SAN LEANDRO, CALIF. — Animal-free dairy manufacturer New Culture has received a $5 million in early demand from pizza chefs and restaurant operators for its animal-free mozzarella.
“We hear from pizza chefs and operators every day how eager they are to put New Culture cheese on the menu,” said Matt Gibson, co-founder and chief executive officer of New Culture. “These early relationships are essential for our team as we learn what matters most to the people who will be serving our cheese. This first $5 million in demand is just the beginning as we scale up to bring delicious, animal-free cheese to pizza lovers everywhere.”
The first restaurant to serve New Culture’s plant-based mozzarella, which is formulated with animal-free casein, sunflower oil, coconut oil, salt, sugar, starch and fortifying minerals, was Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles.
Chef Nancy Silverton produced two pizzas that will be added to the restaurant’s menu featuring New Culture’s cheese.
To produce its animal-free cheese, New Culture said it replaces the essential dairy protein in cheese, which is called casein, with an animal-free version using precision fermentation.
New Culture recently partnered with CJ CheilJedang to lower the cost of its animal-free casein protein and scale up its mozzarella.
The company also scaled up its fermentation process to produce approximately 25,000 pizzas’ worth of cheese per run.
