Moolec, a science-based ingredients company using plants to produce animal proteins, and Grupo Insud, a global conglomerate with a strong presence in the manufacturing of biosimilars and other active ingredients for the pharmaceutical industry, announced today their partnership to research and develop solutions for the fast-emerging alternative protein industry.

The Joint Venture will use yeast, fungi, and other micro-organisms to produce animal-free ingredients complementary to Moolec’s plant-based pipeline, enabling a unique set of food ingredient formulations. New products will represent a significant upgrade in terms of organoleptic properties and nutritional values, while preserving the affordability consideration at the heart of both companies’ business models.

Insud has a strong track record in cellular cultures using multiple platforms to obtain recombinant proteins and metabolites with state-of-the-art facilities in Italy, Spain, and Argentina. It also has close to 100 scientists working in the different locations with knowhow in molecular biology, upstream and downstream development, together with a strong analytical development group.

“We are thrilled to co-work with Insud’s team. This partnership allows us to speed up our scientific developments by leveraging the experience, know-how and scaling-up production expertise from one of the top-class players in the landscape” says Henk Hoogenkamp, CPO and Co-Founder of Moolec. “We are convinced that the new generation of companies has a lot to learn from the scientific talent established in the traditional industry. We have the wonderful opportunity to team up, co-create, and disrupt together. Our partnership will also allow for very quick scaling due to the impressive infrastructure readily available to the group. The more we are, the faster we can achieve animal-based parity in terms of taste, nutrition, and cost.”

“We are excited to collaborate with Moolec using our scientific and industrial biotech experience to leverage their very innovative pipeline. We are proud Moolec has chosen us to accompany them in this venture,” says Manuel Sobrado, Executive Director of Insud Argentina.