Danone’s biotech platform touted to propel “new sources of proteins” as demand proliferates

01 Jul 2024 --- Experts view precision fermentation as a way to bring new sources of proteins and ingredients to consumers seeking sustainable foods with limited environmental impact, creating a need for the technology’s scale up.

Food Ingredients First sits down with Philippe Teissier, R&I Director Ferment & Fermentation at Danone and Kenny Erdoes, CEO of DMC Biotechnologies, to dive into the technique’s role in fulfilling consumers’ protein demands through a Biotech Open Platform they are working on.

“Our consumers are looking for nutrient-dense products with less impact on the planet. Eighty-four percent of consumers say companies should be doing as much as they can to reduce their impact on the environment rather than waiting on government action,” says Teissier.

“Technologies for new sources of protein, such as those resulting from fermentation including precision fermentation, are one of several solutions to meet this increasing demand for sustainable and high-quality, high-protein food.”

Erdoes agrees that consumers are looking for healthier and more sustainable food products and that F&B brands are responding to this trend.

“There is a trend toward more local production rather than relying on vulnerable offshore supply chains. With biotechnology, we can bring food ingredient production closer to the manufacturer and closer to the farmer.”

The biotech platform will enable the larger scale delivery of ingredients designed through precision fermentation, says Teissier.Biotechnology can also help reduce the carbon intensity of many everyday products, since it involves fermenting renewable raw materials instead of extracting fossil fuels to make ingredients and chemicals. 

Improving process control
Erodes points to a pressing challenge with precision fermentation expansion amid the technology’s emerging popularity — many impactful biotechnology technologies are available, but they have not been scaled yet.

“Until we can scale up in a meaningful way, we cannot have the impact on carbon that our technology offers. The Biotech Open Platform will provide scale-up capacity to the founding companies and, in the future, to other partners.”

Precision fermentation allows manufacturers to “control the fermentation process much more predictably” than other biotechnology methods. 

“For DMC, this means that we can make our products and ingredients and cooperate with other companies as a technology enabler to improve their production processes,” he explains.

Meanwhile, Teissier points to another hurdle for manufacturers — ingredient quantity. “The main challenges that manufacturers are facing in this field are linked to ingredient quantity needed to reach a proper proof of concept in order to validate its functionality and give us confidence in the scale-up of the ingredient,” he shares.

The industrial and technological platform received a €16 million investment in the first phase (Image credit: Michelin).“With a fermentation tank of around 10 cubic meters and multiple downstream equipment, this platform will speed up the scale-up and validation of a laboratory or small pilot formula with ad hoc process parameters,” Teissier details.

The biotech platform will enable the “larger scale delivery of various ingredients” designed through precision fermentation and will support the securitization of specification definitions required to design a product/process recipe at industrial scale.

Scaling recipe assessment
The technological platform has received funding worth €16 million (US$17 million) in the first phase and will host companies, start-ups and partners looking to assess different recipes at a semi-industrial scale.

“The line will be designed for food grade and ISO 22000 certification, enabling the delivery of various ingredients through different bioprocesses including precision fermentation.

Activities will embed an analytical laboratory, fermentation and downstream process line,”  underscores Teissier.

In F&B, precision fermentation can deliver ingredients such as proteins, vitamins, fibers and enzymes in an environmentally and sustainably responsible way.

DMC’s Dynamic Metabolic Control technology platform allows the manufacture of ingredients from bio-based raw materials and controls the fermentation process, says Erdoes.“The project plans to install an initial demo-scale production line, next year, including a fermenter and purification equipment. Additional equipment will be installed in the following years, including a second production line,” Erdoes tells us.

The Biotech Open Platform is also expected to “speed up” time to market for DMC’s and other companies’ products.

Sustainable food production
The open biotech platform will start with a first pilot line and, depending on capacity demand or new needs, is open to external demand for 50% of the capacity, notes Teissier.

“Innovations in the field of biotech are numerous and require additional scale-up facilities to continue to progress. This new platform will bring more innovation to reach the market.”

For Erdoes, precision fermentation is constantly developing to make fermentation more accessible, more sustainable and economical.

“We expect significant advances in enzyme engineering and strain optimization, introduction of new carbon feedstocks, development of advanced manufacturing equipment and more integrated fermentation-based refineries.”

“All of these will help drive down production cost and enable fermentation systems to capture a larger share of the chemical industry,” he concludes.

By Insha Naureen