Enifer<\/a> is cooking up something even older: Its proprietary single-cell fungus-based protein, branded Pekilo, was originally developed in the 1960s and \u201970s \u2014 by, of all things, the local paper industry.<\/p>\nThe focus back then wasn\u2019t on producing an alternative protein for human consumption, as the startup intends \u2014 although the original Pekilo product was sold for animal feed. Instead, per Enifer CEO and co-founder Simo Ellil\u00e4, the paper industry\u2019s engineers were trying to come up with a solution to pollution caused by mills dumping production waste (\u201csidestreams\u201d) into local waterways. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt basically started from the fact that people in the lab realized that if you left this stuff over the weekend on the lab bench it would start to grow fungus \u2014 and so that was like the \u2018ah-ha\u2019 moment,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
After discovery on a lab bench, production of the mycoprotein was developed over some 15 years \u2014 with paper industry engineers applying a process of biorefining and using fermentation to grow and harvest the fungus at commercial scale. But the main goal was still waste water treatment. Which is why Pekilo fell out of use in the early 1990s when the paper industry switched to incinerating its waste. <\/p>\n
The engineering company that developed it also went bankrupt and knowledge of Pekilo was lost, as Ellil\u00e4 tells it \u2014 \u201cvery actively forgotten\u201d \u2014 adding a Tolkien-esque ring to this alt protein\u2019s long history. \u201cOur founder team were biotech scientists, trained, educated in Finland, and we\u2019d never heard of this thing,\u201d he told TechCrunch. \u201cSo, really well forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n
Someone<\/em> remembered, though. And that was how Enifer\u2019s biotech founders stumbled across Pekilo \u2014 sparking their decision, in 2020, to spin out a company from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. The idea: revive this lost proprietary mycoprotein and extend production to yield food-grade (not just feed-grade) protein.<\/p>\n\u201cIt was actually thanks to a very senior R&D director, who\u2019s already retired \u2014 who\u2019d worked at Valio, the local dairy company \u2014 who kind of remembered this process and was thinking, \u2018Oh, could we utilize this?\u2019\u201d recounted Ellil\u00e4. \u201cMyself and one of my co-founders came across this public R&D project where this gentleman was involved. And we thought it was fascinating \u2014 seriously, paper engineers were making alternative proteins in the \u201970s?!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\u201cWe thought it was fascinating \u2014 seriously, paper engineers were making alternative proteins in the \u201970s?!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
A lot of old school detective work followed to recover as much production information as possible. \u201cWe started digging up everything we could find. There was still a lot of paper sources if you knew where to look,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done a lot of incredible detective work \u2014 like we\u2019ve literally gone to old phone books finding some of these people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The motivation driving the founders is clear: Alternative proteins are a much more substantial commercial end, in and of themselves, these days \u2014 on growing demand for sustainable alternatives to meat. Enifer is bullish there\u2019s a long-term opportunity to revive Pekilo. In essence: The mycoprotein\u2019s best days may yet lie ahead. <\/p>\nPekilo mycoprotein as a raw ingredient (Image credits: Iiro Muttilainen)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nFirst factory fully funded<\/h2>\n The startup has just closed out a Series B funding round to complete and operationalize its first factory \u2014 at a total cost of \u20ac33 million \u2014 located in Kirkkonummi, Finland, close to the sea (which provides a source of cooling water to keep fermenter tanks at the right temperature).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fungal metabolism is really active,\u201d Ellil\u00e4 noted. \u201cIt\u2019s like the fungus is on a treadmill in there. So it\u2019s really generating heat and you need to remove that heat.\u201d <\/p>\n
Enifer says the factory will be the world\u2019s first commercial plant to produce a mycoprotein ingredient from food industry sidestream raw materials \u2014 or, put another way, this biorefining business is about turning waste into high quality protein. (Whereas the fungus that produces Quorn is typically fed with glucose.)<\/p>\n
The Series B consists of \u20ac15M in equity funding led by the Finnish private equity fund Taaleri Bioindustry Fund I, with follow-on investments from existing shareholders Nordic Foodtech VC, Voima Ventures, and Valio (the aforementioned dairy giant). <\/p>\n
The Finnish Climate Fund has also extended a \u20ac7M junior loan to support the project. Plus Enifer secured a \u20ac2M Climate and Environmental Loan from Finnvera. It also previously reported a \u20ac12M\u00a0recycling\/reuse investment grant\u00a0from Business Finland, making its first factory fully funded.<\/p>\n
