Brown Foods of Boston said it has managed to make milk in a laboratory and is hoping to open factories in India and the United States.
According to its founders, UnReal Milk is produced using mammalian cell culture— replicating the nutrition, taste, and texture of traditional dairy.
It can be processed into butter, cheese, and ice cream, offering a lower-carbon, humane alternative to conventional milk. Brown Foods claims its production method slashes carbon emissions by 82 per cent, water use by 90 per cent and land use by 95 per cent without relying on livestock.
“The future of food faces significant challenges,” said Sohail Gupta, co-founder and chief executive officer of Brown Foods; his partners are Bhavna Tandon and Avhijeet Kapoor.
It raised $2.36 million in seed funding from investors including Y Combinator, AgFunder, SRI Capital, Amino Capital, and Collaborative Fund.
It will be competing with a number of other innovators.
Remilk and Perfect Day are using precision fermentation to produce dairy-identical proteins, but not complete milk.
Senara, a German startup, is growing cell-cultured mammary cells in partnership with dairy farmers, blending biotechnology with traditional milk production.
Wilk, an Israeli venture, focuses on producing cultured milk fats, used in making cheese and yogurt.
These approaches contrast with UnReal Milk, which is taking a fully lab-based route, aiming to replicate whole cow’s milk without relying on livestock or traditional dairy systems.
The National Milk Producers Federation has asked the Food and Drug Administration to ban precision fermentation startups from labeling their products as “milk”, citing regulatory standards.
