Finally Foods—a molecular farming startup producing dairy proteins in potatoes—has struck a commercial agreement with Israeli beverage and dairy producer CBC Group, which has led a $1.2 million round into the firm.
The investment follows Finally Foods’ first field trial and will enable it to complete it to begin scaling operations toward commercial production.
“In a short period of time Finally Foods succeeded in achieving extraordinary results, from a successful field trial to a strategic partnership with CBC Group,” said Ofer Haviv at computational biology company Evogene, which has helped Finally Foods dramatically speed up the process of developing plants expressing high levels of casein proteins.
“This is an additional step in proving that molecular farming is a real production alternative to animal-based proteins.”
Finally Foods CEO Dafna Gabbay told AgFunderNews: “At this stage I’m afraid I can’t share details of the commercial agreement. What I can confirm is that CBC Group is our first significant customer, which makes this partnership an especially important milestone for Finally Foods.”
‘Our potatoes grow just like any other potato in open fields’
By modeling biological systems computationally using tech developed at Evogene, Finally Foods has been able to simulate the effects of different modifications on the potato plant’s growth, development, and protein expression levels to optimize the tech before moving to greenhouse trials and “real-world” testing in the field, Gabbay explained.
“Our first field trial was very important as it demonstrated that our potatoes grow just like any other potato in open fields. In addition, the field trial was essential to generate the large quantities of potatoes needed to move our extraction process from the lab to an industrial scale.
“Over the next couple of years, we will be assessing global territories for growing our potatoes, and regulatory processes have already begun in several regions.”
Asked about scale up plans, she said: “Finally’s extraction process is cost-efficient and builds on existing industrial methods, while naturally requiring alignment with regulatory guidelines and considerations. At present, we are finalizing our pre-seed extension round; as we move into the seed stage, we will certainly need to raise more capital to support and implement extraction at commercial scale.”
As for the potato left over after the casein proteins are extracted, she said: “We certainly plan to commercialize the by-products of our extraction process. As part of this, we separate the starch fraction of the potato and depending on its characteristics and the regulatory frameworks in different territories, we will determine the appropriate applications and market value.”
Molecular farming vs precision fermentation
While several companies now engineer microbes to produce casein via precision fermentation, Finally Foods and other molecular farming startups argue that the unit economics of growing such proteins in genetically engineered plants—which require less capex and opex—are more favorable.
Once a new plant variety has been developed, meanwhile, scaling up is potentially cheaper and easier than it might be with precision fermentation, which presents new challenges every time you move to a larger fermenter, says the firm, which says scaling up molecular farming “just means having more fields.”
That said, the regulatory pathway is potentially more burdensome, with approvals needed both to grow the GM plants and to market the ingredients they produce. US regulators have also warned startups in the field that expressing animal proteins such as egg and dairy proteins in genetically engineered crops such as soybeans will require strict allergen management.
Downstream processing and purification
But why use potatoes as a host?
One key advantage over soybeans, says the firm, is that the downstream processing and purification process for extracting and purifying casein proteins from potatoes is simpler. Finally Foods is also developing varieties specifically with downstream processing in mind.
“We are not aiming to supply the market with a mixture of casein proteins and other proteins from the host plant,” said Gabbay. “We produce clean, pure casein proteins without DNA from the genetically engineered host so that the final product is not a GMO.”
When casein molecules are formed in cow’s milk, they fold up into a spherical “micelle” structure in which individual proteins—alpha 1, alpha 2, beta, and kappa—are suspended in a solution along with calcium and other minerals. This structure is key to the functionality of the casein.
Unlike firms using microbial expression systems, where each individual casein protein is typically produced separately by a different microbial strain, molecular farming companies can potentially produce more than one casein protein in the same plant, said Gabbay.
“In the upcoming trials, scheduled for the coming months, we will optimize agronomic conditions and cultivate all the casein formulations we have developed. Producing all four casein subunits in the same potato variety is entirely feasible, and we hope to share positive news on this front in the near future. In parallel, we have already produced pairs of subunits and are now testing their functionality.”
Notably, she claimed, the casein proteins also form a micellular structure inside the potato. “The whole brilliance of molecular farming is that the micelles are done [formed] inside the plant.”
What is molecular farming?
There are varying definitions, but companies deploying plant molecular farming are typically genetically engineering plants to make them produce something they wouldn’t typically make (vaccines in tobacco, growth factors in barley, dairy proteins in soybeans, chymosin in safflower).
Rather than modifying the plant to confer a beneficial agronomic property such as disease resistance or improved nutrition (purple tomatoes), molecular farming companies use plants like bioreactors in order to produce specific high-value ingredients.
In recent years, multiple players have emerged producing so-called “animal-free” proteins through molecular farming, which they argue is more sustainable, ethical, and potentially more efficient than industrialized animal agriculture.
Market drivers for cow-free dairy
Asked in a recent interview why dairy and CPG companies are interested in buying dairy proteins produced in plants or bioreactors, Gabbay said: “I don’t think that there is any major dairy company in the world that isn’t researching cow-less products, whether it is because of climate and sustainability reasons or because of concerns about meeting demand in the future. Avian flu in California affected cows as well [as chickens], so there are also concerns there.
“I think in future, we’ll have dairy from cows, from fermenters and from plants.”
Further reading:
Egg proteins… in potatoes? Molecular farming startup PoLoPo makes the case
Meat proteins… in plants? Moolec Science raises $30m to expand molecular farming operation
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