“From Yeast to Future Fats — How Melt&Marble Is Crafting the Next Generation of Food & Beauty Ingredients”

Introduction — Why “Designer Fats” Are the Next Frontier

As demand grows for sustainable, ethical, and high-performance ingredients in food, personal care, and alternative-protein sectors, traditional fats — whether from animals or plants — are increasingly under scrutiny. Palm oil and other commodity fats bring environmental and supply-chain issues, while plant-based alternatives often struggle to deliver the texture, melt, flavor, or functional performance of animal-derived lipids.

Imagine fats engineered from the molecule up: animal-free, customizable, scalable — yet delivering the same (or better) texture, functionality, and performance. That’s the promise of Melt&Marble. With its precision-fermentation platform, the Swedish biotech is not just rethinking fat — it’s re-engineering it for a more sustainable, flexible, and modern food and personal-care ecosystem.

Who Is Melt&Marble — Vision, Technology & Background

Melt&Marble was born out of academic roots in microbial engineering and synthetic biology, with a mission to produce fats via fermentation rather than agriculture. By programming microbes (yeast) to produce lipids with tailored molecular composition and physical properties, the company can design fats that behave precisely the way conventional animal fats do — in terms of melting profile, mouthfeel, texture, and functional behavior.

Their “fat-by-design” approach gives them the flexibility to produce a wide range of fat types — from meat-like fats for alternative proteins, to dairy-analog fats for vegan dairy, and specialty lipids suitable for bakery, confectionery, or cosmetic formulations. This versatility positions Melt&Marble at the intersection of multiple industries — food, alt-protein, wellness, and beauty.

Recent Milestone: €7.3 Million Series A — From R&D to Commercialisation

In early December 2025, Melt&Marble secured a €7.3 million Series A funding round, led by deep-tech investor Industrifonden, with strategic participation from established players such as Valio (dairy & food) and Beiersdorf (personal-care/beauty), along with funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, Chalmers Ventures and Catalyze Capital.

This new capital comes atop earlier support: Melt&Marble had received a €2.5 million grant from the EIC Accelerator, plus an additional €0.26 million grant under the Horizon Europe programme — bringing total funding to approximately €10 million over the past year.

According to the company, these funds will be deployed to scale up production, strengthen manufacturing partnerships, accelerate product commercialization, and launch their first fat ingredients in food, alternative-protein and personal care segments — marking the transition from lab-scale R&D to real-world application and supply.

What Melt&Marble Has Achieved — Scale, Partnerships & Readiness

• Demonstrated scalability: In September 2024, Melt&Marble successfully scaled their precision-fermentation process to tens of thousands of litres — a critical step proving that production can move beyond lab to industrial scale.

• Partnership with Valio: In January 2025, Melt&Marble entered a strategic collaboration with Valio to co-develop plant-based meat and dairy alternatives using its designer fats, aiming to improve taste, texture, and melt profile compared to conventional plant-based fats.

• Cross-industry appeal: The inclusion of a beauty-sector heavyweight like Beiersdorf among investors highlights Melt&Marble’s potential beyond food — envisioning applications in cosmetics, skin care, and personal care where lipid structure, feel, and stability matter.

Taken together, these developments signal that Melt&Marble is no longer “just another biotech startup” — it’s evolving into a platform for industrial-grade, sustainable and high-performance lipids, ready to serve multiple markets.

Why Melt&Marble Matters — The Broader Impact

 Sustainability & Ethical Sourcing

By decoupling fat production from traditional agriculture (palm oil, coconut, dairy, livestock), Melt&Marble addresses many environmental and ethical issues: deforestation, land-use, biodiversity loss, animal welfare, supply-chain volatility. Precision-fermented fats offer a way to meet growing global demand without stressing natural ecosystems.

Improved Quality for Plant-Based Foods & Beyond

One of the biggest challenges for plant-based proteins and dairy alternatives is replicating the sensory experience — the melt, juiciness, mouthfeel, creaminess — consumers expect from animal-derived fats. With their “fat-by-design” approach, Melt&Marble enables food makers to close that “taste and texture gap,” potentially accelerating acceptance of plant-based products.

 Industrial Scale & Market Readiness

The company’s demonstrated ability to scale fermentation, backed by institutional funding and partnerships, suggests that these designer fats could soon enter mainstream supply chains — making them not just a niche innovation but a viable alternative for large-scale food, bakery, confectionery, and personal care producers.

 Cross-Sector Versatility

Because lipids are widely used — from alternate meats and dairy analogues to chocolates, bakery, confectionery, cosmetics and skincare — Melt&Marble’s platform has a broad addressable market. This diversification reduces dependence on any one vertical and increases the potential for global impact.

Challenges & What to Watch — What Lies Ahead

No transformation is without hurdles. For Melt&Marble to deliver on its vision, several challenges remain:

• Regulatory approvals: Novel fermentation-derived fats — especially for food use — will need to clear regulatory pathways (e.g. novel-food approvals in the EU, other geographies). The collaboration with Valio and planned market launches suggest the company is preparing for this.

• Cost competitiveness: While Melt&Marble’s fats are reportedly competitive with specialty fats and cocoa-butter substitutes, matching the economies of scale of commodity fats (like palm or coconut oil) remains a target as they ramp up volumes.

• Supply-chain integration & adoption: For wide adoption, food, alt-protein, and personal-care manufacturers need to integrate these fats into existing formulations and processes — and be convinced of their performance, consistency, and supply reliability.

• Consumer perception & transparency: As with any novel ingredient, transparent communication about sourcing, production method, safety, and sustainability will be key to gaining consumer trust.

The Future Outlook — Why Melt&Marble Could Shape the Next Food & Beauty Era

With fresh funding, growing partnerships, industrial-scale fermentation capabilities, and a broad potential market — Melt&Marble is well positioned to become a pivotal player in the rapidly evolving landscape of sustainable food and beauty ingredients.

If its technology fulfills the promise — delivering fats that look, feel, taste, and perform like traditional fats, but without the environmental and ethical baggage — then the company could help accelerate the shift toward sustainable diets, cruelty-free products, and ecological supply chains globally.

For alternative-protein manufacturers, bakery & confectionery houses, plant-based dairy brands, and even cosmetics firms, Melt&Marble’s fats may soon become a go-to ingredient — bringing a new level of quality, consistency, and sustainability.

Conclusion — Rethinking Fat, Redefining Possibilities

Melt&Marble reminds us that in the journey toward sustainable, ethical, and high-performance food systems — innovation doesn’t always mean cutting out fat. Sometimes, it means re-engineering it.

By crafting fats from microbes instead of agriculture, Melt&Marble is not only challenging convention — it’s offering a concrete, scalable alternative. With its license to innovate, its latest funding, and strategic partnerships across food and beauty sectors, the company stands on the brink of transforming how we think about one of the most fundamental building blocks of food: fat.

The next time you bite into a plant-based burger, enjoy vegan chocolate, or use a cruelty-free lotion — there’s a chance Melt&Marble’s “designer fats” could be making the difference.