These upgraded facilities are set to fast-track the development of Melt&Marble's bespoke fat ingredients, signifying a crucial step in the company's journey towards the commercialisation of fats that are not only sustainable and palatable but also healthful.

The company has achieved a significant milestone by scaling up the production process of its inaugural product, a solid fat designed to mimic the attributes of fats derived from animals, aimed at enhancing alternative meat products, to a cubic meter bioreactor scale. This progress marks a pivotal moment in the path towards production at a commercial scale. Melt&Marble is now advancing the process of scaling up its production capacity even further, aiming for bioreactors with tens of cubic meters capacity. ‘’We are excited about the achievements to date’’, says Anastasia Krivoruchko, co-founder & CEO, ‘’In the last months, we constantly improved key performance indicators related to rate, titre and yield, successfully achieving metrics relevant for commercial-scale and demonstrating the scalability of our process.” Anastasia added.

Furthering its path to market, the company has secured a partnership to bring them to commercial scale, allowing production of hundreds of kilograms of fat per batch in the coming months, with further expansion potential to tonnes per batch in 2025, when the company is eyeing a launch in the US market.

Chief Business Officer, Thomas Cresswell commented: ‘’We see a great deal of interest from industry players in our technology both in Europe and in the US, because it allows us to tune the composition and properties of our fats and create animal-free ingredients that are both delicious and sustainable. Palatability remains a challenge in the animal-free food space and our fats are an extremely effective way to address that by replicating the taste experience consumers crave. The recent milestones position us on the path to accelerate toward commercialization in the coming months and we are eyeing a market entry in the US as soon as early 2025. Our new facilities will allow us to test applications and produce samples in-house while our manufacturing partnership paves a clear path to market.’’

Melt&Marble’s pioneering technology enables precise control of its fats’ composition and properties, allowing it to create designer fats from the ground up. This means dictating the types of fatty acids as well as how these fatty acids assemble on to a glycerol backbone to form specific triglycerides. Beyond the food industry, Melt&Marble is exploring applications in other industries, including personal care, where demand for new sources of sustainable specialty fats has been increasing in recent years, driven by consumer demand.