Pizza Chefs Line Up for New Culture’s Animal-Free Mozzarella with ‘Overwhelming’ Demand

New Culture, which makes mozzarella from precision-fermented casein, has secured signed interest worth over $5M from pizza restaurants across the US ahead of its launch.

As it prepares to launch its animal-free mozzarella in the US, Californian food tech startup New Culture has received “overwhelming” interest from pizza chefs and restaurants nationwide, securing more than $5M in early demand.

The pre-launch interest establishes what the company calls “a robust commercial foundation”, working with members of the World Pizza Champions team, Pizza Industry Excellence award winners, and those mentioned in the 50Top Pizza list and the Michelin Guide.

“We have had discussions with dozens of pizza chefs and restaurant operators across the country as well as internationally. This includes hosting tastings at New Culture headquarters, bringing cheese samples to chefs to experiment with in their pizza ovens, conversations with pizzeria owners about operational details, and receiving input on product priorities,” says co-founder and CEO Matt Gibson.

“For many of those chefs and operators, they’ve become sufficiently interested in New Culture cheese that they’ve proactively confirmed and registered (and signed) that interest with us. They’re now simply waiting for our supply readiness in order to shift into the cheese purchasing lane,” he tells Green Queen, explaining that in the foodservice sector, it’s “extremely rare to make a purchase before the product is actually available for sale”.

The company, which earned self-determined Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status for its precision-fermented casein last year, is currently awaiting clearance for its product label and registration from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).

“We continue to work through the steps needed to launch, including waiting to hear from the CDFA. We’re checking in on their process regularly and hope to clear this step soon,” says Gibson.

The ingredients in New Culture’s animal-free mozzarella

The base for New Culture’s cow-free mozzarella is a recombinant version of casein, the main protein found in dairy. It is responsible for emulsification, stabilisation and gelation, among other features, helping cheese melt, stretch, bubble and brown.

Being a dairy protein, it’s a resource-intensive ingredient, prompting the startup to use precision fermentation instead. The technology – used to make animal-free items like insulin or rennet for conventional cheese – combines traditional fermentation with the latest biotechnology advances to efficiently produce a compound of interest (in this case, a protein). It allows New Culture to cut its mozzarella’s emissions by over 85% and water and land use by more than 95%.

To make the cheese, the animal-free casein is mixed with water, sunflower and coconut oils, salt, sugar, starch, and minerals. The gluten-, soy- and nut-free mozzarella contains 5g of protein and 2g of carbs, and needs less than half as much casein (28%) as its conventional counterpart, helping lower costs to an otherwise expensive technology.

A survey by New Culture found that early adopters are happy to pay $4 more per pizza with the company’s cheese. The startup is working to match the price of dairy over the next couple of years, a feat being supported by partnerships with food industry giants CJ CheilJedang (an investor in New Culture) and ADM. The casein-as-an-ingredient market is worth $2.7 billion.

“We are deep into the process of scaling up our supply with manufacturing partners. It’s not only to meet this $5M in early demand but also demand from thousands more pizzerias and restaurants,” says Gibson.

“The robustness of our technical capabilities has enabled us to reach fermentation manufacturing volumes and continue to bring costs down on our path to parity with conventional dairy. The plan is to begin supplying these early operators with our cheese this year while enabling flexible volumes over time.”

Pizzeria Mozza creates two pizzas for New Culture launch

According to the company, the initial demand comes from a variety of industry players, from independent eateries to national pizza chains, spanning pizzas of all kinds, from Californian, New York or Detroit-style to classic Neopolitan and grandma pies. Chefs have found it to perform consistently in wood-fired, gas, and electric ovens at temperatures ranging from 550-900°F (285-530*C).

While New Culture is keeping the names of these restaurants under wraps, its first partner has been known for a while. As part of a pilot in 2023, the startup showcased its mozzarella at Nancy Silveron’s Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles – and this is where it will debut the cheese too.

To prepare for the launch, Silverton and her team have created two new pizzas for the animal-free mozzarella. The rollout was initially expected by the end of last year, but introducing “a first-of-its-kind product has presented some unexpected twists and turns”, according to New Culture.

“We’re launching an entirely new product and an entirely new category. The foodservice industry – pizzerias in particular – have been craving an animal-free mozzarella that actually delivers for their customer,” explains Gibson.

“In preparation, we’ve had to work through naming and labelling details, reconciling brand, consumer appeal and education, and regulatory guidance. We’ve also had to ensure operators’ needs are met when it comes to product handling since pizza chefs prepare and bake their pizzas in different ways.”

An alternative to ‘gloopy’ vegan cheese amid the UPF backlash

While 25,000 pizzerias already serve plant-based cheese in the US, these products make up just 1% of the overall cheese market. Meanwhile, the number of people buying vegan cheese more than once has dropped in recent years, with consumers dissatisfied with what New Culture describes as “gloopy, pasty texture and artificial flavours”.

The pushback against ultra-processed foods – heightened by Robert F Kennedy Jr’s appointment as health secretary – has further complicated things for alternative protein producers. “Cheese is a processed food like milk, bread, or canned vegetables, not an ultra-processed food,” notes Gibson. “And it’s a food that consumers can’t get enough of. It is the only dairy product that has had steadily increasing demand for decades and, at nearly $40B in annual sales, now claims half of the US dairy market.”

He adds: “We make our mozzarella through an industry-standard cheesemaking process, the same way conventional cheese is made. Our product label is very clean and includes only common food ingredients. We hear from consumers and restaurant operators regularly about how beloved cheese is, and have a hard time imagining a future in which cheese significantly recedes from the global food system.”

New Culture, which has raised $28.5M in venture capital and is currently fundraising, is among a number of startups working on precision-fermented casein, including Standing Ovation, Those Vegan Cowboys, Change Foods, Zero Cow Factory, and Fermify, though it has the advantage of being one of only two companies (alongside Fermify) to be cleared to sell the protein in the US.

“We hear from pizza chefs and operators every day how eager they are to put New Culture cheese on the menu,” says Gibson. “This first $5M in demand is just the beginning as we scale up to bring delicious, animal-free cheese to pizza lovers everywhere.”