Cell Based Tech Weekly – KFC’s Major Leap, Higher Steaks Milestone [Not Price], Brave Robot Ice Cream

Categories Weekly Report

It looks like KFC is going to be the first fast food chain taking the plunge into cell based territory through a collaboration with Russian based cell based meat and tissue construction company 3D Bioprinting Solutions. https://cellbased.link/cpy 

  • According to a company press release, “the project aims to create the world’s first laboratory-produced chicken nuggets. They will be as close as possible in both taste and appearance to the original KFC product, while being more environmentally friendly to make than ordinary meat. 

Background: 3D Bioprinting Solutions is developing additive bioprinting technology with a robust intellectual property portfolio — specifically around the use of 3D printing to generate vascularized 3D tissue spheroids. Their IP addresses ways to increase the speed and accuracy of printing three dimensional cell aggregates with specific printer designs that filter cell culture media through separate channels AND addresses issues with waste build up + medium recycling through cell spheroids. 

What We Know: 3D Bioprinting Solutions process and technology is only relevant in the actual construction of the product (i.e. constructing the plant materials with the cell materials to form a 3D nugget → the actual proliferation of the chicken cells and ability to supply these cells in large quantities to be printed is still an important piece of the puzzle that must be addressed. In 2019, 3D Bioprinting worked with Aleph Farms and Finless Foods, both supplying cell lines to be used in 3D bioprinting research and development, to create a cell based prototype on the international space station. This suggests 3D Bioprinting Solutions may end up partnering with another larger cell based startup to source cell avian cell lines. 

Higher Steaks Milestone, Sorry Not Price

UK based cell based meat company Higher Steaks revealed a milestone accomplishment in recent TechCrunch article: production of its first sample products including cell based bacon and pork belly:

  • Bacon = 70% cultivated cells + 30% mixture of plant based proteins fats and starches
  • Pork Belly = 50% cultivated cells + 50% mixture of plant based proteins fats and starches

According to the article, Benjamina Bollag, Higher Steaks founder and CEO stated that the company plans to make more structured products in the future, but for now these sample products demonstrate Higher Steaks initial technology to cultivate animal cells albeit at an incredibly high price of thousands of pounds per kilogram. https://cellbased.link/hff 

What We Know: Higher Steaks is one of the few cell based meat companies working with induced pluripotent stem cells to cultivate cell based meat meaning they can be expanded a lot more and can be differentiated into any type of tissue including muscle and fat for use in pork products.

Brave Robot 🤖 Ice Cream

Perfect Day is putting that $300 Million financing to work with the launch of a new brand. https://cellbased.link/crl

Through a collaboration with food CPG agency, The Urgent Company, Perfect Day will launch the first ever cell based ice cream brand under the brand name: Brave Robot

  • Brave Robot will feature animal-free dairy ice cream 
  • Brave Robot will be launching with a direct to consumer model in the California region with ice cream pints at a $5.99 price point → the company has plans to expand to national retailers over the next several months. 

South Korea’s Cell Based Road Map

After an investment in BlueNalu’s Series A financing round, South Korean company Pulmuone Co. Ltd announced further collaboration with the cellular aquaculture company to address marketing, regulatory, operations and distribution with an aim to bring BlueNalu’s products to market in South Korea during the coming years. https://cellbased.link/dbz