Three companies Givaudan, Bühler and Migros have formed a new entity, The Cultured Food Innovation Hub, in Kemptthal near Zurich, to accelerate the development and market penetration of cellular agriculture products.

There are many arguments supporting the mass suitability of cultured meat: meat without slaughter or factory farming, a significantly better climate balance, no use of antibiotics, and ensured food security. The Cultured Food Innovation Hub will start operations next year.

The Cultured Food Innovation Hub will be a self-sustained, standalone company wholly owned by Givaudan, Bühler and Migros, located in The Valley in Kemptthal, a hotbed of innovation and technology just outside of Zurich. The new entity will provide facilities and knowledge to accelerate other companies on their cultured meat, cultured fish and seafood, and precision fermentation journeys. The Cultured Food Innovation Hub will be equipped with a product development lab as well as cell culture and bio fermentation capabilities to help start-ups develop and go to market with the right product. 

The significant increase in demand in recent years for plant-based foods all around the world has shown consumers’ broad concern for the environment, as well as their expectation of producers for healthful foods that are ethical and sustainable. In a world facing great challenges from climate change, combined with a population expected to exceed 10 billion people by 2050, the need for sustainable food cultivation and sourcing is critical.

Cellular agriculture for cultured meat provides the means for the farming of animal products without raising animals. Animal cells are used as a starting point, and then technologies such as fermentation are employed for the cultivation of meat products. The result is meat that is identical in structure and in taste to its animal counterpart with vastly reduced environmental impact and no mass farming or slaughter.

“Cellular agriculture offers a solution in several areas from reducing land use and water, to animal welfare, to the safety and quality of the food chain. The three partners in this new venture are each committed to sustainability as individual companies; the combined effort enables the journey to a more sustainable food system,” says Ian Roberts, Chief Technology Officer at Bühler.

Fabio Campanile, Givaudan’s Global Head of Science and Technology, Taste & Wellbeing, says: “Bühler contributes with industry leading solutions that are used in the scale-up and production of thousands of food products around the world; Givaudan brings in centuries of experience and knowledge in every aspect of taste, including all kinds of meat alternatives, and deep expertise in biotechnology, to product development; Migros is known for its competence in customer interaction and market cultivation. The combination of the three partners is remarkable.”

“This truly unique partnership has the potential to be ground-breaking and to have an incredible, positive impact on the world,” says Matthew Robin, Managing Director Elsa-Mifroma at Migros-Industrie: “Consumers are beginning to understand the idea of cellular agriculture and the benefits it can provide; the market is poised for exceptional growth. When you put it all together it’s a winning combination for the planet.”

The Cultured Food Innovation Hub will go live in 2022. 

For more informations:

Jeff Peppet, Communications Director, Givaudan Taste & Wellbeing
Givaudan Flavors Corp., Cincinnati OH-45216, United States
Phone : +1 513 948 5655
Mobile: +1 513 293 3740
E-mail: Jeff.Peppet@givaudan.com

Roland Pfister, Head of Communications Migros-Industrie
Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund, 8031 Zurich, Switzerland
Phone: +41 58 570 38 38
E-mail: media@mgb.ch

Burkhard Böndel, Head of Corporate Communications 
Bühler AG, 9240 Uzwil, Switzerland
Phone: +41 71 955 33 99
Mobile: +41 79 515 91 57 
E-mail: burkhard.boendel@buhlergroup.com 
Media team: media.relations@buhlergroup.com

About Givaudan
Givaudan is a global leading company in taste and wellbeing, and fragrance and beauty. With its heritage stretching back over 250 years, the Company has a long history of innovating scents and tastes. From a favorite drink to your daily meal, from prestige perfumes to cosmetics and laundry care, its creations inspire emotions and delight millions of consumers the world over. The Company is committed to driving purpose-led, long-term growth while leading the way to improve happiness and health for people and nature. In the fiscal year 2020, the Company employed almost 16,000 people worldwide and achieved sales of CHF 6.3 billion and a free cash flow of 12.8% of sales. Let’s imagine together on

www.givaudan.com.

About Givaudan Taste & Wellbeing
Powered by innovation and creativity, Givaudan Taste & Wellbeing aims to shape the future of food by becoming the co-creation partner of choice to its customers. Built on its global leadership position in flavours and taste, the Company goes beyond to create food experiences that do good and feel good, for body, mind and planet. With an expanded portfolio of products across flavours, taste, functional and nutritional solutions and a deep knowledge of the food ecosystem, Givaudan’s passion is to collaborate with customers and partners to develop game-changing innovations in food and beverage. Let’s imagine together the future of food.

