Article in partnership with Apollo Safety a food safety and quality consultancy working with founders and operators in the food-tech and fermentation industry as they launch and scale. Fermentation-based FoodTech is no longer confined to the lab bench and is becoming an industry in its own right. By the end of 2024, more than 160 companies were developing biomass, precision, and other fermentation approaches for alternative proteins, attracting significant capital despite

Austrian food tech Revo Foods and US startup Atlantic Fish Co are combining mycoprotein with cultivated fish cells to create whole-cut seafood fillets

Swiss startup Yeastup has opened an industrial facility processing 4,000 litres of spent brewer's yeast hourly, converting beer waste into functional proteins and fibres

Researchers have successfully transformed liquid waste from carrot processing into high-protein fungal mycelium, achieving yields of up to 15 grammes per litre with protein content reaching 31%

Penicillium has been named Microbe of the Year 2026, recognising its role in producing antibiotics that have saved millions of lives since 1928. Industrial strains now produce hundreds of thousands of times more penicillin than the original discovery, with global production reaching 50,000 tonnes annually