Clean Food Group to produce yeast-derived oils via fermentation at industrial scale
This article covers Clean Food Group, a foodtech startup, raising £4.5m in a growth funding round led by Clean Growth Fund and New Agrarian, alongside a non-dilutive £700k Innovate UK grant to commission a newly acquired one million-litre fermentation facility in Knowsley, Liverpool. The funding is intended to expand production and accelerate commercial rollout of yeast-derived oils and fats for food, cosmetics and pet nutrition, supporting manufacturers and brands seeking locally produced, lower-impact ingredients and strengthening UK manufacturing capacity.
Clean Food Group, a foodtech startup, has raised £4.5 million in a growth funding round led by Clean Growth Fund and New Agrarian, with an additional non-dilutive £700,000 grant from Innovate UK. The funding will be used to complete the startup of Clean Food Group’s newly acquired one million-litre fermentation facility in Knowsley, Liverpool, expand production and accelerate commercial rollout of yeast-derived oils and fats for food, cosmetics and pet nutrition.
Why it matters
The Knowsley facility positions the business to produce yeast-derived oils and fats at industrial scale, a capability that could shift some supply away from environmentally sensitive tropical and agricultural oil chains. The wider market for sustainable food ingredients is large and growing: the global sustainable food market was valued at US$315 billion in 2024 and is forecast to reach US$524 billion by 2032. For manufacturers and brands seeking locally produced, lower-impact inputs, larger-scale fermentation production removes some of the capacity and logistics constraints that have limited adoption to date.
The funding and facility acquisition are a concrete step toward localised ingredient production rather than a proof of concept, which matters for buyers and regulators focused on supply chain resilience and lower carbon footprints.
Inside the product
Clean Food Group uses a proprietary fermentation platform to produce functional oils and fats from microbes. The company says it can run the process on food-waste feedstocks and scale microbial production to deliver ingredients with the functional properties required by food producers, cosmetics manufacturers and pet nutrition brands.
Operationally, the one million-litre Knowsley site is intended to enable commercial-scale manufacture rather than lab or pilot output. The company highlights functionality and sustainability as dual objectives: producing oils that meet technical specifications while reducing reliance on imported tropical oils and long supply chains.
Who are the investors?
The £4.5 million round is led by Clean Growth Fund and New Agrarian. Existing shareholders that continue to support the business include institutional investor SEED Innovations and Döhler Group, whose strategic investment arm Döhler Ventures has been involved in the company’s development and commercial partnerships.
Döhler Group is an international ingredients and solutions provider; its involvement signals a route to commercial customers and industrial know-how in ingredient formulation and scale manufacturing. New Agrarian, chaired by Jim Mellon, is an investor focused on agricultural and food-system resilience. Innovate UK’s £700,000 grant is non-dilutive public backing aimed at accelerating the company’s technology deployment.
Rodrigo Hortega de Velasco, Managing Partner at Döhler Ventures, commented:
We are pleased to support Clean Food Group in this latest funding round and proud to have been part of the Company’s startup journey to date. CFG has consistently demonstrated both the strength of its technology and the commercial potential of its sustainable oils and fats platform. The acquisition of the Knowsley facility marks a significant milestone, enabling production at a scale that brings these innovative products closer to widespread commercial reality. We look forward to continuing our collaboration as CFG advances towards full-scale market deployment.
Jim Mellon, Chairman and Founder of New Agrarian, added:
Supply chain fragility is one of the defining risks of our time. War, climate volatility, and trade disputes are presenting a huge challenge to manufacturers; the ingredients we assumed would always be available are no longer guaranteed. Clean Food Group is addressing this problem head-on, using scalable science and technology to build genuine resilience and sustainability into the way we produce and source key ingredients used in everything from food to cosmetics. For me, this sits at a rare intersection: a compelling investment case and a genuine solution to one of the most pressing challenges of our generation.
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Founder perspective
Tom Ellen, Chief Financial Officer of Clean Food Group, framed the funding as validation of the company’s progress and the opportunity ahead.
Tom Ellen, Chief Financial Officer of Clean Food Group, said:
We are extremely pleased to have the continued support of Clean Growth Fund and a new partner in New Agrarian, two highly respected specialist investors in sustainable food and industrial biotechnology.
Their support, together with the Innovate grant, represents a strong endorsement of Clean Food Group’s significant progress and the scale of the opportunity ahead. The capital raised will enable the Company to bring on stream the world’s largest yeast-derived oils and fats facility and to deliver on our long-term vision for sustainable food manufacturing.
The comment underlines that the immediate priority for the proceeds is commissioning and scaling production at Knowsley, and moving toward market deployment with commercial partners.
The bigger picture
The deal sits at the intersection of several trends in the UK and European food system: greater investor interest in biomanufacturing and alternative ingredients, public funding to de-risk industrial adoption of novel technologies, and commercial partnerships between ingredient makers and large food manufacturers to secure supply. Döhler Group’s ongoing involvement illustrates how industrial partners can de-risk route-to-market for fermentation‑derived ingredients.
Public and private backing for manufacturing-scale demonstrations remains a key bottleneck for many foodtech companies. Innovate UK grants plus venture capital can crowd in industry partners and help bridge that gap, but companies still face regulatory, cost and customer adoption challenges as they scale.
Clean Food Group’s move to industrial fermentation capacity in the UK is one example of the manufacturing-focused investments emerging in the sector. If the Knowsley site reaches planned throughput and secures customer contracts, it could strengthen the case for more local production of specialty oils across Europe and reduce dependence on longer, more fragile supply chains.
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