🎥Biomass fermentation in focus at MISTA growth hack: ‘The food of the future is going to be manufactured in a tank’

Biomass fermentation—which is used to produce everything from mycoprotein to DHA-packed animal feed supplements—is generally cheaper than precision fermentation because firms are harvesting the whole biomass, and skipping costly downstream processing steps needed to extract highly purified ingredients.

So where are the biggest opportunities for this technology, which spans algae, fungi, bacteria, yeast, and plant cells rich in protein, lipids, fibers and micronutrients? And are big CPG companies buying into the opportunity?

 ‘Ingredients that can compete in the market today with animal and plant-based protein’

To explore the potential of biomass fermentation, MISTA, a food innovation platform created by flavors & fragrances giant Givaudan bringing together corporates and early-stage companies, recently hosted a “growth hack” featuring 14 foodtech startups and MISTA members Danone, CJ CheilJedang, AAK, Ingredion, Givaudan, Bühler, SIG, and JPG Resources.

The parties spent several days working together at MISTA’s Innovation Center in San Francisco and Givaudan’s Zurich Innovation Centre in Kemptthal, Switzerland, to create prototypes featuring a wide range of ingredients produced via biomass fermentation from high-protein cookies featuring ‘postbiotic’ bacterial protein to mango lassi featuring chlorella.

“The participating startups were selected because each is building unique technologies to leverage the benefits of a broad range of organisms, approaches and carbon feedstocks from sugar to agricultural side streams, to CO2,” Dr. Céline Schiff-Deb, chief science officer at MISTA, told AgFunderNews.

“We chose biomass fermentation because we were looking at something that can really, truly disrupt the food system by bringing ingredients that can compete in the market today with animal and plant-based protein.

“Biomass fermentation can be produced between $1.50-$10/kilo, but right now, the problem is the scale [of production] is pretty small, although I’m super hopeful about [the economics at scale]. Our role here is to open the eyes to the whole food industry about what’s coming and what’s possible.”

“We believe that biomass fermentation has huge potential in the food system when you think about creating great nutrition, when you think about great taste, but more importantly, the ability to scale, not just in one location, but in many locations. So when we think about a decentralized food system, which we have to move to, this technology is going to be that major unlock.” Scott May, founder, MISTA

‘We need to get off of our addiction to sugar [as the feedstock for fermentation]’

As for feedstocks for microbes, said Schiff-Deb, “What we see is many different ways of using gases [rather than sugars], either directly or indirectly, so we heard today examples of people using CO2 to make an intermediary, either a sugar or an acetate, that could then be fed to microbes. So we see a lot of promise in that space.

“What’s difficult is that a lot of the technologies [around gas fermentation] are new. To be able to put different gases into a liquid, you need to create some type of new agitation or distribution, and that often requires a new fermenter design, and that can be expensive.”

Dr. Zane Starkewolfe, cofounder at Optimized Foods, argued that more work is also needed to explore food industry side streams as carbon sources for fermentation: “How do we get off of our addiction to sugar as a feedstock? The difficulty is that functionally, it’s really challenging to implement new side stream utilization. So, for example, there are billions of pounds of almond hulls that are full of sugar right here in California, but then you’ve got to think about the infrastructure and the cost it would take to be able to get that sugar in a usable way.:

He added: “But it’s not just about sugar. There’s also lost nutrition in so many food and ag industry side streams from proteins to bioactive compounds that are going to waste. Can we take those proteins and use biomass fermentation to increase their PDCAAS [protein digestibility] scores?”

Danone: Biomass proteins complement animal and plant proteins

Cornelly Van Der Ven, director protein & plant-based at Danone Nutricia Research, added: “I really see this new opportunity of proteins as complementary to what we already have [in animal and plant proteins]. I don’t really see it as a replacement for plant proteins. I see it as another way that can help us meet the protein needs of the future.

“And what is interesting is that many of those sources, they bring proteins, but they also bring other nutrients, so they can help to build complete nutrition.”

“It’s hard to raise money right now, but corporate-startup alignment is better than it has ever been, and years of experimenting is turning into a playbook in which both sides receive value.” Alex Kopelyan, partner, IndieBio

Bühler Group: ‘The food of the future is going to be manufactured in a tank’

Thierry Duvanel, director of innovation at equipment provider Bühler Group, added: “We believe that the food of the future is going to be manufactured in the tank. It’s the second domestication of species, so it’s very important to us to be part of this story. And it’s more than a demonstration; it’s actually something that is real and we believe that the big manufacturers, the CPGs, are going to use these technologies very soon, and as a matter of fact, many do already.”

