For a long time, the food industry has been trying to find an effective, low-cost, and sustainable replacement for traditional animal fat. This is because animal fat is the most crucial ingredient that defines how the meat looks, cooks, and tastes which cannot be replicated by plant oils currently used in meat alternatives.
In this reference, London-based Hoxton Farms, a startup that cultivates animal fat, has raised £2.7M (approx €3M) in its Seed round of funding, to provide the ingredient that has been missing to make alternatives of meat. The startup, however, is currently in the research and development stage.
Dr Max Jamilly, co-founder of Hoxton Farms says, “We want to bring back fat: it’s the single most important ingredient in the meat that we eat. The technology we’re developing will allow us to customise fat for any application – and we’re making it healthier too. Cultivated fat is the hero ingredient for meat alternatives, and it will solve a huge problem in this growing industry. We believe the future of meat alternatives will be a blend of plant-based protein and cultivated fat.”
Investors in this round
The round is led by Founders Fund, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm founded by Peter Thiel. The round also saw participation from investors including Backed, Presight Capital, CPT Capital, Sustainable Food Ventures, and angel investors.
Use of the funds
The raised capital will help Hoxton Farms to develop a proof of concept of its production platform and build customer partnerships, as well as supply cultivated fat to the global meat alternatives industry.
About Hoxton Farms
The company was founded in 2020 by co-founders, Dr Max Jamilly – a synthetic biologist and formerly part of Legendairy Foods, and Ed Steele – a mathematician and former machine learning engineer at Thought Machine.
The founders met at nursery school over 25 years ago, and have been friends ever since. They teamed up in 2020 to combine their expertise and build Hoxton Farms against the backdrop of the pandemic.
Hoxton Farms is growing real animal fat – without animals. They are developing cultivated fat as an ingredient for the meat alternatives industry.
Trying to solve the meat alternative industry
Animal agriculture is responsible for almost 15 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions and uses 30 per cent of habitable land and freshwater. Generally, meat alternatives use plant oils as a fat replacement, which has a number of drawbacks. Some oils are bad for the environment, such as coconut and palm oil, also, most of them lack flavour.
The demand for plant-based meat has grown 125 per cent in the last two years, and according to Fortune Business Insights, the global meat substitute market is expected to be worth $8.15B (approx €6.73B) by 2026.
Hoxton Farms is working to solve this problem using cultivated fat that is ethical and sustainable without compromising taste and performance. Starting with a tiny sample of animal cells, Hoxton Farms grows purified animal fat in cultivators. This process is, however, expensive and difficult to scale. But, the startup is solving this by using proprietary computational models to reduce the cost.
Ed Steele, co-founder of Hoxton Farms, comments, “Our mathematical approach drives everything we do at Hoxton Farms. We simulate the entire process computationally, from biopsy to bacon. This “digital twin” allows us to optimise every raw input in parallel, massively improving the cost-efficiency and performance of our cultivated fat for our customers.”
Steele adds, “The Covid-19 crisis has exposed the fragility of traditional meat supply chains and the risks they pose to human health and the environment. We wanted to bring together our skills to address a pressing problem: how to satisfy a growing demand for meat without compromising on health, sustainability or animal ethics.”
In the coming months, the startup will begin work at its new R&D lab in Hoxton, London, and continue to grow its talented team of biologists and mathematicians.
