SPECIAL STORY 46 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE December 2022 rials, how to process and combine them into nutritional solutions and first steps towards precision nutrition for cells – a concept that is daily practice in our feed business but needs to be developed for cultivated protein. We are grateful to the European Union who supports this work through inclusion of our project into the React EU grant scheme. Nutreco also supports Mosa Meat through building the required nutritional input supply chain, which is a natural task for us as global leader in animal nutrition but overly complex for cultivated protein startups like Mosa Meat. You have recently made an investment in Roslin Technologies. What can you say about this investment, which is a little different from your other alternative protein investments? With Scottish alternative protein startup Roslin Technologies, Nutreco has invested in another link of the cultivated protein supply chain. Unlike Mosa Meat and BlueNalu, our two previous investments in cultivated protein, Roslin Technologies is not a protein producer but a cell line supplier with expertise in stem cells and other cells for cultivated meat. Cell lines are at the core of every cultivated protein production process. Only with carefully selected cells will you reach the required performance to produce cultivated meat and seafood economically and sustainably. In that context, Roslin Tech offers a critical solution relevant to Nutreco’s future “cell feed” proposition. The collaboration between Nutreco and Roslin Technologies revolves around developing media formulations and precision nutrition for cell lines. The interlink between cell lines and cell culture media can be compared to genetics and nutrition in animal production: genetics defines animal potential; nutrition drives the extent to which this potential is realised. The same linkage is crucial to deliver efficiency in cultivated meat production. This investment offers Nutreco a pole position in combining genetics with feed leadership – amplifying our commitment to innovation, quality, and sustainability. So what does cellular agriculture and alternative proteins mean for Nutreco? What is the target of your increasing investments in these fields in recent years? As a science-based company, research and development is part of our DNA. We invest for the sake of learning and to identify new opportunities for solving pressing challenges in feeding a growing global population. Our investments in alternative proteins are all about evaluating potential protein sources and relevant technologies to feed the future in a sustainable way. Through our previous investments in BlueNalu and Mosa Meat, we found that producing these cultivated proteins at scale requires a whole new supply chain, giving us an opportunity to help create a new industry from scratch. By combining Nutreco’s extensive knowledge on feed ingredients and supply chains and Roslin Technologies’ complementary skillsets on cell line development and media formulations, we can do for cell-farming businesses what we already do for animal farmers: provide inputs to the people who are growing the protein. Cellular agriculture, alternative proteins or cultured meat developed in a more laboratory setting… How do you think all this will affect livestock farming in the future? Is this a factor of competition or factor of support? Animal farming is here to stay, and Nutreco re-
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