BioTech Foods Invests 30M to Build in Donostia the Largest Cultured Meat Plant in Southern Europe

BioTech Foods plans to invest €30 million in the construction of the R&D and cultured meat production plant with the largest capacity in southern Europe. The new plant will have 11,000 m2 built on a 20,000 m2 plot in the Eskusaitzeta industrial estate in Donostia, where all the company’s activity will be relocated. This new project is expected to be completed in 2024.

“This new plant will allow us to increase production capacity to face the company’s next phase of expansion. Undoubtedly, this will be a very important milestone for us, as it will be a big step in the development of our technology and will allow us to take the definitive leap with the release of the product to the market,” said Íñigo Charola, CEO of BioTech Foods.

The new plant will be built on a 20,000 m2 site, allowing for further growth at a later date, as it would still have the capacity to build on an additional 4,000 m2. “In our plan, we foresee the construction of future new plants. We are in an emerging market with great growth prospects for the next decade and we are planning our development so that we can embrace all this potential,” explained Charola.

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The company plans to increase its current workforce fivefold

The plant will house both the processing equipment for cultured meat production and the R&D part of the company. This department will be particularly relevant, with professional profiles with expertise in biology, biochemistry, and biotechnology; likewise, the production part of the plant will have personnel specialized in process engineering, production, and specialized training in cell cultures. To this end, BioTech Foods plans to increase its workforce considerably, to 150 employees in the medium term.

“We believe that this new plant will give us an important competitive advantage in this emerging market, in addition to facilitating the progressive increase in production capacity, something that will allow us to respond to both current and future market needs on a global level,” says the CEO of BioTech Foods.

He further added that “this market is expected to experience strong growth over the next decade, with sources indicating that by 2032, 12% of the proteins consumed in the world will come from this type of more balanced food production systems”.

To prepare for the future market launch of BioTech Foods’ product, the company has collaboration projects with potential customers such as Aldelis, Sigma Alimentos, Argal, and Martínez Somalo, as well as having JBS, the world’s largest meat protein company, as a partner.

BioTech Foods’ objective is to lead the markets where demand is most relevant globally. Currently, Singapore, the USA, Japan, Australia, and the EU are the most active markets for cultured meat.

Challenges and opportunities for cultured meat

Currently, one of the biggest challenges for cultured meat is the production in adequate volume and cost. BioTech Foods’ new plant will enable the establishment of a highly efficient cultured meat production line to respond to both this challenge and the global need for a more balanced food production system that brings sustainability benefits.

The foodtech sector has established itself over the last year as a lever for the global food industry. Thus, Spain’s foodtech ecosystem, which includes the production of alternative proteins such as cultured meat, is the 5th largest in terms of public and private investment in Europe, after Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands, according to the ICEX report ‘Foodtech in Spain: Moving the Spanish Food System Forward’. The same study points out that Spanish startups tripled their investment in 2021 (€695 million) compared to the previous year.

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(Featured image by Engin_Akyurt via Pixabay)

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