Perfect Day Foods are one of the first companies who think they can meet the challenge of making cow milk without cows. To do so the company’s co-founders, both trained in biomedical engineering, obtained a particular strain of yeast from the US Department of Agriculture and inserted a cow’s DNA sequence into it – much like how Impossible Foods did for heme. They then fermented the yeast with sugar, again akin to brewing beer, and made ‘real’ milk proteins with both casein and whey. These were then combined with plant-based fats and nutrients to produce lactose-free milk. Essentially this is the same process of fermentation as in a cow’s four stomachs, except there is no energy being expended on the rest of the animal, no unwanted by-products like methane and carbon dioxide, and land and water consumption is significantly lower.
Then there ’s eggs. Egg white substitutes are nothing new – indeed one of the most commercially successful vegan products in recent years is the mayonnaise substitute Just. In a manner reminiscent of the Impossible Foods burger, Just Foods examined numerous plant sources that possessed the emulsifying properties of egg whites to make mayonnaise. After examining eleven plant ingredients as a potential replacement they settled on a specific variety of Canadian yellow field pea – a type of split pea which possesses precisely the right properties and required no genetic modification.
But while that is impressive, it still leaves the hundreds of other recipes that need eggs, not to mention their use in omelettes, baking or just cooked plain. Which is where Clara Foods come in. They have developed a way to precisely replicate egg whites without a single chicken. Their process, unsurprisingly, starts with a genetically modified strain of yeast used to ‘grow’ egg whites and all twelve of its proteins. The potential benefits are immediately obvious: cheaper eggs with no risk of salmonella or avian flu and no need for antibiotics. In addition, they are more sustainable, with far lower greenhouse gas emissions and, again, less land and water being required. The science behind it is promising and, with the ambition of going to market with their synthetic egg whites by 2020, Clara Foods may play a major role in ending the welfare issues associated with battery egg production – all while leading to a healthier, cheaper product.
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