Re:meat

Re:meat is a Swedish startup that was founded in 2022 by Jacob Schaldemose Peterson and Gittan Schiöld, specialising in producing cultivated meat grown from animal cells.

When it came to starting the company, Jacob left his full-time job to start Re:meat. “I had promised myself to work with climate change when I was studying, and then I had forgotten along the way. But when I had my first kid, I was reminded of that, and I started to look into what is really important when it comes to climate change, and I was really blown away when I found out how important food is.”

Cultivated meat has been around for a while, but companies in the field would often look to the biopharma industry and use the same technology that is used to develop a vaccine to show how meat can be grown. However, this process is expensive and hard to scale. This is where Re:meat comes in.

Re:meat has developed a process which mirrors the process of brewing beer, rather than adopting biopharma principles. It has used muscle cells donated from a free-range cow that is still alive and grazing the fields outside of Malmö. Its methods result in meat production that has a 92% lower CO₂ impact than traditional beef.

“We’re a B2B company, and our clients are big food producers, they will be the ones in the end who will produce the meat. […] We have collaborations with retailers, food service companies, meat producers, and big industry players. We're enabling the technology, which will then be licensed out,” Jacob explained.

When asked why he decided to work on cultivated meat, Jacob said: “We can’t rely on plant based options, it would be a fantastic climate solution, and I eat tonnes of them myself, but the majority of people don’t. So, we need to be able to grow meat in a radically more sustainable way, and I think cultivated meat is the only way to do that.”

Before starting Re:meat, Jacob researched and had a strong idea in mind of what he wanted to bring to the sector. “We had this clear vision of really cutting down costs, because all of the solutions out there are so expensive. I reached out to a lot of founders [in the sector], and asked them ‘if there was one more company, what would that company do?’ All of them were in agreement to not start another R&D company but start something with the mindset of manufacturing. So, we’re not manufacturing, but we’re designing the manufacturing technology.”

This year, Re:meat is looking to move up the technology readiness scale. Currently sitting at TRL four, which means that its technology is proven at lab scale, but the goal for 2025 is to hit TRL five. This means doing a minimum industrial size, considered to be somewhere around 50 to 200 litres of a bioreactor. If this is successful, Re:meat will then be eligible for applying for the big EU grants.

Waterhaul

Waterhaul is on a mission to tackle the issue of ghost gear: the term given to lost, discarded, or abandoned fishing gear that ends up polluting the ocean. It’s an ongoing issue and is the most harmful form of marine plastic pollution, as it continues to do its original job of catching marine life, and creates devastation in the oceans.

Waterhaul Founder, Harry Dennis, explained: “Our mission is to be part of the solution in tackling that. The mechanism that we use to achieve that is by stepping back and trying to review how we view this problem. Currently, we see it as a waste problem, and when we treat something as waste it has no value, that influences our behaviour and the way that we as humans treat it. If we revalue it as being a resource, and something that's really useful, purposeful, and valuable, suddenly that flips the script. It doesn't matter if you're someone who doesn't have a huge interest in environmental issues, if it has value, that will change your behaviour.

“That's essentially how we began. We would take this ghost gear, recover the plastic, recycle it, and transform it into a new form where it had value.”

Waterhaul began its journey by creating sunglasses from this recycled ghost gear plastic. Harry said: “The idea was to create a product, and the product could drive that change. That initial idea began with sunglasses. They’re an item that is purposeful, deliver a real clear function, and enable you to get outdoors, particularly in and around the ocean, which is so relevant. They also unlock that value; you can really showcase performance and value in in the form of a pair of sunglasses.

“This plastic is just incredible. The point we make often is that plastic is the most incredible resource: it’s so strong, it’s so durable, it has all of these unbelievable properties. Where plastic has gone wrong is that it has lacked any value.

“It's the way that we as humans behave and treat it, and that's where a lot of these kind of problems have come from. We’re trying to turn that all on its head and create a pathway that transforms waste into a resource.”

Looking ahead, Waterhaul is growing and changing. Harry explained: “We’re entering this new era that enables both the expansion of our own product range, but also taking that step back and looking at our material and realising that our material is the embodiment of our beliefs, impact, and innovation. We’re now for the very first time making our material commercially available to other brands, creators, and other industries, because ultimately, that demand is what can enable us to scale our impact. Together we can have a much greater impact if we make this open.”

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2025 issue of Startups Magazine. Click here to subscribe