FPP/CMS Chicago 2026 Exhibitor Spotlight: Inside GEA’s push to make tomorrow’s food factories work today

GEA’s engineers have been working at the point where fermentation projects are stress-tested for scale. At The Future of Protein Production Chicago, those lessons move from facilities to the exhibition floor

Companies arriving in Chicago for The Future of Protein Production on 24 and 25 February are facing a shared challenge. Moving fermentation processes out of the lab and into food-grade, commercially relevant production remains difficult, particularly at the point where scale, cost, and consistency start to matter.

That challenge runs through much of this year’s program, including the panel Making Tomorrow’s Factories Work for Today, where Tim Barnett, Technical Director, New Food at GEA Group, will take part. It is also reflected in the growing focus on pilot infrastructure, validation capacity, and manufacturing realism across the exhibition floor.

Over the past year, GEA has been closely involved in projects aimed at tackling these constraints in practical settings, using shared infrastructure and industrial-scale equipment rather than relying on lab-derived assumptions. Its recent work across Europe and North America offers a snapshot of how fermentation scale-up is being approached as the sector matures.

One of the most persistent sticking points in fermentation-led food innovation remains the step between lab success and commercial readiness. At this stage, companies must show that a process can run reliably, safely, and economically at volumes that begin to resemble real production. Without access to appropriate pilot-scale environments, that proof is often difficult to obtain.

In January, GEA was selected to deliver and commission a new precision and biomass fermentation upscaling line for the Biotechnology Fermentation Factory at the NIZO Food Innovation Campus in Ede, the Netherlands. The facility was developed as an open-access resource, allowing companies working on animal-free dairy proteins, egg-white proteins, specialty enzymes, and other fermentation-derived ingredients to validate their processes under food-grade conditions.

Rather than requiring companies to invest in their own pilot plants, the BFF model offered shared, bookable infrastructure, lowering both capital exposure and development risk. Installation of the new line was scheduled for 2026, with pilot operations expected to begin in 2027. The focus was on producing data that could support informed commercial and investment decisions, rather than simply accelerating timelines.

The challenges BFF was designed to address are familiar across the sector. Many teams report strong lab-scale performance, yet lack visibility into how their processes behave at larger volumes, over extended run times, or when integrated with downstream recovery and purification. Without that insight, decisions around scale often stall or proceed with a high degree of uncertainty.

At BFF, GEA’s scope included a 1,000-liter and a 10,000-liter fermenter, supported by integrated media preparation, controlled fermentation, cell harvest, and filtration. Commissioning and validation support were included, alongside confidentiality safeguards for proprietary organisms and formulations. Co-location with NIZO’s downstream processing pilot plant allowed fermentation and recovery steps to be tested within a single environment, reducing handover risk and development delays.

A comparable approach underpinned GEA’s recent investment in North America. In July, the company opened a US$20 million New Food Application and Technology Center in Janesville, Wisconsin. The site brought together pilot-scale bioreactors, thermal processing, membrane filtration, centrifugation, aseptic filling, and spray drying, creating a facility designed to reflect industrial production conditions.

For early-stage companies, access to this kind of environment can expose constraints that are not visible at small scale, whether related to yields, contamination risk, downstream bottlenecks, or energy demand. For established food manufacturers, it provides a way to assess how new processes might fit within existing manufacturing and quality systems before committing to larger assets.

GEA’s collaboration with the iCAMP program at the University of California, Davis follows the same logic. Working alongside academic and industry partners, the emphasis has been on fermentation, cell culture, food safety, sensory evaluation, and regulatory considerations that influence whether technologies are ready to move beyond development.

Taken together, these initiatives reflect a shift in how scale-up is being handled across the sector. Pilot infrastructure is increasingly treated as a decision-making layer rather than a temporary step, shaping timelines, partnerships, and capital allocation.

In Chicago, those issues are unlikely to stay theoretical. Conversations around readiness, data quality, and risk management tend to surface quickly once companies begin comparing notes on where their processes stand. That is where the exhibition floor complements the conference program.

At Stand 27, GEA’s team will be available to discuss pilot design, validation strategies, system integration, and manufacturing trade-offs in concrete terms. Alongside Tim Barnett’s participation in Making Tomorrow’s Factories Work for Today, it provides an opportunity to engage directly with the practical realities behind fermentation scale-up.

The exhibition floor at The Future of Protein Production Chicago is open to walk for free. For companies navigating the move from lab development to industrial production, the issues at stake are immediate, operational, and shaping near-term decisions across the sector.

More than 100 speakers will be taking to the stage at The Future of Protein Production/Cultured Meat Symposium on 24/25 February 2026. To join them and more than 400 other attendees, book your conference ticket today and use the code, 'PPTI10', for an extra 10% discount on the current rate. Click here. If you just want to walk the exhibition floor, meet the experts and network with the delegates, book your free pass here