By 2050 the world population is expected to rise from 7.5 billion today to 9.7 billion1 and will require 70 per cent more protein than is currently available. The farmed fish market currently relies on commodities for its protein source: fishmeal, a powdered product made from wild-caught fish, or agricultural soya, wheat, or corn-derived feedstocks. Without strict regulation, wild-catch fisheries could damage the world’s ocean ecosystem through unsustainable overfishing. Both industry and environmental leaders are encouraging the development of new, sustainable ways to meet demand for increased sources of protein, that do not compete with the human food chain.

The long-term ambition for CPI and Calysta on Teesside is for this Market Introduction Facility to convert methane into valuable FeedKind protein that is used for fish feed trials around the world, to further Calysta’s commercial objectives and build on CPI’s expertise in gas fermentations

Combining CPI’s cutting-edge facilities and technical expertise to support Calysta in the process development minimised technical and project risk, delivering a successful outcome in the shortest possible time and lowest cost. Calysta’s plant on Teesside had successfully produced over four tonnes of dried material within five months of the plant going online.

Calysta, based in the USA, is an innovator in sustainable products to improve worldwide food security. Calysta partnered with CPI to develop the production process for FeedKind® protein, a new fish feed ingredient that will enable the aquaculture industry to reduce its reliance on fishmeal or soya protein. FeedKind protein is a natural, traceable and safe, non-GMO, non-animal source of protein, produced using naturally occurring microbes found in soils worldwide. Via a natural fermentation process, these microbes produce a nutritious, high-protein feed that is a sustainable alternative to feed ingredients such as fishmeal.

In order to produce FeedKind protein, Calysta worked with CPI to complete the following objectives:

The Market Introduction Facility is supported by a conditional Exceptional Regional Growth Fund (ERGF) award.

Calysta engaged with the experienced research, development and scale-up team at CPI to deliver a business critical objective: developing the world’s first single-cell protein production facility using methane as a feedstock. This will enable Calysta to further commercialise its technology and meet the market demand for producing suitable quantities of FeedKind for feed trials.

Calysta chose Teesside as the base for its state-of-the-art facility to manufacture sample quantities of the FeedKind protein partly because of CPI’s expertise in running gas-based fermentations. CPI integrated Calysta’s novel loop reactor with the National Industrial Biotechnology Facilities (NIBF) to minimise both the capital required and time to complete the design and installation. CPI had not run this specific fermentation process prior to the start of this project. However, its technical transfer team was able to apply its knowledge and previous experience of transferring and scaling a vast number of processes, to successfully deliver both lab and demonstration-scale processes within weeks of start-up. Information supplied by Calysta’s team were translated into a process that could be ran effectively on the unit. It was through CPI’s know-how that the gap between laboratory batch and a scalable continuous demonstration process was successfully bridged. Combining CPI’s cutting-edge facilities and technical expertise to support Calysta in the process development minimised technical and project risk, delivering a successful outcome in the shortest possible time and lowest cost. CPI is dedicated to supporting Calysta throughout the full translation and development of the company’s proprietary technology and will continue to provide support at the first commercial facilities, in addition to providing high quality sample quantities of FeedKind for market testing.