Calysta

Last updated
Calysta
Type Private
Industry Biotechnology
Founded2012;10 years ago (2012)
FounderJosh Silverman
Headquarters,
U.S.
Key people
Alan Shaw (CEO)
ProductsProtein for animal and fish feed
Website calysta.com

Calysta is a multinational biotechnology firm based in San Mateo, California. The company develops industrial processes that utilize microorganisms to convert methane into protein for seafood, livestock feed [1] and other food ingredients. [2] [3] It operates a demonstration plant in Teesside, England, [4] that uses methanotroph bacteria to convert methane into single cell protein [5] currently approved for use in fish and livestock feed in the European Union. [4] [6] The firm is a spinout of DNA 2.0, the largest US-based provider of synthetic genes for industrial and academic use. [7]

Contents

History

Calysta was founded in 2012 in Menlo Park, California [2] [8] by Josh Silverman, [4] and is led by CEO Alan Shaw. [1] [9]

By June 2013, the firm began working with NatureWorks to use methane fermentation to produce lactic acid. [10] [11] However, its main technology is based on a similar method developed in the 1980s by Statoil, [12] an unrelated and state-owned energy company in Norway. In 2014, Calysta purchased and further developed the technology for producing animal feed ingredients. [6] Using the ten-million-dollar total funding from investors including Aqua-Spark, [13] Calysta began a study to determine the viability of a mass production facility. [14]

In January 2016, the firm began building its pilot facility in Teesside, England. The center was developed with a supplemental grant of £2.8 million ($3.7 million) from the UK Government. [15] In early 2016, the firm announced it had raised $30 million in funding led by Cargill, an American agribusiness corporation. [12]

The firm's Teesside facility opened in September 2016. [16] The facility is dedicated to the production of the company's chief product, "FeedKind protein." [17] The firm raised an additional $40 million in May 2017 from existing and new investors including Japan's Mitsui & Co. and Singapore's Temasek Holdings. [1] [18] [19] The firm recently completed its first commercial scale production facility in Chongqing, China with a capacity of 20,000 tonnes of product per year. [20]

Operations

Calysta's processes rely on methanotrophs (specifically Methylococcus capsulatus [6] ) which naturally convert methane into methanol by the enzyme, methane monooxygenase. [21] Calysta is producing an alternative yet non-genetically modified protein for use in commercial feed. [6] [22] [23] Protein produced from methane is being offered as a substitute or supplement in the farmed fish industry which conventionally employs fishmeal and fish oil as its source of protein. [13]

Currently, the company's manufacturing facilities use natural gas as their source of methane. In addition to its facilities in Europe, the firm's first manufacturing facility in the United States is due to open by 2019. [1] It is expected to produce an estimated 20,000 metric tons per year when operational [24] [25] and 200,000 metric tons per year when at full capacity. [25]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biogas</span> Gases produced by decomposing organic matter

Biogas is a mixture of gases, primarily consisting of methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide, produced from raw materials such as agricultural waste, manure, municipal waste, plant material, sewage, green waste and food waste. It is a renewable energy source.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cargill</span> American-based international food conglomerate

Cargill, Incorporated, is a privately held American global food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865, it is the largest privately held corporation in the United States in terms of revenue. If it were a public company, it would rank, as of 2015, number 15 on the Fortune 500, behind McKesson and ahead of AT&T. Cargill has frequently been the subject of criticism related to the environment, human rights, finance, and other ethical considerations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DSM (company)</span> Dutch multinational corporation

Koninklijke DSM N.V., is a Dutch multinational corporation active in the fields of health, nutrition and materials. Headquartered in Heerlen, at the end of 2017 DSM employed 21,054 people in approximately 50 countries and posted net sales of €8.632 billion in 2018 and €9.204 billion in 2021.

Methanotrophs are prokaryotes that metabolize methane as their source of carbon and chemical energy. They are bacteria or archaea, can grow aerobically or anaerobically, and require single-carbon compounds to survive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anaerobic digestion</span> Processes by which microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen

Anaerobic digestion is a sequence of processes by which microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen. The process is used for industrial or domestic purposes to manage waste or to produce fuels. Much of the fermentation used industrially to produce food and drink products, as well as home fermentation, uses anaerobic digestion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biorefinery</span>

A biorefinery is a refinery that converts biomass to energy and other beneficial byproducts. The International Energy Agency Bioenergy Task 42 defined biorefining as "the sustainable processing of biomass into a spectrum of bio-based products and bioenergy ". As refineries, biorefineries can provide multiple chemicals by fractioning an initial raw material (biomass) into multiple intermediates that can be further converted into value-added products. Each refining phase is also referred to as a "cascading phase". The use of biomass as feedstock can provide a benefit by reducing the impacts on the environment, as lower pollutants emissions and reduction in the emissions of hazard products. In addition, biorefineries are intended to achieve the following goals:

  1. Supply the current fuels and chemical building blocks
  2. Supply new building blocks for the production of novel materials with disruptive characteristics
  3. Creation of new jobs, including rural areas
  4. Valorization of waste
  5. Achieve the ultimate goal of reducing GHG emissions
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fish meal</span> Commercial product made from fish to feed farm animals

Fish meal is a commercial product made from whole wild-caught fish, bycatch and fish by-products to feed farm animals, e.g., pigs, poultry, and farmed fish. Because it is calorically dense and cheap to produce, fishmeal has played a critical role in the growth of factory farms and the number of farm animals it is possible to breed and feed.

