MicroHarvest: Fermentation-based microbial proteins for sustainable alt-meat applications
09 Sep 2024 | MicroHarvest
Julian Schildknecht, head of brand and growth, discusses the challenges in microbial protein formulation using biomass fermentation and its applications in pet and human foods. He highlights the role of alternative proteins in reducing the carbon footprint compared to traditional meat sources. Schildknecht also explains why securing the global protein supply with microbial protein is necessary.
Hi, this is Inha Noreen from CNS Media, a journalist at Food Ingredients First.
We are joined today by Julian Skillneck, head of brand and growth at Micro Harvest, which is a biotech company that produces sustainable protein ingredients through microbial fermentation.
Julian is here to discuss the challenges and opportunities that lie in the novel protein space.
Welcome, Julian.
Great to have you with us.
Great, to be here.
Thanks so much for the invitation.
Happy, happy to have this conversation with you.
Great.
So I think we can just jump into the questions now.
Julian, what do you think are the latest consumer trends that are pushing innovation in novel protein?
That's a great question, and I always need to differentiate, market-wise, right?
But here is something we definitely see happening as a rule of thumb, so to say, is whatever happens in food consumption for or trends for humans will also make it over time to pet foods, for example, similar, not exactly the same, but similar.
And in food trends, let me focus on pet food because this is where we are really, really focusing on right now where I feel comfortable sharing the trends that we see, especially when talking to customers.
So one big trend, which is not just a trend by necessity, is to reduce the carbon footprint of the product.
Right?
So that's the big trend and purchasing part, a big thing that we see is that they need to look for alternatives simply because protein demand will rise by 50%.
More or less, till 2020, 2050, so they need to have other alternatives and alternatives that has a lower footprint per kilogram product, so that's the overall trend that we see sourcing alternatives because it's necessary and from their shopper behavior what we see is a big trend coming.
From the human part towards healthy food, so shoppers, especially for pet food, look a lot on labels and do their research online what is really healthy for my pet, so what is not creating allergies, what is good for their joint health, so a lot about health here and then also looking at OK, where does this.
Food come from, so a bit of the traceability is more and more something people want to know and deserve to know and then obviously leading towards sustainability.
So how big is the impact of the product, but first what we see is the health, the nutrition value, how good it is for me as a person, but also for the pets.
Yeah, that's the, that's the biggest, bigger trends that we see in alternative proteins are obviously an enabler, for that as such.
I see.
And also when formulating the novel protein, the manufacturers face certain challenges.
Would you like to expand a bit on that?
Yeah, I think so what we, what we learned is when manufacturing alternative proteins or especially our, our proteins, so, mm, for the purchasing per se, what the producers need are constant qualities reliable at scale.
So when looking at alternatives, it has to be obviously price competitive, maybe not to meat because depending on the quality that is pretty low, but over time when scaling alternative proteins such as ours, but also hopefully other alternatives, we will have price priority with certain other protein sources.
But right now what they are looking for in terms of production is constant quality.
And here's the challenge that we see, for example, that we, when listening to our potential customers is that they see with insects, for example, or plant-based proteins, plant-based do have a, have some challenges on taste, digestibility, and has a not the perfect amino acid.
Profile as meat for example so they're looking for a good amino acid profile, constant quality and with insects as giving you another example, the quality of the amino acid profile is just different sometimes from batch to batch.
So what they really look for is to have a fast and robust supply that they can plan with, with constant quality, and this is something where we try to bring our.
Our competitive edge in because we produce our products within 24 hours everywhere so we can also put a plant on the North Pole, doesn't matter because it's in a closed environment at scale pretty fast with always the same quality, so it's pretty robust, no influence on geopolitical risk, no influence on environmental changes, right?
And still very, very good high quality nutritious base.
Great.
That's really interesting to know.
Would you like to tell us more about your products and your solution, maybe for human food and pet food both?
Yes, of course, and of course let me just emphasize why I'm focusing so much on pet food because here that was our, that is still our first primary market, but the beauty of our product, our microbiome protein works also in food over time.
So right now we are producing first prototypes for food while still being super, super focused and active in the pet food market when it comes to commercializing the product.
So the product itself is coming from biomass fermentation.
So as I said, pretty simple.
Within 24 hours we just leverage and use agri-food side stream.
So what's left in the agri-food industry, something around sugars or starch or molasses, and we feed our microorganisms that.
And then we just separate the cells from the water, dry it and have the whole cells so rich on proteins, rich on other essential amino acids, we dry it and we ship it to microbioprotein per se as such.
And we do have just one product right now for pet food, microbioprotein.
It's called MPX Care for the pets, and it's a powder.
It's a brownish powder with a very nice palability, so a nice flavor, has a bit of a barbecue sense to it.
And this is something that they use right now, and one of our first dog treats with a partnership of vet dog is now on the market.
They use this with an inclusion rate of sometimes 10%, so reducing either meat or just put us in and other ingredients as a protein source, to enhance the palability and the nutrition value, and yeah, first dog treats out on the market.
And we're right now using a similar strain of the same strain but a similar process also to work on prototypes for food and these can go into.
Yogurt, burgers, variety of products, so whenever you need high protein level.
And you care about sustainability, you care about a rough, robust supply chain and a low footprint, then our product can enhance a lot of products, and we're exploring here the food part.
But for pet food, we are registered, we can sell, it's safe.
It's 100% natural.
So this is why we are focusing right now on pet food.
OK, that's good to know.
And how do you think this particular microbial protein is different from the other types of meat or insect protein?
Pretty much first, but, also we have to be clear here, very transparent.
Meat has a very rich amino acid profile, so that's hard to beat, but if you just take all our.
Benefits, I think we are, we won't, and that's not our goal to get rid of meat completely but to reduce it at scale, right?
So, our goal is to have us in products where we reduce meat or we substitute substitute meat.
Our amino acid profile is a bit, not as good as meat, but the impact is much better.
But comparing us to plant-based, , insects, so our.
Footprint per kilogram product is 2 to 3 times better than a plant-based.
It's much more digestible, it tastes better, the texture is better, and again, the supply chain is just robust.
We don't rely on.
The weather and, and geopolitical stuff comparing us to insects we see in the market, that's just what we hear from customers, especially in the pet food industry.
Insects is a good alternative and hopefully it stays.
It has some challenges some price when scaling and scaling as such is an, is an, is, is, is a difficulty, especially keeping the quality the same.
So, in a nutshell, where are we different?
I won't say better, but a very, very good, alternative here is the nutritious value, constant and very good.
The impact is super low and it's highly, highly, highly scalable and robust in the supply chain.
So, I think, and pricing wise, it's, super competitive as , especially at scale.
So right now we're just focusing on scaling, scaling, scaling because the technology transfer works.
We have proven it, we can produce 1 ton per day already.
We're just now ramping up with our partners.
OK, great.
And I think to wrap up this interesting conversation about protein, what expectations do you have for the future of innovation in the field of microbial protein?
So first I I do hope that we can hit our targets in terms of scale because it will be necessary for us, us as a human species.
And not, not saying just relying on our product but on alternatives and alternatives that are scalable.
And as I said, I don't see plants as scalable as, as it's needed because you need water, you need land, and you need time.
For insects, I do see there will be a Parts of the market served with insects, which is great, but for the mass, mass, mass production, we will still have meat as it's a good product, especially if you care about the meat.
The, the, the animal as such, it's, it, it should stay, but not at the scale as we consume it right now, so that's why I feel in this mix microbiology needs to be here for the long run because it's just robust at scale and independent from environmental effects and really resource efficient.
So I do think for us securing global protein in supply, microbioprotein will be essential.
