Top Priorities:

  • Palm oil, tallow, and vegetable oil substitutes from upcycled waste (e.g., spent grain, food waste) for use in surfactants and food applications, with price parity.

  • Natural, sustainable preservatives for personal and oral care products and food.

  • Marketplaces and affordable processing technologies to upcycle CPG co-product streams (e.g., spent coffee/tea leaves, seeds, peels, pulp, wet/dry yeast).

Other Areas of Interest:

  • Renewable or recycled carbon-based ingredients (non-fossil derived), including CO₂ for carbonation and surfactants for cleaning products.
  • Low-cost, sulfate-free and natural surfactant technologies.
  • Biological or chemical processes to extract high-value compounds for skincare, pharmaceuticals, and wellness products.
  • New formulations for sports nutrition, hydration sticks, endurance gels, and dairy alternatives with higher plant protein content.
  • Solutions for recycling aerobic sludge.
  • Biobased cleaning and disinfection products suitable for beer production.
  • Innovative soil-free filtration technology as an alternative to diatomaceous earth.
  • Precision fermentation - cocoa, tropical fats and protein alternatives. (process to drive efficiency, yield, outcome).
  • Low-cost, sustainable plant-based protein (with sensory neutrality: color, texture, aroma, taste), and lipid alternatives for dairy footprint reduction (currently mostly used from dairy, some grains).
  • Upcycled functional ingredients from agricultural waste valorization for enhanced nutrition (e.g., fiber, antioxidants, prebiotics, proteins, essential fatty acids) or product performance (e.g., natural preservatives, stabilizers, emulsifiers) with clean label potential.
  • Identify and control when key metabolites are formed or cells are ready for harvest (plant tissue culture / microbial fermentation).
  • Advanced sensor and controls for bioreactors (in-line).
  • Low cost, sustainable, abundant sources of/technologies that can liberate simple sugars as fermentation feedstock.
  • (Clean label) Antibiotics, antimycotics etc. That can be used in food grade plant tissue culture. Aid the reduction/simplification of sterility requirements and associated CAPEX.
  • New technology for accelerating solid-liquid separation of waste yeast using enzymes.
  • Processing technologies that turn our co-products into (new) ingredients for various food applications (focus on dairy by-streams such as acid whey, ultrafiltration permeate (UF), lactose streams).
  • Technologies for efficient sludge drying (with lower energy consumption).
  • Opportunity to valorize manufacturing effluent sludge with dairy residues.
  • Liquid alkali recovery innovation.