Clean Food Group raises £4.5M to scale yeast-derived oils and fats from food waste

UK biotech manufacturer Clean Food Group (CFG) has raised £4.5 million in investment led by Clean Growth Fund and New Agrarian.  CFG has also successfully secured a £700,000 non-dilutive grant from Innovate UK, which further improves the Company’s financial position. 

Clean Food Group enables a more sustainable and resilient global food system by  producing essential oils and fats through fermentation, using food waste feedstocks and scalable  microbial production. 

Founded in 2022 after eight years of pioneering research, CFG manufactures its oils and fats from food waste, leveraging scalable yeast strains and fermentation technology to deliver sustainable alternatives to traditional oil and fat ingredients. 

With the manufacturing process now validated at scale and significantly bolstered by the transformational acquisition of a 1 million litre fermentation facility in Knowsley, Liverpool, in 2025, CFG has strategic and industrial collaborations in place with leading global FMCG and ingredients manufacturers and has a strong demand pipeline for its products. 

In 2025, its  CleanOil™ 25 product received approval to be used as a cosmetics ingredient in the UK, US and  Europe. 

According to Tom Ellen, Chief Financial Officer of Clean Food Group, 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.” 

Rodrigo Hortega de Velasco, Managing Partner at Döhler Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Döhler Group, commented: 

“CFG has  consistently demonstrated both the strength of its technology and the commercial potential of  its sustainable oils and fats platform.”

According to Jim Mellon, Chairman and Founder of New Agrarian, 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 uses scalable science and technology to build genuine resilience and sustainability into how we produce and source key ingredients for 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."