Decarbonizing the food industry with a new protein production platform: an interview with Eva Sommer, CEO, Fermify

April 18, 2024

Company name: Fermify
Solution: A fully automated production platform that produces precision fermentation-derived casein and other proteins at low cost
Year founded: 2021
Location: Vienna, Austria

Vegan cheese — does anyone really like it? That’s the question that Eva Sommer, CEO of Fermify, asked herself before she devised a more sustainable way to produce casein than intensive livestock farming.
What’s casein? The key protein ingredient in cheese that makes it meltable and stretchy.
What’s so special about Fermify? They offer the only precision fermentation production platform to generate casein and other proteins at a lower cost than animal farming.
In this interview, Eva explains how Fermify’s solution will revolutionize the food industry.

Why did you found Fermify?

I first knew Fermify co-founder Christoph Herwig as my professor at university, where I learned that he is a world-class process engineer. Like me, he is also a serial entrepreneur with a vision for creating a more sustainable world.

When we saw an opportunity to leverage our backgrounds in biotechnology and food science to build a platform that filled the gap in the fast-growing sustainable food market for quality animal-free cheese, we knew it was only a matter of time until we took the leap. One day, when Christoph and I were both exiting our latest businesses, he called me and asked if I was ready to get started. We had the biotech expertise to build a new precision fermentation platform, the skills to lead a business, and the drive to make it happen, so I said yes.

What differentiates Fermify’s solution from other precision fermentation platforms?

Precision fermentation is the ideal way to produce proteins like casein that can be used to give vegan cheeses the structure and meltability of animal-based cheese. But most precision fermentation technologies can’t compete with animal-based cheese products on price. This is because they use inefficient batch processes with high CAPEX but low utilization.

To meet unit economics, we have adapted processes from the biopharmaceuticals industry to build a continuous process to produce casein, the basic protein in cheese. We maximize the time where the bacteria actually produce the casein protein. Our technology’s high utilization rate allows for major cost savings. Ultimately, we aim to beat dairy proteins on price.

Crucially, because our platform produces casein, Fermify customers can simulate the texture of animal-based cheese accurately. Crumbly feta on a salad or stretchy mozzarella cheese on a pizza — using Fermify’s production process, our customers can make an equally good animal-free version.

How will Fermify’s solution transform the dairy industry?

The dairy industry has no experience in fermentation, especially not in precision fermentation. Our production platform is a combination of machine design, optimized microbial strains, tailored media, and cutting-edge software. This combination brings down the costs to enable mass food production with a technology that has historically only been viable in the pharma industry.

We are offering a lifeline to the emissions-heavy dairy industry with a solution that centers on both sustainability and profitability. Our platform will help the dairy industry transition to more sustainable practices at a time when dairy companies understand that they can’t rely entirely on cow-based products forever.

Climentum Capital’s LCA of our business revealed a CO2 reduction potential of 85% compared to traditional dairy production. This is game-changing for the dairy industry, where methane emissions from cows are notoriously difficult to reduce.

Are there any additional benefits of Fermify’s solution?

We offer a solution to highly volatile milk prices. Volatile milk prices and sustainability concerns are driving dairy companies to find sustainable alternatives for their products. Dairy companies also prefer in-house production that delivers at predictable cost and output ratios. Fermify’s precision production platform is a much more reliable source of casein and can be used anywhere, even urban areas, making it a powerful solution to concerns around food insecurity and price volatility.

We also utilize side streams from other industries. Instead of glucose, our solution uses glycerol or molasses as the main source of carbohydrates, which are a common by-product in many industries. Instead of going to waste, these side streams can be upcycled into our sustainable solution.

Why did you partner with Climentum Capital?

Climentum Capital has been crucial in helping us leverage our impact potential and maturing our go-to-market strategy. For example, they encouraged us to set up an on-site demo production line, which is an important asset to show proof of concept to interested customers.

As lead investor, Dörte’s attention to detail and her factual attitude and non-emotional approach to business have helped Fermify greatly. When we needed to attract additional investment, her intense process — looking into every aspect of our business and interviewing every stakeholder — gave us all the information we needed to take other investors over the finishing line.

Today, we continue to rely on Stefan’s extensive networks in the biotechnology industry for introductions to relevant partners, and regularly turn to the team for advice and guidance.

What’s next for Fermify?

Our end goal is to become the go-to production platform for precision fermentation and enable customers to produce cost-efficient and sustainable animal-free cheese at scale. To get to this point, we are racing through milestones to reach industrial scale. We have already hit milestone one: Becoming the first company to sell readily-available sustainable casein. Customers can order samples of casein directly from our website.

By May, we will have a pilot plant in-house, with which we plan to produce 7kg of casein weekly. In parallel, we will begin producing food-grade samples in Singapore in May. We will then submit our product for FDA approval and EU regulatory approval before the summer.

These steps are part of our plan to scale up and de-risk our business to encourage dairy and other food production companies to take the leap.