I was always fascinated with that replicator on Star Trek that generated food out of thin air, although it seemed like a far-off idea (and against the rules of the Harry Potter universe…) But that is rather how I feel about ‘precision fermentation’, a technology which is attracting ever larger amounts of investors’ money these days to make cheese and dairy products – but not in the ways we’ve done in the past. These cheeses and butters are made without cows.

Essentially, it means using proteins and cells to make meat and dairy products. And while I had been following the developments in meat and seafood, I hadn’t realized how much was happening in the dairy sector until I spent a chunk of the weekend reading about it.

There was a raft of stories this past week about the record amount of money that Berlin-based startup Formo, which makes cultured mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, raised from investors interested in environmentally friendly dairy alternatives.