Motif FoodWorks, the food technology company on a mission to make plant-based food taste better and more nutritious, announced it has gained exclusive access to two technologies with the potential to transform the consumer experience with plant-based meat and cheese. Motif will have exclusive access to these food technologies, which hold the promise to address two of the most significant challenges in plant-based foods: achieving melt and stretch in plant-based cheese, and healthier fat that marbleizes in plant-based meat.
Through this expanded collaboration, Motif will have exclusive access to:
• Extrudable fat technology: Unique oleogel technology that replicates animal fat, allowing for more authentic fat textures, such as marbling, in plant-based meats—acquired from Coasun.
• Prolamin technology: Uses plant-based ingredients to improve the texture of plant-based cheese, allowing it to melt, bubble, and stretch like animal-derived dairy—licensed from the University of Guelph.
Motif's move to acquire exclusive commercial rights to these technologies is just the first exciting development from the company's ongoing collaboration with the University of Guelph in Ontario, and Dr. Alejandro Marangoni, founder of Coasun, Inc., and tier I Canada research chair in food, health and aging at Guelph. Stefan Baier, Motif's Head of Food Science, will continue to lead the ongoing collaboration, which kicked off in 2019.
Many of the underlying challenges in creating crave-worthy plant-based meats and cheeses stem from the difficulty of replicating the look, feel and eating experience of animal products. Current options on the market rely heavily on saturated fats, which negatively impact a product's nutritional composition. Through its relationship with Coasun, Inc. and the University of Guelph, Motif will have exclusive access to two advanced ingredient design tools that will solve critical industry challenges and close key deltas in taste, texture and nutrition.
Further details on the technologies — including pictures and videos of the plant-based cheese technology in action — can be found on Motif's blog, How FoodWorks.
Motif's renewed collaboration with Guelph and Marangoni comes on the heels of the company's grand opening of a state-of-the-art 10,600 sq. ft. office and lab space in the Boston Seaport and continued expansion of their leadership team. In addition to partnering with third-party experts and researchers across the industry, Motif leverages a number of new scientific approaches—from precision fermentation to materials science—and applies them in new holistic ways to generate individual ingredients, protein systems, whole formula solutions and unique products to move the plant-based food industry forward.
