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Canada has an extensive range of research centres, food incubators, accelerators and labs supporting food and beverage innovation through the research they do and/or the services they offer. Each week throughout 2023, we’ll be highlighting an organization that’s supporting food innovation in Canada.
Name: The Cultivated B Canada (TCB Canada) is a subsidiary of Germany’s The Cultivated B. The company’s R&D centre is in Heidelberg, Germany, while its manufacturing facility is in Burlington, ON.
Mission: To accelerate R&D around scalable and sustainable fermented and cultivated food products and ingredients.
Focus: TCB Canada develops scalable alternative protein and cellular agriculture technologies. It works with governments and companies in Canada’s cellular agriculture and food ecosystem to help develop bioengineering technologies.
Services: TCB Canada operates a 130,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing facility in Burlington, ON for the production of bioreactors and the development of alternative proteins. The location also offers the Innovation Hub in collaboration with Ontario Genomics and Natural Products Canada (NPC), a 25,000-sq.-ft. space for academic institutions, start-ups and small- to medium-sized businesses to advance research in cellular food and agriculture towards scalable testing and product development. The Innovation Hub offers lab space, bioreactors (including the world’s first bioreactor with a 25,000-L volume), mentorship and expertise.
What you need to know: In September 2023 the TCB Canada and NPC announced a program to accelerate the growth of Canadian startups using precision fermentation. The Cultivated B is develops precision fermentation technology through its subsidiary PreFer Industries.
Notable News: The company recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with McMaster University’s Faculty of Engineering to commit to ongoing collaboration on cellular agriculture projects and talent development.