<i>Methylococcus capsulatus</i> Species of bacterium

Methylococcus capsulatus is an obligately methanotrophic gram-negative, non-motile coccoid bacterium. M. capsulatus are thermotolerant; their cells are encapsulated and tend to have a diplococcoid shape. In addition to methane, M. capsulatus is able to oxidize some organic hydrogen containing compounds such as methanol. It has been used commercially to produce animal feed from natural gas.

In animal husbandry, feed conversion ratio (FCR) or feed conversion rate is a ratio or rate measuring of the efficiency with which the bodies of livestock convert animal feed into the desired output. For dairy cows, for example, the output is milk, whereas in animals raised for meat the output is the flesh, that is, the body mass gained by the animal, represented either in the final mass of the animal or the mass of the dressed output. FCR is the mass of the input divided by the output. In some sectors, feed efficiency, which is the output divided by the input, is used. These concepts are also closely related to efficiency of conversion of ingested foods (ECI).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fermentation</span> Metabolic process

Fermentation is a metabolic process that produces chemical changes in organic substrates through the action of enzymes. In biochemistry, it is narrowly defined as the extraction of energy from carbohydrates in the absence of oxygen. In food production, it may more broadly refer to any process in which the activity of microorganisms brings about a desirable change to a foodstuff or beverage. The science of fermentation is known as zymology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salt End</span> Hamlet in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England

Salt End or Saltend is a hamlet in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, in an area known as Holderness. It is situated on the north bank of the Humber Estuary just outside the Hull eastern boundary on the A1033 road. It forms part of the civil parish of Preston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Energy in India</span> Overview of the production, consumption, import and export of energy and electricity in India

Since 2013, total primary energy consumption in India has been the third highest in the world after China and United States. India is the second-top coal consumer in the year 2017 after China. India ranks third in oil consumption with 22.1 crore tons in 2017 after United States and China. India is net energy importer to meet nearly 47% of its total primary energy in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animal feed</span> Food for various animals

Animal feed is food given to domestic animals, especially livestock, in the course of animal husbandry. There are two basic types: fodder and forage. Used alone, the word feed more often refers to fodder. Animal feed is an important input to animal agriculture, and is frequently the main cost of the raising or keeping of animals. Farms typically try to reduce cost for this food, by growing their own, grazing animals, or supplementing expensive feeds with substitutes, such as food waste like spent grain from beer brewing.

TerraVia Holdings, Inc. was a publicly held biotechnology company in the United States. TerraVia used proprietary technology to transform a range of low-cost plant-based sugars into high-value oils and whole algae ingredients. TerraVia supplied a variety of sustainable algae-based food ingredients to a number of brands, which included Hormel Food Corporation, Utz Quality Foods Inc., and Enjoy Life Foods. TerraVia also sold its own culinary algae oil under the Thrive Algae Oil brand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aquaculture of salmonids</span> Farming and harvesting of salmonids under controlled conditions

The aquaculture of salmonids is the farming and harvesting of salmonids under controlled conditions for both commercial and recreational purposes. Salmonids, along with carp, and tilapia are the three most important fish species in aquaculture. The most commonly commercially farmed salmonid is the Atlantic salmon. In the U.S. Chinook salmon and rainbow trout are the most commonly farmed salmonids for recreational and subsistence fishing through the National Fish Hatchery System. In Europe, brown trout are the most commonly reared fish for recreational restocking. Commonly farmed nonsalmonid fish groups include tilapia, catfish, sea bass, and bream.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commercial fish feed</span>

Manufactured feeds are an important part of modern commercial aquaculture, providing the balanced nutrition needed by farmed fish. The feeds, in the form of granules or pellets, provide the nutrition in a stable and concentrated form, enabling the fish to feed efficiently and grow to their full potential.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corbion</span> Biochemicals manufacturer

Corbion N.V., formerly Centrale Suiker Maatschappij (CSM) N.V., is a Dutch food and biochemicals company headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It produces bioingredient-based foods, chemicals derived from organic acids, and lactic acid based solutions for the food, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The company was founded on August 21, 1919.

Power-to-gas is a technology that uses electric power to produce a gaseous fuel. When using surplus power from wind generation, the concept is sometimes called windgas.

Food security refers to ensuring adequate food supply to people, especially those who are deprived of basic nutrition. Food security has been a major concern in India. According to UN-India, there are nearly 195 million undernourished people in India, which is a quarter of the world's hunger burden. Also, roughly 43% of children in India are chronically undernourished. India ranks 68 out of 113 major countries in terms of food security index 2022. Though the available nutritional standard is 100% of the requirement, India lags far behind in terms of quality protein intake at 20% which needs to be tackled by making available protein-rich food products such as soybeans, lentils, meat, eggs, dairy, etc. at affordable prices. The Human Rights Measurement Initiative finds that India is doing 56.8% of what should be possible at its level of income for the right to food.

AgriProtein is a British agricultural and biotechnology company that uses insects to convert food waste into sustainable products including: an alternative protein for use in livestock and aquaculture feed, a natural oil for use in animal feed, and an organic soil enhancer. The company was founded in 2008 in South Africa. AgriProtein is a subsidiary of the Insect Technology Group.

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