How will molecular farming shape the future of food production?
At Kingstone Schweizer Ventures, we believe that accelerating global sustainability trends are providing a massive opportunity for venture-backed start-ups.
To capture this opportunity, we invest across three verticals: energy, food and agriculture, and materials 2.0. These three sectors produce 86% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Novel protein production platforms, such as molecular farming, could dispel the paradigm that cellular agriculture and plant-based meats are too capital intensive to scale.
🌿 Molecular farming technology enables the production of animal proteins in plants
Plant molecular farming (PMF) is not a new technology: it was first demonstrated in 1989 by producing antibodies in tobacco plants. It has since been adopted by the pharmaceutical industry as a potential approach to scaling high-value therapeutics.
PMF is the process of genetically modifying plant cells to express target proteins, which are then purified.
However, PMF is increasingly being adopted for food applications, with start-ups recognising the opportunity to build novel food solutions with PMF.
Two common applications are ingredients and inputs for cellular agriculture.
Applications in ingredients
For example, Kyomei is producing meat proteins in plants which are identical to the amino acid levels of pork and beef proteins, and carry similar nutritional and organoleptic properties, so they can be added directly to plant-based meat.
If successful, they could shift the consumer perception of sub-standard tasting plant-based foods, driving the demand frequency needed for this sector to deliver on its growth potential. Thus, they are challenging vertically integrated companies and other ingredient producers.
PMF can even be used to create dairy proteins. Nobell Foods are expressing casein proteins in soybeans to make dairy-free cheese.
Applications in cellular agriculture
PMF is also an enabling technology for cellular agriculture. Companies like Tiamat Sciences are using plants to express growth factors, proteins, and other ingredients for cell culture media. Cell culture media is an enabling technology behind cellular agriculture companies like BlueNalu, Mosa Meat, and Aleph Farms (among many, many others).
So why do we need PMF solutions?
🐄 The growing demand for meat is straining the planet's resources
Animal agriculture is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). In fact, the FAO finds that livestock emissions represent 14.5% of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Of this, 62% is attributed to cattle, due to their enteric fermentation process producing methane, which is >25x more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat.
Water and land use from animal agriculture are also under scrutiny; with the FAO estimating that 80% of arable land is used for animal feed production, and up to 92% of fresh water is used for animal product production.
And the demand for meat is expected to continue to grow with the global population, which is expected to reach 10bn by 2050. This translates to 455mn metric tonnes of meat produced annually by 2050, a 76% increase from 2005.
The majority of this increase is from growing middle-income countries, whereas in higher-income countries, demand is stagnating or reducing.
This has resulted in an inverted U-shaped curve between income and meat demand. This is attributed to higher incomes correlating with greater awareness of animal, health, and environmental concerns.
Thus, industries, governments, and consumers are increasingly looking for more sustainable sources of protein which use fewer resources.
🧫 Novel solutions for non-animal protein sources are emerging
Of course, non-animal protein sources are not new. Plant-based alternatives to meat have existed for millennia. For example, tofu was first recorded in the Chinese Han dynasty, 2000 years ago.
However, the newest generation of plant-based alternatives is radically different to tofu, and producers are trying to appeal to meat-eaters through more meat-like characteristics. Companies leading this sector, like Beyond Meat and Quorn, have helped the plant-based meat market grow to $4.3bn in 2020 at an impressive CAGR of 14.0%.
And this widespread consumer adoption could result in significant climate benefits. Several studies have shown that plant-based meats consistently use less land and water than their meat equivalents, whilst producing fewer GHG emissions and pollutants.
So, despite this growth, why is meat consumption still increasing?
🥓 Meat alternatives are not yet at taste and texture parity with traditional meat products
A report by Kearney suggests that up to 50% of consumers do not purchase plant-based alternatives because they do not taste as good as conventional meat products.
In response, many companies continue to innovate to produce increasingly meat-like products. A good example is Impossible’s heme-containing burger, which provides the “bleeding” effect, as well as the umami taste of meat.
Other companies are harnessing novel technologies, such as cellular agriculture. Cellular agriculture is the process of producing real meat products using stem cells, where no animal slaughter is required.
Cellular agriculture was brought into popular consciousness in 2013 when Dr Mark Post unveiled a $300,000 lab-grown beef burger. The industry has come a long way today, with >100 companies in existence.
Like plant-based meats, cellular agriculture products are likely to have a smaller environmental impact than conventional meat. Although this is somewhat contested, and greatly depends on the production methods and the energy source used.
🥩 These emerging protein sources face scaling and consumer adoption challenges
Yet, despite the influx of capital into the sector, there are concerns about the future of cell-based meat.
Many worry that, like GMOs, a poor first impression from consumers could destroy the industry for years.
Other critics question the scalability of cultivated meat. Given the technical complexity and capital intensity of bioreactor-derived meat, feeding the entire population will be a challenge.
So where does molecular farming come in?
🌿 Molecular farming could provide a more efficient solution to some of these scaling challenges
PMF is exciting because it could simplify the scaling challenges many alternative meat producers are facing. Plants are “single-use, biodegradable, bioreactors” and can be used to create the growth factors and ingredients needed for a more sustainable food system.
PMF challenges existing production platforms, such as precision fermentation, due to inherent characteristics:
- PMF uses existing farming infrastructure
- Expression and extraction of target proteins using PMF could cost less compared to other production platforms
- Additional value could be captured in side-streams with existing processing facilities and markets
The use of existing farming infrastructure is a key draw for companies developing PMF. Once a successful method has been found, scale is simply a matter of planting more crops to express those proteins. This is in comparison to the capital-intensive approach of building ever-larger bioreactor facilities.
In addition, the opportunity for reducing the cost base for alternative meats is huge. Cell culture media is a major proportion of the cost base of cultivated meat. If PMF technologies can produce cheaper media inputs (like growth factors), this could move cellular agriculture products further down the cost curve.
Lastly, valorisation of side streams in PMF could create additional revenue sources. For example, using soybeans as the expression platform would provide oil and plant fibre co-products, and processing facilities and markets already exist for those products.
Of course, there are risks to this technology, such as the need for regulation (particularly considering the public perception of GMOs), expression volume limitations, high potential costs of extracting PMF proteins, and the land usage requirements of scaling PMF.
Therefore, PMF is not likely to be a panacea solution for all protein needs.
🚀 Investment in molecular farming technologies should follow applications which are optimised due to the inherent properties of PMF
PMF will not be the ideal production platform for all protein needs. However, given the unique benefits of a plant bioreactor, some applications will be superior to other production platforms.
For example, particularly high-value high-yield proteins, coupled with valorised side-streams could surpass the production efficiencies of other technologies.
These factors, coupled with land and energy-efficient solutions, such as vertical farming, will allow a business to compete against conventional protein production platforms; accelerating the transition to a sustainable food system.
We’re excited by the opportunity posed by molecular farming. We believe that these technologies will support the agricultural transition and help mitigate the devastating impacts of climate change.
If you’re working in this space and want to share your idea, contact us at contact@kingstone-schweizer.com
