Scaling an Alternative Meat Company to 100x Capacity

Context

An alternative meat company that had just raised funding was making their product in small lab-scale fermenters. The low-production capacity was inhibiting the achievement of their full commercial potential. They connected with the Next Rung team to gain momentum and clarity towards commercial expansion. Faced with a need to add a new fermenter system in just six months, they reached out to Next Rung Technology for help in rapidly locating options and executing on their expansion.

Process

• Project Management and Development, Capital Cost Estimation

  The process started with the Next Rung team breaking down the path to commercialization into discrete steps that would guide effective execution with clear stage-gate deliverables.

  We mapped out the economic and technical aspects of execution based on a plant designs and a techno-economic analysis model, then tied them to deadlines that would ensure accountability. This included capital cost estimating as well as process design review and optimization.

  At the time, the client company was only 4-6 people, had no whiteboards, and the project plan was drawn on a conference room window.

  To maintain clear and open communication and stay on target with the defined schedule the Next Rung team set up and facilitated weekly meetings with the client. They used these meetings to proactively address issues in process development, construction, and contractor management before they became large obstacles that took the project off timeline.

• EPC Qualification + Owners Engineer

  Next Rung used the project plan to guide the qualification and selection process for EPC contractors. We helped select the best contractor that was within budget and had the technical capabilities to execute a successful project. We used an effective outreach process, defining all of the commercial terms for each step of onboarding a contractor. Then we took lead and executed smoothly on a process that very often takes too long and goes over budget for small tech companies.

  Next Rung worked with the selected EPC contractor to ensure they were executing efficiently against the project plan defined with the client’s overall goals for the project.

• Process Design

  NRT worked with the client and their existing process flow diagram to build out a detailed mass balance and PFD that would be used as a tool for sizing process equipment and evaluating utilities consumption and waste streams for the scale up process. From this Next Rung developed a piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) to define process controls and identify piping design, materials, instruments and valves.

• Equipment Procurement + Technical Specialist

  Next Rung led the equipment procurement process, taking advantage of deep industry knowledge to develop equipment specifications and requests for proposals. NRT worked with the client’s team and contractor to manage the vendor outreach and bidding process to make the right equipment selection that was within budget and schedule. Additionally a process engineer on the Next Rung team was always available to troubleshoot and provide technical support.

Outcomes

After working with Next Rung Technology, the client company was able to scale up their production to:

• 1000L – 5000L per batch in the lab

• 100,000L in a commercial demonstration plant currently in construction.

The scale-up and commercialization was completed within the specified timeline, and the project engineer came in $100,000 under budget.