Food and drink companies apply biotechnology, analytical science and research to improve food production, safety, quality and sustainability. The sector supports innovation across agriculture, ingredients, nutrition and manufacturing.
This category includes companies working on:
Browse 54 UK food and drink life science companies below.
Agri-tech and bioscience innovation campus in mid Wales
AberInnovation is a BBSRC and Welsh Government-funded innovation campus providing research facilities, business support and accelerator programmes for companies in agri-tech, food and drink and industrial biotechnology. The campus operates five specialist centres covering biorefining, future foods, analytical science,…
Selective gluten-degrading enzymes for wheat-based food production
Prozymi Biolabs is an Edinburgh biotechnology company developing enzymes that selectively degrade immunogenic gluten peptides in wheat-based foods. Its technology aims to reduce sequences associated with coeliac immune responses while retaining the gluten functionality needed for bread texture. It targets conventional…
Microbiome modulator ingredients for metabolic health and disease prevention
OptiBiotix Health is a biotechnology company developing and licensing microbiome modulator products for use in food ingredients, dietary supplements, and nutraceuticals. Its portfolio includes patented prebiotic and probiotic formulations targeting weight management, cholesterol reduction, cardiovascular health, and…
Gas chromatography instruments for analytical testing across regulated industries
Ellutia is a gas chromatography instrument manufacturer, designing and building its analytical technology in the UK. The company produces compact gas chromatographs, thermal energy analysers for nitrosamine detection, flowmeters, autosamplers, columns and consumables, alongside its own chromatography software. Ellutia…
ELISA and rapid tests for food contaminant detection
Biorex Food Diagnostics is a manufacturer of immunoassay kits and rapid tests for food and feed safety analysis. Its ELISA and lateral-flow products detect antibiotics, veterinary drug residues, mycotoxins, pesticides and allergens in samples including meat, dairy, honey, seafood and animal feed. The company develops…
Contract isolation and purification of high-value compounds using HPCCC
BioExtractions Wales is a contract extraction and purification company operating from a 10,000 sq ft facility in Tredegar, South Wales. The company provides isolation and purification services to the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, chemical, and food industries using High Performance Counter Current Chromatography,…
Researching scalable cell-based food manufacturing technologies
CARMA (Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub) is an EPSRC-funded, University of Bath-led research collaboration developing manufacturing technologies for cellular agriculture. Its researchers investigate animal cell culture, microbial fermentation, bioreactor design and scale-up methods for producing food ingredients…
Contract research using in vitro models of the human gut
Aelius Biotech is a contract research organisation using laboratory models of the human digestive tract to study drugs, nutritional products and functional foods. Its animal-free systems help customers explore how formulations behave during digestion and provide evidence for product development. The company works with…
Fermentation platform producing renewable xylitol from agricultural waste
ARCITEKBio is an industrial biotech company developing a fermentation-based manufacturing platform for renewable xylitol production. Using engineered yeast strains, the company converts agricultural and industrial waste streams, including wheat straw, wood pulp, and brewers' by-products, into a natural low-calorie…
Speciality enzyme discovery, development, and commercial-scale manufacture
Biocatalysts is a Welsh industrial biotechnology company specialising in the discovery, development, and commercial-scale manufacture of speciality enzymes. Operating from fermentation and downstream processing facilities in Nantgarw, the company serves food and beverage, pharmaceutical, and life science industries…
Microalgae cultivation and ingredients for sustainable food and aquafeed
Algae Products International is an industrial biotechnology company cultivating and processing microalgae for food, aquaculture and nutraceutical ingredient markets. Its product range includes Spirulina biomass, phycocyanin, phycoerythrin, lipids and algae-derived proteins. Its research explores cultivation systems…
Primary cell lines and functional ingredients for cultivated meat
Quest Meat is a biotechnology company supplying primary cell lines and developing edible protein ingredients for alternative-protein production. Its catalogue includes bovine, porcine and water buffalo muscle satellite cells and adipose-derived stem cells for cultivated meat research, with quality documents and…
Oxford University spinout producing cultivated beef and pork
Ivy Farm Technologies is a company developing cultivated meat using a non-GMO cell culture process originally developed at the University of Oxford. Its Oxford pilot plant operates a 600-litre bioreactor with capacity to produce 2.8 tonnes of cultivated meat annually, with products including beef burgers, sausages and…
Functional plant proteins from agricultural co-products
Bland Company is a food biotechnology business developing functional plant proteins from underused agricultural co-products. Its process isolates proteins from plant feedstocks and modifies their properties using protein chemistry, with a focus on solubility, emulsification, foaming and moisture retention. The…
Capacitance-based biomass monitoring instruments for bioprocessing and brewing
Aber Instruments develops and manufactures online probes and instrumentation for real-time viable cell monitoring in bioprocessing and brewing applications. The company's capacitance-based technology measures live cell concentration in fermenters and bioreactors across yeast, bacterial, animal, insect and plant cell…
Precision fermentation platform producing animal-free dairy proteins
Better Dairy is a biotechnology company using precision fermentation to produce animal-free dairy proteins including casein and osteopontin. By engineering yeast to express mammalian milk proteins, the company produces bioidentical ingredients that enable food manufacturers to make dairy products without livestock.…
AI-designed serum-free cell culture media for biomanufacturing
Multus Biotechnology is a UK developer and manufacturer of serum-free, animal-component-free cell culture media and growth media ingredients. The company combines machine learning and high-throughput robotic automation to design and optimise custom media formulations for specific cell types across cultivated meat,…
Cultivated chicken meat produced from egg cells for pet food
Meatly is a cellular agriculture company producing cultivated chicken meat for the pet food industry. Using cells taken from a chicken egg, the company grows real chicken protein in bioreactors using a proprietary protein-free culture medium, without slaughter, GMOs, or antibiotics. In 2024 Meatly became the first…
Molecular farming platform producing specialty proteins from crop leaves
Kyomei is a biotechnology company developing a molecular farming platform that genetically engineers crop plants to produce high-value specialty proteins in their leaves. The company extracts these proteins from agricultural leaf waste that would otherwise be discarded at harvest. Kyomei's ingredients target food…
Engineered bacterial protein polymers for cell culture and cultivated meat
MarraBio is a biotechnology company developing engineered Caf1-based protein polymers as xeno-free, thermostable alternatives to extracellular matrix proteins and growth factors used in mammalian cell culture. Its proprietary platform enables scalable, cost-effective production of multifunctional materials that…