We are an ingredient company, not a consumer brand
Opalia was founded in Montreal in 2024 by Jennifer Côté and Marcus Delacroix after years of work on mammalian cell culture in pharmaceutical and food research contexts. We supply functional dairy proteins from mammary cell culture to food manufacturers formulating in the dairy-alternative and functional nutrition space.
The functional gap between dairy and plant proteins is a real formulation problem
Dairy proteins do things plant proteins cannot: form stable casein micelles, produce consistent acid gels, withstand pasteurization without aggregating. These properties are not marketing claims; they are structural consequences of the proteins' specific amino acid sequences and folding. We built Opalia because we believed the right technical answer to the formulation gap was to make the actual proteins, not to ask plant fractions to be something they are not.
People who have built bioprocesses before
Jennifer Côté
CEO and Co-Founder
Her background is in mammalian cell biology, with years of work characterizing and optimizing cell culture systems for high-yield protein secretion in pharmaceutical and food research contexts. She co-founded Opalia to apply that cell culture depth to food-grade ingredient production and leads commercial development and formulation partnerships.
Marcus Delacroix
CTO and Co-Founder
His work centers on bioprocess engineering and bioreactor design, with hands-on experience building and operating cell-culture systems from bench scale through pilot manufacturing volumes. At Opalia, he designed the AI control layer that monitors and adjusts media composition, gas flow, and feeding schedules in real time.
Dr. Priya Nair
Head of Protein Science
Her specialty is protein biochemistry and downstream purification, with focused work on dairy protein functionality and what food-grade specification development actually demands. She developed the purification protocols that achieve consistent food-grade purity from mammary cell-culture output and leads the protein specification and quality program at Opalia.
We are looking for formulation partners
Our early-access program is structured around technical collaboration: qualified food manufacturers receive pilot quantities of BC-1 and work directly with our formulation team to evaluate performance in their specific application. We share testing data and iterate the specification together.