These 4 Startups Are Joining The World’s First Alternative Dairy Incubator

Mylkcubator, the world’s first incubator dedicated to alternative dairy, has just chosen its first batch of startups. The cohort is made up of four food techs hailing from different corners of the globe, from India to Spain, who are leveraging cellular agriculture and precision fermentation technologies. 

Pascual Innoventures has made its “bold bets” on these four startups set to join its Mylkcubator, the first global incubator focused on alternative dairy that launched earlier this year. The program, which is run by the innovation arm of Spanish dairy giant Calidad Pascual, will last six months and will see food techs test and scale their products, fine-tune their R&D and gain access to the group’s global network of food experts and mentors. 

For its first edition, the four startups selected hail from four different continents around the globe, and they’re using cell-based and precision fermentation technology to shape the future of dairy. Let’s take a look. 

1. Real Deal Milk

Based in Spain, Real Deal Milk is creating bioidentical milk proteins without the cow by tapping precision fermentation. It’s the same tech that players like Perfect Day is using to make its real animal-free whey proteins. Real Deal Milk wants to create a range of milk proteins to incorporate into dairy alternatives that can bear the same nutritional and gastronomical qualities as its conventional dairy-based “real deal”. 

2. Zero Cow Factory

Over in India, Zero Cow Factory represents the country’s first alternative dairy company that uses precision fermentation. While many homegrown startups in India are already producing plant-based milks, curds and cheese, Zero Cow says it wants to offer Indians the first taste of animal-free milk made with dairy proteins created via microbial bioengineering and precision fermentation.

3. De Novo Dairy

De Novo Dairy is based in South Africa and is also using precision fermentation to create animal-free dairy products. The company was co-founded earlier this year by the same team behind insect ice-cream food tech Gourmet Grubb, who decided that brewing animal-free milk proteins would be their next focus. De Novo wants to be the first on the African continent to use its precision fermentation-based dairy proteins and combine it with vegan fats and sugars to make everything from cheese to yogurt. 

4. M2Factors

M2Factors is the only cell-based startup to join Mylkcubator’s first cohort, hailing from the US. The firm is an offshoot of 108Labs, the startup producing lab-grown human breast milk. M2Factors will focus on accelerating the disruptive potential of cell-cultured alt-dairy products by helping to lower the cost of production and reaching economies of scale. 

All images courtesy of Unsplash.