Climax  is introducing its first “zero-compromise” plant-based products to select audiences in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco after two years of rigorous research and development, while simultaneously building out production facilities for an early 2023 launch date with select distribution partners to be announced soon.

Climax’s “moonshot products,” which include cultured and aged Blue, Brie, Feta, and Chèvre cheeses, are made with sustainably cultivated plant ingredients and have the same taste, nutrition, and price as dairy cheeses.

Zahn founded Climax after more than a decade as a science leader. He was born and bred in Bavaria, Germany, and has a special fondness for its animal farming heritage. He earned his doctorate at Harvard and later managed UC Berkeley’s Center for Cosmological Physics with two Nobel laureates. After years of researching the complexities of space and time, his ambition to promote positive global change led him to work as a data scientist and thought leader at Google, SpaceX, and Impossible Foods before founding Climax in 2020.

Climax turned a historic chocolate factory in Berkeley, CA into cutting-edge laboratories after raising the largest seed round ever for a food tech firm. Since then, the companies’ 40 experts have integrated molecular-level knowledge of animal products with exclusive plant knowledge.

Climax is also constructing a production hub for its cheeses as well as a pilot facility for proprietary ingredients in Petaluma, California, to capitalize on its quick product creation capability. Caroline Di Giusto, a seasoned expert in worldwide dairy cheese invention and manufacturing, is in charge of commercialization activities. Di Giusto formerly led production at the oldest cheese company in the United States after gaining substantial R&D experience with some of France’s major dairy corporations.