Agronomics Limited, a leading listed company focused on cellular agriculture, has announced that its portfolio company, Clean Food Group Ltd, has secured an additional £2.5 million in funding from Clean Growth Fund Management LLP. The funding will be used to accelerate the commercialization of Clean Food Group's sustainable oils and fats technology, which utilizes food waste as its feedstock to deliver more sustainable alternatives to traditional oil and fat ingredients.
Clean Food Group's go-to-market product is an equivalent to high oleic palm oil, with a 90% reduction in greenhouse gases compared to traditional palm oil. The company's oil has been designed as a drop-in ingredient that can be substituted in several consumables, including baked goods, confectionery, and cosmetics applications. Agronomics has invested a total of £1.6 million into Clean Food Group, which is carried at £7.0 million, including an unrealized gain on cost of £5.4 million. Agronomics has an equity ownership of 27.4% on a fully diluted basis in Clean Food Group.
Beverley Gower-Jones OBE, Founder and Managing Partner of Clean Growth Fund, expressed support for Clean Food Group's efforts to reduce the reliance of the food industry on traditional palm oil production, a major contributor to global CO₂ emissions. Jim Mellon, Agronomics Executive Chairman, highlighted the significance of Clean Growth Fund's investment as a validation of Clean Food Group's progress and the benefits of precision fermentation-derived fats and oils in addressing ethical and environmental challenges in the industry.
Clean Food Group, a UK-based food-tech business, aims to deliver scalable, healthier, competitively priced ingredients with a positive impact on the economic, environmental, and social health of the planet. The company's proprietary technology platform has been developed as a result of 8 years of pioneering research by Professor Chris Chuck, technical lead at Clean Food Group and the University of Bath.
Agronomics, as a leading listed company focusing on investment opportunities within the field of cellular agriculture, has established a portfolio of over 20 companies in this rapidly advancing sector. The company seeks to invest in companies owning technologies with defensible intellectual property that offer new ways of producing food and ingredients with a focus on products historically derived from animals. These technologies are driving a major disruption in agriculture, offering solutions to improve sustainability, as well as addressing human health, food security, and animal welfare.