Next-gen cheese: Those Vegan Cowboys invites investors to precision fermentation party

03 Jan 2024 --- Those Vegan Cowboys has opened its doors to investors for the first time since 2020 following its creation of dairy-identical caseins using precision fermentation. The company has new construction plans for its cow-free milk lab, founded by former Vegetarian Butchers Jaap Korteweg and Niko Koffeman, and is raising €15 million (US16.4 million) to create a stable full of stainless steel cows. 

Speaking to Food Ingredients First, Hille van der Kaa, CEO of Those Vegan Cowboys, tells us: “We will use the financing to support ongoing operations, continue strain and process development and strengthen our project and management team. Further, we will use it for in-house piloting, upscaling, registration work and additional resources and market development.”

“We have our full focus on casein and no plans (yet) to broaden that scope.”

New cheese
The largest protein fraction in cow milk (approximately 80%) is composed of caseins. The precision fermentation pioneer has made real cow-free casein — investors are now invited to help build a stable for the stainless steel herd.

“So far, no casein-like proteins that can replace milk caseins have been identified in plants,” notes van der Kaa.

“Consequently, there currently are no good sustainable, vegan cheese alternatives that come close to the real thing in texture and taste. To create true casein, our stainless steel cow Margaret (a fermentor) oversees a small army of microorganisms trained to express casein.”

Caseins are then produced on a large scale by fermentation, she details. “The process is a lot like brewing beer and already known in the world of cheese to make microbial rennet. This process is called precision fermentation: a technology 50 years in the making.”

“Cheese is great. Cows are amazing,” asserts van der Kaa, “but what’s not so great is to keep making cheese the old way.”

Protecting the planet
Dairy farming is notorious for its burden on land, water, biodiversity and climate.  

“Free the cow from cheese production, and environmental impact would be practically annihilated — a major leap forward for the entire industry,” says van der Kaa. 

She explains that Those Vegan Cowboys aims to make cheese that is at least five times more effective than traditional milk production. 

Milk proteins by “Margaret”
Earlier this year, the Belgian pioneers hit a milestone slated to “revolutionize the dairy industry.”

By feeding plant material to microbes instead of cows, its stainless steel cow called Margaret was successful in recreating casein, a protein formerly only found in mammal milk, the essential ingredient to make cheese.

“We gave ourselves seven years to build Margaret. Today, we are four years in, and she is a reality. She has already achieved the impossible: real casein, the most difficult and essential ingredient for cheese. It is now a matter of refining and upscaling. A feat we can only accomplish by building dedicated plants,” explains Korteweg.

“My business partner and I had been talking bout cow-free cheese for years and were told it had a 1% chance of success. After selling The Vegetarian Butcher to Unilever, we could take those odds and got together a great team of scientists in the milk lab in Ghent, Belgium. 

“We could afford to politely decline when investors offered to join us. Now that we have the first kilos of cheese ripening, it’s time for a major scale-up. It’s still an adventure but one on which we’re confident enough to invite others along.”The precision fermentation pioneer has made real cow-free casein — investors are now invited to help build a stable for the stainless steel herd.

Herding €15 million for scale-up
The company is now raising funds to scale up, having outgrown its original lab facilities. 

Simultaneously, Those Vegan Cowboys recently joined other European precision fermentation companies to spur novel food legislation, a process that can take up to several years from start to finish.  

With both production facilities and paperwork in place, consumers can expect to taste the Margaret-made cheese in 2026, all depending on regulatory approvals, the company tells us. 

New perspective for grassland farmers 
Building the new stable is a milestone worth celebrating for Those Vegan Cowboys, but the cheese is just the first half of the challenge. 

With a ninth-generation farmer as a founder, the Ghent lab is determined to use grass as the basis for fermentation — to offer dairy farmers an innovation that will help consolidate their business for future generations.

“To us, dairy farmers will remain vital in the new way of cheese making,” remarks Korteweg. 

“It can relieve dairy farmers from several heavy societal issues they’ve been burdened with. We can grow past the cow’s physical limitations in the healthiest way imaginable and feed five times the number of people from the same amount of land.”

“It would be great if seeing these cheeses would inspire farmers to see the stainless steel cow as a real option.”

By Elizabeth Green