Perfect Day Releases First Animal-Free Dairy Ice Cream
Last week, Perfect Day made history.
Based in Berkeley, California, Perfect Day Foods is a startup that uses cellular agriculture to produce animal-free dairy proteins. By designing yeast to produce the same dairy proteins found in milk from a cow, Perfect Day can make the same milk. Without the cow.
And last week, Perfect Day showcased and launched the first ever animal-free dairy ice cream. Without requiring any animals.
And within hours, their limited release was sold out.
Animal-free Dairy
Founded by Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi, Perfect Day Foods was one of the first startups to use acellular agriculture to produce an animal-free product. By producing dairy proteins directly from cells, Perfect Day provides a more sustainable and less resource-intensive way to produce the same dairy proteins. Pandya and Gandhi also aim to reduce the number of animals involved in agriculture and food production.
And last week, their vision came true: releasing the first animal-free dairy ice cream. To make their animal-free ice cream, Perfect Day grew dairy whey protein directly from yeast cells and combined the dairy protein with plant-based fats and sugars.
While incredible that they launched a limited amount of their ice cream, many raised concerns about the price tag: $60 for 3 pints of the frozen dairy dessert. Perfect Day will need to continue to scale production to make their products as affordable as conventional ice cream.
Last November, Perfect Day took steps to get closer to scaling their production by announcing a partnership with food company Archer Daniels Midland. According to Perfect Day, Archer Daniels Midland’s expertise in scaling fermentation production made them the perfect partner to help Perfect Day get their products to market.
Conclusion
With the limited release of their ice cream, Perfect Day became the first cellular agriculture company to release a food product to market. As one of the first companies in the field, it seems fitting that their product is one of the first to be sampled.
Considering the cost of their ice cream, Perfect Day’s partnership with Archer Daniel Midland will help them scale production to make their innovative dairy products more affordable.
Earlier in 2019, Perfect Day became one of the first cellular agriculture companies to raise their Series B by raising $34.75 million to help scale the company. This is one of the largest rounds raised by any company looking to produce food via cellular agriculture. The largest round, Motif Ingredients’ $90 million Series A in February, is a distant leader.
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My name is Ahmed Khan, and I am the Editor of CellAgri. Please subscribe to my email newsletter at www.cell.ag to get the latest research and news about cellular agriculture, which I share exclusively with my email subscribers. We are regularly tweeting out interesting articles and thoughts via twitter @Cellagritech
