Michroma: Reinventing Food Colors
Michroma makes food colors to bring brightness to the new food revolution. The vast majority of food dyes used today are synthetic chemicals derived from petroleum which have been linked to allergies, hyperactivity, and even cancer. Biocolorants do exist, but they are expensive to use and don’t hold their color when cooked or processed; insect-based dyes aren’t halal, vegan or kosher. Michroma’s sustainable solution uses edible fungi cells that express the natural colorant into the bioreactor. No solvents are needed to extract and purify the color. The performance characteristics of their dyes are far superior to existing biocolorants. Food coloring is a $5 billion market inside a larger $70 billion market for dyes. During their time at IndieBio, this team from Argentina garnered enormous interest from food companies wanting to test their dyes.
I sat with CEO Ricky Cassini and CSO Mauricio Braia of Michroma to learn more about this unique company. Both were professors in Argentina when they met. Ricky was an Adjunct Professor of Operations & Logistics at Austral University. Mauricio was in the Biochemistry faculty at National University of Rosario, as well as an adjunct professor at Argentina Catholic University.
What’s the origin story of your company?
Mauricio: I was looking for enzymes, growing fungi in liquid medium. I found one that, instead of producing enzymes, expressed a pinkish color into the media. That got me looking for other strains that could produce color. I knew food color was a potential market. I have been a vegetarian for over a decade, so I always had to look at food labels very carefully. I was always noticing we were using petroleum based colorants. At one point, I was visiting Austral University and making a presentation to MBA students. Ricky stopped by to listen.
Ricky: I knew this was needed by the market. As a kid, I developed skin rashes on my chest every time I consumed synthetic dyes. I had to change my diet. I also knew what Mauricio was working on was scalable, and widely needed.
How much do consumers know about the problems with current food dyes?
Most health and wellness media outlets published a story at one point or another. On Change.org, there are 44 petitions targeting every big food brand to stop using synthetic dyes. But it hadn’t really come to a head until this past fall.
The big snack brand, KIND, had previously released a line of fruit snacks without any dyes in them. Then in September, right as IndieBio’s program began, KIND pulled the line from retail shelves, blaming its failure on kids so accustomed to bright colors. To raise awareness, KIND set up a display in New York’s Herald Square, with 2,000 gallons of synthetic dyes in huge test tubes. 43% of products marketed to children have synthetic dyes as an ingredient.
Now the California Office of Environmental Health Assessment has been ordered by the state legislature to review all data and make a risk assessment for children, particularly for neurobehavioral and other neurologic effects. They’re reviewing all 8 synthetic dyes on the market.
Throughout Asia, food dyes from fungi have always been used. A billion dollars of food dyes are consumed. Why are those banned in the US and Europe, and what’s different about your colorants?
Asia has been using fungi colors since before synthetic dyes were even invented. So they’ve stuck with them. However, those food dyes come from a genus called Monascus. We all know how some mushrooms are entirely safe to eat, and others are dangerous. The Monacus genus contains mycotoxins. In high doses, from accidental poisonings, mycotoxins have been shown to cause apoptosis, stop the liver, or even kill people.
Michroma doesn’t use Monascus. We use another genus that is fully edible, and it’s halal, kosher and vegan. Some of our most excited customers are food companies in the Middle East, where they can’t use carmine red as a food color, because it’s made from ground up insects — it’s not halal or kosher to eat insects. And the vegetarian and vegan community, all over the world, are concerned with eating insects.
But it’s not just that our food dyes are safe. Our colors are made from food, and they are actually nutritious. Our pigments are a metabolite called azaphilones. Our pigments have been validated in scientific testing to have antioxidant properties. So we enable brands to not just have a clean label, but they can even add “antioxidants” to the front of the package.
How soon could you get revenue?
We have been working closely with our regulatory consultant. While a color petition to the FDA can take up to two years, we can get to revenue within a year by selling our fungal biomass. We intend to file a GRAS certification for our biomass.
Tell me more about your biomass.
Mycoprotein is a common alternative protein food ingredient. Our biomass is 47% protein, and is very similar to portabella protein in its nutritional value. It has almost no flavor. It’s highly digestible and has a great amino acid balance. While making our red coloring, the fungi cells also produce this biomass, and we can tune how much our culture favors biomass production or color production. Mycoprotein is sold at $13 per kilogram now, but ours has a strong red color, which is unique in the marketplace, allowing us to charge a premium. In fact our first “Letter of Intent” is with a very large food company that wants to use both our red dye and our biomass, for use in their plant-based burgers.
Can you extend into the larger dyes market? There’s a lot of inks and pigments used across industry, and they’re starting to get scrutinized for their sustainability and toxicity.
It’s a huge market and we are already sharing sample colors with cosmetics companies for use in lipstick and makeup. We have a letter of intent in the pharmaceuticals space, and we’ve even been talking with companies that make printers and photocopiers.
