Vow | Celebrating Australian Food and Agribusiness Innovations 2021
As a growing subset of consumers look for new alternatives to traditionally produced animal protein, it creates opportunity for companies to find new ways of meeting that market demand.
When the team at Vow started evaluating the burgeoning cultured meat sector, they noticed that efforts were largely confined to cultivation of the ‘standard’ four: beef, chicken, pork and lamb. Vow saw potential to not only significantly rethink how we approach food production, but to deliver a product that outperforms meat instead of simply replacing it.
Vow is collective of innovators, engineers, scientists, artists and foodies who are working to improve quality of life for people, animals and the planet by reinventing food from the ground up.
Rather than be restricted to developing a like- for-like alternative, the team aims to create an entire food category that is sustainable, abundant and full of flavours and textures not previously experienced by consumers.
Vow is compiling a library of cells to cultivate a wide range of food protein products that draw on the earth’s biosphere more broadly, building on the team’s desire to offer better, tastier and more desirable eating options than current alternatives.
The Vow team believes that consumers should not have to compromise on flavour or quality in the name of sustainable and ethical consumption, so it maintains a deep culinary focus when developing its offering, which currently includes kangaroo and water buffalo.
Working with FIAL has enabled Vow to build a team of chefs, biochemists, scientists and engineers to further develop initial product offerings, aligning to the aim of offering more exciting meat products than those that exist today. Funding has allowed Vow to conduct research into texture, or mouthfeel, of various alternatives and to prepare for scaling towards commercial readiness.
