SAN LEANDRO, Calif. — New Culture, the animal-free dairy company, has achieved 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 America.
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 percent, 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 co-founder and CSO, Inja Radman. “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,” said co-founder and 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 $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 America, before expanding to other pizzerias nationwide.
About New Culture
New Culture is leading the global transition to an animal-free dairy future with cheese that stretches and melts like the real deal but is made without any animal inputs. In other words: cow cheese without the cow. They replace the essential dairy protein in cheese – called casein – with an animal-free version that the company produces using precision fermentation. This revolutionary process makes it possible to replicate the taste and texture of traditional dairy products using New Culture’s animal-free proteins, radically reducing cheesemaking’s impact on the environment and animal and human health. The company was selected for Fast Company’s 2023 World Changing Ideas Awards, profiled on NPR’s award-winning podcast “How I Built This,” and included on the 2023 ClimateTech 100 and 2023 FoodTech 500 lists. It has financial backing from some of the world’s largest fermentation and food companies including Kraft Heinz, ADM and CJ, alongside leading food-tech investors. With their groundbreaking science, any cheese is possible and can be made completely animal-free. The future of dairy is here — and it’s delicious. For more information and to sign up, visit www.newculture.com.
