% globally and farmed oysters can’t keep pace with demand.

Cell-cultured oyster meat would introduce a new, sustainable supply of alternative seafood that also would help the 28% of vegans who struggle with nutrient deficiencies, Michelsen says. Cell culture would boost the protein and omega 3 fatty acid content of Pearlita’s oysters.

“We are having conversations with companies that can help us with that,” Michelsen says. The goal is to improve nutritional content to “exactly the same or better” than traditional seafood.

“We really want to utilize cells as a way to improve our products,” she says. “We see cells as the blueprint for nutrition and flavor.”

While several other companies throughout the world are developing cell cultured seafoods, as well as livestock meats, Pearlita is the first to apply the technology to oysters.

“We are new and kind of pioneering within this field,” Michelsen says.

The company has isolated novel and proprietary cells from seven oyster tissues, but “it takes a lot of time to scale up cells,” she says.

Leading that effort in the lab is Pearlita’s co-founder and head of science, Kassondra Hickey, who has a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and nearly a decade of experience in cell-based therapies across the academic, clinical and pharmaceutical sectors.

CALIFORNIA BACKGROUND

Michelsen, who was born in Denmark and also lived in Sweden, came to the United States for college and earned an undergraduate degree in communication from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2016. She returned to Denmark for a master’s degree in information science.

Before founding Pearlita Foods, she worked in communications and marketing roles at SynBioBeta, a California-based company that connects biological engineers, innovators, entrepreneurs and investors involved in synthetic biology applications.

Her first foray as an entrepreneur has turned heads. Enterprising Women, a Cary-based national magazine for women business owners, will honor Michelsen with its 2023 Enterprising Women Innovator of the Year Award, to be presented at the Enterprising Women conference in Clearwater Beach, Fla., in late May.

BULLISH ON NORTH CAROLINA

Michelsen chose Raleigh as the site for Pearlita for a litany of reasons.

“There’s a lot of focus on food here,” she says. “I really think it is the hub for alternative protein and for biotech and for new food innovation.”

The Research Triangle area also has major universities and a robust network of entrepreneurial support organizations.

“There are so many organizations that support young founders and smaller startups, and really want them to succeed,” she says. “That’s something we are extremely grateful for.”

Among them are the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, which provided Pearlita a business intern last year through its Industrial Internship Program.

Also, hiring talent and renting facilities in North Carolina is easier and more affordable than in California’s Bay Area, Michelsen says.

Finally, two of her siblings were living in Raleigh and highly recommended it. The green landscape and mild climate reminded them of Denmark.

Her brother, Kristoffer Michelsen, is a software developer at Google and part of the company’s cloud team. Her sister, Stephanie Michelsen, is founder and chief executive officer of JellaTech, a Raleigh-based company that is developing non-animal-sourced collagen ─ an ingredient in many foods, beverages, medicines and other products ─ using cell agriculture. Stephanie serves on Pearlita’s advisory board.

SEEKING FUNDS TO SCALE UP

Pearlita has raised about $400,000 to date from investors CULT Food Science, Big Idea Ventures and Sustainable Food Ventures, as well as angel investors including East Carolina Angels.

The company also won a $5,000 cash award in a grant competition sponsored by xElle Ventures, a company that provides loans to women-led start-up companies.

Pearlita is seeking to raise $600,000 more in grants and investments. It will use that money to scale up production for more restaurants, develop new alternatives for scallops and octopus, accelerate its cell culture technology and build a team to accomplish this work.

“We have a lot of demand, but we need to get to the next step in the process,” Michelsen says. “There are lots of long hours now.”

(C) N.C. Biotech Center

Original Article Source: WRAL TechWire

DURHAM – Elo Life Systems, manufacturer of a monk fruit-based sweetener product for use in food and beverages, has hit major milestones in product development and has closed $24.5 million in a Series A funding round.

The company announced the news on Wednesday, and in a statement added that the company is set to open a Series B round later this year.

“With strong investor support united behind Elo’s commitment to improve human health and the environment, we’re unlocking nature’s abilities to make consumers’ favorite foods more delicious, healthy and planet friendly,” said Todd Rands, CEO of Elo, in a statement.  “Elo’s first product – a new plant-based sweetener inspired by natural monk fruit – will eliminate excess calories in thousands of everyday food and beverage products that consumers love.”

Along with the monk fruit sweetener, the company is developing a fungal-resistant cavendish banana, and announced in a statement that it will advance product development to “real-world field trial evaluations.”

GROWTH AHEAD

The funding came from the company’s existing investors, which included AccelR8, Novo Holdings, and DCVC Bio.

According to a statement, the $24.5 million in new funding will enable the company “to accelerate the development of its natural, plant-based sweetener products by advancing U.S. regulatory approvals, building pilot-scale processing capabilities, and market-testing its sweetener with consumers.”

Along with those plans, the company anticipates opening new research and development into other food ingredient products.

The company was spun out of Precision BioSciences in December 2021 to focus on food ingredient research.  At the time of the spin off, the company was already partnering with Dole to develop a resistant banana.

In addition to announcing the funding, the company statement noted that Joan Braca has been appointed to the board of directors as the first independent director.

Braca has prior leadership roles, including as CEO of Johnson Matthey Clean Air, and was previously the president of Tate & Lyle’s Specialty Foods ingredient business.

“This is going to be a pivotal year of growth for Elo,” said Justin Kern, chairman of the board of directors at Elo Life Systems.  “Joan’s executive leadership and industry experience will provide a huge lift as Elo builds and evolves its business to supply healthy ingredients on a global scale.”

Original Article Source: WRAL TechWire

Elo Life Systems Image

Gearing up for a new gene editing-boosted salad, foodtech startup Pairwise has added three executives to its management team.

As Conscous – what the company calls a “nutrient-dense leafy green mix” – Pairwise says the three vice presidents will “fill out” its Commercial Leadership Team.

They are:

• Megan Thomas, Vice President for Marketing & Communications
• Neil Merritt, Vice President of Sales
• John Schouten, Vice President of Supply Chain

“Their combined ten decades of experience across key areas will transform our vision on how to bring great products to market,” said Haven Baker, co-founder and Chief Business Officer at Pairwise.

Pairwise has drawn more than $200 million in investment capital and also has a multi-year collaboration agreement with Bayer Crop Science valued at $100 million.

It has more than 150 employees and expects to add more this year, the company said.

Original Article Source: WRAL TechWire