The Cultured Hub branches into plant cell culture for cocoa, coffee, and beyond

The Cultured Hub has announced an expansion of its service offering with the addition of plant cell culturing capabilities, broadening its activities beyond cultivated meat and cellular agriculture into alternative ingredient production. The Switzerland-based facility disclosed the move on 17 December, alongside the hosting of its first Cultured Plant Cell Event, which brought together start-ups, corporates, and researchers focused on plant cell-based ingredients.

Originally established to accelerate cultivated meat and cellular agriculture technologies, The Cultured Hub said it was now extending its infrastructure and expertise to support plant cell-based processes. The company said the expansion responded to rising commodity prices, climate volatility, and increasing pressure on conventional agricultural supply chains, particularly for high-value ingredients such as cocoa, coffee, and citrus.

According to The Cultured Hub, plant cell culture offered a controlled, year-round production approach that could complement traditional agriculture by reducing dependence on farmland, weather conditions, pests, and disease. The company positioned the technology as a potential pathway for improving supply chain resilience rather than replacing existing agricultural systems.

Ian Roberts, Chief Technology Officer at Bühler Group, said plant cell cultivation shared many of the same challenges currently facing cultivated meat. “Plant cell cultivation represents an important new frontier in sustainable food and ingredient production,” Roberts said. “Many of the same challenges we see in cultivated meat, the need to scale, reduce cost, and ensure quality at industrial levels, also apply here.”

Roberts said expanding The Cultured Hub’s capabilities was intended to support innovators navigating those challenges. “By expanding The Cultured Hub’s offering into plant cell culture, we are supporting innovators in this transition and giving the food industry a unique platform to explore new, climate-resilient ingredient pipelines,” he said.

During the Cultured Plant Cell Event, participants discussed pressures affecting cocoa, coffee, and citrus supply chains, alongside the technical potential of plant cell culturing as a complementary production method. The program included scientific and technical sessions covering recent developments in plant cell culture, scale-up challenges, and pathways from laboratory research to commercial application.

Start-ups presenting at the event pitched their technologies to industry representatives specializing in cocoa, chocolate, and coffee processing, with the stated aim of fostering collaboration and partnership opportunities. Companies showcasing plant cell culture approaches included Ergo Bioscience, Coffeesai, Phyton Biotech, Spicy Cells, Kokomodo, Food Brewer, Celleste Bio, and GALY, spanning applications from cocoa biomass grown in bioreactors to stabilized coffee cell lines and high-value plant compounds produced through controlled fermentation.

Yannick Jones, CEO of The Cultured Hub, said demand for alternative ingredient sourcing models was accelerating, but technical and economic hurdles remained. “Demand for alternative, climate-resilient ingredients is growing rapidly, and plant cell culture is emerging as a credible sourcing platform,” Jones said. “Yet the field still faces high costs and complex technical challenges.”

Jones said the Hub’s role was to reduce barriers for both start-ups and established companies. “By providing shared bioprocess infrastructure and a collaborative environment, The Cultured Hub enables both start-ups and corporates to scale more efficiently, shorten development timelines, and explore where strategic partnerships and investments can unlock the next wave of innovation,” he said.

The event also featured a keynote from Prof. Dr. Ing. Regine Eibl-Schindler of the ZHAW School of Life Sciences and Facility Management, who introduced the emerging discipline of microbotanics. The field focuses on cultivating plant cells to produce targeted metabolites, flavors, and functional compounds with consistency and precision, supported by a growing global research network connecting academia, start-ups, and industry.

Philippe Jutras, Founder of the Plant Cell Institute, highlighted the potential and constraints of the technology. “Plant cell factories allow us to produce molecules or biomass that are difficult, slow, or expensive to obtain from fields, while reducing exposure to climate and disease risks,” Jutras said. “But as with any new technology, scaling is the bottleneck.”

Jutras said events such as the Cultured Plant Cell Event played a role in aligning stakeholders across the value chain. “Events like this create essential alignment between researchers, start-ups, and industry so we can move from promising lab results to meaningful commercial impact,” he said.

Plant cell culturing remains an emerging field, with costs driven by sterile bioreactor requirements, controlled environments, and the complexity of plant cell biology. The Cultured Hub said its expanded offering was intended to address these barriers by providing access to advanced bioprocess equipment, process development expertise, and a neutral platform for collaboration as companies move from laboratory-scale research toward pilot and pre-commercial systems.