Alameda,California – April 30, 2025 – Pow.Bio, a leader in AI-enabled continuous fermentation, and California Cultured, a pioneer in sustainable plant cell culture for coffee and chocolate, today announced a successful collaboration that marks a major milestone for food-grade biomanufacturing. Leveraging Pow.Bio’s new state-of-the-art facility inAlameda, California Cultured has produced commercial-scale quantities of cell-cultured cocoa, paving the way for a sustainable, scalable future for chocolate and coffee.

The partnership comes as Pow.Bio’s recently unveiled 25,000 sq. ft.Alameda facility - equipped with advanced clean room capabilities, AI-driven fermentation software, and a fleet of dual-chamber continuous systems - ramps up its support for next-generation food and ingredient companies. This FDA-registered facility enables seamless transition from lab-scale experiments to hundreds of kilograms of finished, food-grade product, meeting the rigorous demands of commercial food and beverage applications.

California Cultured, based in West Sacramento, is addressing critical supply chain and sustainability challenges in the cocoa and coffee industries by growing plant cells in bioreactors, rather than relying on traditional agriculture. Their proprietary technology produces cocoa and coffee with the same taste and molecular profile as conventional products, but with a fraction of the environmental footprint and none of the deforestation or labor exploitation associated with legacy supply chains.

“This collaboration with Pow.Bio is a first step towards a deeper partnership utilizing continuous fermentation,” said Alan Perlstein, CEO ofCalifornia Cultured. “Pow.Bio has assisted California Cultured in demonstrating two very important things: the ability to produce cocoa domestically at industrial scale, and validating that our process can produce the cleanest cocoa ever made. Moving up from small-batch to controlled precision fermentation was a great way to test whether further process development with continuous fermentation is viable for California Cultured, and this is something we are excited to explore with Pow.Bio’s technology platform.”

The project focused on scaling up from shake flasks to fully controlled bioreactors, optimizing media formulations, oxygen transfer, and pH control to maximize cell density and metabolite production.The result: large quantities of food-grade, cell-cultured cocoa ready for commercial use, while validating the economic and technical feasibility of scaling plant cell culture for staple commodities like chocolate.

“We’re gratified to support CaliforniaCultured’s success as they move from concept to commercial scale with us in Alameda,” said Shannon Hall, CEO and Co-Founder of Pow.Bio. “Their achievement is a testament to what’s possible when innovators have access to the right resources and support. We’re excited to welcome a growing pipeline of customers who are ready to leverage our advanced continuous fermentation platform to bring their own groundbreaking products to market.”

With this milestone, California Cultured is poised to accelerate commercialization of its cell-cultured cocoa and coffee products, while Pow.Bio continues to demonstrate the transformative potential of its intelligent fermentation platform for food, agriculture, and beyond.

About Pow.Bio  
Pow.Bio is building the future of biomanufacturing through continuous fermentation technology that delivers competitive unit costs, accelerated product development, and rapid scale-up. Our AI-integrated platform enables companies to bring sustainable, bio-based products to market faster and more economically. With a focus on partner success, Pow.Bio is redefining what’s possible in the $500 billion biomanufacturing industry.

Learn more at www.pow.bio.

About California Cultured
California Cultured is pioneering the production of cocoa and coffee using plant cell culture, offering a sustainable, ethical alternative to traditional supply chains. Their technology enables the creation of high-quality, deforestation-free chocolate and coffee for a resilient future.

For more information, visit www.cacultured.com.

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