Melt&Marble has scaled its fat fermentation process to tens of thousands of liters, paving the way for commercial scale production and broader application testing in the alternative protein, confectionery, bakery and personal care industries.
The production scaleup of Melt&Marble’s 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 meter 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.
“The scaleup is a key milestone which proves that our process can create precision-fermented fats in much larger quantities than we had done previously,” says Melt&Marble CSO Florian David. “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.”
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 its fat for optimal performance in different food and personal care products.
“This milestone is a pivotal step toward our goal of launching Melt&Marble’s fats commercially,” says Melt&Marble CBO Thomas Cresswell. “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 €2.76 million ($3.05 million) in EU grants earlier this year, Melt&Marble’s scaleup 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.
