The missing ingredient in plant-based meat? Real fat

Growing real meat fat in a lab to make plant-based food taste better sounds contradictory, but that's exactly what Cultimate Foods is doing. The Berlin-based startup works out of the Life Science Factory in Göttingen, a co-working research facility where our building management and room automation solutions create the precise conditions that cutting-edge life science demands. It's where a small team of eight is trying to solve a big problem: getting animals out of the food chain without sacrificing flavor.

Inside a Göttingen lab, Cultimate Foods is redefining flavor for the future of food.

On this sunny Thursday morning, in a rather unimpressive office in the center of the German capital Berlin, Jordi Morales-Dalmau and the other two founders of Cultimate Foods are discussing the big news of the day: Just the day before, the US Department of Agriculture approved the sale of lab-grown meat for two companies offering cultivated chicken meat. “That’s a milestone for all of us,” says Morales-Dalmau, the 32-year-old CTO of the Berlin-based start-up. “That decision will have a huge effect on regulatory entities in the world, especially the European Union. The signal is: It’s safe to eat.”

For various reasons, the search is on for alternatives to traditionally produced meat. On the one hand, according to a UN study, the rearing and processing of livestock contributes significantly to global warming by producing between 11 and 19 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, depending on the study. On the other hand, the numbers of vegetarians and vegans are rising steadily. In addition, producers of lab-grown meat are promising that their meat is going to be more sustainable and healthier than traditionally produced meat.

Jordi Morales-Dalmau, co-founder of Cultimate Foods

Growing fat to make plant-based meat alternatives tasty

The start-up Cultimate Foods sees itself as a part of this movement. “Basically, what we are trying to do in the long run is to get animals out of the food chain,” says Morales-Dalmau. Sure, restaurants, fast food chains and supermarkets are already full of plant-based meat alternatives. However, the problem is that, often enough, taste and texture are not satisfying to people who are used to eating “real” meat. Morales-Dalmau, who is vegan, admits: “Fat is a pleasure. It gives taste to the meat.” That is why, according to him, 64 percent of people who have tried plant-based meat alternatives will not try them again.

The producers are trying to tackle that problem by adding coconut or rapeseed oil – or artificial flavors, which make the product less healthy. “In the end, what makes meat tasty, when you cook it, is the fat,” says the Catalunya-born Spaniard, who started as a theoretical physicist, then made his way through cancer therapy research, before switching to food technology in 2022.

Hybrid patties for climate-conscious meat lovers

Morales-Dalmau and his colleagues extract live cells from cows and pigs; then isolate, expand and differentiate them, which basically means that they instruct them to cultivate fat inside. The main attraction is that the cultivated fat will be healthier than conventional fat: “What we are cultivating aren’t subcutaneous, but intramuscular fat cells, which have less saturated fatty acids,“ says Morales-Dalmau.

The cultivated fat is then added to different types of plant-based meat alternatives. And then the team – since this year a group of eight – does tastings. Morales-Dalmau takes out some plastic bags filled with a mixture from the fridge that resembles minced meat. The week before, for the first time, they moved their product from the lab to the plate, doing burgers with their “hybrid patties”. Cultimate calls its product “hybrid” because the final product is a mixture of plant-based product and lab-grown fat. The product may not appeal to strict vegans but they might convince customers who want to reduce their consumption of animal-based meat.

Cultivated fat can be added to different types of plant-based meat alternatives.
For example, "hybrid" sausages could be produced.

Flexible, well-equipped lab environment

In their pre-seed round last year, Cultimate raised €700,000 from three investors, including a meat producer from Lower Saxony. The next fundraising round is on its way. But for their further development it was crucial to find a place where they could continue their research. They found it in Göttingen, a town known for its university, around 300 kilometers southwest of Berlin: The Life Science Factory is a research facility featuring our building management and room automation solution, which fits the needs of start-ups in the life science sector like Cultimate. “At this point, we would have been unable to afford the expensive machinery required for our research,” says Morales-Dalmau, citing mainly the highly sophisticated bio-reactors which are needed to grow the fat.

The Life Science Factory offers not only fully equipped laboratories, but also what is called the “Maker’s Factory,” a prototyping workshop with 3D printers and other multi-use instruments. “Actually, if you need well-equipped labs in places that also offer the scientists you need around, plus room for expansion – there aren’t so many of them in the world.” Apart from that, he says, the flexibility of the Life Science Factory is a big plus: “You can leave the labs at short notice if needs be – 30 days.”

Interdisciplinary exchange made easy

The fields that the other start-ups in the Life Science Factory in Göttingen are doing research in, are related to the ones that Cultimate is active in: stem cells, biology, cultivated foods. The co-working spaces make interdisciplinary exchange easy. But Cultimate’s scientists are not only sharing their ideas and knowledge with the other partners, but also their equipment: Recently they brought a new pipetting robot to the lab. “The deal is that the others are also allowed to use it,” says Morales-Dalmau. “All in all, it’s a great place to accelerate science.”

Through the Life Science Factory they also started to cooperate with scientists at Göttingen’s university. “We won’t replace traditional meat tomorrow, and maybe not in the next 100 years,” says Morales-Dalmau, but he’s optimistic that their research will create a product that fits the needs of the market. “We are at a point when meat producers, state institutions and start-ups can create a synergy that can push things forward.”