New Culture’s animal-free dairy protein reaches milestone scale

Animal-free dairy company, New Culture, has revealed a major milestone on its journey to lead the global transition to a more sustainable, animal-free dairy future. The company has successfully scaled up its fermentation process to manufacturing volumes, far larger than previous development volumes, which enables the production of 25,000 pizzas’ worth of cheese per run – a significant step towards supplying animal-free, dairy mozzarella to pizzerias across the USA.

The company claims this is the world’s first-ever animal-free casein and, using precision fermentation, the first to be produced at this large of a scale. Casein is the essential, functional dairy protein that gives cheese its stretchy, melty properties but had previously only been found in animal milk. Thanks to the company’s casein from fermentation, New Culture makes mozzarella with the taste, texture, and nutritional profile of conventional mozzarella but without any animal ingredients, setting itself apart from the plant-based cheeses currently available to consumers.

The new large scale of production reduces product costs by 80%, keeping the company on pace to reach its cost targets after having already exceeded its core technical goals for 2023. Furthermore, they have made considerable progress in expanding production capacity, and project that within three years New Culture mozzarella will cost the same as the conventional version, with annual, animal-free casein volumes that equate to more than 14 million pizzas’ worth of cheese.

“Our world-class team at New Culture has solved a string of incredibly complex technical challenges in order to produce our animal-free casein at this scale,” said Inja Radman, Co-founder & CSO. “We are redefining the boundaries of what’s possible in dairy in a way that isn’t being done anywhere else.”

As it continues to scale up manufacturing capabilities, New Culture is paving the way for a new industry with far-reaching implications for environmental sustainability, animal welfare, and human health. “This achievement marks a pivotal moment for New Culture and the food industry,” added Co-founder & CEO, Matt Gibson. “We are entering an era where we can produce massive amounts of real cheese without the involvement of any animals.”

Conventional cheese production requires untenable amounts of water and energy resources. Out of every single food product on the market, cheese requires the most fresh water and the third-most land and greenhouse gas emissions. New Culture’s animal-free mozzarella requires a fraction of these resources – allowing consumers to enjoy their favorite cheeses without the damaging environmental harm generated by factory dairy farming.

With this breakthrough, New Culture continues their path to disrupting the US$154 billion global cheese industry while making animal-free cheeses more accessible than ever before. New Culture’s mozzarella will first be available in 2024 at Nancy Silverton’s Pizzeria Mozza, one of the most celebrated pizzerias in the USA, before expanding to other pizzerias nationwide.