BSF Enterprise’s 3DBT lands SeaWith deal to supply cost-cutting cell culture ingredient

BSF Enterprise PLC has announced that its subsidiary, 3D Bio-Tissues Limited (3DBT), has signed a five-year commercial supply agreement with South Korean cultivated meat company SeaWith.

• 3DBT signed a five-year commercial supply agreement with SeaWith to provide its City-Mix ingredient for cultivated meat production.

• The contract was valued at approximately £300,000 (US$381,000) over the term and supported phased scale-up through 2030.

• City-Mix was expected to reduce growth media requirements by around 30%, lowering production costs for SeaWith’s cultivated beef pipeline.

The agreement set out a long-term framework for 3DBT to supply its City-Mix ingredient, a macromolecular crowder designed to improve cell culture efficiency, into SeaWith’s production process.

BSF Enterprise disclosed that the contract carried an estimated value of around £300,000 (US$381,000) over the five-year term, with supply volumes expected to increase in line with SeaWith’s plans to scale production toward commercial levels by 2030.

City-Mix was developed to address one of the most persistent cost challenges in cultivated meat production: the expense of growth media. According to the company, the ingredient could reduce the requirement for costly media components by approximately 30%, offering a potential route to improved process economics.

Under the agreement, 3DBT would provide a regular supply of City-Mix to support SeaWith’s production pipeline, including its Welldone cultivated beef product. The partnership effectively integrated the ingredient into SeaWith’s ongoing scale-up efforts, linking supply volumes to the company’s broader manufacturing roadmap.

The deal also marked an expansion of City-Mix into the cultivated protein sector, as BSF Enterprise sought to extend the reach of its tissue engineering materials beyond research and into commercial food production applications.

SeaWith, founded in 2019 and based in South Korea, has focused on developing cultivated meat using seaweed-derived technologies. The company has raised more than US$8 million in venture funding to date and has been working on approaches aimed at improving scalability while reducing environmental impact.

The company also operates within South Korea’s Gyeongbuk Cell-Cultured Food Regulatory Free Zone, a government-supported initiative designed to accelerate the development and commercialization of cultivated food products. The designation has positioned SeaWith among a group of companies operating within a more flexible regulatory environment intended to support innovation in the sector.

The supply agreement aligned with SeaWith’s efforts to move toward larger-scale production, with phased increases in City-Mix volumes expected to track the company’s transition from development to commercial manufacturing.

For BSF Enterprise and 3DBT, the deal represented a step toward embedding their materials into industrial bioprocesses, with a focus on addressing cost barriers that have continued to limit the scalability of cultivated meat.

While the financial value of the contract remained relatively modest, the structure of the agreement suggested a longer-term opportunity tied to production growth. By linking supply volumes to SeaWith’s scale-up trajectory, the partnership created a pathway for increased demand as manufacturing capacity expanded.

The collaboration also highlighted the growing role of enabling technologies in the cultivated meat sector, where incremental improvements in cell culture efficiency, media optimization, and process design have been seen as critical to achieving cost parity with conventional meat.

With City-Mix integrated into SeaWith’s production pipeline, the agreement placed 3DBT’s technology within a commercial context, where its impact on cost reduction and process performance would be tested as the company moved closer to large-scale output.