Californian animal-free cheese producer New Culture announces a partnership with its previous investor, South Korean biotech giant CJ CheilJedang. New Culture develops casein from precision fermentation to make cow-free cheeses that melt, stretch, bubble, brown, and taste like conventional cheese without the lactose, cholesterol, hormones, and antibiotics found in milk. The partnership will focus on reducing the production cost of New Culture’s casein to obtain a competitive price for its first product, animal-free mozzarella for pizzerias

New Culture​—a startup making casein proteins via precision fermentation to create ‘animal-free’ mozzarella—has announced a strategic partnership with Korean biomanufacturing giant CJ CheilJedang, giving it access to “some of the largest and most sophisticated fermentation facilities on the planet.”. CJ CheilJedang, which invested in New Culture in 2022, is the world’s largest producer of bioproducts made from fermentation, and will help the San Leandro-based startup “unlock commodity pricing” for casein from fermentation without having to invest tens of millions in capex, cofounder and CEO Matt Gibson told AgFunderNews. “CJ has a range of world-class bioprocess assets in several countries around the world. We are working with them to understand which sites could be the most cost-effective to run New Culture’s process in order to produce our animal-free casein at the lowest price possible.”

Following a review by an independent panel of qualified scientific and toxicology experts, Californian animal-free cheese producer New Culture announces that it has self-affirmed its precision fermentation-derived casein as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). New Culture claims this achievement marks the “world’s first” GRAS designation for animal-free casein, which allows it to sell its products containing casein in the USA. “Achieving GRAS status proves that animal inputs aren’t needed to produce casein”