Biotechs
tackle UN Global Goals
Bruce Friedrich talks Good Food / Make the Scotland connection
Biotechnology
special edition
July 2018
his is the third year we have been media partners with the World
Congress on Industrial Biotechnology. Our frst special edition
for it was distributed at the San Diego Congress in 2016 – and
we are delighted to continue that journey in Philadelphia.
The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), which hosts the
Congress, attracts the world’s leading industry players to what is
one of the most important annual events in the industrial
biotech ecosystem.
Continuing our Biotech &… theme from another special we
published earlier this year: food, the UN Global Goals, fragrances
and favourings are some of the areas we feature this time, as well
as the strength of the market in Scotland. Taking this angle allows
us to efectively communicate the impact of biotech, not just to
stakeholders attending events like this, but to the public and a
cross-sector audience digitally.
I am also delighted to introduce a new column from Carlotta De
Toni, Impact Comms Lead and Engagement Editor of our quarterly,
Impact Innovators. Carlotta took part in the Climate Reality
Leadership Corps training, led by Al Gore, in Berlin last month. She
will be sharing her insight on climate-related
issues with industry audiences in these special
conference editions and online.
IN THIS ISSUE
CORE TEAM
Welcome
Iain
Robertson
Editor
Biotechnology & …
2 The UN Global Goals
4 Food
6 Flavourings & fragrances
8 Scotland
Q&A
14 Adeel Aslam, Bouygues
Energies & Services
New!
16 Lessons in Climate Reality
Editor | Iain Robertson
Partnerships | Susan Robertson
Digital | Ryan McFadyen
Design | Blair Carrick
News & Features | Carlotta De Toni
Operations | Gillian Greig
Innovators Magazine accepts no responsibility for any efects from errors or omissions. All material is copyright and reproduction is not
permitted without express permission. All rights reserved.
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Industrial biotech tackles
global grand challenges
10
IB plays a fundamental role in delivering
solutions for a large majority of the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),
both in the EU and globally
ompanies focusing on industrial
biotechnology (IB) and the
bioeconomy are contributing
towards achieving 11 out of 17 SDGs,
enabling smarter and more efcient
use of precious natural resources,
developing renewable alternatives
to traditional fossil-carbon products,
helping to mitigate the impacts of
climate change, reducing energy
consumption and man-made emissions
to soil, air, and water. These are the main
results of our new report about the
impact of industrial biotech towards
meeting global challenges.
IB uses enzymes and micro-organisms to
make bio-based products in sectors such
as chemicals, bio-based plastics, bio-based
lubricants, bio-based solvents, food and
feed, detergents, paper and pulp, textiles,
as well as bioenergy, such as biofuels and
biogas. It also plays an important role in
bioremediation through water purifcation
and soil recovery. As such, IB is increasingly
recognised by a growing community of
stakeholders as playing an important role in
responding to some of the greatest global
challenges and helping to achieve objectives
under the UN’s SDG framework.
It is now critical for Europe to develop
a more competitive and sustainable
bioeconomy. To this end, the EU’s ‘Horizon
Europe’ proposal will be key to ensuring that
By Joanna Dupont Inglis, EuropaBio
Deputy Secretary General
11
the right investments in innovation are made
to address societal challenges and deliver
on the UN SDGs. I invite you to read the new
EuropaBio report, which also includes policy
recommendations for the EU, at
europabio.org/industrial-biotech.
The place to be to hear all the latest on
the innovative biotechnology products
and processes that are coming online and
that can contribute to the UN Sustainable
Development Goals is the European Forum
for Industrial Biotechnology and the
Bioeconomy (EFIB): 17 – 18 October 2018 in
Toulouse France.
Over the last decade, EFIB’s delegates,
exhibitors, sponsors and speakers have been
showcasing innovative IB solutions to the
UN Sustainable Development Goals. This
year, we will celebrate the IB communities’
latest achievements in harnessing the
power of innovation with infuential brands
and Industry leaders, as well as start-ups
and entrepreneurs and a broad range of
stakeholders and policy-makers.
Around 600 attendees and more than 60
international speakers from the industrial
biotechnology and bioeconomy area are
expected to join this two-day event with
presentations and panel discussions covering
the sectors of bio-based plastics, food, feed
and nutrition, wood biorefning, synthetic
biology, and sustainable aviation amongst
other topics. In addition, we will learn
more about fnancing, joint ventures and
partnerships. This year, EFIB will also ofer
small and medium-sized companies (SMEs)
a reduced fee. Start-ups are also invited to
take part in the PitchFest and the START-UP
VILLAGE@EFIB, a new initiative welcoming
fresh and new founders of the bio-based
circular economy in the exhibition.
You can find more
information at:
efibforum.com
EFIB 2017
EFIB
2017
The Meat Industry is
Transforming
You Can Be a Part of It
By Bruce Friedrich, Executive Director, The Good Food Institute
n January of this year, I wrote an article
for Innovators Magazine, Make money
and save the world. In the article, I
documented some of the many problems
with how we currently produce meat, from
the way that current systems contribute to
global hunger to the link between the meat
industry and environmental degradation.
