Our September 'Start-up spotlight' is on Nosh.bio, a food-tech company headquartered in Berlin, Germany, specialising in the production of fungi-based ingredients. The Plant Base speaks to Tim Fronzek, the company's co-founder and CEO, to find out more about the start-up's innovation in the space.
What led to Nosh.bio’s establishment and what is the company’s long-term goal?
Both founders have a strong sense of urgency regarding climate change. When we realised the role of the food industry in global greenhouse gas emissions, we decided to work towards a more sustainable food system, aiming to make sustainable food that is nutritious, tasty and affordable for everyone. Since then, the company's vision has been a world where food is no longer harmful to the planet, animals, and people.
How does Nosh.bio’s fermentation process work?
Our process starts in our labs, where we keep pure stocks of our selected strain. We use this pure stock to inoculate fresh culture medium under sterile conditions. After a couple of days of cultivation, this flask is used to inoculate production-scale fermenters (e.g. >1000L). Our fermentation process is very similar to beer brewing, with the main difference being that our fungi need air to grow, and the process ends much faster.
When the fungi deplete all the nutrients in the broth, they stop growing, and we start harvesting the biomass. During our downstream process, we separate the biomass from the broth, and at this moment, a meat-like structure is formed by the densely packed mycelia. We then proceed to cutting, packing and freezing our biomass pieces. These pieces are then ready to be shipped to our customers and used for producing single-ingredient meat analogues.
Why did you choose to utilise fungi?
We have chosen to work with filamentous fungi primarily because it allows for the creation of meat-like structures with its mycelium, with minimal processing and without the need for chemical additives. Our selected strain is well-known in the food industry and has been used for centuries to produce fermented foods like miso and sake. This means that it can be easily related to food and food production by both the food industry and end consumers, increasing its acceptance.
Additionally, it is a strain that is safe to consume. In fact, our strain is incapable of producing any toxins or harmful compounds. Due to the strain’s long history of safe use, it is not considered novel in Europe and is GRAS certified in the US. This significantly reduces our time to market and project risk.
Another important aspect of fungi is their nutritional profile, providing all essential amino acids, prebiotic fibres, and little fat content. Finally, these are super robust organisms, meaning they are fast growers and can use a wide variety of carbon sources, which allows us to be cost-competitive against animal-based proteins.
What steps does Nosh.bio take to prioritise environmental sustainability within its approach?
Our versatile fermentation process allows us to use different feedstocks. We focus on sourcing locally available feedstock, reducing transportation-related emissions. As we scale up, we will use side streams for our feedstocks and work with suppliers who adhere to sustainable farming practices. It is important for us at Nosh to ensure our ingredients are sourced in a way that minimises the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilisers while prioritising biodiversity. We maintain a transparent supply chain, ensuring that all raw materials we use are traceable back to their origin. Our goal is to apply the same stringent standards to our partners as we do to our production process and company practices at Nosh.
We are working on retrofitting our first brewery in Germany and designing the process to ensure future facilities will be optimised to maximise energy efficiency and minimise waste. We are constantly refining the production process, from upstream to downstream, to reduce energy consumption.
Our fermentation process is based on circularity, and we aim for zero waste by reducing, reusing, and recycling materials whenever possible. Logistics-wise, we also work with reusable pallets to ensure as little waste as possible is produced through our handling activities.
Carbon offsetting programs are already in our pipeline as we grow the company. Additionally, we reduce our water usage as much as possible by reusing water in cooling tanks. As we scale up, we plan to equip our facilities with systems that allow for the recycling and reuse of water wherever feasible to minimise waste and reduce our overall water footprint. In the future, we will recycle spent medium and wastewater back into the fermentation process, not only reducing waste generation but also reducing our water consumption footprint.
We have already set clear goals internally, and we align our sustainability efforts with broader global initiatives, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. As we grow the business, we regularly monitor our progress towards achieving them.
We conducted a life cycle analysis (LCA) to understand the environmental impact from production to end-use. It was important for us to conduct this LCA with an external party to ensure complete objectivity. This analysis helped highlight the huge reduction in environmental impact that Nosh unlocks compared to conventional beef production: water usage reduction by 90%, CO2 emissions reduction by 98% once we move to renewable energy, and land usage reduction by 99%. This LCA also helped us pinpoint the main levers to focus on to continuously reduce any environmental impact deriving from our operations.
How does Nosh.bio differentiate itself and provide a unique solution that stands apart from other innovators within the alt-protein category?
Our key differentiation points from other mycelium companies revolve around nutrition, functionality, taste, speed and cost.
Our solutions are naturally tasty, with an umami flavour and no off-taste. Moreover, we can wash off the product taste, making it completely neutral. This means we unlock a 100% inclusion rate in meat and seafood analogues without requiring any flavour adjustments, a key differentiation point we have yet to see any other mycelium company deliver.
The Nosh ingredient also provides texture naturally through its fibre structure, eliminating the need for extrusion and binders such as egg whites or synthetic additives (like methylcellulose), commonly used in mycelium-based end products. This allows us to provide a clean, short label alternative.
From a texture perspective, we stand out from other players when it comes to fibre length, with fibres in the centimetres rather than the millimetres currently available in the market (such as Quorn's strain). This means we can provide customers with solutions that truly replicate the 'bite' of meat, which is currently lacking in the alternative protein market. We can also modulate our 'bite,' allowing for different sensorial experiences, ranging from soft white fish to beef jerk.
