Cauldron to build network of precision fermentation facilities

Australian company Cauldron has revealed plans to build Asia–Pacific’s largest network of precision fermentation facilities, using a hyper-fermentation platform that will unlock the production of new forms of food, feed and fibre, and unlock a $700 billion global industry opportunity.

To support this plan, Cauldron has raised $10.5 million from local and global investors to expand its existing pilot plant, and to build a national production network and team of precision fermentation experts. Cauldron’s oversubscribed funding round is one of Australia’s largest seed rounds in a female-founded startup, led by Main Sequence, the deep tech venture capital firm founded by CSIRO, and Horizons Ventures.

“Humanity has spent thousands of years getting fermentation to work. With Cauldron’s revolutionary fermaculture platform, we are supercharging that process and unlocking the next evolution of how we produce food, feed and fibre globally,” said Cauldron CEO, founder and precision fermentation expert Michele Stansfield. “Our technology and 35 years of expertise, combined with Australia’s unique infrastructure and abundance of natural resources, will help ensure companies in this space can get new products and ingredients to market quickly, at lower cost and risk.”

Cauldron says its hyper-fermentation platform is a breakthrough for the growing industry, helping precision fermentation companies scale and commercialise their new products faster, at a much lower risk. Leveraging a continuous fermentation process, Cauldron’s platform reduces the cost significantly, while increasing the efficiency by five times compared to conventional methods.

Fermentation has been used for thousands of years to brew beer and culture cheese, a process that takes months or years to perfect. Precision fermentation hypercharges that process, creating the optimal conditions for microorganisms and bacteria to create new proteins, fats, fuels and other products.

Over the past few decades, precision fermentation has been used to create many of the vitamins and enzymes used in food products and has long replaced the need to harvest pig pancreases to manufacture life-saving medicines like insulin. While it is forecast to become a $700 billion industry by 2040 according to CSIRO, many companies in this space have not been able to manufacture at commercial scale, due to the time and capital investment required as well as the challenge of achieving low production costs.

Loam Bio, a leading Australian biotech company, is using Cauldron’s network to accelerate the production of the microbial technology needed to capture carbon and store it long term. ULUU, the Australian company creating a revolutionary natural replacement for plastics, is working with Cauldron to scale up production to help get its first products to market faster and replace plastics across a variety of uses.

Cauldron will expand its existing pilot facility in Orange, NSW and, over the coming years, build a network of precision fermentation facilities around regional Australia that tap into the country’s agricultural know-how and feedstock while diversifying and creating new local jobs. In January, the Queensland Government announced funding for Cauldron to conduct a feasibility study into bringing a Future Foods BioHub to Mackay in Northern Queensland.