The company takes cells from a cocoa bean and cultivates them into a cell culture. Once the culture reaches the required quality, it is transferred into a bioreactor, where the cells grow in a nutrient rich medium before being harvested, dried, and roasted into cocoa powder. AI assisted cell selection ensures only the best cells are transferred to the bioreactor. To maintain sterility and efficiency
throughout its upstream workflow, the company uses compact, contamination-free, Watson-Marlow 530 and 630 series peristaltic pumps fitted with PureWeld XI tubing. The pump and tubing combination supports three critical upstream applications: • Media preparation: Accurate formulation and mixing of cell culture media, which supplies essential nutrients for cocoa cell growth
• Media filtration: Removal of particulates and microorganisms from prepared media before it enters the bioreactor, ensuring sterility and protecting delicate plant cells
• Inoculation preparation: Transferring cells from one bioreactor to the next larger scale bioreactor.
The Watson-Marlow pumps are used with a Kuhner orbital shaken bioreactor (OSB) SB2500-Z, which it installed in late 2025 and has a working volume of 500 to 2500 litres. Food Brewer has previously usedWatson-Marlow panel-mount pumps integrated into bioreactorsmanufactured by Krones/Steinecker, Cytiva and Getinge. Klaus Kienle, co-founder and chief production
officer at Food Brewer, said: “We love our Watson-Marlow pumps, they are reliable, flexible and do a fantastic job. We currently use the pumps two or three times per week and mostly for media preparation, media filtration. We use the pumps to filter through the media into the various sizes, up to 1000 litres and soon even more. “The Watson-Marlow 630 pump is used
mostly for production of cocoa, and the 530 pump is used for smaller production including other plant cells like coffee.” He continued: “We were looking for pumps that could be used in a sterile environment. Our plant
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t its pilot plant near Zurich in Switzerland, start-up Food Brewer uses natural plant cells to grow cocoa and coffee powder.
cells are very humble and modest. They can tolerate a lot but sterility is key, because if bacteria gets in it overgrows the cells.We also wanted to have versatility. With the two pumps we can cover the range from a small shake flask up to 1000+ litres, no problem. That’s why we upgraded from the 530 pump to the 630 pump. “We’re not on the full pharmaceutical
manufacturing side with full GMP, but the closed fluid path is still helpful because we’re using dedicated tubing for the applications, so one for cocoa, one for coffee.” The 530 series peristaltic pump delivers
flow rates from0.004 ml/min (0.0006 USGPH) to 3.5 l/min (55.48 USGPH), while the 630 provides flow rates from 0.001 l/min (0.0002 USGPM) to 18 l/min (4.76 USGPM) depending on model and pumphead/tubing options. Several people use the pumps, in different positions around the facility, so flexibility and user friendly operation were essential. “The pumps have helped to significantly
improve processability in the smaller scale,” continued Kienle. “We process much more in a shorter time with lower errors with the Watson-Marlow pumps compared to the
previous processing step with suction pumps. Easily adjusting the speed is key because we’ve been using the pump in an extremely wide range. We upgraded to the larger 630 pump because we needed to, but we’ve been processing hundreds of litres with the 530 pump as well. “We had aWatson-Marlow pump on trial and it
did a fantastic
job.This helped convince us to go for the pumps and work it into our budget, and this process was important as we are a start-up.”
Food Brewer’s lab-grown cocoa is a sustainable alternative to the traditional farming method of producing chocolate on cocoa plantations. Rising temperatures, water scarcity and declining pollination rates have placed increasing strain on global cocoa supplies. By growing cocoa independently of climate, land and seasonality, Food Brewer provides a future-proof production model.
Food Brewer’s
lab-grown cocoa is a sustainable alternative to the
traditional farming method of producing chocolate on cocoa plantations
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