San Francisco start-up New Culture has won approval from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to produce mozzarella from casein made by microbes rather than by cows, Green Queen reported. The approval covers the production process, the company's commercial facility in the Bay Area and the product label, which reads 'mozzarella-style animal-free dairy cheese'.
Casein makes up about 80 per cent of the protein in milk and gives cheese its ability to melt and stretch. New Culture uses precision fermentation, in which microbes are given specific DNA so that they produce a chosen molecule as they ferment. Its microbes make alpha-S1 casein, the most abundant casein fraction in cow's milk at around 40 per cent of the total, using high-density aerobic bacterial fermentation and a purification process the company developed itself.
The powdered casein is mixed with water, sunflower and coconut oils, salt, sugar, starch and minerals. The company says the cheese needs less than half as much casein as conventional mozzarella (28 per cent), which keeps costs down, and that it is free of lactose, cholesterol and trace hormones and antibiotics. New Culture links the cheese to an 85 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions and a 95 per cent cut in land and water use; it makes its casein with partners including CJ CheilJedang, also an investor, and ADM.
"While there remains work ahead, the most important part of these approvals is that this pushes us one massive step closer to commercialisation," said co-founder Inja Radman, the company's chief science and technology officer. The application was filed in April 2024; Radman said it took time because CDFA had never before received a submission for animal-free dairy cheese, and that future products should move faster now that a precedent exists.
The approval opens the way to sales to pizzerias in California, since New Culture has already self-determined its casein as Generally Recognised as Safe (GRAS) in the US. It has not said whether it will notify the Food and Drug Administration of that determination. The start-up has raised $28.5 million in venture capital, is not raising money now, and last year secured $5 million in early demand from US pizza makers.
Precision-fermented casein is still a small field. Those Vegan Cowboys of the Netherlands and Formo of Germany have received 'no questions' letters from the FDA for alpha-S1 casein, and Australia's Eden Brew has self-affirmed GRAS status.
Photo: Jon Sullivan / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Source: Green Queen (reported by Anay Mridul)
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