Ever After and Roslin claim 19-fold cultivated pork protein gain

INTRODUCTION

Ever After Foods and Roslin Technologies report that an edible packed-bed process raises cultivated pork protein output against suspension culture. The result matters because bioreactor productivity shapes equipment needs and production costs.

Ever After Foods, which develops cultivated-meat equipment, paired its production system with porcine stem cells from Roslin Technologies, which develops cultivated-meat cells. The companies disclosed the comparison on 13 October 2026, according to Cultivated X. Their process grows cells on PlantriX, a plant-derived structure that remains in the food. The conventional benchmark kept the same cells suspended in a stirred vessel. Protein Report says the packed-bed trial produced structured tissue while raising both culture density and the output from each cell. The claim addresses a narrow but important manufacturing question. Cell numbers alone do not show how much edible material a process delivers. Protein, dry matter and tissue structure bear more directly on plant capacity and processing needs. The evidence remains company-supplied. Ever After Foods told Cultivated X that it would provide full testing information on request, but the supplied reports contain no peer-reviewed paper. The result therefore shows what the partners say their combined system achieved, not what independent researchers have confirmed.

CORE FINDING

The companies’ central conclusion concerns output per unit of vessel capacity. Their packed-bed system delivered 19 times the cell-derived protein and dry biomass of the suspension reference, according to Protein Report. Food Ingredients First describes that figure as an increase of up to 19-fold, while Green Queen presents it without the qualification. That wording difference matters. “Up to” can describe a peak result rather than a consistent rate across runs. None of the supplied accounts gives the number of batches, the spread between results or a statistical test. The reports agree that Roslin’s porcine pluripotent cells served in both systems. That controls for the cell source, but the available material does not establish whether every other operating condition matched.

OUTPUT METRICS

Protein Report gives three volumetric results from the packed-bed trial. Wet material reached 326g per litre, dry material reached 57g per litre, and cell-derived protein reached 40g per litre, according to the publication. Wet biomass productivity stood at 11 times the suspension comparison, Protein Report says. The increase in culture density was about fivefold, while protein and dry matter from each cell rose about fourfold, according to Food Ingredients First. Those two effects explain why protein output rose much faster than cell numbers. One gains more cells in a given space. The other gains more useful material from each cell. The distinction also exposes the weakness of using density as the sole manufacturing measure.

CELL GROWTH

Green Queen reports that the process reached 150 million cells per millilitre after nine days. The publication describes that as a 62-fold increase during the run. Protein Report uses the less precise description of more than 150 million cells per millilitre. Food Ingredients First also reports a level above that threshold. These accounts do not conflict in substance, but they use different degrees of precision. None states whether the final concentration reflects viable cells only. The supplied reports also omit the starting volume, total harvest size and survival rate. Those missing details limit comparisons with other processes. A high concentration can improve vessel use, but commercial output also depends on maintaining performance in much larger equipment.

PROCESS

The production sequence starts with Roslin’s cells growing as multicellular clusters in suspension without serum or animal-derived medium components, according to Green Queen. The partners then mechanically separated those clusters before placing the cells into Ever After Foods’ Edible Packed-Bed vessel. The cells attached to the PlantriX structure and formed tissue on it. Green Queen says the wider process also used animal-free attachment materials, coatings and microcarriers. Food Ingredients First identifies the transfer between environments as a technical hurdle. Roslin normally cultures its cells as suspended aggregates. Ever After Foods therefore had to separate them gently enough to preserve attachment and growth. Barak Zohar, Ever After Foods’ chief technology officer, told Food Ingredients First that the resulting method avoids specialised coatings and costly attachment factors. He also said it could operate within a closed production process.

BIOREACTOR MECHANISM

Zohar told Food Ingredients First that continuous perfusion supplies nutrients and removes metabolic waste inside the packed bed. The design does not depend on separate cell-retention equipment, he said. He also attributed the density result to low mechanical stress compared with an agitated tank. In a stirred system, moving hardware keeps cells and nutrients circulating but can expose tissue to damaging forces. The packed structure instead gives cells fixed surfaces on which to anchor. Zohar said this three-dimensional setting supports interaction between cells and lets tissue-like formations remain intact. He attributed the greater protein yield per cell to that environment. This explanation comes from the system’s developer. The supplied sources provide no independent measurement linking each claimed mechanism to the final productivity figure.

EDIBLE STRUCTURE

The PlantriX material represented less than 2% of final product weight in the tests, according to Protein Report. The publication says the partners removed contributions from both medium and scaffold when calculating biomass and protein. Food Ingredients First reports the same accounting method, which means the stated values refer to material made by the cells rather than the supporting plant structure. Ernst van Orsouw, chief executive of Roslin Technologies, told Food Ingredients First that free-floating cultures tend to produce a wetter material that can be dried and mixed with other ingredients. He said processors must then add ingredients after harvest to create texture and tenderness. Growing cells on the edible support supplies some structure during cultivation, he argued, reducing later food-processing work. The sources give no sensory or cooking data for the resulting tissue.

