UK government injects £12M into microbial food hub for alt-protein innovation

06 Mar 2024 --- UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has invested £12 million (US$13 million) in a Microbial Food Hub led by the Imperial College London that will focus on advancing sustainable microbial foods through novel fermentation methods. The program will work on ingredients capable of producing flavors and textures of animal products and will comprise of world-leading academics, industrial partners, food organizations and diverse end-users.

The funding comes as the UK continues to bolster its support for alternative proteins through public investment and plans for regulatory reform. 

As per the UK Department for Business & Trade, companies in the North East of England will be in a prime position to take advantage of the growing demand for alternative protein products, as concerns around sustainability and health drive their demand across consumer sectors in the UK, Europe and beyond.

The cash injection is expected to help the university formulate food that is better for the environment, more resilient to climatic or political shocks, notes the university.  

“We will focus on developing the three types of fermentation, traditional fermentation, biomass fermentation and precision fermentation,” Dr. Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro, Department of Bioengineering at the Imperial College London, UK, who leads the Microbial Food Hub, tells Food Ingredients First. 

Fermentation has an enormous potential to produce food, feed and ingredients, says Dr. Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro.“We will work on a variety of microorganisms, processes and products, many of them guided by our industry partners.”

Experts from the University of Reading, the University of Kent, the University of Aberystwyth, the University of Cambridge and Rothamsted Research will also work on the project.

Research to commercialization
The hub will conduct research and commercialization of fermentation-based food products and ingredients, which includes biomass fermentation, precision fermentation and traditional fermentation.

“The main challenge is the sustainability of the production of food and ingredients. In particular, we will be working on the circularity of the processes by using local, available feedstocks and trying to maximize production yields to be cost-competitive,” he adds.

The move is a part of the UKRI series of fundings for four new engineering biology bodies that are led by or involve Imperial College London researchers as virtual centers or ‘hubs’ whose members work toward a shared goal.

Tech aids sustainability
For Dr. Ledesma-Amaro, fermentation can help make the food system more sustainable in conjunction with engineering biology. Manufacturers can also use the method to formulate proteins and ingredients without using animal-derived products or petrochemicals.

According to the university, microbial foods offer a more sustainable, healthier alternative to some of the current ways of producing food. Microbes are considered ideal for this because they grow rapidly, require minimal land and water and can feed on waste products from the existing food industries. 

Research says replacing 20% of beef with fermentation-made meat could halve global deforestation.Moreover, the foods they produce are less susceptible to adverse weather and can be produced locally, reducing transport costs, carbon footprint and the industry’s dependence on imported food.

This is in line with Innova Market Insights’ “Nurturing nature” Top Ten Trends 2024, which highlights that initiatives that highlight a bond with nature and the environment are achieving cut-through with consumers.

“Products made using these methods have a fraction of the impact on our environment and are free from antibiotics – helping to boost food security, tackle climate change and protect public health,” Linus Pardoe, UK policy manager at the Good Food Institute Europe tells Food Ingredients First.

“Research has shown replacing 20% of beef with fermentation-made meat could halve global deforestation, while a life cycle analysis by Finnish company Onego Bio found their precision fermentation egg albumin caused 35-55% less emissions and used 87-89% less land than conventional albumin from chicken eggs.”

Notably, alternative protein scientists and entrepreneurs are employing precision fermentation to formulate real egg or dairy proteins by using yeast to derive flavors and textures that mimic cheese, meat and eggs without animal involvement.

“This method has already been used for decades to make ingredients such as rennet in cheese, but its use in developing alternative proteins is at an early stage,” he observes.

Meanwhile, Pardoe calls for attention on scaling up production too, along with such R&D funding. 

Infrastructure to bolster microbial food production needs government and industry investment too, says Pardoe.Infrastructure to “ramp up production of such foods” also requires government and food industry investment, he adds.

Manipulating microbes 
Engineering biology is being used to optimize microbial food production and microbes can now be manipulated to be more productive, tastier and more nutritious, says Dr. Ledesma-Amaro.

“Applying recent scientific developments to microbial foods has the potential to radically change the way food is produced, creating an important and timely opportunity to address some of the most critical health and sustainability challenges of our time.”

Meanwhile, the F&B industry is continuously making strides in innovation that taps into microbes for NPD.

New Culture’s “cow cheese without the cow” leverages precision fermentation and its first product is mozzarella for pizzerias, which appears and behaves like conventional cheese.

US food tech start-up Yali Bio also uses precision fermentation to formulate infant formula by introducing human breast milk fat from yeast. It has developed a fat compound identical to OPO (1,3-dioleoyl-2-palmitoyl-glycerol/1,3-dioleolyl-2-palmitate), which is naturally abundant in human breast milk.

Natu. Red, Chromologics’ natural color formulated via precision fermentation, is pH and temperature-stable and offers a better sustainability profile than betanin and carmine.

By Insha Naureen