NEWS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE April 2022 75 Cal-Maine Foods, one of the largest egg producers in the US, announced $82 million for capital projects to expand cage-free production capabilities. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. announced that its Board of Directors approved new capital projects to further expand the company’s cage-free egg production capabilities. The Company plans to fund the proposed projects for an estimated total of $82 million through a combination of available cash on hand, investments and operating cash flow. The proposed projects will include the following Cal-Maine Foods’ locations: • Delta, Utah - four new cagefree layer houses and two pullet house conversions with capacity for approximately 810,000 cagefree layer hens. Work is expected to commence immediately with project completion expected by fall 2023. • Guthrie, Kentucky - nine cage-free layer house conversions and two pullet house conversions with capacity for approximately 953,000 cage-free layer hens. Work is expected to commence immediately with expected completion by spring 2025. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. is primarily engaged in the production, grading, packing, marketing and sale of fresh shell eggs, including conventional, cage-free, organic, pasture-raised, free-range and nutritionally enhanced eggs. The Company, which is headquartered in Ridgeland, Mississippi, is the largest producer and distributor of fresh shell eggs in the United States and sells the majority of its shell eggs in states across the southwestern, southeastern, mid-western and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. Cal-Maine Foods budgets $82m for cage-free production The Finnish biotech startup Onego Bio Ltd announced the successful closure of EUR 10 million seed round with participation from venture capital investors Agronomics Limited and Maki VC. Onego Bio’s technology, developed and researched at Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), enables production of bioalbumen with cellular agriculture means. Bioalbumen is an animal-free egg protein, produced with a specific precision fermentation process that creates identical egg white protein without the need for animals. The company believes that the demand for animal-free egg white protein will be growing globally, because intensive animal farming causes many environmental hazards, such as excessive use of land, greenhouse gas emissions, water scarcity, and the risk of global pandemics. “We want to thank VTT and our investors for supporting a technology that is part of a bigger wave of changing people’s perspective on alternative ways of producing food. The time is right to spin out this technology and start manufacturing our product, as consumers are more open to try products that are not animal-derived,” says Maija Itkonen, CEO of Onego Bio Ltd. Onego Bio picks up €10M to produce egg white without chickens
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