Minimally processed alt meat startup Millow nets $2.6m EIC grant, plans new facility

Millow—a Swedish startup identified for minimally processed meat substitutes from oats and mycelium—has bagged a €2.4 million ($2.6 million) grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator and as much as €15 million ($16.3 million) in fairness funding from the EIC Fund beneath its blended finance scheme.  

The agency, which has a pilot plant in Gothenburg, will use the grant funds to scale up its manufacturing course of, which it claims makes use of a fraction of the water and vitality utilized by manufacturers similar to Quorn, with decrease capital expenditure.

Chairman Staffan Hillberg instructed AgFunderNews: “The European Funding Financial institution has dedicated as much as €15 million ($16.3 million) in fairness in a number of monetary rounds, contingent on co-investment from non-public buyers.”

He added: “Millow has co-developed a number of SKUs with massive meals producers, whose names we can not disclose resulting from NDAs. These merchandise will initially launch within the Nordic market, with bigger volumes anticipated in 2026. We’re additionally in discussions with corporations outdoors of Europe for a joint institution as soon as our Nordic manufacturing facility [a new larger facility in near Gothenburg] is operational.

“In these instances when a number of corporations have gone bankrupt or are in monetary misery, our technique all alongside has been to work carefully with our companions in order that when our co-developed merchandise are completed, we’ve orders in line and might develop the corporate with profitability. Now we have additionally filed various new patent purposes to guard our expertise and have carried out a brand new component of science in fermentation which we consider is a game-changer in mycelium progress.”

‘It’s extra like managed setting agriculture [than food processing].’

Millow’s expertise relies on the work of mycelium professional Mohammad Taherzadeh, professor of bioprocess expertise on the College of Borås, and is printed within the firm’s first published patent.

Whereas a number of companies are rising fungal biomass to make meat analogs, Millow​​ is including mycelium to a plant-based substrate (initially oats) in a novel fermentation course of to create hybrid merchandise with a ratio of round 50% fungi and 50% vegetation.

In the course of the fermentation course of, which lasts round 12-16 hours till a sure density is reached, the fungi are added to the oats, eat away on the starch, and begin to favorably alter texture and vitamin.

The fungi/oat combo can develop in any form or kind, relying on the form and dimensions of the containers it grows in, with out requiring costly downstream processing, and has a balanced dietary profile with protein, fiber, nutritional vitamins and minerals.

After the product is prepared, it may be shipped recent or frozen to meals producers and offered as a solo packaged product or mixed in ready meals, stated Hillberg. “There’s a massive dialogue concerning what number of vegan merchandise don’t present minerals and nutritional vitamins that can be utilized by the human physique.  The meals producers that we work with have raised this as a serious difficulty.  With a purpose to handle this we’ve drastically diminished the phytic acid content material in our merchandise, bringing it near zero.  The result’s a serious enchancment within the uptake of important vitamins similar to iron and zinc.”

It’s not tempeh…  

Whereas it feels like tempeh, which is made through solid-state fermentation, Millow merchandise have a meatier style, chunk, look and texture and don’t disintegrate when cooked in a sauce, claimed Hillberg.

“Millow just isn’t tempeh. It’s made very in another way, appears to be like completely different, has a special texture and tastes very completely different… Millow has a pleasing juicy and bouncy meat-like texture with out binders… and it doesn’t soften when used as an ingredient in stews.”

Not like gamers rising fungal biomass in liquid suspension, in the meantime, Millow doesn’t require costly chrome steel fermentation tanks, stated CEO Esmaeil Taherzadeh (Prof. Taherzadeh’s son).

“It’s extra like managed setting agriculture [than food processing] in customized tools we’ve designed that’s made by comanufacturers, so consider highly-automated massive chambers. We checked out these gamers utilizing moist fermentation in massive metal vats and requested, can we do that in a greater method? And we got here up with a completely new course of.”

Taherzadeh added: “Our fermentation system is between stable and submerged fermentation. It’s a lot quicker and far more environment friendly in comparison with stable state fermentation and makes use of lots much less vitality and water than submerged fermentation.”

Managed setting fermentation

Millow grows its merchandise within the S-Unit, a proprietary “mixture of superior {hardware} and software program, controlling and manipulating mycelium to develop with sure precision and properties, in what we name managed setting fermentation,” defined Taherzadeh.

“The S-unit expertise is modular which makes it very handy to scale in comparison with conventional mycelium manufacturing applied sciences.” The modularity additionally creates redundancy ought to one unit encounter points, he stated. “It solely makes use of one-third of the vitality usually utilized by conventional submerged/moist fermentation, and a pair of.3% of the water, which interprets into 95% CO2 financial savings.

“Additional, the required funding in tools is barely one-third in comparison with submerged fermentation.  The system setup can also be designed for including automation and dealing with, which reduces operation prices and improves financials.  Moreover, it supplies greater security for mycelium progress leading to an general improved meals security, as every unit is supplied with a decontamination system.”

If the whole lot proceeds as deliberate, he stated, “We anticipate having a number of S-units  in operation by the tip of 2026. Every S-unit will produce 144 tons per 12 months.”

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