Alternative Protein Moonshot: Building a Geographically Distributed, Advanced Manufacturing Infrastructure for Enabling Technologies

Co-authored by Jeff Moore and Maya Benami, PhD

Our previous article highlighted how private investments have propelled alternative proteins to an exciting stage of technological readiness. However, to overcome the research and scaling challenges ahead and bring to life a future where these technologies and more sustainable products are ubiquitous, a wave of public investment is essential.???

Significant public investment to build out commercial and pilot-scale manufacturing infrastructure could be a game changer for alternative protein. Bioreactor and fermenter infrastructure is essential for the expansion of cell-based meat and fermentation industries. Both fermentation and cell-based meat sectors need more access to advanced, modular bioreactor types that can achieve high volumes of lower-priced products, addressing a crucial bottleneck in the industry. Diverse types, higher quantities, and larger sizes of fermenters and bioreactors, especially those surpassing 200-liter capacity, are critical to overcome these challenges. Today many startup companies are showcasing proof-of-concepts products made at bench scale and lack resources to cost effectively scale their technologies. Additionally, many startups are concentrated in a few very high-cost regions of the US (Eastern and Western coastlines), further challenging the economics of building and scaling startup companies and protein technologies.?

A smart way to solve this challenge is significant public investment and incentives to build out a geographically distributed network of biomanufacturing and research hubs across the US. Initial steps have been taken to map and create an “offering” database for companies to find and offer space for microbial fermenter capabilities. Synonym, a financing and development platform for essential biomanufacturing, announced in 2022 a collaboration with The Good Food Institute, Blue Horizon, and Material Innovation Initiative to launch a comprehensive and free database of microbial fermentation facilities called Capacitor (reference 1). Its primary objective is to support the growth of biomanufacturing by simplifying the process for synthetic biology companies to locate the manufacturing resources they require.

“All of the synthetic biology companies talk about the capacity constraint – nobody knows who has what and how much they have. Capacitor will shed light on this topic and start to move us in the right direction to address the pressing infrastructure needs of the entire industry.”? Edward Shenderovich, Co-Founder and CEO of Synonym Biotechnologies

To make the most effective use of infrastructure resources, the hubs should be designed with modularity and adaptability in mind to serve the needs of all biomanufacturing industries from agriculture to food to biopharma.? There already exists competitive cost-share grants through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentive Program (HBIIP) for the installation, retrofitting, or otherwise upgrading of fueling equipment and infrastructure for alternative fuels (reference 2). Governments should allocate funding or grants for retrofitting underutilized biopharma, ethanol, brewery, and other fermentation facilities, while also promoting access to contract development and manufacturing services specializing in cell-based meat, seafood, gas fermentation, biomass fermentation, and precision fermentation. A similar set-up could and should be applied for alternative protein production facility manufacturing. These dispersed hubs should be strategically located to both take advantage of existing infrastructure and trained workforce while also improving the geographic diversity of infrastructure. Building out several clusters across the US in regions such as the Midwest and South capitalizes on lower real estate and labor costs and stimulates local economies with an emphasis on job creation and upleveling skills sets.

Further training and focus on infrastructure specifically designed to create user-friendly, highly sterile, automated, yet food-grade facilities can enable the manufacture and integration of the "picks and shovels" of the cell-based and fermentation industries. These essential tools and services, including available service personnel trained in bioprocessing scale-up, user-friendly and affordable bioreactors, biosensors, customizable and shelf-stable growth media, and more, can significantly enhance the efficiency and scalability of cell-based and fermentation processes, accelerating the development and commercialization of innovative bioproducts across both the food and biopharma industries (reference 3).

Furthermore, encouraging pilot plant build-outs and production partnerships between university food science and extension programs and start-ups fosters shared resources and expertise. This collaboration allows startups to access necessary equipment and facilities at more affordable, scaled pricing and trains the next generation workforce. Government support in these areas can significantly expedite industry growth and innovation.

This type of infrastructure already exists to support traditional food and ag including animal-based protein products thanks to significant national and state investments in the U.S. Land-Grant University System. Today these University labs support food and ag innovation through a combination of research, extension and teaching including pilot manufacturing facilities (reference 4). Sadly public investment in these programs have decreased in recent years (reference 5). So what better time to re-invigorate and re-imagine this system with a focus on solving sustainable food and agriculture challenges for 2050?

Early adoption of more efficient and cost-effective continuous manufacturing.

The batch manufacturing process involves creating products in a stepwise manner, which can cause bottlenecks and delays that range from hours to days or even weeks. These delays can be particularly costly for the industry, with estimates suggesting that batch manufacturing is costing the pharmaceutical sector approximately $50 billion each year. Continuous manufacturing would enable the production process to occur continuously, rather than in batches, allowing for more efficient use of resources and potentially faster turnaround times. Therefore, continuous manufacturing is gaining momentum in the bio/pharmaceutical industry and is now being explored by fermentation and cultivated meat sectors. With automated systems in which stable critical quality attributes (CQAs) are achieved by adjusting critical process parameters (CPPs) in real time, continuous manufacturing has the potential to improve production efficiency by estimates of up to 50% or more, and address three major challenges in cell-based industries: reducing costs, increasing yields, and boosting process intensification efficiencies (reference 6). Adoption in the bio/pharmaceutical industry has taken time in large part because of the significant regulatory paradigm hurdles they’ve had to overcome with an industry that’s highly regulated by approaches built from the old batch manufacturing paradigm. Alt protein does not have to have that same barrier. New bioreactor players can build out the continuous manufacturing paradigm from the start, leveraging from other parts of the food industry already using continuous manufacturing like dairy, as well as the knowledge base being built in biopharma.

Stay-tuned for our next article on new advanced analytical technologies and how they can help unlock alt protein.

References (links will be provided in comments)

(1) Capacitor. The free worldwide database of biomanufacturing capacity.?

(2) Biodiesel and Ethanol Infrastructure Grants.?

(3) Enabling Infrastructure: Mapping the Picks and Shovels of the Alternative Protein Revolution.

(4) University Labs Support Industry Innovation

(5) The U.S. Land-Grant University System: Overview and Role in Agricultural Research.

(6) Continuous Manufacturing for the Modernization of Pharmaceutiucal Production: Proceedings of a Workshop.