Brown Foods: Making 'REAL' Cow and Human Milk!

Making 'REAL' Cow and Human Milk!

Brown Foods is a Stanford, Rice University and IIT Delhi alumni venture creating UnReal Milk - 'real milk' made using mammalian cell culture, AI enabled. They are the world's 1st company to produce cow-free whole milk in lab (Forbes). Targeting the $700 billion dairy market and $22 billion alternate dairy market with UnReal Milk - which could be converted into butter, cheese, ice-creams etc. and has taste and texture exactly like conventional dairy - unlike any of the plant based milks like oat milk or soy milk. Also, no animal cruelty and 82% lower carbon foot-print! Using the same technology, they have also created real human milk targeting the $80 billion infant formula market. And who knows if adults also start drinking human milk in future!

Active Founders

Sohail Gupta

Founder

A Stanford alumnus and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi graduate; Patent holder; 9+ years of work exp. in food and healthcare across India, USA and Middle East (with global brands like Starbucks) and was building the world's 1st personalised food brand recently. His experience as a vegetarian and his spouse's struggle with milk during pregnancy led him to UnReal Milk - leveraging his synthetic biology education, Bio-design training at Stanford and several years of business experience.

Sohail Gupta

Founder

A Stanford alumnus and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi graduate; Patent holder; 9+ years of work exp. in food and healthcare across India, USA and Middle East (with global brands like Starbucks) and was building the world's 1st personalised food brand recently. His experience as a vegetarian and his spouse's struggle with milk during pregnancy led him to UnReal Milk - leveraging his synthetic biology education, Bio-design training at Stanford and several years of business experience.

Avhijeet Kapoor

Founder

A passionate bioengineer, always eager to tackle tech hurdles and challenge dogma! Trained in Biotechnology with minors in Computer Science at IIT Delhi; worked at Harvard and CEA Paris; and experienced with control systems and reactor design for robust bioprocess systems. Has additional experience in business consulting for food and healthcare companies such as Epigamia, Novartis, Milkbasket etc., along with a rich perspective on understanding end consumers.

Avhijeet Kapoor

Founder

A passionate bioengineer, always eager to tackle tech hurdles and challenge dogma! Trained in Biotechnology with minors in Computer Science at IIT Delhi; worked at Harvard and CEA Paris; and experienced with control systems and reactor design for robust bioprocess systems. Has additional experience in business consulting for food and healthcare companies such as Epigamia, Novartis, Milkbasket etc., along with a rich perspective on understanding end consumers.

Bhavna Tandon

Founder

A graduate of Rice University and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi; molecular biology and biochemistry PhD with 3+ years experience working as a scientist on cell culture and model organisms; 6 published papers in internationally recognized journals; passionate about leveraging technology to combat climate change

Bhavna Tandon

Founder

A graduate of Rice University and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi; molecular biology and biochemistry PhD with 3+ years experience working as a scientist on cell culture and model organisms; 6 published papers in internationally recognized journals; passionate about leveraging technology to combat climate change

UnReal Human Milk! 🍼 👶

Why? - Lactation Issues in Women are at an all-time High!

Every year around 85 million women globally struggle with breast feeding in some way or the other. The existing infant formulas are largely based on cow milk which naturally lacks several essential components of human milk like lactoferrin, HMOs etc. which are critical for the nutrition of the baby. Recently there was one of the biggest recalls in history of infant formula in Dec 2025, with a similar recall in US in 2022 which led to sudden shortage of infant formulas and left parents extremely worried and vulnerable. To circumvent such incidents we need more clean-label innovation in this space to create better and more robust solutions for infant nutrition.

What and How? - Harnessing Biology Responsibly!

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🚀 🚀 Huge Breakthrough - We have been able to secrete Real Human Milk in lab!!! We have validated all proteins by independent third party testing and have also tested for fats and carbohydrates to create a basic version of real human milk. By using mammalian cell culture we have designed a system to produce human milk in lab with a macronutrient focus currently. We are a Stanford, Rice University and IIT Delhi alumni team with backgrounds across biotechnology, business and innovation, determined to make a huge impact by using technology and leveraging recent advances in understanding of biological systems. This breakthrough leverages our extensive work on cow milk (Forbes) as we add this new product to our pipeline - UnReal Human Milk.

More Exciting Stuff! - Why should human adults drink cow’s milk and not human milk?

Until now we had no way to mass produce human milk so we resorted to drinking cow milk since we could keep the poor cows in captivity to produce as much milk as needed. But now with our standardised scalable approach to creating human milk maybe we can move everyone across the planet from drinking cow milk to human milk. Think human milk ice-creams and human milk cheeses - the opportunities are huge!

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Reach-out to us at sohail@brownfoods.in if you want to collaborate, invest or partner with us on this journey.

Thank you!

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