ADM partners with alt-dairy startup New Culture

Sustainable nutrition company ADM and New Culture, which specialises in animal-free dairy, have formed a strategic partnership to increase the development speed and commercialisation of non-animal dairy products.

The agreement will see the two companies sharing ingredients and development methodology, with ADM providing New Culture with its product development resources and capabilities, as well as its suite of sustainable ingredients, in order to help bring new alternative dairy products rapidly to market. Also on the table is the commercial scaling up of New Culture’s animal-free casein.

New Culture’s animal-free mozzarella will be the initial focus for accelerating commercialisation, beginning with pizzerias in the US in 2023. As the commercial footprint grows, ADM’s production capacity for both fermentation and dairy operations will be made available to meet the demand for its stretchy cheese.

Ian Pinner, ADM’s senior vice president, Strategy and Innovation, said: “After tasting New Culture’s delicious animal-free mozzarella, we recognised that the company had the potential to play a central role in bringing great-tasting, breakthrough products to the dairy aisle, and we’re excited to bring our global precision fermentation and manufacturing expertise, and our extensive consumer product application capabilities to this effort. We look forward to working with New Culture to help meet fast-growing consumer interest in alternative dairy and cheese.”

Matt Gibson, co-founder and CEO of New Culture, said: “This partnership between New Culture and ADM gives our team the chance to accelerate our path to commercialisation and expand what’s possible for our product portfolio.

“Leading the transition to an animal-free dairy future requires partners every step of the way and we’re thrilled to have a committed partner in ADM, a global leader with deep expertise, reach and capabilities.”

Image credit: iStock.com/LauriPatterson