Czech start-up Mewery, the first European cell-based food tech start-up, has created a cultivated pork on a microalgae base prototype. It’s the world’s first using a hybrid culture medium consisting of 75% pork and 25% microalgae cells.
Microalgae is currently booming in popularity amongst tech and food start-ups thanks to its enhanced efficiency, financial and nutritional benefits. On the financial side, the process of using the hardworking micro-organisms lowers costs. Efficiency-wise, it frees up significant arable land, while production turnover is much faster and 100% cruelty-free.
Nutrition-wise, microalgae provides numerous benefits including additional vitamins, antioxidants, minerals, fibre and fatty acids. Another positive is the elimination of FBS (Foetal Bovine Serum) which is derived from the blood drawn from a bovine foetus via a closed system of collection at the slaughterhouse.
Mewery’s cultivated meat is 100% cellular, in contrast with many other prototypes that rely on soy or pea proteins.
The company aims to launch its first consumer-ready products by 2026, the first of which will be pork meatballs and pork sausages. To get there, the company is seeking additional funding this year to fund continued work on its biobank cell repository and the buildout of large-capacity bioreactors to scale volume.
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