GEA has opened a Food Application and Technology Center of Excellence (ATC) in Germany, slated as a central hub for piloting processes and products for the alternative protein industry. This comes amid a growing shift to plant-based foods and the burgeoning cultivated meat sector. Meanwhile, products like microbially-produced dairy proteins promise to feed the world’s ballooning population in an environmentally-friendly way.
GEA’s food experts will use a cell cultivation and fermentation pilot line to fast-track innovations from the lab to commercial-scale manufacturing.
The Hildesheim-based ATC houses a pilot plant to produce sustainable alternatives to meat, milk, seafood and eggs through microbial fermentation and cell cultivation.
GEA customers will prepare processes and products for commercial production at the center.
Technology for food NPD
The new testing platform at the center “bridges the gap between the test bench and industrial-scale production without customers having to invest in large-scale plant from the outset,” flags GEA.
“Establishing and scaling up a new food production facility is a major task,” says Heinz Jürgen Kroner, senior vice president of New Food at GEA.
“In many cases, new food producers are still stuck at the lab scale – with the hygiene, aseptic and process requirements that are involved. On the other hand, industrial-scale manufacturing presents much greater technical and financial challenges. At the ATC, our process experts explore the potential for mass production in order to make this step manageable for food manufacturers.”
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