Foodtech innovators Nutropy have just secured €2 million in new investment as they develop a new, sustainable way to produce dairy products. The French startup is bringing a new generation of cheese and milk ingredients to the market that is made without animal products.
Making the modern diet more sustainable is one of the key challenges and initiatives of foodtech innovators at the moment. From moving to alternative protein sources to promoting dairy-free products, we are currently seeing food products shift from animal products to plant-based, biotech-enabled options. One product that has been hard to change, whilst maintaining that iconic taste and texture, has been cheese.
A product loved by nations right across Europe, making cheese animal-free is now becoming a tastier reality thanks to Nutropy. The Paris-based startup has just raised €2 million.
Funding details
The €2 million pre-seed round was led by Beast, Big Idea Ventures (itself supported by Bel Group, AAK, and others) and Trellis Road.
It will be used for the pilot production of Nutropy’s animal-free cheese and milk ingredients, with the plan to launch the first industrial production of animal-free premium cheese within the next 24 months.
The round was supported by VegCapital, FoodHack, Techmind (through Jericho, its investor’s club dedicated to sustainable food), a few international business angels with experience in technology, food technology and agriculture and the French government
Patrick Schneider-Sikorsky, founder and managing partner at Beast: “Beast is super excited to partner with Nutropy on bringing premium animal-free cheese to the world. We are particularly impressed with Nathalie and Maya’s innovative vision for scaling fermentation processes and their dedication to producing innovative, impactful products. We are proud to welcome them to the growing Beast family of climate deeptech companies.”
Next generation of animal-free dairy
Dairy-free and vegan cheese isn’t new to the market. There have been a few solutions around for a number of years now. However, for the non-vegans and non-lactose intolerants, it’s not been the most popular choice, with consumers finding it doesn’t match up to the traditional stuff in terms of taste, texture, and ability to melt.
Taking on the task of making an alternative that does meet the cheese-lovers standard, Nutropy is developing the next generation of animal-free dairy.
Founded by Nathalie Rolland and Maya Bendifallah, Nutropy leverages innovative precision fermentation technology and ancestral savoir-faire to create distinctly animal-free dairy products, with a French touch.
Nathalie Rolland, CEO of Nutropy: “As cheese lovers, we know the importance of cheese in our gastronomic culture and want to offer consumers a wide range of cheeses free of lactose and dietary cholesterol that are produced in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner.”
It’s being made possible by using a protein called casein, which is the first milk protein that Nutropy is producing through its technology. Nutropy is also developing dairy fatty acids and has carefully selected cheese cultures to produce real cheese flavours These innovations allow for the next generation of animal-free cheeses that replicate the taste, texture and nutrition of animal cheese. The innovative approach will also use significantly fewer natural resources and limit the greenhouse gases and water pollution that accompany animal-produced dairy products
Anna Ottosson, founding partner at Trellis Road explained: “We’ve long been convinced of the critical role of casein in the shift away from animal cheese products. After speaking to the majority of casein startups globally we decided to invest in Nutropy as we were very impressed with the team’s technical ability and the milestones achieved in such a short period of time.”
The international cheese market is worth $200 billion and growing. Nutropy’s innovative approach, and its close collaboration with industrial cheese producers and French cheese specialists, mean it is primed to lead the development of a B2B “cheesable milk solution” producing many types of cheese to expand the global cheese market to new frontiers
Andrew D. Ive, Founder and Managing General Partner of Big Idea Ventures added: “We are excited about Nutropy’s technology and the quality of the products the team has been able to produce. I tried their premium cheese at one of our events, and the texture and taste were indistinguishable from premium, animal-based cheese. Using bio-identical ingredients is a game changer.”
