Symrise announced a strategic equity investment in Cellibre, a U.S.-based biotechnology company specialising in sustainable biomanufacturing. This partnership positions Symrise at the forefront of fermentation-derived ingredients that are better for both people and planet. It will initially focus on innovation across taste solutions and cosmetic actives, reinforcing its long-term competitiveness and sustainability leadership.

By partnering with Cellibre, Symrise gains preferred access to proprietary, fermentation-based technology, enabling scalable production of high-value ingredients across food, beverage, cosmetics, and nutraceutical sectors. With this investment, Symrise will leverage Cellibre’s world-class biotechnology platform to enable a more resilient supply chain, mitigating seasonal and cultivation variability.

Cellibre brings a significant track record in designing and engineering microorganisms for the production of cultured natural products and chemicals that are utilised in pharmaceuticals, functional health, beauty ingredients, industrial applications, and more.

This collaboration supports Symrise’s ambition to integrate biotechnology across its operations, ensuring long-term resilience, portfolio diversification, and competitive advantage. It also aligns with the company’s sustainability commitments and consumer-driven innovation strategy.

A new biotech ingredients startup has spun out of CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, with its sights set on a multi-billion-dollar opportunity to improve access to crucial health-beneficial ingredients for use across multiple industries.

The company – Eclipse Ingredients – will use an advanced fermentation-based process to efficiently produce new ingredients from yeast instead of animal sources, enabling access to ingredients that are difficult or impossible to source through traditional methods.

Eclipse Ingredients will first focus on human lactoferrin, which offers diverse health benefits, including anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effects, microbiome and immune support, along with iron-binding functionality.

CEO and co-founder, Siobhan Coster, said precision fermentation can unlock access to previously unavailable ingredients like human lactoferrin, while offering a more scalable and sustainable approach to traditional ingredient production.

“We’re harnessing advances in the age-old fermentation process to create ingredients that simply weren’t previously accessible,” Ms Coster said.

“Precision fermentation works by engineering microorganisms, such as yeast, to produce proteins and other compounds that mirror those found in humans or animals with similar nutritional and functional profile.

“While our initial focus is cosmetics, there are health benefits that human lactoferrin can deliver across other areas, including food and supplements, opening up a range of opportunities to support health and wellbeing.”

CSIRO Research Lead, Dr Crispin Howitt, said Eclipse Ingredients was an example of how Australia is helping to meet the world’s growing needs.

“We’re delivering trusted science, as well as helping to demonstrate new potential technology-led industries for Australia,” Dr Howitt said.

“Australia is a leading producer in trusted, sustainable and high-quality ingredients, and can build on this reputation to open new high-value market opportunities using advances in precision fermentation.”

Eclipse is working with CSIRO, AgFunder and the Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA) in the next phase to scale up production.

The company was incubated within CSIRO in collaboration with entrepreneur Siobhan Coster to commercialise the breakthrough technology.

There is a global call for reduced sugar that is shaking the JNSD world – particularly fruit juice production. Driven by consumer concerns about health and weight, and further burdened by sugar taxes and other regulations in a number of countries, how can you reduce the sugar level of juice products, while maintaining quality and consumer appeal?

You can dilute the juice, of course, but there are also technologies available to reduce the intrinsic sugars in the juice itself (mainly sucrose, glucose and fructose). These are membrane filtration, enzymatic sugar transformation, and yeast fermentation. Tetra Pak has invested in fermentation – with a special process that can reduce sugar to practically zero.

The new approach to this problem reduces sugar through controlled fermentation, followed by yeast removal and removal of the alcohol. The resulting juice with 0 % sugar can then be blended with normal juice to achieve any level of sugar reduction you desire.

The yeast Tetra Pak use has been specifically selected because of its history of safe use within the food industry, its suitability for sugar reduction in juice, and its fermentation efficiency and reproducibility.

A new white paper by Tetra Pak describes processing lines for fermentation, yeast removal and dealcoholisation, as well as final blending of fruit juices. The company explain why the monitoring of temperature, agitation and sugar levels is essential to an optimal and cost-effective process. Food-grade alcohol can be extracted from the process for various food and beverage applications, if desired.

