Synonym advances research into gas fermentation for food production after netting funding

08 Dec 2023 --- Synonym, a New York-based biomanufacturing firm developing and funding infrastructure for what it calls the “biorevolution” in food, nets funding from Open Philanthropy to advance research into gas fermentation for food production. It’s being scaled as a sustainable method of producing single-cell proteins through carbon capture from the air.

Gas fermentation can utilize a variety of gaseous feedstocks, including syngas, biogas and fossil fuel-derived gas. This flexibility allows for the production of food ingredients through the conversion of a wider range of raw materials, including biomass, waste gasses and even industrial off-gasses.

“One big differentiator of gas fermentation is that it can use CO2 from waste streams, including ethanol fermentation or directly from air capture, as the feedstock. In contrast, fermentation processes that use dextrose or other traditional agricultural feedstocks typically have higher carbon intensity metrics,” a Synonym spokesperson tells Food Ingredients First.

“Gas fermentation’s most promising and mature application is in the animal feed industry, and more specifically in the fish feed product category. This is because gas fermentation eliminates the need for traditional agricultural-derived feedstocks, such as soybeans and corn, which require more land and water use than the carbon sources needed for gas fermentation.”

“Other markets that could benefit from gas fermentation technology include animal-derived food proteins and specialty chemicals,” the spokesperson notes.

Synonym makes it possible to capture carbon to feed bacteria that produce new value-added food ingredients.Scaling fermentation infrastructure
Widely recognized for being a less ecologically intensive practice of producing food ingredients, precision fermentation is gaining ground. Pioneering companies in the field are crafting authentic dairy without cows and natural colors without farmed inputs, among recent advances.

Earlier this week, Food Ingredients First reported on how fermentation can be used to produce betanin from yeast, offsetting traditional methods of tediously and wastefully extracting the natural red pigment from red beets.

However, the Synonym spokesperson identifies that in the realm of fermentation, gas fermentation is a particularly capital intensive production process, making it difficult to scale up compared to other methods. 

The method requires specialty equipment to produce large amounts of hydrogen and oxygen that are not required in the same quantities for precision or biomass fermentation processes that use agricultural feedstocks like dextrose.

Nevertheless, venture capital-backed Synonym has raised funding from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Giant Ventures, Blue Horizon and Thia Ventures, among other venture funds actively investing in climate technologies. 

“Synonym’s mission is to develop, build and finance large-scale fermentation infrastructure that will power the future economy built on biomanufacturing,” says the spokesperson.

“There are many ways to leverage fermentation technology in the food and beverage industries and companies working on this biotransformation will need infrastructure, including Synonym’s facilities, to manufacture the bioproducts and ingredients of the future.”

Techno-economic analysis
In its next phase, Synonym will use the funding to perform a comparative techno-economic analysis for single-cell protein production based on various gas fermentation techniques.

This analysis will examine gas fermentation’s potential financial advantages over other fermentation processes that leverage plant-based carbon sources like dextrose. 

It will encompass a detailed examination of capital expenditures across multiple process designs, as well as overall operating expenditures, covering nutrient media, staffing, utilities and other costs.

Among notable examples of precision fermentation in development, companies are exploring sustainable dairy production without cows.“There are two main types of gas fermentation, one that uses CO2 and one that uses methane,” highlights the spokesperson. “The bacteria consumes the inputs of CO2 or methane as their carbon source.”

“For the CO2 method, the other major inputs are hydrogen gas, oxygen gas and ammonia. For the methane method, the other major inputs are oxygen gas and ammonia.”

The bacteria grow and multiply in the fermentation tanks and produce the desired product, ranging from biomass and protein to other small molecules.

“Then, the product is recovered by downstream processing, which may include centrifugation, filtration and drying. Lastly, the product is packaged for distribution,” says the spokesperson.

Innova Market Insights data suggests that there has been an exponential rise in alt protein F&B launches between 2017 and 2022. Dairy and meat substitutes led the trend, with 41% of the launches in Europe and 36% in North America. 

By Benjamin Ferrer