Ivy Farm Technologies and Dennis Group work on production facility for cultivated meat
Ivy Farm, the UK’s leading cultivated meat company, has announced it is partnering with Dennis Group to develop engineering plans and designs for its first manufacturing plant, as Ivy Farm seeks to launch and scale its cultivated meat production in new markets such as the USA, Asia and the Middle East.
Dennis Group is a global design-build firm specialising in food processing facilities for companies such as Danone, Starbucks, Kerry Group and more.
Working together, Ivy Farm and Dennis Group will design a state-of-the-art cultivated meat manufacturing facility. This new plant will feature fermentation tanks with a 200,000L capacity, with the capability of producing at least 12,000 tons (2,645,547 lbs.) of cultivated meat each year, which is the equivalent of over 300m hot dogs.
The partnership with Dennis Group will initially involve the group providing engineering plans and designs for the proposed manufacturing facility.
Once these plans have been approved, the next stage will involve identifying the plant’s location. As part of this process, Ivy Farm will be considering markets such as the USA, and countries within Asia and the Middle East, where there are clear regulatory pathways for cultivated meat.
Ivy Farm said its streamlined manufacturing technologies are “extremely cost-effective and scalable”. The novel end-to-end process allows for robust industrial processing of raw materials to affordable end-products. R&D will remain in Oxford, UK, where Ivy Farm recently opened Europe’s largest working pilot plant facility in August of this year. The 18,000sq ft facility features a small scale pilot plant including a 600L fermentation tank called Betty, and will be used to fine-tune its novel manufacturing process.
Ivy Farm is an innovative food-tech start-up on a mission to create the best guilt-free, real meat, to tackle one of the world’s biggest climate polluters – industrial agriculture – and to help the world reach its net zero goals. Ivy Farm grows pork muscle and fat from stem cells in large fermentation tanks in order to produce real meat that has a healthier nutritional profile and a more sustainable greenhouse gas footprint. It has raised over $30m to date.
Commenting on the new partnership, Ivy Farm CEO Rich Dillon said: “Dennis Group understands the scale and ambition of our company, and are hugely experienced in the food and beverage industry, and we look forward to them scaling up our pilot plant design and engineering this innovative large-scale facility.
“Cultivated meat can make a positive impact around the globe, both for people, the planet and animals. The transition to sustainable proteins is a globally pressing issue, and we believe by focusing on a launch market with a more favourable regulatory environment, such as the USA and Singapore, we’ll be able to make the biggest difference in the most efficient way. The UK will remain a key operational area for us, where we’ll continue to apply some of the smartest science and tech out there, to refine and develop our products.”
“Brands like Ivy Farm are paving the way and accelerating the pace of innovation in the food industry by blending biotechnology with traditional food processing,” noted Dan McCreary, principal at Dennis Group. We’re honoured and excited to partner with Ivy Farm on this first-of-its kind facility, designed to produce sustainable protein.”
The opportunity for Ivy Farm and the wider industry to drive planetary change through this sustainable meat mission is huge. According to a report by CE Delft, cultivated meat would reduce carbon emissions by up to 92% and reduce land use by as much as 95% when compared to traditional agricultural methods.