The concept has been proven in technical and consumer tests, and offers you a broad opportunity to create an entirely new product category – reduced-sugar juices and drinks. The scope of creative blending is practically limitless.

GNT is working to develop new plant-based, sustainable EXBERRY^® colour solutions for food and drink using unique fermentation technologies.

The company has been creating EXBERRY^® colours from fruit, vegetables, and plants since its foundation in 1978. It is now expanding into fermentation for the first time to increase innovation and sustainability in its plant-based solutions.

Producing colours through fermentation allows for improved functionality as well as highly efficient and sustainable year-round production. Once the raw materials have been cultivated, they can be scaled up in larger bioreactors for industrial production. This phase involves maintaining optimal conditions to ensure high biomass yield and pigment concentration.

To deliver on its aims, GNT has chosen to collaborate with Plume Biotechnology, a UK-based start-up focused on innovation in fermentation science and bioprocessing for natural colours.

Frederik Hoeck, GNT Group’s Managing Director, said: “As pioneers in plant-based colors, innovation has always been crucial to GNT and we’re fully committed to delivering cutting-edge solutions for our customers. As a family business, we understand the importance of acting responsibly and ensuring we are truly sustainable. This partnership with Plume will help us add new, futureproof options to our plant-based EXBERRY^® portfolio.”

Thomas Burns, CEO at Plume Biotechnology, said: “The rapid evolution of fermentation-based technologies is providing unprecedented opportunities within the realms of natural colours. Plume is passionate about translating these cutting-edge technological developments into healthy, exciting, and sustainable products for consumers. In GNT, we have found the perfect strategic partner with a shared commitment to delivering excellent products whilst keeping sustainability at the heart of everything we do.”

The collaboration is designed to help GNT expand the options in its plant-based EXBERRY^® portfolio while meeting its sustainability ambitions. In 2022, GNT announced 17 targets to optimise its environmental and social impacts by the end of the decade.

Its Sustainability Report 2023 revealed significant progress on many of those goals, including a 22 % reduction in carbon intensity at the company’s factories since 2020 and a 13 % improvement in water efficiency.

Finn Rieken, Strategy Director at GNT Group, said: “We are committed to leading the food colouring industry on sustainability. As well as promoting responsible agriculture and cutting emissions at our factories, we’re constantly exploring new options for highly sustainable colours that can deliver exceptional performance. We believe fermentation-based colours have huge potential to tick both those boxes. We are confident that working with Plume will allow us to deliver exciting new plant-based, sustainable solutions for food and beverage manufacturers around the world.”

The Danish aroma company, EvodiaBio, secured 6.4 million dollars in a recent capital raise. Their goal is to become a global industry leader in sustainable aroma production for the food and beverage industry.

EvodiaBio recently introduced a ground-breaking technology platform that uses precision fermentation to produce sustainable aromas for the food and beverage industry. Now, the ambitious company has secured 45 million Danish kroner in additional funding, equaling approximately USD 6.4 million.

EvodiaBio, founded just one-and-a-half-years ago, received 14 million kroner in financial support from the BioInnovation Institute, a Danish accelerator funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The remaining 31 million kroner stem from several international industry players, including the German flavour house Symrise that steps in as strategic investor, and Nordic Foodtech VC is lead investor.

Jarne Elleholm, co-founder and chairman of EvodiaBio, sees the capital raise as a crucial step in reaching the company’s soaring ambitions. “Our vision is to create a sustainable, global company within the development, production, and commercialisation of natural aromatic substances and this funding is our opportunity to realise this vision. The funding was made possible by a strong support from the BioInnovation Institute and by the great progress we have made during our only one-and-a-half-year lifetime”, says Jarne Elleholm.

Non-alcoholic beer is the first segment that EvodiaBio will address, says Jarne Elleholm, as getting the taste of the beer right has been a major challenge for the brewing industry. The company’s newly developed aroma blend, called Yops, can improve the taste of non-alcoholic beer, and serves as a sustainable alternative to cultivated aroma hops. In the long term, the bio-industrial company will develop aromas for other beverages, perfume, and a range of other segments.

