Bill Gates Backs Artificial Breast Milk Start-Up Promising To Lower Carbon Footprint Of Baby Formula

With the dairy industry a major source of greenhouse gases, and as much as 10% of the global market estimated as going to the production of baby formula milk, the industry represents a significant carbon footprint. Which is by U.S. start-up Biomilq hopes to artificially produce ‘real’ human breast milk from cultured mammary epithelial cells.

Biomilq is making enough progress with the advanced biotech research involved to believe that it could have a commercially viable product within five years. And the company has also won over an impressive roster of backers, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

The company produced proof of concept for its plans back in February, with a process that produced both lactose and casein, two key components of human breast milk. Biomilq’s research is being funded by a $3.5 million investment, most of which has been contributed by a fund set up by the Microsoft chief, who is renowned for his philanthropy and backing of socially responsible and sustainable enterprise.

Lab-cultured meat start-ups have attracted a lot of publicity, and venture capital funding, over the past couple of years. That means the public have already been introduced to the concept, which will hopefully mean environmentally friendly lab-cultured dairy products will meet less consumer resistance when they eventually hit the shelves of supermarkets.

Plant-based faux meat products that very closely capture the taste, texture, look and even smell of real meat have been the early pace setters in the sector for alternatives to traditional animal products. Beyond Meat, which went public through an IPO in May last year.

The company’s share price rocketed to almost $235 from an IPO value of $25 over its first few months on the stock exchange. When the hype died down the Beyond Meat share price also fell back but never dropped below around $58 dollars and has now recovered to over $158. Beyond Meat’s faux burgers are already sold in Tesco stores and are also offered by the Honest Burger chain of restaurants. Impossible Foods is another richly-funded start-up in the same space.

The next wave of traditional animal products alternatives will be lab-cultured meat and dairy products. Finless Foods is developing lab-cultured seafood and Memphis Meats doing the same with chicken, duck and beef and is also backed by Mr Gates.

Biomilq’s founders are Michelle Egger, a food scientist, and Leila Strickland, a cell biologist. Ms Strickland struggled to breastfeed her now 10-year-old son when he was born prematurely. In an interview with Business Insider, she explains how that motivated her to look for a better solution than traditional baby formula:

“Being unable to do this really critical thing — that I hadn’t anticipated struggling with and that I knew was super important — really affected how I felt about myself as a woman and as a mother.”

She teamed up with Ms Egger, who had been looking into better breast milk alternatives while working at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Ms Egger was then focused on “affordable plant-based protein sources for low-and-middle-income countries”, but was enthused by Ms Strickland’s confidence that science has progressed quickly enough that lab-cultured human breast milk was becoming a viable alternative.

Last September the two scientists founded Biomilq and secured funding through Mr Gate’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, which focuses on funding start-ups with products that could help alleviate climate change. The fund’s board members include a star roster of entrepreneurs including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff, Alibaba’s Jack Ma, Sir Richard Branson and Michael Bloomberg, the financial data and media mogul who is also the former mayor of New York.