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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

algae

Pond Converts Smokestack Emissions into Fuel for Edible Algae Products

Most people probably don’t think anything good could come from thick clouds of toxic fumes spewing out from industrial smokestacks. But where most of us just see pollution, Pond Tech sees a potential goldmine — or at least a green one.

Based in Toronto, Canada, Pond has developed a technology that harnesses the gasses emitted from industrial smokestacks and uses them to fuel the rapid growth of algae. This algae is then used in food coloring, health supplements and protein in animal feed.

Pond does this by literally plugging a pipe into a smokestack and siphoning off some of the gasses. After the particulates and heavy metals are filtered out, the carbon dioxide, nitrogen and sulfur dioxide are pumped into large bioreactor tanks that contain algae. These fumes are fuel for the algae and while in the bioreactor, a proprietary system of lighting and controls helps spur and optimize the algae growth.

Phil Garber, Marketing Manager with Pond, told me in an interview that it takes a week to get target algae density, but once that is hit, the company can continuously harvest up to a ton or two of algae per day.

This algae can then be used to make products like phycocayanin, a natural food colorant (fun fact: it’s used to make blue M&Ms!) and astaxanthin, an antioxidant health supplement. While food coloring and animal feed is more of a B2B play, when it comes to making consumer health supplements, Pond runs into an optics issue. While the company can make astaxanthin and spirulina from smokestack gasses, most health conscious people understandably don’t want their supplements associated with industrial fumes.

To get around that particularly toxic issue, Pond acquired the Canadian Regenurex brand of astaxanthin last year. The supplement can still be made using Pond’s proprietary lighting and sensor technology, but instead of a smokestack, the company uses beverage-grade CO2 bottles as the source of growth fuel.

The algae business is definitely in bloom, as it were. The easily grown green stuff is being used to enrich falafel, New Wave is making “shrimp” out of it, and you can even grow your own algae-based Spirulina at home with the Spirugrow.

Garber said that Pond is looking into other algae applications such as packaging products, printer inks and biofuels, but that the company is more focused on the higher value food coloring, supplement and animal feed businesses.

Pond was founded in 2008 and went public in 2018. It has completed one pilot program with a cement plant, and is currently building out its first commercial plant, with plans to build our four more.

If Pond can get customers to get past the whole smokestack gas thing, its green stuff will be make the planet a little bit greener, while helping the company generate some greenbacks.

Israeli Grad Students Develop Algae-Enriched Falafel to Compete with Meat

Not to be too apocalyptic here, but the world is poised for a global protein shortage. There will be 9.8 billion people on the planet by 2050, and finding a way to feed them all — despite finite land and water resources — will be quite the challenge.

But a group of students in Israel thinks that there’s a natural solution to the impending protein crisis: algae.

Grad students at the Biotechnology and Food Engineering Faculty at Israel’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed a new type of falafel enriched with algae. Called Algalafel (get it?), the fried chickpea balls contain spirulina, a blue-green algae with high protein content.

The students won first prize at the EIT Food Project (European Knowledge and Innovation Community) at Technion. Eventually, the students want to market their new falafel, probably in ready-to-eat frozen form.

According to Time of Isreal, the students decided to make an algae-enriched falafel for environmental reasons. The FAO reports that meat consumption, spurred by increased global demand for protein, is slated to increase steadily over the next few decades, putting increased pressure on the environment and causing more carbon emissions.

But the traditional ingredients in falafel — chickpeas, onions, and flour — are already meat-free. And chickpeas are already a source of protein. In fact, InnovoPro, also based in Israel, recently raised $4.25 million for chickpea-based protein powder. So why go to the trouble of adding algae to the mix?

Firstly, it’s super high in protein. While chickpeas are about 20 percent protein, according to the students behind Algalafel, spirulina is a whopping 60 percent in its dry state. It’s also a complete protein, meaning it contains all eight essential amino acids that your body can’t produce on its own.

Additionally, while chickpeas may be more environmentally friendly than, say, beef or soy, they still require land and water to grow. Spirulina doesn’t require land, it can be harvested year-round, and it grows extremely quickly. It does need water in which to grow, but not much. In fact, it’s so easy to grow that it’s been suggested by NASA as a dietary staple for astronauts.

Up until now algae like spirulina has been relegated to trendy health foods like green juice, but with the rise in demand for plant-based protein it’s poised to enter the mainstream. Recently we’ve seen algae pop up in more and more food applications, from New Wave Foods‘ plant-based shrimp to bread made of seaweed. San Diego-based company Triton makes algae for a wide range of protein-rich food applications, including milk and meat alternatives.

Israel is becoming quite the hotbed of innovation in the meat alternative space. It’s the home of several cell-based meat companies, one of which — Aleph Farms — actually partnered with Technion to help develop its cultured steak.

Down the road, I expect we’ll see algae popping up in more and more food applications, specifically in the meat alternative space. And if we want to have a prayer of feeding the world over the next few decades, we’ll have to get started soon.