‘I pour the black gold into a cup, and I live once more,’ sings the singer of VOF de Kunst in the forty-year-old song A cup of coffee. The text still summarizes the current coffee habits well: two billion cups of fun are drunk every day worldwide. And the popularity of the hot drink continues to grow. “And I order.”
The question is how long this ‘neat and tidy addiction’ can be fed. Research shows that global warming makes less suitable agricultural land for coffee plants to grow. Farmers in countries such as Ecuador or Peru are already forced to grow temperature-sensitive plants in higher places.
The French start-up Stem has therefore been developing so-called ‘cellular coffee’ in laboratories in Maastricht and Zurich for several months. The company takes the cells of the famous Arabica coffee plant and succeeds in brewing steaming mugs: cups of cultured coffee.
Coffee farmers and deforestation
“Coffee production as we know it today is not sustainable,” says Johan van Royen, spokesperson at Stem. “By growing coffee in a laboratory or factory, you reduce the pressure on the coffee farmer. And coffee does not have to be transported all over the world.”
When the cells have grown and multiplied enough, they are freeze-dried
The company grows the coffee cells in their lab by providing them with the optimal conditions: nutrition and the right temperature. This process is comparable to making cultured meat, but easier, because it involves plants.
When the cells have grown and expanded enough, they are freeze-dried. The end result: a kind of light brown powder. “You can actually compare that to a ground coffee bean. It has the same composition, but has not grown to that shape,” says Van Royen.
The coffee powder is roasted in a special machine, because its fine shape makes it more brittle than a coffee bean. Once roasted, the product resembles filter coffee as everyone knows from the supermarket. Only the origin differs.
And now how it tastes. “We now have a bitter coffee that has a little bit of a caramel taste,” says Van Royen. “But it’s not yet like the coffee we know. We are now working on optimizing the taste.”
Growing coffee packs
Bringing cellular filter coffee to supermarket shelves is Stem’s ultimate plan. The start-up hopes to sell 250 gram packs in Europe around 2025. But first, the company will focus on cans in Asia, specifically Japan. “We hope to be able to market a can of cold brew (cold coffee, ed.) in Japan in six months’ time. We already have a deal with a manufacturer there and an appointment with an important investor,” says Van Royen.
In Japan, the legislation is also more attractive. In Europe, it can take up to 18 months to get a new food product approved for sale by EFSA, the European body that tests the safety of novel foods. According to Stem, this can be done a lot faster in Japan. The company has started the assessment procedure there.
Stem is one of the first companies to try to bring cellular coffee to market. The company has collaborated with the Finnish government-funded research institute VTT, which already succeeded in cultivating coffee cells in 2021. Furthermore, there is only a start-up in the US, California Culturedwhich is also working on cellular coffee.
Cellular culture does produce a waste stream
“If they can achieve the right taste, it might be a more efficient way to produce coffee,” says Pita Verweij, senior lecturer at Utrecht University’s Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development. “I expect that you need less nutrients to grow coffee fruit tissue than if you grow an entire coffee plant.”
Verweij does add a side note: “It is important to take a good look at all the environmental impact during the life cycle of the product. For example, cellular culture must take place in a sterile environment, which may require chemicals. It also produces a waste stream.”
For now, the cultivated coffee is mainly an expensive and small-scale proof that it is possible to produce coffee in this way. “Cellular farming is capital intensive. We currently have financing, but we are still looking for investors to be able to produce on a larger scale,” says Van Royen.
“But, it is not an idle dream. We have a formula for multiplication. The coffee exists and is roasted.”
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