Once up to full scale the fermenting and processing plant will produce 500kg of the alt protein per hour. It says it expects to be able to start ramping up operations in 2026 but Ellil\u00e4 confirmed it will take about three years to get to full production capacity. If all goes well, more factories could follow. <\/p>\nThe first Pekilo factory (Image credit: Anssi Rantasalo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOne of the key differences with Pekilo for food-grade consumption is the sidestreams used. Wood pulp was fine for animal feed but new sidestreams are required to extend the product\u2019s utility. Dairy industry waste \u2014 such as lactose \u2014 is one Enifer says works well as a feedstock for the fungus, so you can see why Valio is investing. <\/p>\n
While the alt protein space can seem pretty crowded these days, with many forms of plant-based and mycoprotein already available, another thing that\u2019s relatively novel about Pekilo is it\u2019s processed into a dry powder (steam is used to dry the fungus after it\u2019s harvested).<\/p>\n
Ellil\u00e4 says that makes it particularly interesting to the food industry \u2014 as a long-shelf life ingredient that can easily be dropped into existing recipes and processing methods. <\/p>\n
The food-grade version of Pekilo also has a mild and neutral flavor \u2014 making it suitable for a wide range of uses, from savory foods to sweet. \u201cThe feed-grade product does have a very characteristic flavor but we need to do some extra processing to make it food-grade and there the flavor is completely lost,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
One sample product he mentions they offer to visitors is a chocolate cake with flour swapped out for Pekilo. Other potential uses include patties, cold cuts and even yogurts and cheeses. Enifer intends to remain a B2B player, though \u2014 its culinary experiments are purely to showcase the mycoprotein\u2019s potential to customers in the food industry. <\/p>\n
On pricing, Ellil\u00e4 says they want the product to be cheaper than pea protein \u2014 suggesting, if successful, Pekilo could nibble away at some other alt protein\u2019s marketshare (although he also notes there are nutritional differences that can mean using a combination of alt proteins is best).<\/p>\n
\u201cHow I like to think about it is what we want to achieve is trying to contribute both to bringing down the cost of these products and improving the quality of the next generation of plant based,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Applying for novel food clearance<\/h2>\n Before Enifer\u2019s mycoprotein can be folded into food for human consumption, the startup will need to gain regulatory clearance for Pekilo as a novel food. So there\u2019s a long application process ahead of it.<\/p>\n
Ellil\u00e4 says they are preparing an application to file with regulators in the European Union, and will likely target Singapore next, followed by the US. <\/p>\n
He sounds confident they will \u2014 \u201ceventually\u201d \u2014 get the green light to sell Pekilo as a novel human food. \u201cI do feel that we have an exceptionally strong case\u2026 because a mycoprotein is not entirely new,\u201d he argued. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s another species of fungus. But, still, it\u2019s not, you know, something outrageous. It\u2019s actually not that distantly related \u2014 as an organism \u2014 to Fusarium, which Quorn uses. And then there\u2019s mounds of evidence of its safety in pigs and chicken and all kinds of organisms.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have so many so much scientific material from back in the day. Which is not the case for many other applicants,\u201d he also suggested, adding: \u201cI\u2019m sure we\u2019ll get it eventually.\u201d <\/p>\n
Enifer is also developing Pekilo for use in pet foods which gives it a market it can access in the meanwhile. Plus it\u2019s still considering animal feed use-cases, too \u2014 harking back to Pekilo\u2019s origins \u2014 but the economics are harder to stack up so partners would be needed. <\/p>\n
Ellil\u00e4 says they\u2019re talking with companies with large volumes of sidestreams they\u2019d like to upcycle over potential partnerships. \u201cWe definitely haven\u2019t given up on animal nutrition,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cWe\u2019re in talks with a lot of companies to say let\u2019s build a joint venture\u2026 and then we wouldn\u2019t have to chip in all the capital.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The best known mycoprotein is probably Quorn, a meat substitute that\u2019s fast approaching its 40th birthday. But Finnish biotech startup Enifer is cooking up something even older: Its proprietary single-cell fungus-based protein, branded Pekilo, was originally developed in the 1960s and \u201970s \u2014 by, of all things, the local paper industry. The focus back then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-99354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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