🎥 MOA Foodtech CEO on biomanufacturing: ‘Sustainability isn’t enough. We have to lower costs’

Biomass fermentation, whereby firms harvest whole cells from fermentation tanks (think algae, yeast, fungi, bacteria), is typically cheaper than precision fermentation, whereby firms extract highly purified ingredients from said cells, because you can skip costly downstream processing steps.

But the economics—and sustainability metrics—look even better if your feedstocks are food and ag waste rather than pricey purified sugars such as dextrose, says Spanish startup MOA Foodtech.

Founded in late 2020 by Dr. Susana Sánchez, José María Elorza, and Bosco Emparanza, MOA Foodtech grows self-GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) yeast strains that can feed off a variety of food side streams from distillers’ grains to crop residues, to add nutrition and functionality to a variety of foods, says Emparanza.

“We’ve built a b2b sustainable ingredient platform where we combine biotechnology and AI to transform waste and byproducts from the agrifood industry into high value ingredients. There’s a lot of players in the industry that produce thousands of tons a year of byproducts and they are looking for new solutions.”

Emparanza caught up with AgFunderNews at the recent biomass fermentation growth hack in San Francisco hosted by food innovation platform MISTA.

“We really believe that fermentation is going to be one of the biggest pillars of the food industry in the coming years.” Bosco Emparanza

‘What we are looking for is a balance between carbon and nitrogen in our feedstocks’

According to Emaranza: “We are using our ingredients in many different applications. We started in in plant-based foods but we have seen a huge opportunity in the food industry [more broadly]. We are working hand in hand with the meat industry, in bakery products, snacks, creams, soups, and even pet food.

“We have over 300 microbes in our library, mainly bacteria and yeast, although today we are only using yeast, which is not considered a novel food [for regulatory purposes] and is OK to use in the US market.”

Using food and ag byproducts as feedstocks rather than, say, dextrose, is “hard, but we are convinced that this is the way to go in the fermentation space,” he added.

“We are building a database of over 150 byproducts that can [serve as] the carbon source, the nitrogen source, and even some salts [to feed the microbes].

“What we are looking for is a balance between carbon and nitrogen in those feedstocks. But it’s true that it’s not simple. The characteristics of those byproducts can be different from one system to another, and we have built an AI platform that can help us adjust the culture media in real time in order to get the most optimal conversion rate.

“We are building partnerships with the providers of those feedstocks. There are a lot of players in the industry that produce over 100,000 tons a year of different byproducts and they are looking for new solutions, and we’re building partnerships with these clients. The idea is to set up a facility close to them so we can make things more simple, more sustainable, and more efficient.”

Albatross AI tool

Speaking at the MISTA event, he added: “We believe that sustainability is not enough. We have to achieve lower costs in the culture media. Our AI tool Albatross combines the byproducts with microbes to give us the most efficient fermentation process that we need to achieve a specific biomass. We can also use it to improve [increase the production of] vitamins in the biomass or replace some inputs or reduce the time of the fermentation process.

“First we sequence the genomes of our microbes, and build specific metabolic models of the microbes that we have in our library. Then we take the data from our lab and the data we have from the byproducts that we are going to use and we start working with Albatross. As an example, for our first ingredient, it took us six months to develop from the experimental design to the best conditions in the lab. Right now with Albatross, we are able to complete the same process in less than two weeks.

“And the good thing about using byproducts is that you can find them all around the world and achieve a really low-cost price in the culture media. But that is not enough. We have also developed new technology to achieve specific functionalities in the final biomass by adjusting the downstream processing.”

MOA’s first ingredient is yeast containing “around 40% protein, 35% fiber, a great nutritional profile, plus the taste is great,” he says. “Our second ingredient is the same biomass with the same regulatory status but thanks to changes in our downstream process, it also has really strong gelling and emulsifying activity. So something that we like to say is that we don’t need to go through precision fermentation or use GMOs to achieve these kinds of specific functionalities.”

MOA Foodtech is currently “scaling up in Spain to 10,000 liters enabling us to produce 40 tons a year,” he added.

Meat analogs

One area MOA Foodtech has been working on is using its fermented ingredients to improve the quality of plant-based meat analogs as part of a project with Bühler, ADM, Givaudan, and Puris, he added.

“Using high moisture extrusion, we can introduce up to 60% of this fermented protein, achieving a better environmental impact, clean labels, and an improved taste and nutritional profile [vs products just using plant proteins] with all the essential amino acids plus vitamins and fiber.”

However, the ingredients also work well in a low moisture extrusion process, he said. “We are now working on a project with one of the biggest meat companies in Spain to achieve a meat analog that behaves like real meat. We can achieve really good texture and taste with a vegan bolognese for a lasagna using dry [low moisture] extrusion.”

“We have also been working with Purina in Switzerland to improve the palatability of pet food and help it decrease its carbon footprint, and we are also working with some companies on replacing egg ovalbumin.”