Fresh off of a huge Series B round of fundraising, Boston food tech startup Motif Foodworks is commercially launching its debut product and opening a new market development facility in central Massachusetts.
The company’s HEMAMI, a yeast-derived protein that it says gives umami flavor and a meaty aroma to plant-based meat alternatives like meatless burgers, sausages, chicken and others is now commercially available for large scale distribution to customers.
“HEMAMI enables a whole new taste and experience level for meat alternatives that a wider group of plant-based and flexitarian consumers will crave,” said CEO Jonathan McIntyre in a statement.
At the same time, Motif is opening a new research and development center in Northborough, which will also include a pilot-scale production facility for its food technologies.
The 65,000-square-foot facility will have three plants for fermentation, ingredient, and finished-product production, which will be used for consumer testing and sampling, as well as validating process techniques. The company says the site will house up to 100 employees and will also feature state-of-the-art food-technology, analytical and bioprocessing labs.
Construction on the Northborough site is starting this month and Motif says it’s planned to be fully online in the second half of 2022.
McIntyre said the new facility will help the company “execute on our holistic innovation process and rapidly develop and commercialize our proprietary technology and products.”
Motif is letting people try its tech in a burger with a booth at the Plant-Based World Expo in New York this weekend.
The company, a spinout of Gingko Bioworks, raised an eye-popping $226 million in June, shortly after opening a new lab-office facility in Boston’s Innovation and Design Building.
