Michele Stansfield would have to be one of the busiest people in our industry. She’s the co-founder and CEO of a brand new company called Cauldron Ferm, which is working tirelessly to tackle arguably the biggest challenge in precision fermentation: achieving scale.
Through her Orange-based start-up, Michele is providing alt protein companies with a cheaper and faster way of accessing the ingredients they need to make their products, whether those products be plant-based meats or cow-free milk.
But this is no easy feat. For alt protein businesses – specifically those in cellular agriculture – scaling is a process that requires not only enormous capital, but access to appropriate sources of energy, feedstock and large-scale fermentation equipment. This sort of infrastructure is absolutely critical to the growth of the sector, but to this point has been a major (and for many, a deal-breaking) roadblock. That’s why Cauldron Ferm is shaping up to be a real gamechanger in Australia and potentially globally.
Here to talk us through the industry’s “desperate need” for infrastructure, the support it is (and isn’t) receiving from the government, and how Cauldron Ferm will spend its recently acquired $10m, is Michele Stansfield.
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