Furthermore, our solutions provide more than 40% protein on dry matter content and 38% prebiotic fibres, as well as all essential amino acids, essential minerals and vitamins, with low fat content. We can offer customers solutions that are high in protein and high in fibre, making them attractive from a nutrition perspective.
Additionally, in contrast to other fungi strains used for the production of mycelium-based products, our strain harbours a collagen-like domain on its genome, along with the genetic make-up for theoretically producing collagen-like proteins. Such a differentiated biomass provides unique properties compared to other mycoproteins: our ingredients show significantly high oil and water-holding capacities, enabling them to bring unique functionalities and unlock novel USPs in different applications.
Beyond single-ingredient meat and seafood analogues, our versatile ingredient can also be delivered as a powder to cater to a range of verticals in the food industry. It can remove the need for eggs in bakery products as well as in other applications, such as mayonnaise, while also reducing overall fat content.
It can also eliminatine the need for stabilisers, such as gums and esters, in ice creams, effectively cleaning the label of at least five e-number additives. We can also deliver ice creams with superior melting points, enabling the industry to operate its entire supply chain at higher temperatures. This translates into huge cost savings in terms of energy usage, while simultaneously reducing environmental impacts. We can provide this solution for both plant-based and conventional ice creams.
In confectionery, our ingredient can replace the majority of cocoa butter and deliver a sensory experience indistinguishable from conventional chocolate. By doing so, we can provide creamy and tasty chocolate with almost 30% fewer calories and significant environmental and economic benefits for the food industry, given the high prices of cocoa.
Our organism of choice is very robust, capable of growing under different conditions and utilising several carbon sources. This simplifies our production process and cuts costs since we can freely choose feedstocks that are more cost-effective in specific geographies. It also allows us to modify the process in several ways to obtain modifications in the final product if needed. Examples include colour and fibre length, which can be directly manipulated during fermentation. Our fermentation process is completed in under 48 hours, and our final titers are already within a cost-competitive range compared to animal-based proteins.
Our proprietary technology approach, leveraging the retrofitting of existing food-grade manufacturing facilities, such as brewery tanks, unlocks both speed and cost efficiency. We can scale production six times faster than building new facilities from scratch while reducing capital expenditures by over 80%. This strategy gives us a considerable cost advantage from both an OPEX and CAPEX perspective, with minimal depreciation supporting lower unit economics.
How does the company approach collaboration with other businesses in the plant-based food industry?
We actively seek out strategic partnerships with other companies in the plant-based food industry, such as food manufacturers and retailers, to leverage each other's strengths and achieve common goals.
We have clear targets regarding the companies we seek to collaborate with. We prioritise potential commercial partners with a presence in the meat analogue market before targeting partners in other areas of the food industry, such as seafood, bakery and confectionery. Geographically, we are focusing on our home market in Germany before expanding internationally. In terms of partner size, we target large companies whose collaborations are key for Nosh to make a true impact on a mass scale. We align with businesses that share our vision for sustainable and healthy food options to accelerate innovation and bring high-quality products to market more quickly.
We engage in co-development projects with food manufacturers to help them create innovative products that resonate with the mass market. For example, we worked closely with our first commercial partner, a large meat manufacturer, to integrate our ingredient and create a new category of meat analogues. This collaborative approach allows us to combine our expertise in functional ingredients with our partners' deep understanding of consumer preferences and market trends, resulting in products that meet evolving demands.
Our commercial and product development teams work closely with food manufacturers to understand their unique needs and challenges, allowing us to provide customised ingredient solutions and technical support. By offering tailored solutions, we help our partners optimise their formulations, improve product quality, and achieve greater efficiency in production.
We also collaborate with other companies on R&D projects to develop new technologies and ingredients that enhance the functionality, taste and nutritional profile of alternatives to animal-based products. These joint efforts help reduce development costs, mitigate risks and accelerate time-to-market.
Our approach to collaboration is based on building trust and long-term relationships. We believe that successful partnerships are grounded in shared goals and vision alignment. By spending time nurturing these relationships, we are working to create a network of partners who are aligned in their mission to advance the adoption of sustainable, delicious, and affordable animal-free alternatives in the food industry.
What is Nosh.bio’s biggest achievement to date?
There are so many achievements that it is difficult to pick just one. In general, I would say developing such a revolutionary ingredient from idea to supermarket shelves in less than three years is exceptional and the biggest achievement of a fantastic team.
Has the company encountered any notable challenges on its journey? How have they been navigated?
Founding a company is a challenge, which is why not everyone does it, and not every company is successful. The main challenges over the last 2.5 years have been in microbiology, bioprocessing, product development, scaling, food quality, go-to-market strategies, building the organisation, and funding the business. In general, we stick to the principle of always remaining positive and focusing on the solution instead of the problem. So far, this approach has worked extremely well for us!
For aspiring start-ups in the plant-based food and beverage industry, what valuable advice or insights would you share to help them navigate the challenges and opportunities in this dynamic sector?
Have a clear monetisation concept in place and find ways to scale with limited marketing budgets. Cash is king – raise more rather than less capital; better safe than sorry.
Find a way to market with minimal regulatory hurdles. Building a strong team is also vital – the cheap hires are often the most expensive ones.
Finally, an impact business needs to start with a business focus. Investors will make decisions based on ROIs and business metrics first, not just the impact your product can bring.
#NoshBio #Germany #alternativeproteins
