Cargill invests in Bflike to develop plant-based meat alternatives

Proprietary technology creates plant-based alternatives that look, feel and cook like their animal-based counterparts

Cargill is investing in Bflike, the Netherlands based startup created by BOX NV, which is poised to be a new technology leader in the rapidly evolving meat and fish alternatives categories.

The partnership combines Cargill’s extensive food ingredient solutions with Bflike’s recipes and technology, to give food manufacturers and retailers the opportunity to bring tasty plant-based products to market quickly and affordably.

Bflike will license its proprietary technology and premix ingredient solutions to food manufacturers and retailers, supporting them to commercialise their own meat and fish alternative products.

Key to Bflike’s innovation is its patent-pending vegan fat and blood platforms. This ground-breaking technology results in plant-based meat and fish alternative products that are virtually indistinguishable from their animal-based counterparts, with similar visual appearance, texture, mouthfeel, melting behavior and cooking performance.

The Cargill-Bflike collaboration will position customers to move seamlessly from pilot to commercialisation and allow them to scale up quickly, using their own production process and machinery, whilst being supported by Cargill’s secure supply of critical ingredients.

The Cargill investment in Bflike is realised through a joint venture with Blue Ocean Xlerator NV (BOX), a Dutch private incubator/accelerator focused on sustainable innovations in the food sector.

Bflike has a robust product pipeline of meat and fish alternative formulations, ready to hit the market in this year, next to the vegetarian burger and minced meat readily available.