Post by Dr. Nadine Geiser

Nestlé just filed a patent for donkey milk protein, made without a single donkey, using the same yeast strain as the Impossible Foods Burger. That's the most surprising sentence I read this week. But it's the second most important food tech story. The first: The Protein Brewery received EU Novel Foods approval for Fermotein, their mycoprotein ingredient. The first mycelium ingredient to ever clear the EU framework. They filed in May 2020. Six years ago. GRAS in the US: 2021. Singapore approval: 2024. EU approval: June 2026. Huge congratulations to the team, the persistence required to see a six-year regulatory process through while building a company is extraordinary. And yet. Europe is running a safety infrastructure on a timeline that belongs to a different era. This isn't about lowering standards, it's about resourcing EFSA adequately, enabling pre-submission scientific guidance, and treating food innovation as something Europe actually wants to lead in. When founders watch their home market approve last what Singapore and the FDA approved years earlier, some of them draw conclusions about where to build next. This week's podcast covers both stories in full, plus Solar Foods' €77M state-backed grant for a protein-from-air factory, Innovafeed raising €51M while Ynsect's €600M bet ended in liquidation, and Anterra Capital's €100M first close. And yes, we explain the donkey milk patent in actual technical detail. It's genuinely fascinating. For anyone in food policy or regulatory affairs, what's the realistic path to a faster Novel Food process? What's the actual bottleneck? 🎙️ Link in comments. This time without the wonderful Jan Thomas, but as always having fun with Peter Schmetz #FoodTech #Fermentation #NovelFood #TheProteinBrewery #Mycoprotein #PrecisionFermentation #EURegulation