Cutting Costs, Not Taste: Ferm Labs on the way to rewrite Flavor Economics

Clean label ingredients are the future as consumers are calling for greater transparency, health and sustainability in food. Ferm Labs AG just closed a EUR 3 millionseed round to scale its bioprocessing platform, which turns low-value food sidestreams into natural, salt-free flavor enhancers. Founded in 2025 by Stephanie Lüpold and Mattia Baroni, Ferm Labs’ bioprocessing-based B2B ingredient platform compresses weeks of fermentation into just hours. The result: natural flavor enhancers that let manufacturers cut sodium and drop additives like MSG, without giving up taste. As exemplified by Kokumesan®, the flagship flavor builder targets the €68B US/European cheese market. It lets producers reduce real cheese content in formulations from 20% down to under 1%, with up to 75% Cost-in-Use savings and100% Clean-Label performance: zero E-numbers, zero compromise on taste or process stability. Cheese is just the beginning, the same platform scales to other clean-label ingredients. The €3 million seed financing round was led by CDP Venture Capital (through its Green Transition Fund / NextGenerationEU), with Fund F, Redstone (in collaboration with Euregio+, Alpine VC) and the Loacker Group. The capital goes toward scaling production in South Tyrol, growing the European sales team and developing new products.

The Kellerhals Carrard core deal team advising Ferm Labs AG throughout the transaction comprised of Umberto Milano (Lead, Partner, Corporate / VC) and Arnault Eckert (Associate, Corporate / VC). Congratulations again to Stephanie Lüpold and Mattia Baroni, and the entire Ferm Labs team. It has been a pleasure being part of this journey and we can’t wait to see where they take flavor next.