Learn more at www.givaudan.com/taste-wellbeing

About the Migros Group
With annual sales of CHF 28.7 billion in 2019, the Migros Group is both the largest retail company in Switzerland and with over 106,000 employees the largest private employer as well. The owners of Migros are its more than two million cooperative members, organized into ten regional cooperatives. These members run the Migros Group’s core business, its retail sales. Over 50 percent of the products offered in the Migros stores are own brands, a large number of which are manufactured by its own industrial group. The Migros Group also owns other commercial enterprises such as the Denner discount chain or the online store Digitec Galaxus, as well as the travel company Hotelplan and Migros Bank.

Migros was founded in 1925 by Gottlieb Duttweiler. The founder himself attached great importance to sustainable value creation, with ethical considerations and the assumption of social responsibilities playing a major role in his business philosophy. For example, one of the stipulations in his philosophy was that a fixed percentage of the Migros cooperatives’ annual revenues should be used for cultural and social activities. And with CHF 118 million contributed each year, Migros is the largest private promoter of cultural activities in Switzerland. 

www.migros.ch

About Bühler
Bühler is driven by its purpose of creating innovations for a better world, balancing the needs of economy, humanity, and nature. As a relevant solution partner for the food and mobility industries, Bühler is committed to reduce energy, waste, and water in its customers’ value chains by 50% by 2025. Billions of people come into contact with Bühler technologies as they cover their basic needs for food and mobility every day. Two billion people each day enjoy foods produced on Bühler equipment; and one billion people travel in vehicles manufactured using parts produced with Bühler technology. Countless people wear eyeglasses, use smart phones, and read newspapers and magazines – all of which depend on Bühler process technologies and solutions. Having this global relevance, Bühler is in a unique position to turn today’s global challenges into sustainable business. Bühler contributes to safely feeding the world and is doing its part to protect the climate, producing solutions that make cars, buildings, and machinery more energy efficient.

Bühler invests up to 5% of turnover into research and development. In 2020, some 12,500 employees generated a turnover of CHF 2.7 billion. As a Swiss family-owned company, Bühler is active in 140 countries around the world and operates a global network of 100 service stations, 33 manufacturing sites, and application and training centers in 24 locations.

www.buhlergroup.com

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The Agropôle Research Campus has been officially added to the list of Vaud technology parks as part of an initiative spearheaded by Innovaud. This new addition expands Vaud’s hosting opportunities to local high-tech businesses and gives the region an established R&D hub for agritech and foodtech innovation in Switzerland.

At Agropôle, scientists, entrepreneurs and agribusinesses work together to develop, test and market sustainable solutions for the food industry. Located in Molondin, the campus has 35,000 m2 of rentable property including industrial space, offices, workshops and greenhouses for research and development, along with some 85 hectares of farmland for pilot projects. Agropôle is a one-of-a-kind idea incubator designed to promote farm-to-table initiatives. The campus plans to construct a new building for showcasing its innovations, which should be ready by 2023.

“Today, our technology parks serve as a tightly-knit network of skills and innovation for stimulating business development, fueling our local economy, and creating jobs within our canton. Having Agropôle as part of our Food Valley broadens the range of capabilities we can offer,” says Philippe Leuba, Head of the Vaud Department of Economy, Innovation and Sport (DEIS).

Patrick Barbey, the president of Innovaud, says: “Today’s consumers want their food to be environmentally responsible, and that’s where Agropôle comes in. Vaud businesses can use the campus to develop innovative products and services along the entire food industry value chain that are sustainable, ethical and of high quality. Having the campus as part of our network of technology parks will enhance the attractiveness of our canton, both within Switzerland and internationally.”

Alain Schacher, the president of Agropôle, notes: “We’re proud and honoured to join Innovaud as one of Vaud’s technology parks alongside other organizations we admire, yet with a unique focus on sustainable agriculture. And I am happy to see this kind of recognition being given to a research campus like ours and to sustainability-oriented innovation in general. I’d also like to highlight the years of hard work put in by the family behind Agropôle in order to give life to their ethics and vision.”

