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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

molecular farming

PoLoPo Unveils ‘SuperAA’ to Turn Potatoes Into Protein Factories Via Molecular Farming

Today, Israel-based startup PoLoPo announced it has deployed its molecular farming technology, a system that uses a genetically engineered potato to produce egg proteins, at greenhouse production scale. The company’s protein production system, which it has dubbed the SuperAA platform, grows proteins within a potato’s tuber, which is then harvested and extracted into protein powder.

Molecular farming, which produces animal protein using seed crops, has gained traction in recent years. The technique, which the Good Food Institute named the “fourth pillar” for alt protein, uses genetic engineering to introduce animal DNA directly into the seeds, transforming the resulting crops into protein factories. Once the genetically engineered seeds are planted, traditional farming management techniques can be employed to grow the crops until they are ready for harvest.

The technique has gained momentum in recent years, partly because of the cost savings it promises to introduce. After all, there is no more efficient way to produce calories for human consumption than by sprouting them from the ground. By transforming plants into small bioreactors, molecular farming companies can take advantage of the scalability and cost-effectiveness of leveraging traditional row crops as protein production engines.

PoLoPo’s founders say that the growing demand for egg-derived ingredients like ovalbumin highlights their system’s potential. Ovalbumin helps a food’s texture and increases shelf life in baked goods and plant-based meat alternatives. However, it has been in short supply in recent years, with avian flu outbreaks roiling egg production and costs surging.

The company will sell the processed protein powders to food manufacturers, who will be able to slot them into existing food production lines. The global ovalbumin-powder market is expected to hit $36 billion by 2032, according to the company. PoLoPo raised $1.75 million in seed funding last year.

Molecular Farming Startup Moolec Shows Off ‘Piggy Sooy,’ Its Animal Protein Producing Soybean

Today molecular farming startup Moolec showed off its new soybean platform for producing animal proteins, the “Piggy Sooy.”

According to the company, the new soybean reached an expression level of up to 26.6% of total soluble protein in soy seeds, which they say is four times higher than initially projected. Moolec says that the results can be observed visually in the pink color of the bean, which is essentially the same color as a pig. The company says the success of its soybean platform has led them to “file a new patent utilizing a novel approach aiming to provide the company with a frictionless regulatory pathway going forward.”

Moolec, a spinout of Bioceres Crop Solutions, is one of the first companies to utilize molecular farming to create alternative proteins. Molecular farming is that it uses crops as a protein factory, compared to traditional microbial fermentation techniques that utilize more capital-intensive fermentation infrastructure. Genetic engineers introduce animal DNA directly into the seeds, and once the genetically engineered seeds are planted, traditional farming management techniques can be employed to grow the crops until they are ready for harvest.

The efficiency of the technique recently led to the Good Food Institute declaring that molecular farming as the ‘fourth pillar’ of alternative protein. According to GFI, there are currently 12 companies worldwide using this technology to grow various products, including casein and lactoferrin (Forte Protein and Greenovation Protein), animal-free dairy proteins for cheese, ice cream, and yogurt (Miruku, Mozza, and Nobell Foods), growth factors for cultivated meat (Tiamet Sciences and Bright Biotech), and more.

Good Food Institute Sees Fourth Pillar For Alt Protein Market in the Form of Molecular Farming

Over the past few years, the Good Food Institute (GFI) has created dedicated reports for each category, or “pillar,” in the alternative protein market: plant-based, precision fermentation, and cultivated meat/seafood. This week, however, GFI teased what it sees as a possible fourth pillar for alternative protein pillar in the form of molecular farming.

Molecular farming, which GFI refers to as “plant molecular farming,” is a concept that readers of The Spoon may be familiar with. It involves producing animal protein using seed crops. Genetic engineers introduce animal DNA directly into the seeds, transforming the resulting crops into protein factories. Once the genetically engineered seeds are planted, traditional farming management techniques can be employed to grow the crops until they are ready for harvest.

The technique has been picking up momentum in recent years, in part because of the cost savings it promises to introduce. After all, there really is no more efficient way to produce calories for human consumption than by sprouting them from the ground, and by transforming plants into small bioreactors, molecular farming companies can take advantage of the scalability and cost-effectiveness of leveraging traditional row crops as protein production engines.

The addition of a fourth pillar to the alternative protein market comes as molecular farming is gaining traction. Earlier this month, molecular farming pioneer Moolec announced that their safflower plants had been cleared by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the USDA, posing no greater plant pest risk than non-genetically engineered safflower plants. Through its former parent company, Bioceres, Moolec has the capability to produce proteins such as chymosin (an enzyme used in cheese) using safflower plants. The USDA approval comes just months after Moolec became the first molecular farming company to go public in early 2023 through a SPAC vehicle offering.

Bioengineered ingredients specialist Motif Foodworks announced earlier this year that they were diversifying into molecular farming through a partnership with IngredientWerks. IngredientWerks will help Motif produce its Hemami ingredient, an ingredient identical to myoglobin in beef, through corn crops. Previously, Motif had been using precision fermentation techniques to produce Hemami.

