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Image courtesy of Motif Foodworks
A Boston-based startup that developing improvements to plant-based foods leased a former biomanufacturing facility in Northborough for three new pilot production plants.
Motif Foodworks will occupy 65,000 square feet at 30 Bearfoot Road by the end of 2022. The new market development center is being built out with three pilot plants for fermentation, ingredient and finished products, spokeswoman Julia Dacri said. Products from the site will be used for consumer sampling and validation of production techniques before the launch to large-scale clients.
The company was spun off from Boston-based Ginkgo Bioworks in 2019 and has raised $345 million in venture capital funding, including a $226-million series B round in June 2021. In December, the company announced the commercial launch of its Hemami yeast-based protein which it says improves the taste of plant-based products such as burgers and sausages.
Motif also has a headquarters office-lab facility at 27 Drydock Ave. in Boston, which will remain open.
The 64,736-square-foot Northborough property formerly occupied by GlaxoSmithKline is being renovated for a conversion from GMP manufacturing space.
Cushman & Wakefield’s Rob Byrne and Jim Murphy represented Motif FoodWorks in the lease transaction. JLL’s Sam Crossan, Don Domoretsky and Rob Walles represented owner McCord Properties.
“With a rapidly growing food-tech portfolio, we were looking at spaces that would provide a comfortable and creative environment for our employees, as well as the infrastructure to meet our research and pilot production needs,” Motif Foodworks CEO Jonathan McIntyre said in a statement.
Houston-based McCord bought 30 Bearfoot Road in 2020 for $3.35 million from Alexandria Real Estate Equities as its first Boston-area acquisition, and opened a Boston-area office led by Partner Quentin Hart.
