Fermentation will power next wave of natural colors, explains Michroma as it rides MAHA wave
Michroma —a startup producing heat- and pH-stable natural colors in fermentation tanks—is aiming to address two of the biggest pain points in the shift away from synthetic dyes: performance and supply.
RC : For us, it’s very weighty to bring novel natural dyes that perform better than the current natural solutions. To replace artificial dyes, we also need to bring a more robust supply chain, and that’s what we are doing through precision fermentation, but also producing novel molecules that perform better than the current natural solutions.
Red is 40% of the food dyes used in sector and where there are some key problems. Natural options as well fade when you cook them, like beetroot, and for some others such as carmine [a red colorant derived from insects that is not suitable for vegetarian, vegan, kosher, or halal diets], production is very limited, so it’s very hard to scale. We also have proof of concepts of other colors such as blues and magentas and we are also producing white [to replace titanium dioxide].
RC : We have been talking about replacing synthetic dyes for years and many companies have already done so, but the MAHA movement has accelerated the intention of companies to replace synthetic dyes . I think that there are more than 15 or 20 [large] businesses that announced [plans to phase out synthetic dyes] in the last year, including some of the biggest ones in the world, and we believe that that’s going to continue through the year.
Most of them are going to do it this year or the following year, which is very exciting, and it’s creating a huge push towards naturalness and a lot of buying interest for natural dyes. And the replacement [of synthetic dyes with plant-based alternatives] is not one to one. It’s one to 50, or in some cases, 100 times the amount of biomass we need right now vs the synthetic sources.
Now with the phase out of synthetic dyes, HHS, FDA, in addition unveiled that they are going to accelerate the approval of new dyes. So the pace is definitely accelerating, and we hope to bring our colors to trade [in the US] soon.
RC : As a startup, it is very hard to pay for the capex we need to produce at large scale. CPGs require tons and tons of product, and this transition [to natural alternatives] is going to require 20- to 50-fold the amount of material we require right now [as synthetics can be used in smaller amounts to achieve the same results].
We have partnered with them for the commercial scale up of these components so we will be able to meet growing demand. So I believe that high value elements, high margin elements, are where fermentation is going to be successful first. Then we will continue to lower [value products such as] proteins that eventually will be cost competitive, but I think we are not there yet.
RC : Usually, startups in the fermentation space fail in the first steps going from lab to pilot scale, then pilot scale to industrial scale, because of the [lack of] robustness of the process, not only on the fermentation side, but also on the DSP [downstream process]. That’s why it’s very key to develop the processes from scratch as you are going to scale them, and you need to reach the right titers in order to make it profitable.
But there are also issues if you don’t have the capital to access the large scale, which is very costly.