CJ Foods: ‘We want to collaborate’

At Korean food giant CJ Cheiljedang, SVP and head of strategic innovation Florian Viton said taking part in the growth hack had helped CJ tap into the biomass fermentation ecosystem at an early stage: “Being an Asia-based company, MISTA allowed us to build very rapid connections with big players here and also with different startups.”

He added: “Some of the startups are very early stage, but some I’ve seen today are already at a reasonable scale and the unit economics make sense, so we want to collaborate and help them to go to the next stage.”

AAK, Ingredion: ‘A peek around the corner’ to see what’s coming

For AAK, participating in events such as this is “all about networking,” said director sales and innovation Tom Welsch. “It’s a chance for us to get to meet all these new startups, and this is exciting. We get to co-develop with them and create new prototypes and new concepts.”

For Ingredion, meanwhile, participating in events such as these “gives us the ability to have that peek around the corner” to see what’s coming in food innovation, said Eric Weisser, head of open innovation and customer innovation.

Hawkwood Biotech Partners: You need the right margins to cross the valley of death

That said, the economics have to add up, said Richard Kenny, founder and managing partner at Hawkwood Biotech Partners: “A very large body of data suggests that it’s very difficult to get returns to a plant that you can build, even if you’re using quite cheap feedstocks, unless you’re selling a product that will be worth five dollars [per kilo] or more.

“Below $5/kilo, we get pretty skeptical,” he said. “There’s been plenty of examples of people thinking that they will be able to make money doing that. And the valley of death is difficult, and if you haven’t got enough margin going into it, then a lot of a lot of companies struggle.”

Duvanel at Bühler Group added: “We tend to forget that out of these nearly 10 billion people [predicted to populate the planet in 2050], the vast majority are going to live in areas which are not in the Western world, yet most of these solutions are developed and designed in the Western world.

“So it’s important to stress the economics, the feasibility, and the use and deployment of such technologies in low-cost environments so that we can really start talking about producing staple foods for the population in the future.”

14 biomass fermentation startups to watch from the 2024 MISTA growth hack:

Arborea (UK, Portugal) has developed a cultivation system harnessing sunlight to grow microscopic plants such as microalgae. These use carbon dioxide and sunlight as primary feedstocks in a process that produces nutritious food ingredients and contributes to air purification and CO₂ sequestration, said Dr. Kaly Chatakondu.

California Cultured (USA) produces flavanol-rich cocoa and other botanicals via plant cell culture. The startup, which has struck a deal with Japanese food giant Meiji to feature its cocoa powder in confectionery and wellness products, hopes to complete construction on a 12,000 sq ft facility in West Sacramento soon. Rather than using sunlight, water, and soil to nurture fully-grown plants, it grows cacao plant cells indoors in bioreactors fed on sugars, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. To make cocoa, the cells are harvested, fermented, dried, and roasted, said head of strategy and business development Steve Stearns, who says the firm is exploring lower-cost plastic-based bioreactors for production at room temperature.

Calysta (USA) uses methane as the primary carbon source for its protein-packed bacteria, which it is initially targeting at the animal feed and petfood markets from a new industrial-scale gas fermentation facility in China, said senior scientist Dr. Jason Hwang.

EQUII (USA) ferments grains such as wheat, oats and rice with strains of baker’s yeast to create lower-carb, high-protein grain flours that can be used to boost the nutrition of staple foods such as bread, pasta, and crackers, said cofounder Dr. Monica Bhatia. “We cannot just rely on meat and dairy alternatives as we look at the future of food.” The microbes break down some of the carbs in the grain to release sugars that they convert into [microbial] protein, while the native proteins in the grains remain intact.

Ingrediome (Israel) makes recombinant animal muscle proteins in blue/green algae in glass bioreactors that can be scaled up in a modular fashion, said advisor Matt Tom. “We copy the genes responsible for making a variety of animal proteins and teach our microorganisms how to make them using only CO2 from the air and sunlight as feedstock in ultra-low-cost bioreactors. The proteins are then combined with fats, vitamins, and minerals to replicate ground beef.”

