Valio is starting a research collaboration with Melt&Marble, a company that develops fat-based raw materials for the food industry using precision fermentation. Melt&Marble is a Swedish startup with a promising new technology and food innovation for producing delicious food products.
- Melt&Marble produces fats for food applications using cellular agriculture, which can serve as alternatives to animal fats and tropical plant fats such as palm oil.
- The goal of Valio and Melt&Marble’s long-term research and development collaboration is to improve the texture, mouthfeel, and taste of plant-based products.
- The goal of the research and development collaboration is commercialization, meaning new food products on store shelves. Commercialization requires that Melt&Marble’s fat-based raw material obtains novel food approval.
Melt&Marble’s solution involves microbes producing fat in a fermenter, a process known as cellular agriculture. This fat can be used in plant-based products to enhance their structure and mouthfeel, such as juiciness or creaminess. Additionally, the nutritional properties of the fat can be customized. Melt&Marble’s fat can replace ingredients like palm oil, coconut fat, and shea fat, which are currently used in plant-based products to create a rich and indulgent texture. However, these fats come with various sustainability challenges, prompting the food industry to seek alternatives.
Valio and Melt&Marble are engaged in long-term collaboration in research and development. The goal is to study the properties of Melt&Marble’s novel fat and develop delicious products that will eventually reach store shelves. To enter the European market, this innovative fat requires novel food approval from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). It will take several years before products containing Melt&Marble’s fat become available in European grocery stores. In the U.S. market, Melt&Marble’s products will go through the FDA’s GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) notification process, which typically enables faster market entry. Melt&Marble plans to begin commercialization in the U.S. by the end of 2025.
“We are excited about our collaboration with Melt&Marble, as we share an innovative mindset and a commitment to developing better and tastier products together in the long term. The aim of this partnership is to take the sensory qualities and nutritional content of Valio’s plant-based products to a whole new level by leveraging Melt&Marble’s cutting-edge technology,” says Saara Pöyri, Director of Product Development at Valio.
“We’re incredibly excited to work with an established and forward-thinking company like Valio,” said Anastasia Krivoruchko, CEO of Melt&Marble. “This collaboration is a key step forward in our mission to revolutionize the food system by providing high-quality, fats that offer the same taste and functionality consumers expect from traditional fats.”
“This is an exciting step toward delivering breakthrough products to consumers,” added Thomas Cresswell, CBO at Melt&Marble. “By combining our expertise with Valio’s vast experience in product formulation, we’re able to create truly innovative solutions that push the boundaries of what’s possible in food.”
In 2024, Valio launched a five-year Food 2.0 project, which also receives funding from Business Finland. Food 2.0 aims to develop the future food system in collaboration with a broad ecosystem, building on the principles of the circular economy.
To ensure that food is available globally for everyone in the future, all forms of food production are needed: plant-based, animal-based, and cellular agriculture. Currently, cellular agriculture plays a small role in the food system, and its development requires collaboration between players of all sizes, including both established companies and startups.