Page 28 - Food&Drink Magazine Aug-Sep 2021

INGREDIENTS
Audacious
opportunities
with algae
Australian biotech firm Provectus Algae is at the forefront of a synthetic biology breakthrough, using precision photosynthesis to develop speciality ingredients for food and beverage and other industries. Kim Berry talks to founder and CEO Nusqe Spanton about the technology and its potential.
Provectus Algae founder and CEO Nusqe Spanton
THERE are more than five million algae species in the world, with around 2000 of them studied and only about 10 of them reproduced or farmed at any scale. For CEO and founder of Provectus Algae Nusque Spanton, this is a “wickedly exciting” situation, with algae offering a new and sustainable way of creating speciality ingredients.
“Every day we are making discoveries that open our eyes to what algae is capable of and its potential. Thanks to algae, we are able to benefit from a 3.5-billion-year head start in producing some of the world’s most coveted ingredients,” Spanton says.
Provectus has developed proprietary hardware, software and machine learning that use algae’s single cell format as a factory.
“The sheer diversity of algae species available, means each one has the potential to produce vastly different ingredients, flavours or speciality compounds,” he explains.
FLAVOUR CELLS
“Let’s say a manufacturer is looking for strawberry flavouring. We haven’t found a
Provectus Algae is discovering more about algae every day.
naturally occurring algae that tastes like strawberries yet, but there are algae species that have what we call a metabolic pathway that is very similar. We can home in on that pathway in that particular alga and engineer some genes to manipulate it into producing strawberry flavour. So now you have a micro-organism that can be grown 24/7, in a sealed tank, and supplied in the required format that tastes just like strawberry.
“And that can be done for vitamins, minerals, nutrients, supplements, pharmaceutical grade ingredients. The opportunities are endless, particularly in that we can do it all naturally as well. That is a big driver for corporations on a global scale looking to convert to more sustainable production systems, shift from synthetic chemicals to natural ones, and move to naturally based product formats,” he says
The technology autonomously micromanages the growing environment using LED lights, sensors, and artificial intelligence to provide optimal growing conditions. Tests have shown up to a
500 per cent increase in biomass over a seven-day period using the company’s proprietary lighting technology when compared to an industry leading lighting system.
“Our biorefinery platform can precisely control light, CO2, nitrogen and input media. This gives us the ability to formulate different recipes and generate predictable results across different batches, producing a variety of compounds at scale,” Spanton says.
Spanton uses the specialty flavour nootkatone, derived from grapefruits, as an example of how Provectus can circumvent issue of supply chain disruption while also addressing environmental impacts of traditional farming for such ingredients.
“It takes around 400,000 kilos of grapefruit skins to get one kilo of nootkatone. Every product you’ve ever tasted that has that particular tang to it – not sour, not salty, not sweet –
28 | Food&Drink business | August/September 2021 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au