“Will there be dairy cows in 2050?” Zoltan Toth-Czifra wondered during the last Demo Day of Mylkcubator, a global incubator specializing in innovation projects for the Pascual dairy sector. The founder of Real Deal Milk is aware that time in this type of challenge is of enormous importance, which is why his startup is already working to ensure that dairy products do not depend on animal intervention in the long term. “Something that will benefit the industry and the planet,” he says.

Specifically, Real Deal Milk has developed a production system for milk and other dairy products based on precision fermentation to avoid the intervention of cows in the process. The company’s goal is to create a substitute product for milk, cheese and yoghurt that has the same biological properties, taste and texture as these products and sell it directly to supermarkets five years from now.

The process used by the Catalan startup is very similar to the fermentation that has been carried out over the years in the food sector in products such as bread or beer. In this case, it is based on the insertion of DNA particles from the cow into yeast cells for subsequent cultivation. “It consists of extracting the DNA of the cows and identifying the parts that expel casein and whey, which are the two large groups of proteins that their milk has,” explains Toth-Czifra.

Once separated from the rest of the components, they are introduced into the yeast and, through their cultivation in fermentation tanks, they are taught to grow and produce their own proteins, and then collect and purify them. Subsequently, the rest of the elements that make up cow’s milk are incorporated, such as fats, sugar, vitamins and minerals.

“We have to get closer to people’s habits and tastes, we want to offer an option that does not involve changes in the lifestyle of consumers, but that is better for the planet,” says the CEO of Real Deal Milk. In this sense, he considers that the project “is in the R&D phase to improve the performance of the fermentation process, scale it up and be able to industrialize it.”

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