INFORM April 2025

14 • inform April 2025, Vol. 36 (4)

plant one to ten acres of soybeans in 2025 and scale upward to 100 to 1000 acres by 2027. PROCESSING PROTEIN Another advantage of using soybeans is that companies can lever age existing processing infrastructure. Since soy is one of the big gest crops in the world, there is a lot of processing infrastructure available. Producing casein is only the first step. Once harvested, producers will need to get casein out of the soybeans. Soybeans go through a multistep process after harvest to separate oil and water from soybean solids. The solids are often used to produce animal feed, but they can also be used to make soy protein food products and other substances. Both companies rely on conventional soybean processing infrastructure to isolate casein proteins from the refined soy beans. However, Mozza Foods uses plants engineered to make complete casein micelles inside the soybeans themselves. In contrast, Alpine Bio is focused on creating different casein pro teins combinations. The difference in their biological approaches leads to dif ferences in how each company isolates their proteins. Casein and soy are similarly sized; however, micelles are larger, mak ing it possible to use standard dairy filtering methods to sepa rate the casein micelles from soy protein. Alpine Bio uses their own proprietary method for separating casein. They note that their product may contain some soy protein. REMAINING OBSTACLES Alpine Bio plans to produce an animal-free mozzarella in 2025. The company previously planned to sell their products directly to the public, but will instead pursue a business-to-business model. Mozza Foods also plans to make proteins to supply to food producers. “Our goal is not to compete with companies like Kraft for shelf space,” said Tarshis. Regardless of their model, all companies in this space will face obstacles beyond the technical and business ques A microscope image of the cross-section of a soybean containing casein inside micelles. Source: Moza Foods

tions. First, they must clear regulatory hurdles before selling products meant for human consumption. Regulations differ between countries, with the US using a generally recognized as safe (GRAS) approach. Mozza Foods is not at that point yet, but Tarshis said that as long as the resulting protein is sufficiently similar to something already in use they should get approval. Richani noted that although there are possible allergen con cerns regarding soy protein in Alpine Bio’s casein product, there are plenty of products that use both soy and milk pro teins together. Another regulatory issue is describing and labeling cheese made with plant-based casein. Should a cheese that uses an animal protein produced without animals be called plant based or vegan; or should it be called animal-free? In a panel discussion at the 2021 Good Food Conference, Richani said that what we call things is as important as the technology we use to make them. Companies making products like animal-free cheese will need to show leadership in defining cheese, meat, and other products. They will also need to be clear that their products did not come from animals or whether they contain allergens. At the same time, companies will need to continue work ing to make their products price competitive with conventional cheeses. Richani said she her goal is to walk into any pizza place and walk out with a pizza made with animal-free cheese that costs the same and tastes as good. To improve sustainabil ity, she said, we must give people better options. George Hale is a freelance science and technology writer based in Pearland, Texas. He can be contacted at halegr@gmail.com.