MENTOR SPOTLIGHT

Meet the amazing individuals who helped build this industry and are donating their time to support and mentor the next generation of innovators in the cultivated food industry!

Judging Panel

ALEPH FARMS

Rehovot, Israel

"Aleph Farms is the brainchild of the beloved heritage food company, Strauss Group, top research university, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, and veteran CEO, food engineer and biologist, Didier Toubia. Founded in 2017 by this group of food experts, parents, nature lovers, and scientists, we’re humbly united in our mission to feed the world and preserve the planet."

BIOMILQ

Durham, NC

Biomilq is the first company working on creating breastmilk for human babies. 

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" We’re done making trade-offs between

our baby’s health, our wellbeing,

and the environment. We’re empowering parents with a new option for supplemental feeding—one that’s as close to breastmilk as possible and cultivated under safe conditions using our first-of-its-kind technology."

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Sommerville, MA

CALIFORNIA CULTURED

Davis, CA

California Cultured is dedicated to protecting the planet by creating chocolate that is free from deforestation, child slave labor, and other environmental harm. 

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"We select cacao varieties with the best organoleptic properties, take a handful of cells and keep them growing infinitely. We do this by equipping the cells with a proper set of plant nutrients which allows for rapid growth."

THE CELLULAR AGRICULTURE SOCIETY (CAS)

San Francisco, CA

"CAS is the international 501(c)(3) non-profit advancing cellular agriculture, a field of biotechnology producing animal products without animals."

CULTURED DECADENCE

Madison, WI

Cultured Decadence is solving the growing need for nutritious and sustainable seafood by creating meat from animal cells - starting with lobster. 

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"Seafood is a decadent, delicious, and nutritious source of protein recommended by doctors and dietitians as part of a healthy diet. Yet, with the increasing acidification and warming of oceans and the growing world population, the planet needs better solutions for producing seafood. We need to get more protein to more consumers while protecting and preserving the environment for future generations of animals and people. We've dedicated our lives to building technology to do just that - produce high-quality animal products (starting with cell-cultured lobster!) using the actual cells of the animal. "

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THE EVERY COMPANY

South San Francisco, CA

EVERY is developing technology to create animal protein without the animals. Our protein platform offers all the great taste of the foods you know and love with less cost, better performance and less waste. 

"Food production is becoming unsustainable. A dozen eggs alone can take up to 2000 liters of water to create. Not to mention the ethical and moral implications of harvesting the lives of animals."

GINKGO BIOWORKS

Boston, MA

Biology is the most advanced manufacturing technology on the planet. Ginkgo is a biotech company in Boston that uses bioengineering and synthetic biology to program cells for a variety of applications from food to materials to therapeutics.

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"To feed a rapidly growing population on a warming planet, society needs to develop innovative new technologies to grow and distribute food. The cattle industry, which includes both beef and dairy products, represents a $1 trillion global market opportunity and contributes to 9% of global greenhouse gas emissions. At Ginkgo, we are working towards a future where genetic engineering can help make foods that are sustainable, healthier, delicious, and accessible to everyone."

HIGHER STEAKS

London, UK

Using state-of-the-art cell culture techniques, we take a small sample of cells from an animal. We then expand those cells by feeding these cells a rich and animal free growth media. When these cells have grown, we guide them to become muscle, fat and other types of tissue in order to form the desired meat product.

IACCELERATE

Berkeley, CA

A Virtual Accelerator for pioneers in FoodTech and SynBio. iAccelerate takes a tailors their approach with each client. The majority of their clients are focused in the cultivated food and alternative proteins field.

MATRIX MEATS

Columbus, OH

Matrix Meats' mission is to develop and manufacture nanofiber scaffolds to support the production of clean, healthy, tasty, and environmentally friendly cultivated products to ethically feed the world.

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"Current scaffolding solutions for cell proliferation, differentiation, and maturation are unsatisfactory and costly. Our solution is a custom-engineered electrospun nanofiber matrix that mimics the natural extracellular matrix (ECM). Our team has over a decade of industry leading experience in the design and manufacture of cell matrices to support all cell types including over 40 publications, over 50 patents, and a multitude of trade secrets. "

NEW CULTURE

San Francisco, CA

"At New Culture, we’re a team of cheese-loving scientists using our expertise to modernize the art of cheesemaking, to make sure we can all enjoy its magic without the irreparable harm to animals, the planet, and often ourselves"

OHAYO VALLEY

Berkeley, CA

OHAYO in Japanese means “good morning” and like our name suggests, Ohayo Valley brings a new dawn to the meat industry with a revolutionary product: A5 grade wagyu ribeye. Their deliciously sustainable marbled wagyu ribeye will recreate the protein, fat, and texture profile of beef.

PERFECT DAY

Berkley, CA

"Perfect Day created a new way to make the foods you love today, for a kinder, greener tomorrow. We’re taking the compromise out of the dairy aisle and restocking it with the best of both worlds: the taste and texture of conventional dairy, but produced sustainably, without the downsides of factory farming, lactose, hormones, or antibiotics. Finally, an option for dairy lovers and plant-based fans alike. We’ve invented the world’s first milk protein made without animals, so you can enjoy the taste, texture, and nutrition of traditional dairy, produced sustainably and without the downsides of factory farming, lactose, hormones, or antibiotics."

TURTLETREE

Singapore

TurtleTree is a biotech company that’s using cell-based technology to create sustainable food and dairy. Nonetheless, we earnestly believe that what we do extends beyond the dining table and into the heart of humanity. At our core, we seek to uplift the world by providing a new generation of nutrition that’s better for the planet, better for the animals, and better for people everywhere.

WILD TYPE

San Francisco, CA

Wild Type is developing a new way to meet the world's demand for seafood.

"By growing seafood directly from cells, we now have the ability to cultivate genuine salmon and other seafood without relying on wild or farmed fish. What’s more, we have the opportunity to keep what we all love about seafood on our plates – the delicious protein and nutritious fats – without the things we’d rather leave out: microplastics, mercury, and other common contaminants."

OCHO ORGANIC CANDY

Oakland, CA