Producing egg whites without chickens

Clara Foods has secured US$1.75 million in seed funding as it seeks to create the world’s first animal-free egg white.

The growing popularity for low-cholesterol, high-protein foods has seen the market for egg whites grow to over US$3 billion in the US alone. But there is also growing concern for the environmental, animal welfare and public health compromises of industrial-scale egg production.

Clara Foods aims to resolve this moral and economic deadlock by taking the chicken out of the equation, creating an egg white that is free of Salmonella and avian flu and uses far less land and water inputs, while matching the taste, nutritional value and culinary properties of chicken-laid egg whites.

“From the onset, Clara was founded on a fundamental belief that we can cultivate a better and safer food system using technology,” said CEO Arturo Elizondo.

The start-up describes the process of creating the animal-free egg white as being “similar to brewing beer or wine. However, instead of using yeast to convert sugar into alcohol, our yeast is specialised to convert chicken DNA into egg white proteins.”