Nourish Ingredients

Founded by Dr. James Petrie and Dr. Ben Leita in 2019, Nourish Ingredients is a spin-off of the Australian government scientific research agency CSIRO focusing on food technology. The startup has developed an alternative animal-free fat using fermented microorganisms. 

Nourish Ingredients claims its proprietary yeast fermentation technology creates fat that can replace the most commonly used coconut oil and palm oil in plant-based meat—improving the overall taste and texture of the products. Fat produced from the genetically manipulated yeast strains can be flavored like beef, chicken, pork, seafood, and dairy according to the startup. The fats are also more sustainable and able to develop the same amount of oil from a "single cell" in a laboratory compared to a hectare of harvested plants.

In October 2023 , the company debuted “Tastilux”, a new animal-free fat made with natural lipid molecules derived through precision fermentation. This product claims to provide the taste and aroma of animal fats in plant-based proteins and offers animal fat-like reactions during cooking.  Later during the month, the company announced plans to set up a facility in Singapore's Food Tech Innovation Centre.

Key customers and partnerships

In September 2023 , the company partnered with Boston Bioprocess to scale up its fermentation process. The partnership leveraged Boston Bioprecess’s scalable process for developing fat molecules to help Nourish Ingredients remain asset-light.

Funding and financials

The company’s latest funding round was in October 2022, when it raised USD 28.6 million in Series A funding led by Horizon Ventures with participation from MainSequence Ventures and Hostplus. The new funding was intended for scaling up production and additional product development.