Sustainable oils pioneer Clean Food Group has raised £4.5m to scale up its new fermentation plant in Merseyside.
It follows the purchase of the factory and 12-acre site in Knowsley in September, which gave the company a fermentation capacity of one million litres.
Clean Food said it was now the world’s largest manufacturer of yeast-derived sustainable oils and fats.
The £4.5m investment round was led by specialist cleantech backers Clean Growth Fund and New Agrarian.
Clean Food also secured a £700k grant from the government’s Innovate UK agency to bolster its working capital.
The group said the funding round would enable it to complete the scale-up of the Knowsley facility, expand production capacity and accelerate commercialisation of its palm oil alternative.
“We are extremely pleased to have the continued support of Clean Growth Fund and a new partner in New Agrarian, two highly respected specialist investors in sustainable food and industrial biotechnology,” said CFO Tom Ellen.
“Their support, together with the Innovate grant, represents a strong endorsement of Clean Food Group’s significant progress and the scale of the opportunity ahead. The capital raised will enable the company to bring on stream the world’s largest yeast-derived oils and fats facility and to deliver on our long-term vision for sustainable food manufacturing.”
Founded in 2022 after eight years of research, Clean Food manufactures its oils and fats from food waste for the food, cosmetic and petfood industries.
New Agrarian’s Jim Mellon said: “Supply chain fragility is one of the defining risks of our time. War, climate volatility, and trade disputes are presenting a huge challenge to manufacturers; the ingredients we assumed would always be available are no longer guaranteed.
“Clean Food Group is addressing this problem head-on, using scalable science and technology to build genuine resilience and sustainability into the way we produce and source key ingredients used in everything from food to cosmetics. For me, this sits at a rare intersection: a compelling investment case and a genuine solution to one of the most pressing challenges of our generation.”
Existing Clean Food shareholders also participated in the round, including institutional investor Seed Innovations and industry partner Döhler Group.
Mellon serves as co-chairman of Clean Food and is also the non-executive chairman of Seed Innovations. He is also the main shareholder in AIM-listed lab-grown meat investor Agronomics, which is a backer of Clean Food.
Together, New Agrarian, Agronomics and Mellon have a combined stake of approximately 36% in Clean Food Group.
Rodrigo Hortega de Velasco, managing partner at Döhler Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Döhler Group, said: “The acquisition of the Knowsley facility marks a significant milestone, enabling production at a scale that brings these innovative products closer to widespread commercial reality.”
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