FÆRM: Mimicking Dairy Fermentation to Craft the Next Generation of Plant-Based Cheese – vegconomist
FÆRM is a Danish food tech startup using food science and traditional cheesemaking techniques to craft the next generation of plant-based cheese. The company claims its animal-free cheese is made with clean-label ingredients and boasts an authentic cheese flavor.
“We have created a process for a plant-based product that is so unique, we were able to write a patent on it”
Founded in 2020 by Andrea Donau, Mikkel Dupont, and Anna Gundorph, FÆRM has designed a new patented technology that mimics traditional dairy fermentation using rennet and cultures such as lactic acid bacteria. The technology ferments legume-based plant matrices to transform them into cheese without using additives, colorants, or flavorings.
© FÆRM
Achieving the impossible
According to FÆRM, its R&D team has accomplished a feat not many companies have been able to achieve: making soy milk coagulate like cow’s milk.
“Through research, stubbornness, and countless tests, we achieved the impossible: Getting plants to go through the same tailored process as traditional cheese. Turning them from a liquid plant drink, into solid, diverse, and complex deliciousness. Thanks to enzymes and bacteria,” the company says on its website.
Until now, FÆRM’s fermentation technology has only been applied to soy, but further R&D will leverage other legumes’ nutritional profiles to offer a soy-free product. Legumes are more sustainable ingredients than nuts, and also contain complex proteins which give the products added nutritional value.
To date, the Danish food tech has developed three clean-label, coconut oil-free plant-based cheeses: cream cheese, brie, and fresh mozzarella.
© FÆRM
A unique but familiar process
Among the advantages of FÆRM’s traditional fermentation methods for making plant-based cheese is that its technology can be implemented on existing dairy plants without specific equipment. This means that scaling up production is feasible without significant investments in…
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