Those Vegan Cowboys Launches Margaret's Finest: R&D Programme to Map the Future of Animal-Free Casein
- Gauri Khanna
- Jul 20
- 3 min read
Dutch-Belgian precision fermentation startup Those Vegan Cowboys has launched Margaret's Finest, a collaborative R&D programme designed to evaluate animal-free casein proteins from multiple mammalian species with food and ingredient industry partners.
The programme builds on the company's ability to express recombinant caseins, proteins produced by inserting specific DNA into microbes that are then fermented, from species including sheep, goats, buffaloes, and llamas, alongside its flagship cow-free alpha-s1 casein.
With cost-competitiveness against conventional dairy casein as the stated end goal, the initiative signals a broadening commercial ambition that extends well beyond cheese into sports nutrition, medical nutrition, and infant formula.
A Stainless-Steel Cow With a Growing Portfolio
Those Vegan Cowboys, the Dutch-Belgian startup whose name signals its intent to upend dairy, has named its new discovery programme after Margaret, the company's stainless-steel cow and a nod to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Margaret's Finest is an R&D initiative that brings together food manufacturers, ingredient companies, nutrition specialists, and research organisations to evaluate different animal-free caseins and their performance across food applications.
Casein is a family of proteins found in mammalian milk. In dairy, these proteins provide functional properties that food technologists depend on: they emulsify and stabilise products, and they are responsible for the melt, stretch, bubble, and browning behaviour that makes mozzarella and other cheeses work. Different mammals produce different casein variants, each with distinct functional and nutritional profiles. Until now, accessing these proteins at any meaningful scale required animal agriculture. Precision fermentation changes that calculus by inserting specific DNA sequences into microorganisms, which then produce the target protein during fermentation, bypassing the animal entirely.
Those Vegan Cowboys' first commercial ingredient is a recombinant alpha-s1 casein, the dominant casein protein in cow's milk. But the company has already produced caseins from sheep, goats, buffaloes, llamas, and other mammals at laboratory scale. These are not yet in the commercial pipeline, but they demonstrate the breadth of what its fermentation platform can express. CEO Hille van der Kaa has described the realisation as one that opens nearly limitless possibilities: different casein variants may offer superior digestibility, reduced allergenicity, better melt characteristics, or unique nutritional properties relevant to specific applications.
How Margaret's Finest Is Structured
Rather than deciding unilaterally which casein to develop next, Those Vegan Cowboys is inviting companies with specific application challenges or commercial interests to co-design the research agenda. Collaboration under the programme could take several forms: jointly designed research projects, broader research consortia, applications for public funding, or direct partnerships with companies that already understand the functional requirements they need to meet.
The company is currently working with more than ten food companies, including dairy producers Westland Kaas and Hochland, on applications including mozzarella, Camembert, feta, burger cheese, aged varieties, and chocolate products. Cheese remains the primary commercial focus, but Margaret's Finest is explicitly intended to explore a wider set of categories, among them sports and medical nutrition and infant formula, where different caseins may carry distinct advantages.
Those Vegan Cowboys presented the programme at the IFT First trade show in Chicago, where it also showcased its alpha-s1 casein ingredient.
Regulatory Position and International Ambitions
The company has self-affirmed its alpha-s1 casein as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) in the United States, a step that legally permits it to sell the ingredient there. It shares that regulatory milestone with only a small number of peers in precision-fermented casein: New Culture, Eden Brew, and Formo. Those Vegan Cowboys is now awaiting a "no questions" letter from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which it expects later this year. Van der Kaa has indicated that the company is choosing to wait for that letter before its first commercial launch, not because it is legally required, but because it offers additional reassurance to food company customers evaluating a novel ingredient. This timing is notable given that the self-affirmation pathway itself may be eliminated by forthcoming regulatory changes.
The startup, which recently raised €12.25 million from equity and crowd investors, has also signalled plans to file for regulatory approval in Singapore, Europe, and the United Kingdom, though those submissions are expected to follow once the US launch and production scale-up are well established.
The stated long-term objective is to achieve a cost of goods sold that is competitive with conventional, animal-derived casein. Whether that ambition is achievable at commercial scale remains to be demonstrated; precision fermentation has historically carried a significant cost premium, and closing that gap will depend as much on manufacturing scale and process efficiency as on the discovery work Margaret's Finest is designed to advance.
