Day One

• Highlighting the technical, economic, and regulatory hurdles facing fermentation-enabled proteins today
• Examining the infrastructure, scaling, and collaborative shifts needed to make the industry viable
• Addressing consumer perception, transparency, and expectations to drive adoption of new protein innovations

• Addressing major cost drivers including feedstock, yield, productivity, and process innovations
• Unpacking how small cost decisions aggregate
• Understanding how compliance, regulation, and process realities influence costs and strategic decisions

A fast-paced, face-to-face networking session designed to ensure you leave with a direct connection to every expert in the room. Meet leading CPGs, ingredient innovators, food-tech platforms, and researchers in a structured format that makes exchanging business cards effortless, so conversations on science, regulatory strategy, and commercialization can continue long after the event.

• Examining the main challenges in using publicly available data and trained AI models for strain engineering
• Collecting proprietary datasets to increase the accuracy of model yield predictions
• Developing a repeatable experimental-computational pipeline for strain discovery

Overcoming key strain-engineering challenges, including genetic stability, optimize protein folding, silent mutations, and precise gene expression control, to enable robust, high-performance production strains

Predicting protein functionality early using AI-powered models to reduce downstream reformulation and application risk

Leverage novel fermenter monitoring approaches to link expression, yield, and purification efficiency with iterative strain development

• Determining the critical physical and chemical properties that denote molecular functionality and mimic the real protein
• Engineering strains to replicate these characteristics
• Complementing rational design with artificial intelligence to accelerate development

• Designing integrated bioprocess and downstream workflows that deliver consistent protein quality and purity across different CMOs and facility configurations
• Adapting processes and equipment to existing infrastructure to minimize capital expenditure while maintaining robust, scalable operations
• Driving cost reduction without compromising product specifications, by aligning process design, downstream strategy, and equipment flexibility
• Avoiding costly facility retrofits by designing processes that work within real-world manufacturing constraints rather than idealized plant designs

• Evaluating purification technologies across different protein categories (biofunctional, food functional, and meat alternatives/biomass)
• Optimizing equipment and workflows to ensure high-quality, functional end products
• Mitigating protein degradation, off-flavors, and other biochemical challenges to preserve product performance

• Highlighting emerging industry collaborations that integrate side-stream feedstocks into fermentation systems
• Examining microbial strain engineering and fermentation strategies tailored for variable input streams
• Evaluating end-use applications and performance of upcycled fermentation-derived proteins and co-products across food systems

• Converting industrial byproducts into high-value ingredients
• Maximizing value from side streams through AI-guided bioprocess design and downstream optimization
• Assessing cross-sector utilization pathways for fermentation outputs beyond food, including feed, agriculture, and materials