MOA Foodtech (Spain) grows self-GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) yeast strains that can feed off a variety of food side streams from distillers’ grains to crop residues, to add nutrition and functionality to a variety of foods, said founder Bosco Emperanza García. “We’ve built a b2b sustainable ingredient platform where we combine biotechnology and AI to transform waste and byproducts from the agrifood industry into high value ingredients. There’s a lot of players in the industry that produce thousands of tons a year of byproducts and they are looking for new solution.”

Nutrition From Water (New Zealand) grows heterotrophic microalgae in fermentation tanks fed with sugars to create high-protein ingredients that can complement dairy proteins, the supply of which “is shrinking as demand is growing,” said CTO Dr. Adrienne McKee. The off-white, odorless, flavor neutral algae powder (“marine whey”) has high water- and oil-holding capacity and emulsification capabilities that are “off the chart,” claimed McKee. “We have exclusive access to the largest Pacific Ocean microalgae strain library for our second generation strains.”

Revyve (Netherlands) aims to be the “solution of choice to replace egg ingredients and additives across the industry,” said CEO Cedric Verstraeten, who says Revyve is buying in yeast produced by large industrial players and using “simple mechanical processing” to extract ingredients with functional properties coveted by food formulators from gelling to emulsification. “It’s better texture without additives,” said Verstraeten, who noted that the ingredients are labeled as “yeast protein.”

Sempera Organics (USA) makes a nutrient-packed alt meat product called “Mamu” that it produces by fermenting chickpeas with mushroom mycelium in a low-cost solid state zero-waste fermentation process in plastic bags rather than pricey steel bioreactors, said chief mycologist Dr. Dennis Desjardin. “After four to six weeks, 95% of the substrate has been consumed by the mushrooms.”

Solar Foods (Finland) is attempting to decouple food production from agricultural land by using carbon dioxide and hydrogen instead of sugars to feed its bacteria. Assuming the energy-intensive parts of the process are powered by renewables, said the firm, its tech has environmental benefits over animals for protein production: lower emissions, reduced water and land use, and the ability to locate plants nearer to the end consumer. Solar Foods has secured novel foods approval for its protein-packed ingredient Solein in Singapore and self-GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status in the US. It has also submitted a safety dossier to EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) for EU approval as a novel food.

Solmeyea (Greece) uses gas fermentation to grow microalgae containing functional proteins, bioactive pigments and oils.

Superbrewed Foods’ (USA) bacterial biomass has 85% protein by dry weight, a PDCAAS (protein digestibility) score of 0.91, which ranks higher than most plant proteins, and high levels of B vitamins including B12, plus minerals including iron and zinc. With a neutral taste, natural white color, excellent pH and temperature stability, and good emulsification properties, it is attracting interest in dairy, alt-dairy, and hybrid dairy products, protein bars and snacks, protein powders, mixes and beverages, confectionery, and baked goods, claimed the firm.  Superbrewed recently struck deals with ingredients giant Döhler to manufacture its products at scale, and with dairy giant Fonterra to explore the potential of its “postbiotic” ingredient. It also has a co-product—butyric acid—for which there is an established market, said CFO Steve Shevick. “We will be gross margin positive by the end of 2025.”

The Better Meat Company (USA) uses biomass fermentation to grow Rhiza mycoprotein, a protein-packed whole food ingredient made from filamentous fungi with a protein digestibility (PDCAAS) score of 0.87-0.96, which is close to animal proteins such as casein and egg. On a dry weight basis, it contains 40-50% protein and 30% fiber, said EVP operations, Doni Allen.  “Rhiza is shipped at ambient temperatures and it hydrates instantly, unlike TVP (textured vegetable protein), and has a higher water-binding capacity. Our biggest use case is as an enhancer for animal meat. By adding Rhiza you can improve yield, add nutrition such as fiber, and lower calories, fat and sodium.”

The Protein Brewery (Netherlands) uses biomass fermentation to grow Rhizomucor pusillus strains of fungus to produce Fermotein, which can grow on various carbohydrate rich crops from corn and potatoes to cassava and sugar cane. The neutral-tasting, protein- and fiber-packed powder can be used in everything from cream cheese to vegan protein powders, bagels, pizza, pancakes, tortilla chips and muffins, said commercial director Samuel Claes.