Cultivated Biosciences is rebranding to Cosaic and introduces their ingredient Cosaic Neo

From the idealistic idea to the valuable product

Back in 2021, Tomas Turner, co-founder and CEO, had the idea to grow fats from yeast, to provide texture solutions for vegan cheeses. Appalled by factory farming, he wanted to make an impact to encourage more people to enjoy creamy animal-free products.

Chance or genius, as it often is in the history of great inventions, the team he built with his co-founder Dimitri Zogg learnt from the industry about much bigger needs than pure fat alternatives and discovered that their ingredient was much more powerful than fat: a multifunctional natural emulsion from yeast.

This unique ingredient contains fats, but also proteins and fibers. It is the combination of those components that allows to naturally combine 8 key functionalities in 1 animal-free ingredient. It reconciles the needs from the industry for more resilience and performance with the consumer needs for better and tastier products. How so? It cleans labels by replacing unwanted additives, improves the mouthfeel and the taste, improves the physical stability and much more. 

Now, product developers of the industry can create both dairy and dairy-free products that were unseen before, tackling new consumer trends and wants and unlocking new business opportunities. This achievement marked a turn in the company’s roadmap and strategy, and deserved to be shown to the world with a fresh identity.

Cultivated Biosciences is now Cosaic, and our ingredient is called Cosaic Neo.

Cosaic Neo to create groundbreaking products, such as protein shakes that were previously unseen on the market

The ingredient Cosaic Neo delivers on functionality and sensory to create never-before-seen products in those categories:

• Ready-to-drink protein and nutrition shakes

• dairy-free milks, barista and coffee creamers

• mayo & sauces

• creamy liqueurs

Particularly striking is the impact that Cosaic Neo can have on protein shakes. Protein Shakes is the fastest growing beverage segment in the US, reflecting the consumers’ interest for on-the-go, healthy proteins. But most commercial plant-based protein shakes contain not more than 8% proteins (around 25g for a 330ml/12 oz bottle), and contain lots of additives like gums, recently accused in papers to be carcinogenic. This limitation comes from the fact that further increasing protein contents can lead to gelling of the proteins and to strong off-taste.
Where Cosaic comes into play: replacing all additives, masking plant-based off-notes and most importantly, improving protein solubilisation to enable loading more proteins, up to 13%, so 43g per serving! 

Cosaic is working closely with industry giants on trials to bring this concept to market in the US in 2026.

For all the non food scientists out there wondering: what’s an emulsion?

When you make salad dressing at home, you may have noticed that oil and water don’t mix. Even if you stir them together, the oil eventually separates and rises to the top.
An emulsion is a mixture of two or more substances, one of which is lipids, that usually don’t blend, and where one liquid is dispersed throughout the other in the form of tiny droplets.

Until now, emulsions have been of 2 types:

• Natural animal-derived: milk, eggs yolks

• Industrial: stabilized by emulsifying agents like lecithin that prevent the droplets from coming back together and thus the oil to separate.

And we just created a new kind or 3rd type: natural, animal-free from yeast.

Our emulsion Cosaic Neo visually resembles dairy cream. It is naturally stable as it grows as such within the yeast cell, and thus brings stability to the product it’s incorporated into. It is creamy because the fat is in the form of tiny droplets that have lubrication properties. It is not simply a fat alternative, it is not only a texturiser or emulsifier, it is not really a cream alternative. It is a new kind of multifunctional ingredient that sets new rules for food ingredients. Usually, ingredients are single-purposed and mixed together to each bring bulk, nutrition or functionality to the final product. Cosaic Neo blurs the lines of ingredient categories and allows to rethink how food products are made. Our team of product developers helps the industry reformulate for better products. 

How do we make Cosaic Neo?

We use non-GMO oleaginous yeast, which we cultivate through biomass fermentation in our bioreactors (big stainless steel tanks) at our co-manufacturer. We feed sugar to the yeast. We developed a proprietary technology of non-chemical extraction with off-the-shelf equipment to break open the cells and extract our emulsion.

Why “Cosaic”? 

Why not ;)?

It’s mosaic with a c. To refer to the mosaic of ingredients blending into 1 product. And the mosaic of our fats, proteins and fibers blending into 1 emulsion. 

And Cosaic Neo for our ingredient because it sets new rules for food ingredients.