Cheese is one of the least sustainable food products in the world. Matt Gibson, the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of New Culture, has spearheaded a way to make cheese more eco-friendly—without sacrificing taste. For a transcript of this episode, visit https://climatebreak.org/making-cheese-with-microbes-with-matt-gibson/
Mozzarella accounts for over 30% of all cheese produced in the U.S., more than any other variety. So when New Culture, a San Francisco-based food technology company, set out to remake vegan cheese, they started with the pizza topping millions of Americans know and love. New Culture, co-founded by guest Matt Gibson, relies on fermentation to make animal-free cheese that melts, stretches, and tastes like the real thing. Crucially, this process cuts down on the emissions, land, and water dairy farming requires.
Dairy production is a large driver of climate change. According to the BBC, cheese has the third-largest agricultural carbon footprint, after lamb and beef. Methane released by cows, sheep, and goats is a major contributor, along with the land and water needed to raise the animals. The process of cheesemaking multiplies this carbon footprint: it takes roughly ten pounds of milk to produce a single pound of cheese, meaning the carbon emissions of cheese are concentrated tenfold.
New Culture sidesteps both livestock and the plant-based substitutes that have tried to replace them by manufacturing casein– the protein responsible for cheese’s stretch and gooeyness. As Gibson explains, the company trains microbes to produce casein inside fermentation tanks, similar to the process used to brew beer. The microbes feed on sugars to produce casein, and that protein is then combined with plant-based fats to create the finished cheese. This method, known as precision fermentation, dates back to the 1970s, when researchers first used E. coli to produce human insulin.
According to Gibson, switching from dairy to New Culture’s cheese cuts greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 86%, with a 97% reduction in land use and a 98% reduction in water use.
Perhaps equally as important, New Culture doesn’t ask consumers to compromise on taste or texture. The manufactured casein is molecularly identical to what’s found in dairy milk, meaning that the cheese melts the way people expect. This is something most conventional plant-based cheeses, which lack casein entirely, have not been able to replicate. The switch from dairy cheese to an alternative, then, is now potentially more palatable.
Producing precision-fermented proteins is significantly more expensive than regular dairy products. Gibson acknowledges this, explaining that dairy is a heavily subsidized industry, and New Culture’s casein protein is the most expensive part of its cheese. The company has had to engineer ways to use less protein per product without sacrificing quality to stay competitive. He also points to the challenge of limited fermentation tanks and infrastructure.
And it’s worth noting that the same trait that makes New Culture’s cheese taste like the real thing also carries a drawback. Because its casein is identical to the casein found in ruminant milk, someone with a milk allergy would still react to the cheese, even though no animal was involved in making it. This distinction could complicate how the product gets marketed and understood, since “animal-free” doesn’t necessarily equate to “dairy-free.”
Gibson believes that “taste is king in the food world,” and because New Culture’s cheese is “indistinguishable to dairy cheese,” consumers aren’t giving anything up on the experience. He’s hopeful that as New Culture grows, costs will lower and its products will be adopted by mass-market restaurant chains where climate impact could be the greatest. For now, you can get a taste of New Culture mozzarella at partner restaurants like Pizzeria Mozza in LA.
Matt Gibson is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of New Culture. He holds a Bachelor of Science in genetics and microbiology from the University of Auckland in his native New Zealand. Before co-founding New Culture, Gibson went vegan out of concern for the environmental and animal welfare impacts of dairy production.
Ethan: I’m Ethan Elkind, and you’re listening to Climate Break– climate solutions in a hurry. Today’s proposal? Making cheese with microbes to avoid the greenhouse gas emissions from conventional dairy cheese, without losing its melt and stretch. We spoke to Matt Gibson, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of food tech company New Culture.
Mr. Matt Gibson: When you look at the unsustainability of food, beef is usually considered the worst, lamb the second worst, and cheese the third worst.
Ethan: Addressing cheese’s environmental footprint is a big task, but Gibson thinks New Culture has found a way. Instead of using cows, the company makes cheese by growing microbes that produce casein (KAY-seen) in a fermentation tank. Casein is the protein that gives dairy cheese its stretch and melt. Gibson says the climate benefits are massive.
Mr. Gibson: When you compare dairy cheese to New Culture’s cheese, there'll be an 86% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. With what we're predicting to sell till 2031, we can displace about 900,000 metric tons of CO2 that would've come from animal-derived dairy cheese through our cheese.
Ethan: But convincing the public to switch from cow-based cheese may require more than climate metrics. Gibson highlights that animal-free cheese must taste and feel just as good as conventional cheese to win over consumers.
Mr. Gibson: Taste is king in the food world. Given that our cheese is indistinguishable to dairy cheese, people are not sacrificing anything on the experience. We also have a line of sight to being competitive from a cost point of view. With that, we can start to transition people away from a very unsustainable food product over to a much more sustainable food product.
Ethan: To learn more about animal-free cheese, visit climatebreak.org.