New Technology Addresses At-Risk Commodity Ingredients

By Nimrod Bar Zvi, Chief Commercial Officer, Pluri 

Key takeaways:

• Prices of many top food ingredients are soaring due to widespread, growing shortages caused by climate change.
• Escalating severe weather ranging from droughts to flooding impacts the entire world, demonstrating that no corner of the world — or its key crops — is safe from climate change.
• New technologies like cell expansion, cell culturing, and fermenting ingredients from other crops are addressing the climate-related risks that threaten the global food supply.

These days, it just takes a single trip to the grocery store to see how much food prices are rising. Those rising prices are largely due to climate change and increased demand stemming from population growth, which are weighing on production and supply of key ingredients like coffee, cocoa, vanilla, potatoes, soybeans, rice, and other staples.

However, agtech is tackling this challenge head-on with new, innovative solutions designed to combat shortages while meeting increasing demand.

How climate change is putting commodity ingredients at risk

No matter where we look in the world, severe weather is destroying crops and gradually making it impossible to grow certain crops in the already-limited regions of the world where they thrive. 

Coffee: Providing one-third of the global coffee supply, Brazil has been dealing with the worst drought in over 70 years. As a result, this year’s drought has sent coffee prices to the highest level in 13 years after adjusting for inflation, according to the International Coffee Organization. Farmers have also warned that their crop for next year has already been affected by this year’s drought. This trend is predicted to continue with the amount of land available for growing coffee expected to be slashed by 55% to 62% by 2050. 

Cocoa: The Ivory Coast and Ghana, the two largest producers of cocoa in the world, have recently had three years of poor cocoa harvests, with a fourth expected, due to anticipated hotter, drier weather that has been threatening cocoa crops. Cocoa prices have more than doubled over the past year, repeatedly hitting record highs due to these climate-related events.

Vanilla: In Mexico, temperature changes endanger vanilla production. As a result, the vanilla planifolia plant is now subject to special protection under Mexican regulations. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna also lists vanilla planifolia as an endangered species.

In addition to these commodities, the World Economic Forum lists olive oil, rice, soybeans, and potatoes as crops facing the biggest impacts from climate change.

Cell-expansion technology takes on potential ingredient shortages

Several companies are working on solutions to address climate-related risks for coffee and other major food ingredients without having to break ground or use pesticides or fertilizers. Instead, key commodities are being grown in laboratories – at commercial scale – while using far fewer resources, like land, water, and electricity. 

For example, ChiBotanic received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop its cell-cultured Vanilla 2.0 technology. Needing only the source plant’s stem cells, the cell-cultured vanilla can be grown anywhere in the world 30 times faster than plants and will produce high concentrations of vanillin alongside the many other flavor and fragrance profiles of authentic vanilla.

Additionally, Pluri has 3D cell-expansion technologies that use coffee plant leaves to produce molecularly identical ground coffee. The company’s proprietary 3D bioreactors mimic the conditions in which coffee is naturally grown, producing the same amount of coffee produced by 1,000 plants in just three weeks. 

The two examples demonstrate how plant cell cultivation produces targeted compounds while minimizing the environmental impact of agriculture. Cultivating plant cells in a controlled environment uses a safer, more efficient platform to produce a range of plant metabolites. 

Plant cell culturing is also possible with a virtually endless list of food ingredients. In some cases, plant cell culturing is even enabling companies to make adjustments to the cells of plants normally grown in the ground. For example, ReaGenics has been able to deploy its plant cell culture to create potato biomass with 31% protein content. Normally, potatoes contain only 2% protein by weight, so ReaGenics hopes to open a new market for a protein it claims offers major advantages over soy and pea protein.

Pluri is also collaborating with several companies to explore how its cell-expansion technology can be used to support vegetable and grain crops beyond coffee, plus their technology is proven to support the expansion of meat and fish products.

Other ways agtech is addressing ingredient shortages

Aside from cell-expansion technology, several companies are working on beanless coffee by upcycling alternative ingredients like date pits and then blending them with caffeine derived from tea, chicory root, and grapes to create a drink similar to coffee. Startup Atomo states that its product uses 94% less water and generates 93% lower carbon emissions than conventional coffee.

Companies like Spero Renewables are developing solutions for the soaring vanilla prices. The company has been working on using corn fiber to produce natural vanilla. Spero’s extracts ferulic acid from corn fiber and ferments it to make natural vanilla. The process is the same one by which vanilla is made within the vanilla bean, except that Spero does it outside the vanilla bean.

Planet A Foods is working on a sustainable, alternative form of chocolate that looks, tastes, and feels like chocolate. The company claims its process of “producing food ingredients decoupled from limited resources and exploitation” will save 500 million tons of carbon dioxide every year. Planet A Foods’ proprietary technology is capable of fermenting plant-based ingredients, naturally recreating the flavors and fats in loved foods like chocolate.

Meanwhile, global plant nutrition powerhouse ICL is calling on Australian start-ups and scale-ups with novel solutions to participate in its Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizer Challenge, which aims to increase nutrient uptake by plants while cutting impacts on the environment. ICL is also partnering with Pluri to jointly develop and scale a new bioactive carrier and biostimulant products. 

A brighter future, thanks to agtech

Things may get worse before they get better. The National Climate Assessment found that the number and strength of heat waves, major hurricanes, and torrential downpours has increased in the U.S.  However, with these technologies in the pipeline, we can have hope for the future of the global food supply. 

Of course, none of the above technologies can offer solutions overnight. With so many different food staples at risk, there is significant need for committed investments spanning the entire range of ingredients to ensure a stable food supply as the global population grows. Investing in technologies like cell-culturing and expansion technologies that can be used for multiple ingredients will bring the biggest bang for our buck. 

Collaborations and partnerships will also be critical for advancing agtech and stabilizing the food supply. As an increasing number of companies realize the value in and need to invest in the global food supply, we can expect a very exciting future for the world of agtech.

Nimrod Bar Zvi, chief commercial officer, Pluri, joined the company to lead global commercialization of Pluri’s cell-based technology platform. Mr. Bar Zvi brings extensive senior leadership experience in the global pharmaceutical markets and active ingredients, with over 15 years in executive roles building B2B strategies, CDMO, API & Pharma sales.