Gea has opened the New Food Application and Technology Center of Excellence (ATC), its central hub for piloting processes and products for the alternative protein industry, in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, Germany. The switch to plant-based foods, cultured meats or microbiologically derived milk proteins, for example, has the potential to feed future generations in a climate-friendly way. At the new technology center, Gea's new-food experts will use a pilot line for cell cultivation and fermentation to drive new developments on the path from laboratory to commercial production.
The Gea New Food Application and Technology Center of Excellence is a complete process line. It includes multifunctional fermenters or bioreactors as well as equipment for high-shear mixing, sterilization, homogenization, cell separation and filtration. Flexibly, the system can change the order of the different steps and add or repeat process steps to test cultivation and fermentation strategies and product recovery. The new test platform at the ATC closes the gap between the test landscape and industry without customers having to invest in large-scale facilities immediately.
“Establishing and scaling up a new food production facility is a major task,” said Heinz Jürgen Kroner, Senior Vice President New Food at Gea. “In many cases, new food producers are still stuck at the lab scale, with the hygiene, aseptic and process requirements that involves. On the other hand, industrial-scale manufacturing presents much greater technical and financial challenges. At the ATC, our process experts explore the potential for mass production in order to make this step manageable for food manufacturers. Ultimately, Gea and our customers want to work together on the development of safe, affordable New Food products for consumers.”
With cell-based meat alternatives now making their way onto restaurant tables, the research focus is turning to precision fermentation for milk proteins. One of Gea’s first customers in this field is Imagindairy, a scale-up from Israel. Speaking at the opening event, the company’s CEO Eyal Afergan said: “We want to make dairy products without harming the planet. To make that happen, we harness the ancient art of fermentation and combine it with science. This lets us create milk proteins with the taste, functionality, mouthfeel and nutritional value that we love about milk. Together with Gea, we can pave the way to bringing this innovation faster to the market, with the highest possible quality standards.”
Alternatively sourced proteins can help reduce the environmental impact of our food system and help feed the world’s growing population. The shift to new food is going hand in hand with the development of regenerative agriculture.
Gea’s new food activities unite the company’s sustainability agenda with the capacity of one of the food industry’s leading technology providers. That’s why new food has been identified as one of the growth drivers in the "Gea Mission 26" strategy. A dedicated New Food business unit has been furthering the development of cell-based protein synthesis since 2022.
