August 4, 2022

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

More than 250 global companies have made efforts over the past decade to clean up their supply chains and to mitigate the harmful effects of palm oil production, but these measures have been met with limited success, with only 20 percent of the palm oil supply currently certified as sustainable.

But, what if our current means of production aren’t our only option?

Christopher Chuck, Professor of Bioprocess Engineering at the University of Bath’s Department of Chemical Engineering, is leading a team that developed a lab-created yeast-based palm oil alternative and the process for making it.

This work has advanced toward achieving commercialization following an investment of £1.8 million (US$2.2 million) from UK-based food tech business Clean Food Group – a developer of cultivated food that has acquired the IP and rights to the process developed by a cross-disciplinary team based at the university. 

The Impact

Palm oil is everywhere. It’s versatile; has a low cost of production; has a high burning point; and is high in saturated fats. It’s an ingredient in a vast range of products from baked goods to chips, noodles, and even cosmetics and health and beauty products.

The oil’s popularity has driven it to have a global market value of $50.6 billion in 2021, and expectations of reaching $65.5 billion by 2027. However, this rise in popularity is a double-edged sword, as its production is responsible for vast deforestation, societal exploitation, loss of biodiversity and habitats of endangered species such as the Sumatran rhino, the orangutan, and the pygmy elephant, pollution to water and air, and increased greenhouse gas emissions across Southeast Asia due to the conversion of carbon-heavy peat soils to plantations. 

“Our dependence on palm oil comes at a great environmental cost,” said Professor Chuck. “We’ve worked over many years to create robust palm oil alternatives that give us a real chance to cut the impact of a range of products that until now have only been possible to produce with palm oil and the deforestation, pollution and emissions that come with it.”

The University of Bath has had a history of breakthroughs in the area of cellular agriculture, having previously developed new processes for the production of cellular meats in its chemical engineering department. 

This new, yeast-based palm oil alternative, and several of its components  (not only a palm oil substitute, but synthetic proteins that can be a direct replacement for soybean products) will be further developed with the intent of replacing existing food ingredients that are unsustainable. Likewise, work will continue on using the “whole cell” of the yeast product as the basis for a range of new meat alternative foods.

“We are delighted to work with Professor Chris Chuck and his growing Clean Food Group team at the University of Bath to bring a commercially viable and sustainable alternative to palm oil to market,” said Alex Neves, co-founder and CEO, Clean Food Group.

“We are well placed to take the next step on the path to bringing our palm oil alternative, an ingredient with the potential to solve substantial environmental, food security, health and working environment challenges within the incumbent palm oil supply chain, to market.”

The next steps are already being planned. Clean Food Group stated that through this collaboration with the university it has its eye toward scaling the technology and plans to invest in a large-scale pilot facility.

Neves added, “In addition to our acquisition of the intellectual property for the palm oil alternative technology and our collaboration with the University of Bath to scale the technology, we will be investing in securing regulatory approval for our palm oil alternative ingredients in multiple markets.”

“We will also be investing in the development of a large-scale pilot plant which will allow us to enter into meaningful collaborations with commercial partners and to demonstrate our palm oil alternative within finished products. We have already received significant market interest with regards to this.”

~ Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Unconventional Ag. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.

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