Japanese start-up IntegriCulture has announced five new projects under its open innovation platform for cultivated meat, the CulNet Consortium, which was first established three years ago.

The start-up has organised joint research projects with five members of the consortium, with the aim to bridge the gaps in the cultivated meat sector and build an efficient supply chain.

The first project focuses on culture media – in partnership with food manufacturer TableMark, a subsidiary of food giant JT Group, IntegriCulture is developing a basic culture medium ‘made from food ingredients that minimises the use of highly processed materials,’ and halves the number of raw materials needed.

The second project – with ingredient specialist San-ei-gen FFI – IntegriCulture is building a novel scaffold for 3D cultivation. The scaffold is made from food-grade ingredients, and various types of cells can grow on it with high densities. The companies hope to improve scaffold performance and optimise the cultivation process.

The third project also focuses on culture media and is in partnership with life sciences company Nacalai Tesque. Together, the firms will develop cost-effective media with safe, reliable raw materials that have already been used in food products.

The fourth project is with chemical and pharma company UBE Group. IntegriCulture and UBE will work on producing a long-term supply of growth factors produced by organ cells, focusing on improving the supply stability of growth factors.

In the final project, IntegriCulture is working with an anonymous member company to create antibacterial tech using food-grade ingredients. The start-up hopes that this will prevent bacterial contamination of cultured cells.

The 14-member CulNet Consortium began with five targets: to create standardised culture media for various cultivated foods, to streamline processing and quality assurance protocols, to certify safety-tested cells and cell licensing schemes, to build the required hardware and to develop efficient bioreactors.

The end goal of all these projects is to develop products that will be sold on IntegriCulture’s B2B marketplace, Ocatté Base. The company already sells cosmetic ingredients made from cellular agriculture and cell-ag-related hardware. The start-up says it is also planning to launch a cell-cultured food demonstration product.

In January this year, the Japanese government awarded $18.7 million in funding to IntegriCulture, to demonstrate that its cultivated foie gras and serum platforms can operate commercially. At the time, the start-up said it would use the funding to demonstrate the technical capability of developing products at a commercially viable price point.

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