Imagindairy receives self-affirmed GRAS status for animal-free protein

16 Aug 2023 --- Imagindairy’s animal-free dairy protein has been confirmed to be Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) in accordance with the requirements laid out by the US Food and Drug Administration for food. The novel ingredient underwent significant internal and external review and safety testing.

The company hails this as a “pivotal step in the ingredient’s commercialization.”

Regulatory green light
GRAS status signifies that the ingredient is safe to be used in food and beverage products, providing a regulatory “green light” for food and beverage manufacturers to partner with Imagindairy to bring animal-free dairy products solutions such as milk, cream cheese and yogurt to consumers nationwide.

“This gives us the necessary validation to work with food and beverage companies in the US to develop animal-free versions of beloved dairy products, and marks a substantial stride toward achieving our larger mission of scaling up for mass-market adoption,” Eyal Afergan, co-founder & CEO at Imagindairy, tells Food Ingredients First.

Imagindairy is an Israeli-based food tech start-up with a strategy to reinvigorate the dairy industry by producing sustainable, animal-free dairy proteins“The quality and safety of our animal-free dairy protein and process has always been paramount, and regulatory approval in the US is a critical step in ensuring that. This is an exciting milestone for Imagindairy as we continue to seek out regulatory approval in other regions globally,” Tomer Gold, VP of R&D at Imagindairy, also tells us. 

Imagindairy is an Israeli-based food tech start-up with a strategy to reinvigorate the dairy industry by producing sustainable, animal-free dairy proteins that have the same bold flavor, functionality, mouthfeel and nutritional properties as those from bovine sources.

The Israeli start-up first unveiled its animal-free dairy proteins for alternative milk back in 2021.

It combines the science of precision fermentation with its proprietary AI platform, which integrates both advanced computational biology and molecular biology technologies, to enable mass-scale production at costs that are in line with traditional dairy, making mass-market adoption a feasible reality.

Earlier this year, key players in the precision fermentation space formed Food Fermentation Europe, a union championing precision fermentation as the “key to a sustainable food framework.” Imagindairy is part of the collaboration.

Expansion of Israel facility
In tandem, Imagindairy is opening its new headquarters near Haifa, Israel. The space has been custom-designed to support Imagindairy in its next phase of growth with laboratories for research and development of ingredient solutions, a test kitchen for culinary and ingredient applications testing. 

There is also a fully operational pilot line that allows for testing in conditions similar to those in large-scale fermentation processes. 

By Gaynor Selby