Turning wood into food to solve protein shortage
Converting wood into food has enabled an American agricultural-biotechnology company called Arbiom to share in €10.9 million of EU funding.
Arbiom has successfully produced tonnes of its high-protein SylPro protein product from timber.
This product could well be a modern equivalent of the ancient alchemist’s dream of turning base metals into gold, because there is a growing deficit of sustainable protein acros the global food and agriculture industry.
For animal feed alone, the global protein ingredients market is set to surpass $200 billion (€175bn) by 2024.
Soybean remains the most important and preferred source of high-quality vegetable protein for animal feed. But there is over-dependence on soya, and its cultivation drives deforestation.
The use of fish protein in animal feed puts pressure on our ocean ecosystems.
Because of these and other market factors, prices for proteins are undoubtedly going to rise in the future, so finding sustainable and affordable locally produced alternatives is seen as critical.
There is a huge amount of innovation in alternative protein ingredients, from insects to methane based products,
But Arbiom’s SylPro has become a front runner, as a more sustainable alternative with minimal impact on the environment, and less land and water required for its production.
It gained extra global exposure in last week’s Global Summit staged by the Hello Tomorrow organisation which is on a mission to unlock the power of new technologies to tackle the world’s toughest environmental, social and industrial
Out of 4,500 projects which took part, Arbiom was one of 70 start-up companies selected as finalists, to pitch to a select audience of 400 industry experts and investors in Paris.
Arbiom featured in the Industrial Biotech category, and was not one of the 12 winners, but its Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge appearance follows earlier participation in the high-profile European Forum on Industrial Biotechnology and Aquaculture Innovation Showcase.
The Global Summit in Paris was another opportunity for Arbiom to showcase its new technology for converting wood into a protein-rich feed ingredient.
Last year, Arbiom was one of 12 winners in the US of the Triangle Business Journal Life Sciences Award for its work in transforming wood, the most sustainable and readily available carbon source in the world, into intermediate materials for applications in the feed, food, and chemicals industries.
Arbiom was also selected as a 2018 Nutreco Feed Tech Challenge finalist.
It produces SylPro from hardwood residues and waste.
SylPro is more than 60% crude protein, with enhanced amino acid profile and digestibility for use in animal feed.
SylPro is a nutritional, economical, traceable, and sustainable protein-rich ingredient developed to solve the challenges of protein sourcing, and to improve gut health in aquaculture and livestock.
Technically, it is an enhanced strain of torula yeast (Candida utilis), a globally-approved feed and food ingredient with a history of safe use.
The breakthrough production of SylPro in tonnage volumes enables Arbiom to launch several animal feed trials in order to validate its nutritional quality as a protein source for several species — including salmon, tilapia, and hybrid striped bass in aquaculture, along with weanling pigs, and a number of pet animals.
Trial performance data measuring growth rate, body weight, feed intake, and feed conversion ratio will be available in 2019. More studies to assess additional nutritional benefits of SylPro, such as growth promotion, gut health and palatability, will also take place this year.
Arbiom will hope to confirm that SylPro has significant benefits over other protein sources such as fish meal, and soy protein concentrate, and it is on a par with whey protein concentrate for nutritional quality.
Headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, Arbiom also has offices in Paris, France, and Norton, Virginia, where it operates a pilot plant.
The funding it has been awarded by the EU will support the construction of a demonstration plant co-located with Norske Skog Golbey’s pulp and paper site in the east of France.
Here, Arbiom will be one of the partners from five countries in the Sylfeed project, and its process of growing protein-rich microorganisms on pre-processed woody biomass, in order to produce the SylPro ingredient of more than 60% crude protein.
Biomass sourcing and industrial scale processing for the project is provided by Norske Skog Golbey, which is one of the leading newsprint producers in Europe
Also involved are Prayon, a global leader in phosphoric acid; Sweden’s Processum research centre; Iceland’s Matis research institute; Østfoldforskning, a Norwegian firm; and the Laxa and Skretting aquaculture companies.
With Europe more than 70% dependent upon imports for its animal feed protein needs, Arbiom’s breakthrough and the Sylfeed project are ideal funding recipients.
Converting wood into food has enabled an American agricultural-biotechnology company called Arbiom to share in €10.9 million of EU funding.
