UK-based food and beverage ingredients provider Tate & Lyle and Canadian biotechnology firm BioHarvest Sciences have partnered to develop plant-based molecules to provide affordable, nutritious, and more sustainable plant-derived food and beverage ingredients.
BioHarvest will leverage its Botanical Synthesis platform to produce non-GMO plant-derived ingredients in a more sustainable and economically viable way.
The platform helps grow targeted plant cells, which can replicate the phytonutrients seen in specific plants, with all the benefits of the plant, without needing to grow the plant.
Tate & Lyle will leverage its portfolio of sugar reduction solutions and years of ingredient research, along with its applications, nutrition, and regulatory expertise, for the partnership.
Tate & Lyle chief executive Nick Hampton said: “We are always looking to provide our customers with the latest innovation in the marketplace – this partnership with BioHarvest allows us to do just that.
“Our open innovation programme is all about creating cutting-edge solutions for the food and beverage industry. By partnering with entrepreneurial innovators like BioHarvest, we aim to disrupt the future of food for the better.”
BioHarvest Sciences CEO Ilan Sobel said: “We aspire to improve human wellness by availing our plant-derived molecules to hundreds of millions of people and Tate & Lyle represents an ideal partner.
“Tate & Lyle is a global powerhouse in food ingredient innovation, and we expect that its regulatory and nutrition expertise, industry knowledge and complementary research initiatives will help expedite and commercialise the next generation of plant-based molecules developed through our Botanical Synthesis platform.”
Tate & Lyle said the new partnership with BioHarvest will focus on developing botanical sweetening ingredients using plant-derived molecules.
In addition to BioHarvest, the partnership aims to address the consumer’s need for a sugar-like taste with no aftertaste and provide healthy ingredients to a wider population.
Also, it will provide affordable ingredient solutions to the food and beverage industry while using a fraction of the land and water in traditional extraction and growing practices.
Tate & Lyle chief science and innovation officer Victoria Spadaro-Grant said: “BioHarvest provides the first and only fully validated industrial scale plant cell technology platform for production of plant metabolites. Initial exploration will focus on our sweetener platform, but our partnership also provides for expansion into other areas.”
BioHarvest Sciences CTO and co-founder Yochi Hagay added: “This partnership forms a major milestone in the history of BioHarvest Sciences.
“It follows more than 15 years of intensive R&D and manufacturing scaling of our Botanical Synthesis technology process to the point that global innovators like Tate & Lyle can now leverage our capabilities to develop new plant-derived molecules to better meet consumer demand for healthier food and beverages.”
