Novel Farms Reveals First Marbled Cultivated Pork Loin
Novel Farms, Inc., a food technology startup based in Berkeley, Calif., has unveiled what it says is the first-ever marbled cultivated pork loin.
Cultivated meat is poised to help relieve the strain on our food system by providing a supply of animal protein while offering human health, environmental, and animal welfare benefitsm, according to the company.
While the vast majority of cultivated meat companies focus on making sausages or burgers, producing meat that mimics conventional meat cuts is currently extremely difficult — only a handful of companies in the world have been able to showcase pork or beef structured prototypes. Novel Farms now joins this select group by creating a cultivated pork loin that displays the marbling and texture of a real muscle cut.
Novel Farms solves the structuring problem by developing a proprietary microbial fermentation approach to produce low-cost, edible, and highly customizable scaffolds. Its tissue development platform gives an important and unique advantage by not only providing the company with the capability to structure meat from any animal species, but also doing it in a very cost-effective way.
While scaffolding biomaterials such as alginate need to undergo costly functionalization to ensure effective cell attachment, their scaffolding process completely bypasses this step, reducing production costs by 99.27 percent and thus accelerating the path to the commercialization of their products at price parity, accoring to the company.
The founder team, Nieves Martinez Marshall and Michelle Lu, met while working as postdoctoral scientists in the Molecular and Cell Biology department at the University of California at Berkeley prior to launching the company in 2020. Their combined experience of over 30 years in research was key in the ideation of an elegant and unique structuring approach for producing cultivated meat, which has been awarded a highly competitive grant from the National Science Foundation through the SmallBusiness Innovation Research (SBIR) Program (phase I) in 2021.
“Our goal is to accelerate the widespread adoption of cultivated meat and its benefits by producing ‘hard-to-resist’ whole muscle cuts,” said Marshall. “Therefore, we need to be able to fulfill consumer demand by delivering cultivated meat with the same fibrous texture and mouthfeel as conventional cuts from an animal.”
Novel Farms has raised $1.4 million in a pre-seed round with participation of Big Idea Ventures Joyance, Social Starts, Sustainable Food Ventures, Good Startup, CULT foods and strategic angel investors.
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Johnsonville Pitches Sausage-Packed Fun for SuperHole III
It’s SuperHole time – when untold numbers of cornhole fans schedule their lives around televised pro-am competitions. For the uninitiated, it’s up to SuperHole III now.
Johnsonville, the official sponsor of the American Cornhole League, has created a collection of limited-edition advertisement spots that will run in broadcast and digital, an impressive roster of air- mailing sausage ambassadors like Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson and Jennie Finch, a cornhole watch-party Pinterest board and hilarious sausage-centric swag.
“There is no doubt that this year’s SuperHole event will be the must-see event of year,” said Jamie Schmelzer, senior director of strategic growth at Johnsonville. “Being a CPG brand, we’re fully aware that American consumers inescapably link the Big Game with great advertising, creative recipes, top entertainment, media moments and watch parties.”
Schmelzer said Johnsonville has a terrific partnership with the ACL and the first two years of its pro-am versions of cornhole competitions (SuperHole) have become so popular with more celebrities and athletes playing and fans engaging.
“So, while the ACL produces their own version of the Big Game, we thought there should be some fun, sausage-y elements to enhance SuperHole weekend. The ACL team agreed, and we’ve had a blast putting this together. The fans should get a kick out of how we’ve spiced up the line-up to make it bigger and better than ever – from parodying some nostalgic ad spots to this crazy sausage-tunnel for all the players to run through – it’s going to be a lot of fun!”
With a laundry list of sizzling entertainment planned for the two live SuperHole broadcasts on ESPN2, Johnsonville and the ACL will leave viewers with just one question on the big day – “Why isn’t this a primetime broadcast all year!?”. Sausage fans will rejoice as “John. Son. Ville” makes its debut, the ACL creates their first-ever SuperHole ad and cornhole legends are born as athletes look to serve up and cement their sausage-tunnel runs in history and claim the first-ever WS Moore SuperHole Trophy, presented by Johnsonville.
The ACL SuperHole III will be broadcast live on ESPN2: The Ocho this Friday, August 5, with the quarterfinals airing from 4-5 p.m. ET and finals from 8-9 p.m. ET. First-time viewers and cornhole enthusiasts are encouraged to tune-in and serve up Johnsonville sausage in their watch- party spreads to celebrate what will be the biggest SuperHole event to date.
The complete line-up of Johnsonville experiences for SuperHole III includes:
• Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson will host his watch party live from his Instagram account, during ESPN’s “Ocho Day” on Aug. 5
• Johnsonville parody spots:
• ACL’s first SuperHole ad
• Sausage tunnel runs: Watch the 16 SuperHole and ACL players take the court in style
• Rapper and entertainer Flavor Flav will emcee both SuperHole III broadcasts
• The Johnsonville SuperHole Halftime Show will feature a live performance from singer-writer Ben Rector
• Cornhole audience members will don one-of-a-kind HoleHead hats and Johnsonville grill hats
• Presentation of the first-ever WS Moore SuperHole trophy to the SuperHole champions
The SuperHole Championship lineup includes:
• Retired NFL quarterback Doug Flutie and Matt Guy
• Retired NFL quarterback Jay Cutler and Jay Rubin
• Actor Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino and Jacob Trzcienski
• UFC competitor Chris Weidman and Jimmy McGuffin
• University of S Carolina women’s head coach Dawn Staley and Mark Richards
• Singer/Songwriter Ben Rector and Jimmy Youmans
• Retired NFL running back Terry Kirby and Rosie Streker
• ESPN Broadcaster Marty Smith and Ryan Smith
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USDA, Oregon Sign Meat Inspection Agreement
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and the state of Oregon have finalized a cooperative agreement, under which the state inspection program may inspect meat products produced for shipment within the state.
The state inspection program must develop, administer, and enforce requirements “at least equal to” those imposed under the Federal Meat Inspection Act.
“Today’s announcement with Oregon will help strengthen our nation’s food system and help prevent supply chain bottlenecks,” said USDA’s Deputy Under Secretary Sandra Eskin. “This program is especially helpful to small meat and poultry processors in building their local and state marketplaces.”
With the addition of Oregon, 28 states have state inspection programs. In states with inspection programs, establishments have the option to apply for federal or state inspection, but product produced under state inspection is limited to intrastate commerce. FSIS provides up to 50 percent of the state’s operating funds, as well as training and other assistance.
States are key FSIS partners and formal working relationships are reflected in cooperative agreements between FSIS and affected state agencies. State Meat and Poultry Inspection programs are an integral part of the nation’s food safety system with about 1,900 small and very small meat and poultry establishments inspected under state MPI programs.
FSIS provides guidance to state MPI programs under these agreements, reviews each state MPI program and its requirements and activities at least annually, and provides approximately $60 million dollars annually to support the state MPI programs currently operating.
In addition to Oregon, FSIS has signed state inspection agreements with Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
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