Those Vegan Cowboys, a Belgian animal-free dairy producer, has developed its first animal-free cheese made from microbial caseins by using the company’s stainless steel cow.

Those Vegan Cowboys owns a precision fermentation machinery named Margaret, which is a cow made of metal that embodies the company’s vision for the future of dairy without animals.

The business claims that the cheese was formulated using dairy-identical caseins obtained via its precision fermentation process.

Those Vegan Cowboys CEO Jaap Korteweg. “When we started the lab after The Vegetarian Butcher, I gave it a 5% chance. But the lab team worked wonders, and now we have Margaret’s first cheeses. Now it’s a matter of scaling up, making the micro-organisms more  efficient – in a way similar to the milk cow, an animal that has been pushed to its outer  physical limits into giving 10.000 litres of milk per year instead of the natural 1000.”  

Those Vegan Cowboys’ project director, Will van den Tweel, added: “Thanks to the caseins, the cheese of our stainless steel cow potentially has comparable texture and other properties dairy cheese has. And yet it is completely free from animal products. Any  cow-free cheese is now possible.”

The business explained that as the process is new, regulatory approval is required – which can take up to several years – therefore, there will be “no Margaret-made cheese in supermarkets yet”.