What is it?
Precision fermentation is where we can produce a key, functional molecule using fermentation techniques. A microbe, whether bacteria, fungi, or yeast, generally has inputs (what it eats) and outputs (what it excretes). Bread Yeast is a good example. When we feed it simple sugars, we can produce carbon dioxide and alcohol. What’s even more amazing is that we can manipulate the inputs and understand their response. For example with bread yeast, if we lower the temperature, alcohol increases while carbon dioxide decreases. This is why pizza dough is refrigerated for a day, to develop a stronger flavor and create a dough that generally is very dense.
Anyways, that’s a simple example of what we’re doing with precision fermentation, but food tech companies are doing a lot more. There are so many more inputs and outputs that can be achieved in this field of science.
So what does this have to do with food tech? Well, now we can take the DNA of a specific protein like myoglobin, or casein, or egg white, and through proper experimentation, create a microbe that can produce these molecules without even harming an animal.
When I was at Motif, I would have to explain what this is but I think I got pretty good at it.
Imagine DNA as a code (which it is) and we have a code for a cow and yeast. We snip the code for myoglobin and insert it into the yeast code, where we tell the yeast to produce myoglobin. And then the yeast produces myoglobin.
Because yeast can grow much faster than a cow, we can actually get a lot more output in theory.
Where is it now?
Surprisingly, precision fermentation isn’t very new. It’s been used to make all sorts of drugs such as penicillin, and insulin. What used to take two tons of pig parts now takes a single vat to produce a chemical compound that saves human lives.
Most know the story of rennet, which used to be harvested from baby cow stomachs is now mainly produced by precision fermentation saving the industry tons of money and potentially saving the lives of baby cows too.
When we think of food, there are so many things that are actually made using precision fermentation that gets none of the spotlights. Stevia and Xanthan gum are made using microbes that have been coded and coached into creating a sweetener that isn’t bitter and a thickener that doesn’t endanger the rainforest. These are case studies no one wants to really know about, yet when we say the same story with say, casein, or myoglobin, or lactoferrin, the narrative shifts and people are uncomfortable. Though I am all for transparency in the food industry, by not understanding the full picture, people make their own assumptions that this stuff is science fiction even though it’s been so the whole time.
Most people in the precision fermentation industry, which has deep pockets don’t even want to research the vast history of how our food industry keeps on innovating by transitioning from extraction to production.
Hurdles: Cost and Capacity
So the current state of play is that precision fermentation is really expensive. This is a no-brainer. The scale isn’t there and the raw material infrastructure isn’t there. Food unfortunately is a product that must be low cost and high volume and even premium products have their limit.
Generally, most precision fermentation companies pivot to add a consumer-facing component to their precision fermented darling. For example, perfect day and its ice cream, every and its juice, and Motif and its burger. Generally, the strategy is not only ego-stroking (I admit it, having your product directly shared with someone is such a euphoric feeling) but also allows for faster (but still slow) consumer adoption. These companies can afford to test this out and it’s been a decent strategy for people like Perfect Day, which not only launched their own brands but has gotten other brands to commit to making products like cream cheese and chocolate bars.
One of the hardest things to understand is just how people can share the value of precision fermentation in this economy. With food prices generally going up, new and cool ingredients are a super hard sell.
However, the adoption of ingredients is such a long-term game plan. I remember being pitched Allulose back in my day in Isagenix, about 6 years ago. At the time, no one has really heard of allulose. Was it safe? Why not just use stevia or maltitol? Sure there were benefits, but the cost of labor it took to use it was too risky at the time. It just wasn’t worth using it.
I think allulose went mainstream when Quest Nutrition was convinced that this was a great sweetener. Now, it’s what everyone is using but keep in mind, this took like, 5 years.
The next hurdle is capacity. Most precision fermentation companies are using pharma manufacturers to create their product which costs a lot. Not only that but there are a lot of rules when it comes to manufacturing this stuff and every country is different. We do see many companies gearing up to invest in their own manufacturing plant. For example, the company Change foods which does dairy protein or something just announced that they are building a plant in the middle east.
A lot of insider information is going towards talking about investing in the picks and shovels, or the manufacturing of these ingredients. With high CAPEX projects, these take a long time for factories to be built and is a huge investment for anyone involved.
This is the hard work no one wants to do, or rather, expect this to take decades.
If you want job security, look into the building and optimizing giant fermentation vats as in the next decade, most of your food, from cultivated to precision fermentation, to cultivated meat, to mycelium, will be made here.