CELL PLATFORM

Roslin describes its porcine pluripotent stem cells as capable of long-term replication and differentiation into tissues including muscle and fat, according to Green Queen. The company also says the cells grow quickly, remain genetically stable and form consistent populations. Van Orsouw told Food Ingredients First that these traits support predictable production over long periods. Those are supplier claims rather than independently tested findings in the material provided. The joint trial does show that the cells could move from aggregate suspension culture into Ever After Foods’ attachment-based system, according to Food Ingredients First. That compatibility has practical value because cell expansion and tissue formation need not use the same physical environment. The evidence does not show how repeated transfers affect stability across extended manufacturing campaigns.

ECONOMICS

Eyal Rosenthal, chief executive of Ever After Foods, told Green Queen that greater output from the same vessel could reduce equipment, site and operating expenditure for each kilogram. He also said direct tissue growth could remove separate harvesting and downstream operations. Ever After Foods’ economic modelling indicates lower capital and production costs than stirred tanks, Rosenthal told the publication. He acknowledged that commercial-scale work must still test those projections. No source supplies the model’s assumptions, energy demand, medium cost, labour requirement or expected selling price. The counter-argument is straightforward. Higher output in a development trial does not by itself prove lower commercial cost. Packed beds can introduce their own constraints around flow, monitoring, cleaning and harvest. The supplied reports do not assess those issues, so the cost case remains a projection.

COMMERCIAL ROUTE

Ever After Foods plans to sell its manufacturing platform and work with cultivated-meat producers rather than rely on one finished food, according to Green Queen. Rosenthal said the company and Bühler, a food-equipment maker, have developed a modular system with 200 litres of capacity. Industrial validation is the next stated target, he told the publication. The timing of first production will depend on that validation and on partners’ product plans. Cultivated X reports that the Bühler relationship began in 2025. Moving from the reported trial to a 200-litre module will test whether nutrient flow, cell attachment and tissue output remain consistent across a larger packed structure. The supplied reports give no date for completing that work and no target output for the module.

OTHER MARKETS

Ever After Foods also sees cultivated seafood and pet food as possible uses for its equipment, Rosenthal told Green Queen. The company acquired Fishway, a Belgian fish-cell specialist, in August, according to vegconomist. Rosenthal said that purchase added expertise in aquatic cell biology. He described pet food as one possible early market rather than the company’s only route. Food Ingredients First says the pork material could serve structured ingredients and hybrid meat products. Those applications would place different demands on composition, texture and regulation. The present comparison covers porcine cells, so it does not demonstrate the same productivity with fish cells or other species. Ever After Foods calls the platform species-agnostic, according to Green Queen, but the supplied evidence supports one cell type in this trial.

PARTNERS

Green Queen says Ever After Foods began as a joint venture between Pluri, a cellular-agriculture company, and Tnuva Group, Israel’s largest food business. Roslin Technologies emerged from the University of Edinburgh, according to the same publication. Cultivated X reports that Roslin previously raised £11 million in financing led by Novo Holdings. The partnership joins a cell supplier with an equipment developer rather than asking either company to control the whole production chain. Roslin supplies cell lines to food businesses and cultivated-meat producers, according to Cultivated X. Ever After Foods concentrates on tissue manufacturing. This division may simplify technical roles, but it also makes commercial performance dependent on compatibility between separate technologies. The current trial establishes one such pairing under the conditions the partners reported.

REGULATION

Ever After Foods has not submitted an application for regulatory clearance, Rosenthal told Green Queen. He said requirements would vary with the product, cell line and intended country because the company supplies equipment to partners developing different foods. The company is preparing for regulatory work in Singapore, Israel and the US, according to his comments. Approval would apply to specific products rather than to a productivity claim or a bioreactor in isolation. The sources identify no partner preparing a cultivated pork filing based on this trial. They also provide no safety dossier, compositional comparison or manufacturing specification for regulators. Commercial deployment therefore depends on more than scaling the vessel. A producer must define the food, document its process and satisfy the relevant authority.

EVIDENCE LIMITS

All five supplied sources trace the performance numbers to the companies. Protein Report labels its item an editorial brief of the official announcement. Cultivated X and vegconomist explicitly call the results company-reported. Green Queen and Food Ingredients First add interviews and process detail, but neither cites independent replication. The reports do not disclose batch count, error ranges, benchmark vessel size or full culture conditions. Nor do they provide enough information to judge whether the same productivity persists over repeated cycles. Further development and scale-up work is under way, according to Protein Report. That programme may address engineering questions, but no reported timetable or validation protocol accompanies it. The present evidence supports a company comparison with useful measurements. It does not yet support a general claim that packed-bed cultivation will outperform stirred tanks across products and scales.

CONCLUSION

The trial makes protein per litre, rather than cell count alone, the more useful test of manufacturing progress. Its commercial weight now rests on independent detail, performance in the 200-litre system and product-specific regulatory work. Until those arrive, the result is a credible engineering claim, not a settled production advantage.