Forever Harvest: Growing the future of fruit and nut ingredients

Bioeconomy Science Institute spin-out Forever Harvest is developing a new way to grow fruit and nut ingredients, using plant cell cultivation to develop climate-resilient, year-round supply for the global food industry.

Forever Harvest is pioneering cellular horticulture – growing specific fruit and nut cells in a lab instead of growing whole trees or plants. The technology allows the company to produce ingredients with targeted flavours, nutrients and functional properties, that can be used on their own or incorporated into other products. This means that fruit and nut ingredients could be produced at scale with a much smaller environmental footprint and without being limited by seasons or changing growing conditions.

For co-founder Mick Riley, who stepped out of a commercialisation role at the Bioeconomy Science Institute (BSI) to launch the company, the opportunity felt impossible to ignore.

Forever Harvest co-founder Mick Riley

The extensive research underpinning Forever Harvest spanned three workstreams and was developed over five years at Plant & Food Research (now part of BSI). PreSeed Accelerator Funding from KiwiNet was critical for helping the team develop the most commercially promising elements of the research – giving co-founder Dr Jan Grant time to advance the science while Mick focused on customer conversations and testing market demand.

“Without PreSeed support, the technology would have taken much longer to be shaped up for commercial application. The funding allowed the team to focus on the parts of the project with genuine commercial potential and work out where the market opportunity was,” says Mick.

A selection of cells grown using cellular horticulture by Forever Harvest.

Forever Harvest also participated in KiwiNet’s Spin-out Programme, which provided practical support as the team prepared to form the company and become investor ready.

KiwiNet corporate partner Avid Legal helped the team navigate licensing and investment agreements, while commercial mentor Scott Wright provided an independent sounding board with his deep ingredients-sector experience.

“When you leave the research environment, suddenly it becomes very real. You’re making decisions about budgets, legal agreements, and milestones – and it can feel like you’re doing it on your own,” says Mick.

“The Spin-out Programme made that process much less overwhelming. Having an experienced mentor in my corner also made a huge difference.”

Forever Harvest has now secured a $1.2 million pre-seed funding round led by Sprout Agritech, enabling expansion of its portfolio of fruit and nut cell lines and continued pilot-scale production.

The company has already commenced a collaboration with a global food brand to explore commercial applications of its technology. The team is now focused on deepening engagement with a range of multinational food and ingredient companies as they work towards their ambition of building more resilient global fruit and nut supply chains.