Agropôle Research Campus: A Nutrition and Food Ecosystem Unique in Switzerland

Agropôle is part of Vaud’s bustling ecosystem composed of companies and R&D centres studying advanced methods for nutrition and food technologies. Organizations in the ecosystem include Agroscope de Changins, HEIG-VD, EPFL, Nestlé, EHL’s Innovation Village, and the Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley, of which Agropôle is a member.

For more information, contact:

Lara Rossi, Head of Communications, Innovaud
Email: lara.rossi@innovaud.ch
Tel.: +41 (0)78 260 96 65

Julie Schüpbach, Head of Marketing and Projects, Agropôle
Email: julie.schuepbach@agropole.ch
Tel.: +41 (0)79 614 46 56

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Givaudan aims to support start-ups that offer solutions to feed 10 billion people by 2050 while improving food experience.

Givaudan, the global leader in flavours, natural food ingredients, fragrances and cosmetic ingredients, is committed to fast-track market access and innovation for start-ups. This year, it is hosting and mentoring entrepreneurs at the newly-opened Zurich Innovation Center – and potentially at other locations around the world – to provide all the support a start-up needs to scale up and commercialise disruptive new solutions.

Program Outline and Benefits

Givaudan will search within start-up communities globally to enrol the best players based on their eligibility. The top start-up will be invited to follow a 10-15 weeks program to accelerate their development and grow their network with experts and stakeholders. It will form the base for a future collaboration with Givaudan, and be given media exposure via the Givaudan social media channels. The program will take place at Givaudan’s innovation centres in Switzerland, Netherlands, France, the US and in other locations, with a mixture of online and face-to-face meetings. Travel and accommodation can be discussed to facilitate attendance to live sessions.

The experience for the start-ups will be as follows:

• Stage One – Pitch

5-10 pre-selected start-ups will participate in an online pitch and networking event where they will expose and connect their innovation for 20 minutes to key representatives of Givaudan. Then, the top 1-3 start-ups will be selected to work closely with selected Givaudan representatives to plan a pilot program that will take place at ZIC or other innovation centres around the world. 

• Stage Two – Pilot Program

The top start-ups will work in a well-defined pilot of 12 weeks (+/- full length, with in-person/remote) with Givaudan experts to create a prototype (demonstrator, minimum viable product) showing commercial potential. Each start-up will:

• • Be part of a team composed of the start-up and Givaudan’s technical and business experts and mentors.
  • Have access to the Givaudan ZIC or other innovation centres, industrial equipment, lab and pilot work.
  • Lead the co-development of a prototype and optimise it for a live demo.

• Stage Three – Demo Day

Each team will present their prototype and a roadmap proposal towards potential commercialisation. The audience will be composed of members of the category executives of Givaudan, key stakeholders, some key thought and corporate leaders from its business network, and investors from their innovation network. 

Each start-up will:

• Have the option of having a booth at the ZIC to talk more about their innovation with the selective audience.
• Be exposed and connected to a jury of experts.
• Co-promote a joint solution to Givaudan’s customer network.

For the Winning Start-Up(s)

At the Demo Day, the jury will select the very winner who, in addition to the above, will receive:

• A specific press release from Givaudan, with an in-depth interview to be published on their social media channels.
• The opportunity to extend the team’s assignment and participate in a 3-6 months acceleration program to advance development from prototype to full developed pilot.
• An invitation to attend one of the next top foodtech events sponsored by Givaudan. 
• An invitation to fast track the application process of MassChallenge’s start-up accelerator in Switzerland.

Eligibility Criteria

Givaudan is looking for food technology start-ups with the following profile:

• Activity: Focus on technologies and solutions for unique food texture for food consumers around the globe:
  • Methylcellulose replacement in meat analogues
  • Gum replacement (particularly gellan gum) in beverages
  • Modified starch replacement in soups and sauces

The company is also looking for wider ideas to collaborate with which provide natural, clean label and competitive solutions that deliver amazing texture and emulsification. 

• Stage: Typically post-seed and pre-series A.It is important that the start-up already has some traction.

   

• Other attributes:
  
  • Impactful: to massively benefit consumers and the environment.
  • Viable: easily adopted by consumers, governments and/or businesses; scalable to mainstream consumers, and; replicable around the world.
  • Innovative: disruptive, preferably solid IP and ‘new to the world’ ideas

For more information, contact:

Alexandre Bastos

Head of Front End Innovation at Givaudan

Givaudan International SA
5, Chemin de la Parfumerie
Vernier, Geneva 1214, CH

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