Food, Reprogrammed: Cell Agriculture & the New Era of Biomanufacturing
Overview
Explore how cell agriculture and biomanufacturing are transforming food, and what it takes to move breakthroughs from lab to market.
Food, Reprogrammed is a Two-Part Virtual Series
Session 1: Wednesday, October 21 | 11:30 AM–12:30 PM ET
Session 2: Wednesday, November 4 | 11:30 AM–12:30 PM ET
One registration provides access to both sessions.
Branchfood is partnering with Business Location Switzerland to bring together entrepreneurs, scientists, manufacturers, investors, and industry leaders at the forefront of cell agriculture and food biomanufacturing.
From cultivated meat and seafood to fermentation-derived proteins, novel ingredients, and the infrastructure required to produce them at scale, a new generation of technologies is expanding the possibilities for food production. But moving from scientific breakthrough to commercially viable product requires much more than biology, it demands advances in manufacturing, infrastructure, economics, regulation, and market adoption.
Food, Reprogrammed will explore both sides of that equation: the technologies creating entirely new ways to make food, and the systems needed to bring those innovations out of the lab and into the market.
Whether you're developing, manufacturing, investing in, sourcing, or simply tracking the future of food, join us for a look inside one of the industry's most rapidly evolving frontiers across Switzerland, The United States, and around the world.
Session 1 - Biology as the New Food Factory
Wednesday, October 21, 2026 - 11:30AM - 12:30PM ET on ZOOM
What happens when cells and microorganisms become tools for producing the foods and ingredients traditionally supplied by farms, animals, and global commodity chains?
This session explores the rapidly expanding world of cell agriculture and food biomanufacturing, from cultivated meat and seafood to fermentation-derived proteins and novel ingredients. We'll hear from companies using different biological platforms to rethink how food is produced and examine where the science and technology are heading next.
Rather than focusing on a single technology, the conversation will compare approaches across the emerging biomanufacturing landscape: what each can uniquely enable, where the biggest technical challenges remain, and how these platforms could reshape food production over the next decade.
Key Topics Include:
Cultivated meat, seafood, and other cell-based food technologies
Precision fermentation and next-generation proteins and ingredients
Advances in cell lines, media, scaffolding, bioprocessing, and formulation
Where different biomanufacturing platforms converge and where they differ
The next scientific and technological breakthroughs needed to move the field forward
Who Should Attend:
Food scientists, R&D teams, biotech leaders, startup founders, researchers, investors, ingredient companies, corporate innovation teams, and anyone interested in the technologies reshaping how food is made.
Session 2 - From Breakthrough to Scale: Building the Biomanufacturing Ecosystem
Wednesday, November 4, 2026 - 11:30AM - 12:30PM ET on ZOOM
Scientific breakthroughs may start in the lab, but transforming them into food produced at commercial scale requires an entirely different set of capabilities.
This session shifts the conversation from what is technically possible to what it takes to make it commercially possible. We'll examine the infrastructure, equipment, partnerships, capital, regulatory pathways, and manufacturing strategies required to move cell agriculture and food biotech from R&D through pilot production and ultimately to market.
As companies navigate the difficult transition from proof-of-concept to scalable manufacturing, new models are emerging from shared infrastructure and specialized production facilities to strategic partnerships and distributed manufacturing platforms. This conversation will explore what's working, where bottlenecks remain, and what a mature food biomanufacturing ecosystem could look like.
Key Topics Include:
Scaling from laboratory and pilot production to commercial manufacturing
Bioreactors, equipment, facilities, and shared biomanufacturing infrastructure
Cost reduction and the path toward economically competitive production
Partnerships between startups, manufacturers, ingredient companies, and established food companies
Regulatory readiness and commercialization pathways
Capital requirements and investment models for scaling infrastructure
What the food biomanufacturing ecosystem still needs to reach maturity
Who Should Attend:
Startup founders, biomanufacturing and operations leaders, food and ingredient companies, investors, equipment providers, economic development organizations, researchers, corporate innovation teams, and anyone working to translate food biotech innovation into commercial production.
