By 2050 the global population will be about 9.8 billion, an extra 2.1 billion from 2023. Taking a low-average protein requirement for an adult, this equates to an extra 105 million tonnes of protein per year. Cultured meat has the potential to diversify protein sources with a much-reduced environmental impact, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, land, and water use.
Cellular Agriculture’s technology addresses the problem of manufacturing cultivated proteins at scale. They are developing bioprocessing technology to enable large amounts of cultivated protein to be produced affordably and sustainably.
Professor Marianne Ellis is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Cellular Agriculture Ltd. She is responsible for their research and development programme, up to the point of prototype. She is also responsible for company culture and environment.
Cellular Agriculture are one year into a four-year development period. She feels a key challenge during the Shott Scale Up Accelerator is to move from R&D to commercialisation and support their largely R&D-focused team to understand the best way for them to do this. At the end of the Shott Scale Up Accelerator they will be halfway through this development period, which will include doubling the size of the current team. Marianne highlights that “maintaining our company culture through this change is essential, while delivering on our milestones”. She believes that the support from the Shott Scale Up Accelerator will help them to do this.
Marianne is one year into a four-year industrial secondment from the University of Bath and wants to better translate her academic leadership skills into business leadership. The Shott Scale Up Accelerator’s networking opportunities will give her chance to speak to people in a similar position, discussing day-to-day aspects of how to run a company well. She says: “I love little insights and tips as these can make a huge difference, and I think it’s easy to assume one way is best until you hear alternatives!”
