Can milk be made in a laboratory without any cows? and can it be as nutritious as natural milk?
TurtleTree Labs, the world’s first startup to develop lab-grown milk with the same composition as real dairy milk without any cows, has just won the grand prize amongst the 175,000 companies competing at the Entrepreneurship World Cup (EWS) bagging home US$500,000 in prize money.
TurtleTree Labs is a Singapore-based startup addressing the value gap created by an insufficient and unsustainable animal-based dairy industry. Cell-based methods are used to make ‘clean milk’ and cultured milk products. Founders include alumni of Google, other U.S. and Asian productively disruptive technology ventures, and a leading U.S. traditional dairy.
How milk is made in a laboratory?
TurtleTree Labs acellular technology works by culturing mammary cells in-vitro and inducing their natural ability to produce all components of milk. Cellular agriculture is entirely safe and widely used in the market today. The first step involves obtaining stem cells from sources such as milk. They are then transferred into an environment where they convert into mammary gland cells. The mammary gland cells interact with a special formula which causes the cells to lactate. The end product – milk is obtained through a filtration process.
Max Rye, chief strategist at TurtleTree Labs said We have already seen other companies do something very similar with meat. And consumers are increasingly pushing for cruelty-free products, they are more conscious of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. By extracting milk from cells in our lab, we can get real milk without having to harm the planet and harm the animals, so this is the future.
He further said We are the first company in the world to use cells to create raw milk. It is exciting to think that these bioreactors could be dropped anywhere in the world where there was a crisis or need for milk and start producing right away.
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