Research consumers, trying to understand what they like about the plant-based chicken nugget and beef crumble alternatives that are out there. And now we’re taking it back into the laboratory at NCFIL to understand the textural differences and other little nuances that might give us some indication about what it is the consumer really enjoys about these products and what it is they don’t enjoy. Alt-Meat: Is the consumer research done specifically with North American consumers? AIMUTIS: We actually had the opportunity to discuss recently how the other Centers can take what we’ve started here in North America and start using it in the UK, Europe and groups. It can be legislators, local government, service clubs. So we have a big task in that education workforce development piece. Of the three, our center, in particular, is probably a little bit deeper into all those areas than the other two. But all three centers will work on plant-based, precision fermentation and cell cul-tivation projects. That was one of the requirements of the Bezos Earth Fund. But we all three have a separate charter and will hopefully be able to take learnings from all three and bring it together to accelerate the commer-cial launch and proliferation of the consumption of these alternate meat products in the future. Asia. One of our plans as we move for-ward over the next couple of months is to put our sensory people together with the sensory people at Imperial College and National University of Singapore so that we have a global database of these consumer inputs. Alt-Meat: So each center will have programs that address each of the three technologies? AIMUTIS: That’s correct. The center at the Imperial College of London is working on the engineering of the cell. That will mean quite a bit of genetic engineering as well as gene editing, and also understanding the metabolism of the organisms that we’re working with, whether they’re mammalian cells or bacterial cells or fungi in some cases. Then the Singapore facility will be focused on the emerging proteins, doing quite a bit with mycobacterium, fungi and algae, and some of the other emerging things that are coming along. Alt-Meat: If you’re working with somebody stateside looking at emerging proteins, you would be able to connect them with somebody in Singapore who might have the advice or the latest data on that? AIMUTIS: Correct. Alt-Meat: NCFIL is hands-on with the companies that you work with, but it sounds like the Bezos Center is more research-oriented. AIMUTIS: I would say, we’re more focused on research than on the prod-uct development side. For example, if we’re doing work in a specific medium to grow a cell cultivated cell line at the Bezos Center, then it’s probably a little bit of product development and putting together that unique media that we’re looking at. Whereas, if we’re looking at products that actually get launched into the consumer space, much of that work will fall back to either partners in the consortia or to NCFIL’s work that they’re doing with other entrepreneurs today. Alt-Meat: The North Carolina State Bezos Center was the first one estab-lished. What have you done so far? And what are you working on now? AIMUTIS: Some of our research projects have been launched, including some on media formulations. We’ve looked at some cell scaffolding oppor-tunities. We’ve been looking at sensors and digital twinning so that we can ba-sically go from a small scale to a larger, full-scale operation. One of our big projects right now is a ‘large drivers of liking’ survey with Alt-Meat: What else are you doing with the companies themselves, in Alt-Meat August 2025 33
Alt-Meat August 2025: Page 33
