Harnessing the immense potential of precision fermentation to produce animal fats for the next generation of meat and dairy alternativesbroad
Melt and Marble · Horizon Europe grant · 2025-01-01–2026-09-30
EC contribution
Total cost
Beneficiaries
About the data
Source: CORDIS (official EU open data), Horizon Europe. Framework HORIZON · call HORIZON-EIC-2024-ACCELERATOR-02 · scheme HORIZON-EIC-ACC · topic HORIZON-EIC-2024-ACCELERATORCHALLENGES-04. CORDIS record →
Objective
Melt&Marble (M&M) is a Sweden-based company that specializes in developing exceptional fats for plant-based foods. The origins of our company trace back to Jens Nielsen's Systems and Synthetic Biology group at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. Currently, more than 60% of dietary proteins are supplied by animals whose farming takes up ~77% of all agricultural land despite supplying only 17% of the world’s calories. Dependence on animal proteins leads to ecosystem destruction, biodiversity loss, and >15% of GHG emissions. Though there are alternate meat and dairy options available, the plant-based oils and fats used in plant-based meat and dairy analogues simply cannot compete with the functionality and flavour of animal fats. We have created for the first time, a scalable, precision-fermentation-based proprietary technology platform using engineered yeasts that produce animal-like fats with superior functionality and flavour that customers are demanding. The fats have lower saturated fats levels (40-60% vs. 90% of coconut oil) and better functionality than coconut oil to impart a better taste to meat and dairy analogues. The entire technology platform is scalable due to the existing and outsourced fermentation infrastructure.The fats are customizable to various food and non-food applications and will benefit the alternative meat producers within the EU and globally. Our technology is protected by a robust IP strategy and patents. We have 10 granted patents and 2 pending patents across 5 patent families and the innovation stems from 2 crucial components protected by these IPs that allow us to efficiently produce highly tailored fats.We have already scaled up our first product to pilot scale (TRL 5). Within this project, we will improve our production process, scale up further to demo scale, and conduct extensive application tests. This will allow us to advance to TRL 8 and significantly de-risk our investment case.
Beneficiaries (1)
| Organisation | Country | Role | EC contribution | SME |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MELT&MARBLE AB | SE | coordinator | €2,485,840 | Yes |
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