Mars and EIT Food announce winner of the Reimagining Pet Nutrition: Sustainable & Engineered Fat Solutions Challenge

Mars, a global leader in pet care products and services, and EIT Food have announced the winner of the Reimagining Pet Nutrition: Sustainable & Engineered Fat Solutions Challenge, an open innovation initiative seeking breakthrough technologies to help transform the future of pet nutrition. The challenge focused on identifying innovative fat solutions - including fermentation-derived, plant-based, novel and engineered lipids - intended to reduce the environmental footprint of pet food while maintaining ingredient performance and cost competitiveness with conventional animal fats.

Following a competitive selection process, six promising startups and innovators were shortlisted and invited to present their solutions. After evaluation by experts from Mars and EIT Food, Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant was selected as the winner. They will receive $20,000 to develop proof-of-concept studies to explore and validate potential engineered fat solutions.

Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant specialises in the conversion of renewable feedstocks into biobased materials. Biobased materials are made from biological, renewable resources - examples include plant-based plastics, cellulose-based materials or materials made from agricultural waste - that can offer alternatives to fossil-based materials such as traditional plastics and synthetic fibres.

Their state-of-the-art facility provides process development, scale-up and custom manufacturing and offers a broad portfolio of production technologies, combined with the expertise of highly skilled engineers and technicians, to enable the scaling of innovative laboratory methods for industrial use.

The challenge reflects the shared commitment of Mars and EIT Food to accelerate innovation across the pet food value chain and support technologies that could advance pet food systems with a lower environmental footprint and deliver high-quality nutrition.