Zurich-based food tech, Food Brewer, closes seed round with over CHF 5 million to continue developing cocoa and coffee alternatives

Swiss food-tech startup, Food Brewer, has announced it has closed a seed round, raising more than CHF 5 million (US$5.6 million) from US and Swiss investors, including from Zürcher Kantonalbank and chocolate manufacturer Felchlin. The startup will use the fresh capital to further develop its cell lines, expand its production facility and for business development.

Food produced from cultured cells represents a future alternative to conventionally produced food – for example as a more environmentally friendly substitute for meat from resource-intensive livestock farming. However, not only animal-based foods leave a large ecological footprint during their production. Plant-based raw materials such as cocoa or coffee also require many resources before they are even used as raw materials in the production of luxury foods. Both plants need several years to grow before the first fruits can be harvested. They also only grow in certain tropical areas and are very sensitive to the effects of climate change.

The startup, Food Brewer, has now established ‘cell lines’ form coffee and cocoa beans for large scale production. The Zurich-based startup has patented its time-efficient process for this identification process. On average, it now only takes a few weeks to establish a new plant cell line.

At Food Brewer, the selected plant cells then grow in a tank with a suitable nutrient solution to a larger cell mass, which is then harvested. For the large scale production, Food Brewer has partnered with the food and brewing equipment provider Krones and is using a so-called 'brewing bioreactor' allowing a high yield and cost-efficient production. After the harvest, the cells are subjected to a drying process and the result is finally cocoa or coffee in powder form. "With our cocoa cell line, we are already in a position to produce on a kilogram scale," commented Mathilde Dupin, who has been on board as Head of Finance and Strategy at Food Brewer for almost six months. Over the past 18 months, Food Brewer has grown from one to 17 employees.

“We are currently in transition from the research phase to the actual food production phase,” continued Dupin. The fresh capital will now be used to further develop the cell lines and expand the production facility. All these steps should help to ensure that the approval for cocoa and coffee powder from cell culture becomes a reality in the next three to four years, as planned. “The roadmap for approval in the novel food sector is clear and we are working towards it with strong determination,” said CFO Dupin.

Until then, strategic investor Felchlin is already producing the first trial chocolates with Food Brewer's cocoa powder. According to Dupin, the first customers from the USA have also flown in the cocoa powder for initial tests. “We are focusing on the B2B business, we are not striving for our own Food Brewer praline variety.”