We make cheese that melts, bubbles and stretches just like cheese from animals. Ours just happens to start with plants instead of animals. We take advantage of a plant’s natural ability to make protein and teach it to make a milk protein, called casein, which is the protein responsible for giving cheese its stretchy, melty, and texture qualities. And, we work with farmers to grow our plants in sun drenched soil. Picture endless rows of plants growing in an open field and that’s where our cheese comes from. We then harvest the plants, separate out the casein and make cheese from it the same way many cheeses are made.
We make our cheese in a similar way to how you would make cheese from any milk, but we start from a different source. Instead of relying on the cows to produce the milk protein casein, we use the natural ability of plants to produce proteins to also produce dairy proteins. We work with farmers to grow and harvest our plants.
Our cheese tastes, melts and stretches, just like cheese made from animals. This is because we are using plant-grown milk proteins called casein. Plant-based cheeses on the market today do not contain casein.
Nobell came from the idea of producing cheese without the cow, hence “no cow bell” became “Nobell”.
Yes, we are animal free. We use plants to make dairy proteins, not animals. Plants have the same ability as animals to produce protein and we are harnessing this ability. Our products are not suitable for people with a milk allergy; however our products can be consumed by people with lactose intolerance.
Delicious, stretchy, gooey, heavenly cheeses.
We are pioneering a new category in food that harnesses a plant’s natural ability to grow proteins and teaches them to grow the same proteins that are found in animals. We work with farmers to grow our seeds and then harvest those seeds to make food.
We make our cheese in a similar way to how you would make cheese from any animal milk, but we start from a different source. We work with farmers to grow plants in sun drenched soil. We then make a plant-milk by harvesting soybeans that produce casein, the key protein that makes cheese melt and stretch. Using this plant-milk, we make cheese by adding other ingredients like salt, sugars, cultures, and plant-based fats.
Plants make their own proteins naturally. We simply harness that natural ability and teach our plants how to also produce milk proteins. We then work with farmers to plant and grow our seeds into fully grown soybeans. We take those soybeans and crush them down and separate out the casein protein from the Soy protein. It’s important to note that our cheese will contain Soy protein. So if you have an allergy to Soy or Milk, you should not eat our products.
Casein is the main protein in milk that is responsible for giving cheese its melt and stretch. Plant-based cheeses on the market today do not contain casein and are thus not able to achieve the same properties as the animal alternative. Our cheese is made from a plant-grown casein that allows us to make gooey, stretchy, melty cheese.
We are on a mission to harness the power of plants to create the most sin-dripping, delicious and indulgent animal-free cheeses.
But, why? Why, in all that is good would we ever try to mess with the heavenly gift of cheese might you ask? It’s pretty simple … we are doing it for the planet … and our stomachs.
But, despite the fact that almost 70% of the population has some form of a lactose intolerance (our digestive system doesn’t make enough of the enzyme lactase that allows our bodies to break down and absorb lactose), and traditional animal dairy production accounts for 4% (FAO Dairy LCA) of total greenhouse gas emissions we don’t expect people to change their behaviors. Few will eat less cheese … even if the fate of our planet hangs in the balance. The world would riot in the streets before giving up their melty, stretchy, gooey cheese. (we promise we aren’t this pessimistic in person, just on these two sentences in our FAQ’s)
To save cheese we needed to create an animal-free cheese that melts, stretches and tastes like the animal-alternative AND is equal in price to commodity cheese. A great tasting cheese that no one could afford wouldn’t create real impact, but actually continue to perpetuate climate inequality. To achieve both taste and cost, we had to create a new food technology platform, we call Plant Grown Proteins. So we started Nobell. Our team of scientists have figured out how to use a plant’s natural ability to make proteins to also grow dairy proteins at a scale that can compete with commodity priced dairy products*. (*once we reach full scale)
While we haven’t completed a life-cycle assessment analysis yet, the carbon emissions numbers are similar to that of soy milk, which is less than one third of the emissions of cow’s milk. (Our World in Data).
No, because we use the same milk protein (casein) in our product as animal-derived cheese but our casein is made by plants and not animals.
No, our cheese contains soy.
Yes! We use plant sugars in our cheese instead of lactose.
Yes, our cheese is gluten-free.
All cheeses are inherently processed. Anything you do to change a food's original form constitutes processing, including cooking, heating, freezing, dicing, juicing, and what all cheeses go through which is a fermentation process. What is important to look at is how the processing changes the nutritional composition of a product or what ingredients are included in those products. We combine only the best ingredients and we minimize the use of unnecessary additives to make our delicious cheese.
Yes, we proudly and responsibly use genetic modification to teach plants how to grow proteins. However, our crops are not grown using Roundup. We use this technology to remove the cow from the equation in order to reduce water consumption, land usage and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. GMOs are an extremely studied, regulated, and safe technology that has been used for decades and proven to be safe, and many foods today contain GMOs. We need every single tool to tackle climate change and address food insecurity, and genetic modification can create benefits that include: crops that are high in anti-inflammatory compounds or antioxidants; plants that are drought resistant or can withstand floods or frost and even extend the shelf life of certain crops to reduce food waste. And now, plants that can produce cheese!
Please contact Tom Stoddard at grow@nobellseeds.com to learn more.
