Tetra Pak teams with Swan Neck Bio to tackle fermentation scale-up challenges

Tetra Pak has entered into a collaboration with Denmark’s Swan Neck Bio aimed at simplifying one of the most persistent obstacles in scaling food produced through biomass and precision fermentation: seed preparation.

The agreement, announced on 9 September in Lausanne, Switzerland, expands Tetra Pak’s portfolio of solutions for companies developing New Food products, an umbrella term that includes alternative proteins derived from microbial and precision fermentation. By integrating Swan Neck Bio’s DIRINOC technology, the partnership offers producers an alternative to building and managing their own seed train infrastructure, a step that has been a frequent source of contamination, inconsistent yield, and costly delays.

DIRINOC – short for direct inoculation concentrate – is a storable, concentrated, and quality-certified starter culture designed to allow fermentation companies to bypass the time- and resource-intensive process of propagating their own organisms. Instead, the inoculum can be added directly to production bioreactors, reducing risk of failure at an early stage and helping ensure predictability of output.

The technology is intended to address one of the main reasons many food producers struggle to scale: seed preparation. By outsourcing this step, companies may be able to accelerate trials, cut costs, and lower waste. Tetra Pak will now make DIRINOC available alongside its existing seed train and equipment solutions at the Tetra Pak New Food Technology Development Centre in Karlshamn, Sweden, which opened earlier this year.

According to Tetra Pak, the combination of its process development expertise and Swan Neck Bio’s inoculum capabilities creates a turnkey approach for commercial fermentation. The aim is to provide flexibility for companies to trial different configurations before committing to major capital investments in full-scale production lines.

“Speed, risk management, and flexibility are critical for New Food producers,” said Rafael Barros, Director New Food at Tetra Pak. “Our collaboration with Swan Neck Bio unlocks new efficiencies in fermentation by removing one of the key barriers to scale: seed preparation. This gives producers more time to focus on process optimisation, product quality and, ultimately, getting to market faster.”

The partnership underscores a broader shift in the way fermentation-based food production is being industrialized. While early pioneers in the sector often borrowed methods from pharmaceutical bioprocessing, those approaches have not always translated smoothly into the food industry. Tetra Pak argues that its decades of experience designing production lines and food systems help minimize risks specific to large-scale food manufacturing, where cost, safety, and reliability are paramount.

Swan Neck Bio, founded in Denmark, has specialized in inoculum solutions for fermentation and developed DIRINOC to meet demand for reliable, scalable alternatives to traditional seed preparation. By combining its technology with Tetra Pak’s global footprint in industrial engineering and food manufacturing, the company hopes to accelerate the commercialization of sustainable protein and ingredient production.

“This collaboration reinforces our commitment to supporting the growth of sustainable food innovation,” said Troels Prahl, Co-founder and CEO of Swan Neck Bio. “By combining Swan Neck Bio’s pioneering inoculum capabilities with Tetra Pak’s industrial engineering and food manufacturing expertise, we are helping customers de-risk development, reduce time to market and manufacture at scale with confidence.”

The DIRINOC technology is expected to complement, rather than replace, existing approaches. Producers can still opt to run their own multi-stage bioreactor seed trains, but the availability of a direct inoculation option gives them a way to trial processes or even outsource seed entirely. That flexibility could prove useful for early-stage companies that need to test concepts without tying up resources in complex upstream processes.

Tetra Pak’s Technology Development Centre in Karlshamn, where DIRINOC will be incorporated, was created to give fermentation and alternative protein companies access to pilot-scale facilities and expertise. Customers are already using the center to explore equipment configurations and validate production methods before moving to commercial scale. Integrating Swan Neck Bio’s solution adds another layer to that offering, positioning Tetra Pak as a one-stop shop for fermentation process development.

The collaboration arrives at a time when investment in alternative protein remains significant but is increasingly focused on cost reduction and operational efficiency. Scaling from lab to factory has been a bottleneck across the sector, with many companies reporting issues with yield, contamination, or high capital expenditures. By addressing one of the key technical pinch points, Tetra Pak and Swan Neck Bio are betting that they can help more companies successfully transition from prototype to product on shelves.

For both companies, the partnership reflects a pragmatic approach: lowering barriers to entry for fermentation start-ups while also giving established food manufacturers additional tools to expand into New Food categories.

With seed preparation now on the list of services available through Tetra Pak’s network, the company and Swan Neck Bio are positioning their collaboration as a step toward making fermentation-based foods more commercially viable at scale.