Biotechnology has made considerable progress over the last two decades. Micro-organisms (such as yeast, filamentous fungi and bacteria) can be reprogrammed and used as cell factories to generate the molecules our society relies on. Precision fermentation provides a more sustainable way to produce some of the food, materials, chemicals and fuels we need, less reliant on fossil fuels and animal farming.

However, barriers are to be addressed to make precision fermentation a viable production method with applications in a wide range of sectors

High production costs

Fermented products are often too expensive to manufacture compared to legacy products coming from the chemical and farming industries.

High capital requirements

Fermentation is typically done by batch which takes several days to complete, as a result producing meaningful volumes requires large bioreactors and considerable amounts of capital.

Challenging path to scale

Product developers face a gap between lab-scale product development and commercial-scale production, this gap is often too wide for capital-constrained companies to bridge.