Top Priorities:
Low-cost, non-fossil, upcycled carbon-based ingredients, including CO2 for carbonation and surfactants and oleochemical substitutes, that achieve price party with palm oil, tallow, and/or petroleum-derviced inputs for food and cleaning applications.
Upcycled, clean-label functional ingredients, including natural preservatives, stabilizers, and emulsifiers, derived from agricultural waste for food/enhanced nutrition (e.g., fiber, antioxidants, prebiotics, proteins, essential fatty acids), personal care, and oral care applications.
Scalable processing platforms and marketplaces that convert CPG co-product streams (e.g., spent coffee/tea leaves, seeds, peels, pulp, wet/dry yeast) and dairy co-product streams (e.g., acid whey, UF permeate, lcatose streams) into high-value, new food ingredients or other products.
Other Areas of Interest:
- Biological or chemical processes to extract high-value compounds for skincare, pharmaceuticals, and wellness products.
- Technologies that enable recycling, efficient separation, drying, and valorization of sludge, yeast, and manufacturing effluent streams -- including dairy residues -- into usable materials or ingredients with reduced energy use and disposal costs.
- 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).
- 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.
- Liquid alkali recovery innovation.