EvodiaBio’s monoterpenoid aromas are produced using yeast cells that secrete the individual aroma components and are then combined to mimic the aroma profiles of different hops. The result is a natural, pure, and sustainable product. The technology has been developed after years of research by the scientific co-founders, Prof. Sotirios Kampranis, Dr. Simon Dusséaux and Dr. Victor Forman. EvodiaBio’s approach surpasses all other methods and enables, for the first time, a cost-effective and sustainable biotechnological production of the volatile aroma molecules from hops. Using EvodiaBio’s solution, the brewer avoids depleting limited plant resources, while water and CO₂ emissions are reduced by more than 90 percent.

Next step in EvodiaBio’s far-reaching plans is the establishment of the company’s own offices, laboratories, and pilot-production in Denmark. They are now preparing for the launch of Yops in 2023, where they also expect an increase in staff.

Facility expansion is part of a $100M Investment to enhance the delivery of essential health innovations to consumers

DuPont announced the opening of a new state-of-the-art probiotics fermentation unit at its Rochester, New York (USA), facility. Construction of the unit was completed in March as part of an overall $100MM investment to expand probiotics capacity. The facility is now producing high-quality probiotics for the dietary supplement and food and beverage industries, which have the potential to provide health benefits to consumers of all ages.

The state-of-the-art facility incorporates several new production innovations, including:

• The world’s largest fermenter for probiotics production and its downstream processing.
• A built-in, fully automated system of sensors and monitors that helps maintain optimal growing conditions, removing the need to take traditional manual samples.
• Pressurized air technology to mix fermenting solutions, replacing traditional pumps and mixing blades that can damage bacteria.
• New bacteria freezing technology for safe storage of the probiotics that significantly increases efficiency.

DuPont develops and produces a wide range of clinically-documented probiotic strains for products sold globally. In the United States alone, more than 16 million U.S. households are purchasing probiotics, which deliver a variety of functional health benefits – from digestive and immune health to promising advancements in weight management and even cognitive health. Specifically, HOWARU^® Shape – which is part of the DuPont^™ Danisco^® portfolio – most recently won “Ingredient of the Year for Weight Management” at the NutraIngredients Asia Awards.

World’s largest probiotics fermentation unit is operational at the DuPont Rochester facility 

DuPont announced it has completed construction on a new, state-of-the art probiotics fermentation unit at its Rochester, New York, facility. The unit, now largest in the world, is part of a multiphase nearly $100 million investment to expand probiotics capacity and enhance the company’s leadership in delivering high-quality, clinically documented probiotics to dietary supplement and food and beverage manufacturers.

The fermentation unit is fully operational and will serve as a crucial resource in propagating bacteria and enabling high potency, stability and efficacy of probiotics. Quality is extremely important in probiotic production, and the fermentation unit will also optimize DuPont’s production capability, enabling the company to increase the pace of delivery to customers and the market.

DuPont also completed a probiotics capacity expansion at its Madison, Wisconsin, facility in late 2018. The investment was used to upgrade equipment and increase the pace of new product development and significantly improved delivery times on pilot material for clinical trials and customer evaluations.

Fermentation, a practice stretching back more than 10,000 years of human history, employs beneficial microorganisms for enriching and preserving food ingredients. It remains firmly rooted in Asian and African cultures as a tradition passed down from generations. Consequently, fermented foods like Kimchi remain a staple in Korean cuisine, and cultured drinks like Kombucha and Lassi have an unabated following among Chinese and Indian consumers, respectively, says leading data and analytics company GlobalData.

On the other hand, fermented foods have largely been sidelined in Western diets partly due to the hyper-hygienic lifestyles, and the high affinity for processed, canned and pasteurized convenience-foods. This scenario is changing as fermentation once again comes under the spotlight in the West through the rising popularity of exotic Eastern foods and beverages like Kimchi, Kombucha and Kefir.

Health benefits: Bobby Verghese, Consumer Markets Analyst at GlobalData says, “Growing consumer awareness about the link between ‘gut health’ and overall health and wellness is a major factor driving the renewed focus on fermented foods.” Natural preservation techniques like fermentation are gaining ground in the backdrop of the ongoing shift of consumers from processed foods to ‘cleaner-label’ foods with less chemical preservatives. This is underscored by GlobalData Global Consumer Survey 2017 findings which reveal that 75 % of global consumers somewhat or completely agree with the statement that ‘artificial additives and preservatives are harmful to their health’.

