At Nutreco, our commitment to our purpose Feeding the Future drives us to explore every possible source of nutritious protein. While our foundation lies in traditional animal farming, this spirit of exploration has led us to the cutting edge of the emerging cultivated protein industry – and to open the world's first food grade pilot plant dedicated to producing cell feed for the cultivated protein industry.
The cultivated protein industry is still in its early days, but it promises to provide a complementary source of protein that can help us nourish a growing population for years to come.
An easy way to explain cultivated protein is to start with traditional protein farming. Animals are raised from birth to adulthood, with special feeds for each stage of life, before being processed into consumable protein. Cultivated protein production follows a similar path – but without the animal. A small sample of cells is taken from a live animal and isolated in a large vessel called a bioreactor, where it is supplied with feed, or “media,” and multiplies. The result is meat or seafood that is the same on a molecular level as conventional products.
Global demand for animal and fish protein continues to grow, and we know traditional farming alone will not meet the nutritional needs of 10 billion people. Cultivated protein offers an exciting opportunity to help bridge that gap. “As we look to the future, protein demand will face planetary limits,” said Nutreco’s Head of Cell Feed Vincent Krudde. “Alongside traditional protein farming, this will be a supplemental food source to help us feed the future.”
Since the first cultivated protein hamburger was consumed live on the BBC in 2013, the industry has continued to progress. Cultivated tuna and foie gras have already been successfully produced and are awaiting a regulatory green light. In the U.S. this year, two more companies – Wildtype with cultivated salmon and Mission Barns with porcine products, have received FDA approval and are available to consumers. Cultivated quail is already being sold in Australia and New Zealand, and many more are expected to follow. “So, this is real, it's not science fiction,” said Vincent. “It's very small, very nascent, but it is coming.”
Thanks to our extensive nutritional ingredient knowledge and experience in large-scale manufacturing, we are convinced that Nutreco is well-positioned to supply the cultivated protein industry. While feeding cells with culture media was originally developed for life science and pharmaceutical applications, with our expertise in the animal nutrition industry, we can successfully develop cell culture media for producing food.
In November 2024, Nutreco opened the world's first food grade pilot plant for cell feed in Boxmeer, the Netherlands. The facility provides customised, cost-effective, sustainable, powder basal media that supports early-stage production for cultivated meat and seafood companies. We are now selling the first bags of cell feed to customers, mainly for R&D purposes but also for small-scale production.
Early results are promising. Customers report that the Nutreco cell feed works just as well as the more costly pharmaceutical alternatives – and this is having a huge impact on their techno-economic analysis and projections.
If we have the courage to care about Feeding the Future, we owe it to ourselves to explore all of the ways to do it,”
“We will need an array of solutions to make it happen. Cultivated protein is one of them – and Nutreco is in a great position to help the industry grow.
Where will it lead?
While the industry still faces challenges, we are optimistic about its possibilities. “It's a very exciting and promising industry,” said Vincent. “Some estimates suggest cultivated protein could represent 10% of global protein consumption within 20 years. That sounds far away, but it really isn't.”