British fermentation company Mycofeast, which makes functional ingredients for human and animal nutrition, has acquired Daisy Lab, a New Zealand startup that makes animal-free dairy proteins, Green Queen reported. Daisy Lab produces recombinant whey proteins by precision fermentation, and a high-yielding bovine lactoferrin is its most advanced programme.
Precision fermentation inserts specific DNA into microbes so that, when fermented, they produce a chosen molecule. Daisy Lab, founded in 2023 by Irina Miller, Nikki Freed and Emily McIsaac, uses it to make whey proteins such as beta-lactoglobulin and lactoferrin. Lactoferrin, a glycoprotein found in cow colostrum and human milk and known for regulating iron, is scarce when purified from milk, costing $600 to $2,000 a kilogram. Daisy Lab installed a 500-litre fermenter this year and has been scaling up fermentation and downstream processing. It has also made recombinant human lactoferrin at lab scale, though that work was paused late last year.
Chief executive Irina Miller told Green Queen there were no layoffs and that Mycofeast "wanted both the technology and people". She said capital-raising difficulties and market conditions for food tech led the partnership talks towards acquisition, and that joining the group means Daisy Lab can use existing manufacturing and commercial infrastructure instead of spending years building its own. The founders will take roles across the group, and Daisy Lab will work with Mycofeast's California R&D unit, Evolutia Bio. Mycofeast also runs a 16-million-litre fermentation plant in Europe.
Over the next 12 months Daisy Lab plans further scale-up, regulatory filings, customer trials and transfer of its process into Mycofeast's plant. "Daisy Lab brings a strong dairy protein platform, proven scale-up capability and a talented New Zealand team," said Mycofeast chief executive Witek Hruzewicz.
The deal is part of wider consolidation in alternative protein, where more than 90 companies have merged, been acquired, gone bankrupt or closed since September 2024, Green Queen noted. Several other firms already sell fermentation-made lactoferrin, including Helaina, All G, TurtleTree and Vivici. The story was reported by Anay Mridul.
Photo: Utkarshsingh.1992 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: Green Queen
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