Advances in biotechnology are enabling the production of ingredients sheltered from agricultural challenges such as rising temperatures, droughts, livestock concerns, soil quality, pesticide use and more.
Some fast-evolving technologies gaining ground in the supplements arena are precision fermentation and plant cell culture—two approaches which aim to deliver standardized, high-quality ingredients uninhibited by traditional productivity barriers.
While each offers unique advantages and specific market opportunities, both face similar barriers when it comes to production and commercialization at scale.
Precision fermentation
Precision fermentation is a technological approach which uses microorganisms such as yeasts, bacteria, microalgae and fungi as ‘micro factories’ to produce ingredients that are structurally bio-identical to their natural counterparts. This technique enables both the sustainable production of existing ingredients and the creation or discovery of entirely new compounds.
Because it is independent of agricultural conditions, precision fermentation can be carried out year-round in controlled facilities, enabling consistent composition, standardized potency and improved functionality.
“Precision fermentation allows us to rethink how important nutritional compounds can be produced,” according to Kevin O’ Connor, chief science officer at Nova Mentis, a firm developing precision fermentation olive oil extract hydroxytyrosol.
The firm produces biomass without the unwanted impurities or batch-to-batch variations.
“Rather than being limited by traditional agricultural extraction, we can focus on delivering a defined highly pure bioactive with the consistency and scalability that today’s product developers require,” he told NI previously.
Muscling in on whey protein market
As well as polyphenols, this technology shows promise in the production of ingredients which are unsustainable to source in nature, such as human milk oligosaccharides, omega-3 fatty acids, proteins and peptides.
It shows particular promise in the protein market as sports nutrition stakeholders are increasingly searching for alternatives to whey amidst surging prices driven by the mainstreaming of protein and heightened demand from GLP-1 users.
Belgian precision fermentation researchers at Those Vegan Cowboys previously informed NI they are looking to tap into this opportunity, working alongside sports nutrition brand XXL Nutrition to develop the “next generation of functional nutrition” powered by animal-free casein.
Their precision fermented casein is said to reduce CO2 emissions by 95%, and reduce land and water use by one fifth compared with cow-derived casein.
Hille van der Kaa, CEO of Those Vegan Cowboys, told NI demand for sustainable alternatives is growing.
“The industry has told us they want to have an alternative because they see the price of casein will go up in the future,” she said, adding that retailers in Europe will often favor brands which can claim lowered CO2 production.
But she noted the benefits weren’t purely environmental, as the team is working to deliver better functionality than animal-derived casein.
Also working to develop a ‘superior’ functionality alternative to animal derived protein, US-based innovator Provenance Bio is developing a precision fermentation collagen which promises consumers next-level purity.
“Animal-sourced materials can introduce risks like heavy metals, antibiotics, hormones, pathogens—such as BSE risk in bovine—or environmental pollutants from feed and water,” Michalyn Andrews, the firm’s CEO, told NI.
“Supply chains involve multiple steps—slaughter, rendering, transport— increasing chances of cross-contamination or degradation... Premium brands are now seeking a new standard: purity, precision, and sustainability without compromising function.”
However, moving from small yields in laboratory settings to commercial production remains a major hurdle and early-stage startups often lack access to large-scale bioreactor infrastructure. It’s for this reason that Danone and partners built a Biotech Open Platform (BIOP) to support the scale-up of innovations in this industry.
Plant cell culture
While precision fermentation seeks to recreate specific molecules using microbial hosts, plant cell culture (PCC) preserves the plant’s own biological machinery, growing biomass in a sterile, controlled artificial environment, making it particularly suited to complex botanical compounds.
Much like precision fermentation, not only does the technology reduce the environmental footprint and enable uninterrupted production, it eliminates concerns over adulteration or contamination and ensures standardized high quality and potency extracts.
The technology has already established itself in luxury cosmetics and pharmaceuticals and is now gaining momentum in the nutraceuticals space.
One pioneer in this industry is US-based Ayana Bio, which is using AI-enabled parallel screening to produce climate sensitive botanicals with high bioactive content.
Speaking at a recent Plant Cell Summit, in Oxford, UK, Weslee Glenn, informed delegates the firm is using the technology to produce saffron, a plant “surrounded by geopolitical turmoil” with more than 90% of it is produced in Iran.
“It is one of the most widely adulterated plants on the market,” he said, adding that it takes approximately 1,000 person hours and 150,000 flowers to produce 1kg of biomass.
Ayana’s multi-omic screening allows scientists to detect the drivers of the desired bioactive compounds, such as crocins, the carotenoid pigment ester compounds in saffron, and “turn up and down” the concentration of the compounds.
“We can figure out which of these hundreds of conditions boost the targets and we can link it back to the mechanisms going on inside the cell, looking at what transcripts and proteins are up or down.”
Challenges in commercialization
A key drawback remains economics. While the technology has proven itself in industries where small volumes can command high prices, supplement manufacturers still need plant cell culture to become cost-competitive at larger scales.
Industry delegates voiced concerns that they could encounter the same consumer perception challenges as experienced by the meat cell culture industry, with consumers worrying business will be taken from farmers.
However, speaking at the Summit, Eliodora Dal Monte, sales marketing manager at AB Research, argued the technology is a necessary complementary stream rather than a replacement to traditional farming and argued the perception of PCC has changed significantly thanks to the growing spotlight on climate change.
“Ten years ago, companies didn’t seem to care about the environmental impacts of the ingredients they bought, they just wanted the health claim,” she said. “Now they ask if it is from PCC and it is seen as a positive to see it is produced via greener technology.”
A further hurdle for the commercialization of these ingredients in Europe, is they will require pre-market novel food authorization evaluated by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). This process, which takes at least three years, is the reason why several companies choose to first commercialize in the US.
To keep pace with these technologies, EFSA plans to adapt its risk assessment pathway for precision fermentation and cell-culture derived products. The agency noted in a recently published roadmap for European food regulation, that bio-engineering and AI advances are creating new molecules and synthetic production systems faster than it can develop the detection tools and specialized safety criteria required to evaluate them.
The agency knows it will need sustained scientific preparedness and innovation to anticipate future regulatory science needs arising from evolving food systems.
“Robust fit-for-purpose risk assessment methodologies will need to maintain scientific excellence, while enhancing regulatory readiness and speed of risk assessment,” the report stated.