For more, please see this TED Talk: Markets &
Food Technology Will Save the World.
Luckily, innovators around the world are
creating better ways to produce meat. Some
companies are breaking meat down into
its constituent parts – amino acids, lipids,
minerals, and water – and replicating all
those elements with plants: plant-based
meat. Others are making clean meat, taking
a cue from Winston Churchill’s prediction
in 1931: “We shall escape the absurdity of
growing a whole chicken in order to eat
the breast or wing, by growing these parts
separately under a suitable medium.”
These clean meat companies have made
tremendous strides. It was only fve years
ago this August that former Harvard Medical
School professor, Dr Mark Post presented
the frst clean meat hamburger, courtesy of
$1 million grant from Google co-founder
Sergey Brin. In the time since, there has been
tremendous growth in the feld. Nearly 20
clean meat companies have formed or are in
the process of forming, from Silicon Valley to
Israel to Japan. There have been tastings of
clean meat meatballs, chicken, duck, steak
chips, foie gras, fsh, and more.
In addition to Sergey Brin, plant-based
and clean meat are backed by a range of
tech visionaries: from Bill Gates and Richard
Branson to venture capital kingmakers DFJ
and Google Ventures.
But it isn’t just the tech world that is
supporting clean meat. Tyson Foods – the
largest meat producer in the United States
– has invested in both Memphis Meats and
Israel’s Future Meat Technologies. Meat
conglomerate Cargill has also invested in
Memphis Meats. And PHW Group, Germany’s
largest chicken company, has invested in
Israel’s SuperMeat.
Governments are also starting to see
the need to fund this transformative
technology. The Netherlands was the frst
to support clean meat research. Since then,
there has been interest from India, and the
Israeli government’s innovation fund is
supporting Aleph Farms’ development. In
May of this year, the Japanese government
invested in Integriculture.
While clean meat’s widespread
commercial availability is still in the future,
amazing plant-based meat is available now.
Cutting-edge companies like Impossible
Foods and Beyond Meat are capturing media
attention, as well as hundreds of millions
of dollars in global investments. This is not
surprising, given that the companies are
targeting meat eaters by bio-mimicking
meat’s structure and taste.
When Bill Gates tasted Beyond Meat’s
plant-based chicken strips, he said he
couldn’t tell the diference. Gates declared:
“What I just ate was not just a clever meat
substitute; what I just ate is the future of
food.” Since then, Beyond has introduced the
Beyond Burger and Sausage, both to great
success. For example, the Beyond Burger was
restaurant chain TGI Friday’s fastest test-to-
table menu item ever.
Other plant-based meat companies
have upped their game in response to
growing demand. Tofurky’s Slow Roasted
Chick’n is superb, and their new ham roast
is so good it’s scary. Canada’s largest meat
producer, Maple Leaf Foods, has purchased
innovative plant-based meat companies
Lightlife and Field Roast. Maple Leaf’s
plan? To be the most sustainable protein
company in the world.
Plant-based and clean meat are
advancing so quickly that it is almost
impossible to keep up. This is a major reason
The Good Food Institute is hosting The
Good Food Conference this September at
the University of California Berkeley. It is
being co-hosted by the Sutardja Center for
Entrepreneurship & Technology as well as
Dr Mark Post himself – fve years and one
month after he launched the clean meat
burger into the world
With Dr Post’s help, we are gathering
the world’s leading scientists, engineers,
entrepreneurs, investors, and policy experts
to discuss every aspect of the new food
system we’re building. The speakers include
plant-based and clean meat pioneers Dr
Uma Valeti of Memphis Meats, Josh Tetrick
of JUST, Dr Pat Brown of Impossible Foods,
and Seth Goldman of Beyond Meat.
A few other notables include James
Joaquin of Obvious Ventures, Tom
Mastrobuoni from Tyson Ventures,
and former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
Ann Veneman.
Moderators include representatives from
the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, MIT
Technology Review, Inc. Magazine, Wired,
Vox, the BBC, and Business Insider.
If you can’t make the conference, please
be sure check out this TED Talk: Markets &
Food Technology Will Save the World and
please be a part of this transformation of the
meat industry.
Sign up for the Good
Food Conference
6-7 September. University of
California Berkeley
www.goodfoodconference.com
Bruce
Friedrich
IMAGE CREDIT: MEMPHIS MEATS
BIOFLAVOUR 2018
good smell, taste and health
thanks to biotechnology
rankfurt will once again be the focus
of the biofavour and fragrance
world from September 18 to 21.
Scientists from all around the world will
discuss cutting-edge biofavour research,
academic and industrial alike. 2015 saw the
frst BIOFLAVOUR conference in the era of
modern biotechnology with high quality
lectures and posters, intense discussions and
relaxed and ‘favourful’ social events. More
than 150 participants from over 20 diferent
countries came to Frankfurt, Germany.
More than 40% attendees from industry are
proof for the commercial relevance of the
conference topic.