According to GFI, there are currently 12 companies worldwide using this technology to grow various products, including casein and lactoferrin (Forte Protein and Greenovation Protein), animal-free dairy proteins for cheese, ice cream, and yogurt (Miruku, Mozza, and Nobell Foods), growth factors for cultivated meat (Tiamet Sciences and Bright Biotech), and more.

Interestingly, GFI notes that there are currently no alternative protein startups in the Asia-Pacific region using molecular farming, with only one startup (Miruku) in the broader APAC region (New Zealand). Given the focus on alternative proteins in many Asian countries, this situation is likely to change soon (one can almost hear the frantic typing of PowerPoint pitch decks while reading this post).

You can find the GFI state of the industry reports – including the molecular farming fact sheet – on this page free for download after registration.

Molecular Farming Pioneer Moolec is Going Public Via SPAC

Moolec Science, a company that develops animal-identical proteins utilizing a technique called molecular farming, announced today it is going public via a special purpose acquisition company (“SPAC”). The company is doing so via a business combination agreement with LightJump Acquisition Corp, a company formed in 2020 as a SPAC vehicle. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2022.

Moolec, a spinout of Bioceres Crop Solutions, is one of the first companies to utilize molecular farming to create alternative proteins. The attraction of molecular farming is that it uses crops as a protein factory, compared to traditional microbial fermentation techniques that utilize more capital-intensive fermentation infrastructure.

With molecular farming, crops are genetically modified to produce a target molecule. The Moolec team matches the target molecule with a host plant, creating different plant-molecule combinations for different applications. The company has launched two products so far, including a plant-based dairy ingredient called chymosin and nutritional oil GLA, both of which use safflower as a carrier crop. According to Moolec, both products have been cleared by regulatory authorities and the company is currently ramping up seed inventories. 

The newly combined organization, which will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “MLEC,” will have an initial proforma equity value of $504 million. Once public, the newly combined company will represent the first publicly traded alternative protein startup focused primarily on molecular farming. The company plans to use the funds from the transaction to commercialize its initial products, fund additional R&D around new products, and expand hiring.

In 2022, Molecular Farming Startups Will Move Toward Commercialization of Animal-Free Proteins

Like many of the technologies that are driving innovation in the alternative protein space, plant molecular farming has traditionally been used in the pharmaceutical industry. The practice — which involves genetically editing a crop so that its cells produce a desired protein — is being discussed as a way to rapidly produce proteins for COVID-19 vaccines.

In the food industry, molecular farming is one route to producing the animal proteins that give egg, dairy, and meat products their visual, taste, and functional properties. Molecular farming allows you to use the exact same protein that would normally be produced by a chicken or cow, without the need for any actual animals.

Moolec Science, a spinoff of Argentina-based agtech company Bioceres Crop Solutions, is probably the most prominent name in molecular farming for the food industry. Moolec already sells chymosin, a cheesemaking enzyme, which the company grows in safflower plants. They’ve also successfully grown meat proteins in soybean and pea plants.

The Moolec team believes that molecular farming can help to bring down the end costs of alternative meat products. (“There’s nothing better than low-tech farming to produce at an enhanced scale and low cost,” company CEO and co-founder Gastón Paladini told The Spoon back in October.) And they may be right.

Molecular farming can help producers to avoid some of the costly and tricky problems of growing proteins in traditional bioreactors. When you use a plant as your bioreactor, as food scientist and thought leader Tony Hunter pointed out in an article this year, you don’t need to worry about maintaining sterile conditions: Plants have built-in immune systems.

Moolec plans to launch its first animal-free meat protein in late 2022 or early 2023. The company is currently working toward regulatory approval for its products — and its progress will be an interesting test of regulatory tolerance of Moolec’s brand of genetic engineering.

One potential concern for regulators as they scrutinize molecular farming processes will be the possibility of gene flow from modified crops to related plants. Tiamat Sciences, a Belgium-based molecular farming startup, is limiting that possibility by growing its crops in a contained vertical farming system.

Tiamat has plans to expand alongside the cell-based meat industry. “By targeting nascent markets on the verge of scale-up, we’ve already demonstrated significant traction for our solutions and an early revenue potential that is outstanding for a biotech startup,” said Tiamat’s founder and CEO France-Emmanuelle Adil in a recent press release. The company currently produces GRAS-certified, animal-free growth factors for cultivated meat, and also manufactures proteins for the pharmaceutical industry.

Last month, Tiamat announced that it had raised a $3 million seed funding round led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm True Ventures. The company is using those funds to construct a pilot facility in Durham, N.C. — so we may see them boost their capacity in the year to come.

Molecular farming startups still have some issues to work out. As Tony Hunter noted in his piece on molecular farming, plant tissue has larger and fewer protein-producing cells compared to the same volume of mammal tissue, making plants less productive as protein factories. And there are costs associated with extracting protein molecules from plants at the cellular level.

Still, the same upsides of molecular farming that make it attractive to the pharmaceutical industry will likely continue to spark interest from alternative protein producers — especially as those producers seek ways to bring down the retail prices of their products.