German food technology start-up Senara, which grows dairy from cells rather than cows, has opened a second base in Maastricht in the Netherlands with an investment from LIOF, the regional development agency of the Dutch province of Limburg, Anay Mridul reported for Green Queen on 30 October.
Founded in 2022 by Svenja Dannewitz and Philipp Prosseda, Senara takes its cells not from the animals but from the milk they produce, which means minimal intervention with the animals. It selects the most suitable cells in a continuous, high-throughput process that it says lowers costs, and grows them in a custom bioreactor. The company says the product contains lactose, casein, whey and micronutrients, and is free of GMOs and of the bacteria and yeasts that make milk spoil.
Senara has been working at pilot scale with a 100-litre bioreactor and has previously said it plans an industrial-scale bioreactor by 2028. It is testing ice cream, cheese and panna cotta with food manufacturers, and says it could make A2-rich or lactose-free milk and eventually milk from goat, buffalo, sheep, donkey and bison cells. Cosmetics and skincare offer a faster route to market than food, but it aims to have its first food products in shops within a few years.
"We don't want to change milk, but improve the production method," said Dannewitz, the chief executive. "In the long term, farmers can apply this technology with bioreactors on their own farms. This allows them to remain part of the food system, while new ways of producing emerge."
The Maastricht hub gives Senara access to the city's food technology ecosystem, which includes Mosa Meat, maker of the first public cultivated meat prototype in 2013, and the open-access scale-up facility Cultivate at Scale. The company has launched a new funding round for a pilot manufacturing site there.
Senara is one of a handful of cell-cultured dairy firms, alongside Brown Foods, Wilk, Accellta and Canada's Opalia, which raised C$3.2 million this year and is due to deliver its first batch to Dutch dairy trader Hoogwegt next month.
Photo: Jonas Schenk (BacillusHelveticus) / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Source: Green Queen
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