German alt-dairy company Formo Bio has announced a new partnership with Those Vegan Cowboys, a Belgium-based start-up focusing on precision fermentation-derived casein proteins.

The partnership aims to combine efforts across strain engineering, bioprocessing and the large-scale production of animal-free caseins for mass market commercialisation.

Caseins are naturally occurring phosphoproteins traditionally found in dairy products. They are responsible for many of the familiar textures and properties in dairy-based cheeses, such as melting and stretching.

Through the partnership, Formo and Those Vegan Cowboys will maintain their distinct identities as separate companies and each market their own line of vegan cheeses. Formo believes that the partnership will bring technological efficiency gains, accelerating the path to cost parity for dairy and non-dairy alternatives.

The two companies – both founding members of trade organisation Food Fermentation Europe – will also be working with the European Food Safety Authority to drive legislative change to facilitate the adoption of precision fermentation-produced foods.

Raffael Wohlgensinger, CEO at Formo, said: “Our technology is the key to conquering a trillion-dollar market in the next ten years. In order to gain a leading market share together with our partners, the production of animal-free casein needs to be able to compete with animals on a cost level. The initiated collaboration allows us to improve the technological efficiency and scale of production to achieve this very goal.”

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