Novel sensory experience: Fermented food and drinks offer novel taste and texture sensations which particularly appeal to youthful consumers who are on the lookout for emerging exotic and international cuisines. This reflects in the GlobalData Global Consumer Survey findings which states that 49 % of Millennial and Gen Z consumers like to experiment with new and unusual flavors while choosing food products.

Economic and sustainability aspects: Fermentation processes offer a cost-effective, energy-efficient, and zero-maintenance technology for food preservation. This technique enables efficient utilization of available resources by prolonging the shelf-life of perishable seasonal produce, upcycling food waste, and detoxifying raw materials. Consequently, fermentation holds the potential to make a substantial positive impact on global food wastage and food security.

Manufacturers can leverage fermentation to tap into the growing demand for healthier foods and drinks. For instance, in late 2016, Pepsi acquired branded Kombucha manufacturer, KeVita, to provide an additional option to consumers seeking a healthier alternative to sugary sodas. Fermentation also offers fish and meat producers a potent method for attaining clean label certification for their products without using harmful synthetic preservatives. The growing popularity of fermented foods implies the need for innovative and creative packaging formats that preserve the integrity of the live probiotic culture in the foodstuff, without sacrificing the convenience and aesthetics aspects. In addition, fermentation is making a mark on the cosmetics industry, where manufacturers are vying to develop natural and ‘clean’ beauty and personal care products that are as effective as synthetic formulations.

The new cold-tolerant hybrid strains developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland enable fermentation at lower and higher temperatures than before. Production at lower temperature reduces the risk of contamination and possibly allows reduction of the use of sulphates. Modulating temperatures can be used to fine-tune product aroma.

In 2015 VTT generated the first new lager brewing yeast strains in 500 years, and has now applied the knowledge obtained to create new yeast strains for the production of wine and cider. A key characteristic of these strains is that they can tolerate a wide range of temperatures from 10 to 37 °C. Importantly, the low temperature range reduces the risk of contamination during fermentation, possibly allowing for reduced sulphate use.

The tolerance to higher temperatures facilitates large-scale production in active dry yeast form. The wines and ciders produced with these strains are characterized by an increased aromatic complexity.

The ability of a yeast strain to ferment efficiently at low temperature is a desired feature in alcoholic fermentation. Cold fermentations have been used for centuries in the production of lager beer with the lager yeast Saccharomyces pastorianus. The ability of this species to ferment at low temperature is a result of it being a hybrid between an ale yeast and the cold-tolerant wild yeast Saccharomyces eubayanus.

Scientists at VTT have now demonstrated that this combination of parents can also be effectively used for wine and cider fermentations. A wine yeast strain was crossed with the cold-tolerant parent of the lager yeast and the hybrids were tested for cider and wine fermentation.

The results showed that due to the wider range of temperatures tolerated by these species the aromatic properties of the cider and wine can be modulated by varying the fermentation temperature. White wine and cider, for example, benefit from low-temperature fermentations, both for reduced risk of contamination but also for an improved aromatic profile. Undesirable flavours that are typical of the wild parent are eliminated after hybridization and large-scale production is facilitated.

This natural, non-GM approach can be used for tailor-made generation of new strains by careful selection of the parent strains with desirable features. After being successfully applied to beer, wine and cider production, this technique is now being assessed for its use in the baking industry, where yeast must survive for extended periods in frozen dough.

The following organizations have funded the research: EU’s Marie Curie ITN Yeastcell-project, Academy of Finland and Alfred Kordelin Foundation.

References:

Krogerus, K., Magalhães, F., Vidgren, V. & Gibson, B. (2015) New lager yeast strains generated by interspecific hybridization. Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10295-015-1597-6

Magalhães F, Krogerus K, Vidgren V, Sandell M & Gibson B. (2017) Improved cider fermentation performance and quality with newly generated Saccharomyces cerevisiae × Saccharomyces eubayanus hybrids. Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10295-017-1947-7

Magalhães F, Krogerus K, Castillo S, Ortiz-Julien A, Dequin S & Gibson B. (2017) Exploring the potential of Saccharomyces eubayanus as a parent for new interspecies hybrid strains in winemaking. FEMS Yeast Research. DOI: 10.1093/femsyr/fox049