Nourish Ingredients, an Australian start-up company deploying precision fermentation to produce animal-like fats for the next generation of meat alternatives, is supporting two Flinders PhD scholarships through to 2026.

Last week, Nourish announced it has secured $5.8 million in funding and grants from the Australian government to boost innovation and develop talent as it gears up to launch in late 2024, which has enabled the company to provide 11 PhD and postdoctoral fellowship grants with a range of institutions, including Flinders University.

The two Flinders HDR students supported by this scholarship funding are Shweta Sahni and Fatemeh Malekvandfard.

“These collaborations reflect our commitment to drive innovation and foster talent development in precision fermentation,” says Nourish CTO Anna El Tahchy, who claims widely used fats such as coconut oil do not deliver the performance, mouthfeel, flavour and aroma that consumers are looking for in meat alternatives.

This builds on a partner agreement between Nourish and Flinders University that medical biotechnology researcher Associate Professor Munish Puri and his team at Flinders University’s College of Medicine and Public Health say will further develop animal-free meat products.

Associate Professor Puri is optimistic about encouraging results emerging from an existing Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) supported funding- including production of a fat that Noursh says boasts an “authentic animal taste, aroma and natural cooking reactions” – will help secure additional research funding as his team actively explores opportunities to collaborate in more research grant applications. Nourish has already supported two post-doctoral associates, through CRC-P funding (2021-24), who are working on a project “Advance lipid fermentation facility of local manufacture of future foods”.

For further information about Associate Professor Puri’s research into meat alternatives, check this earlier story: https://news.flinders.edu.au/blog/2022/05/07/ocean-organism-could-be-key-to-animal-free-meat/