New in 2018:
functional ingredients
BIOFLAVOUR 2018 expands the scope
beyond favours and fragrances and
includes functional ingredients as well. The
borders between these ‘FFF’ compounds
are rather fexible and biotechnology
is a key driver to new products and
processes for all of them. Often, favour and
fragrance compounds themselves have
known additional functionalities, such as
antimicrobial or antioxidative activities, or
are structurally closely related to bioactive
compounds. Companies and research
groups are on their way to developing
microbial and plant cell factories to
produce favours, fragrances and bioactives
whose use in foods, beverages, cosmetics,
agricultural and pharmaceutical products
is a sought-after application of high
commercial value.
With 48 lectures and even more posters
from experts in the feld, this year’s
BIOFLAVOUR programme will certainly
be outstanding. We expect scientists from
more than 25 countries all around the world
covering a range of fascinating topics about
biotechnology for favours, fragrances and
functional ingredients. Having a view on
the scientifc programme, the participants
can expect to get answers to questions like
these: What is the impact of biotechnology
for tomorrow’s favour and fragrance
industry? What are the technological and
regulatory challenges for biotech in this
feld? Will we be able to design artifcial
trufes aroma by biotechnology? How do
functional genomics help discriminating
between diferent Cannabis plants used for
patients? Can biotechnology make hoppy
beers without using hops? What is the
impact of synthetic biology on winemaking?
Are today’s so-called ‘microbial cell factories’
ready for the sustainable production of
healthy carotenoids, polyphenols, natural
citrus and raspberry aromas from cheap and
simple feedstocks like sugar? Is it possible to
make a better tasting Steviol sweetener with
microbes than with the best Stevia plant
itself? Is it also possible to produce plant-
like essential oils, such as oils from precious
but endangered agarwood or sandalwood,
without plants but designer microbes? How
do we have to design the corresponding
fermentation processes for a sustainable and
economically viable industrial production?
How can we use our knowledge about
human taste receptors to combat obesity
or cardiovascular diseases with designer
favours? And what about our best friends,
cats and dogs – can we make them drool
and be happy with biotech ingredients
in their food?
The answers to these and more questions
will be given at BIOFLAVOUR 2018.
Be part of
Bioflavour 2018
and register now!
www.dechema.de/en/
biofavour2018
or scan the QR code
The BIOFLAVOUR conference series is a
perfect example of how synergies arise
if two complementary parts work closely
together: DECHEMA Society for Chemical
Engineering and Biotechnology and
DECHEMA Research Institute in Frankfurt,
Germany. The society is ‘the’ networking
platform for the chemical engineering and
biotechnology community, fostering the
dialogue between science and industry.
One of its core competencies is organizing
scientifc conferences – in Germany and
internationally. The research institute
mirrors this philosophy by running its own
laboratories in the same DECHEMA house
with interdisciplinary research teams. Here,
chemists, engineers and biotechnologists
strive for excellence in science and its
transfer to industrial application. More than
two decades ago, BIOFLAVOUR conference
chair, Prof. Jens Schrader, started to
establish the feld of aroma biotechnology
at the DECHEMA Research Institute.
Driven by the fascinating perspectives
of a fast expanding toolbox of modern
biotechnology, the scientists have been
investigating many microbes to unleash
their metabolic power for the synthesis of
natural products, especially favours and
fragrances. Among the achievements of
the institute in the feld are fermentation
processes for natural food favours and
fragrances, bioactives, and functional
cosmetic ingredients, besides others. As
‘bridging the gap between fundamental
research and industrial application’ is a key
mission of the institute, it is not surprising,
that some of the developments have been
transferred into industrial application in
the meantime. Consequently, the institute
has been a professional research partner
to the aroma industry for many years now,
not only in publicly funded collaborations
but also for bilateral contract research.
DECHEMA unites its unique scientifc
background in biotechnology and its
professional know-how in organizing
conferences. Biofavour 2018 will be an
internationally recognized meeting with
cutting-edge science, industrial and
academic alike, and lots of opportunities
for networking and socializing.
www.dechema.de
www.dechema-df.de
Look forward to these
exciting keynote
lectures
Gastrophysics: Pairing and
sequencing favour
(and other) sensations.
Charles Spence, University of
Oxford, United Kingdom
Synthetic biology, Yeast2.0
and their potential to impact the
winemaker’s art.
Anthony Borneman, The
Australian Wine Research
Institute, Adelaide, Australia
From favours to bioactives
– chemoreceptors you always
meet twice.
Dietmar Krautwurst, Leibniz
institute for Food Systems
Biology at the Technical
University of Munich,
Freising, Germany
About the organizer:
DECHEMA: scientific society and research
institute under one roof
The society is ‘the’
networking platform for
the chemical engineering
and biotechnology
community
Whisky
Galore
and More
Maximising Value from Distilleries
stablishing a bio-refnery is expensive and high-risk. Anything that reduces costs
and risk is important to the long-term sustainability of Industrial Biotechnology.
Increasingly, companies are looking to build sustainable bio-refneries around
existing and proftable ventures. In Scotland, companies are developing technologies for
use at scale to valorise co-products from the whisky distilling industry, which uses around
one million tonnes of barley and other cereals annually, much of which is underutilised and
presents an ideal opportunity for bio-refning.
Welcome
Glasgow, Scotland
to a special feature section from the Industrial
Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC),