Vow names Alex Andrews CEO as George Peppou launches new venture after landmark growth

Australian cultivated meat company Vow has appointed Alex Andrews as CEO, with co-founder George Peppou stepping down from the role to lead a new startup spun out of the business as the company enters its next phase of commercial growth.

• Alex Andrews succeeds co-founder George Peppou as CEO of Vow
• Peppou remains an executive director and board member while leading a new venture
• Leadership change comes after regulatory approvals, commercial launches and a strategic shift toward contract manufacturing

Peppou, who founded Vow alongside Tim Noakesmith in 2019, will remain an executive director and member of the company's board while taking responsibility for a new business that has been spun out of Vow. The new entity will apply the company's expertise in cellular agriculture and cell cultivation to sectors beyond food, including cosmetics, leather and life sciences.

Andrews assumes the CEO role after joining Vow as chief of staff in January. Prior to joining the company, she co-founded and served as chief operating officer of Australian financial services company Verve Super.

The executive transition comes as Vow reshapes its business model following a series of significant commercial and regulatory milestones over the past two years.

In June 2025, Food Standards Australia New Zealand approved Vow's cultivated Japanese quail for commercial sale, making Australia one of only a handful of countries to permit the sale of cultivated meat. The approval followed the company's earlier launch in Singapore, giving Vow active commercial sales across multiple international markets.

The company's cultivated quail, sold under the Forged brand, has since been introduced at restaurants in both Singapore and Australia, including Sydney restaurant NEL and Melbourne's Bottarga.

Alongside those commercial launches, Vow has continued expanding its manufacturing capabilities. Last year, the company reported producing more than 818kg of cultivated Japanese quail in a single week after previously completing what it described as the industry's largest cultured meat harvest.

Its production infrastructure includes a 20,000-liter food-grade cell culture reactor, which Vow says is the largest of its kind, and a second manufacturing facility that has increased total production capacity to 35,000 liters.

The latest leadership changes coincide with another strategic evolution for the business. Vow is moving away from manufacturing finished food products itself and instead adopting a co-manufacturing model, allowing external partners to process its cultivated animal cells into consumer products.

The company is also expanding into contract manufacturing, offering production capabilities to other cellular agriculture companies seeking commercial-scale capacity.

While Peppou will focus on building the new spin-out business, he will continue to support Vow's direction through his role on the board as Andrews takes responsibility for leading the company's next stage of growth.

Meta title: Vow appoints Alex Andrews CEO as George Peppou takes executive director role