The Liven Protein team, with (centre) Fei Luo, company co-founder and CEO.
Toronto, ON-based Liven Proteins Corp. makes animal-free, functional and sustainable protein ingredients. The company’s first product is animal-free collagen to provide specialty nutrition such as skin and joint health in functional beverages, and a unique gelling texture to improve mouthfeel of alternative protein foods. These functionalities were previously only available through animal-derived collagen. By making collagen animal-free, more sustainable plant-based food and beverages have access to these key functionalities and therefore help them to reach parity to animal products. Liven Proteins is also working on using side stream from the plant-based food industry as raw materials, reducing cost and making its process more sustainable. The company received $99,926.00 in funding to optimize its bioprocess for upcycling starch streams and to test additional side streams in the food industry as a starting material to build a versatile fermentation platform for animal-free protein manufacturing.
We spoke to Fei Luo, co-founder and CEO of Liven Proteins, to hear more about the company and its plans.
Q: What is your company’s mission?
A: Our mission is to enable a sustainable, nutritious and delicious future through animal-free protein ingredients with superior functionality.
Q: Why did you apply for this funding and how will you use it?
A: We applied for this funding to test different food industry side streams as raw materials for collagen production, develop a novel process to produce consistent input for fermentation from different feedstock, and thereby de-risk the technology. This funding will support Liven’s establishment of a bioprocess facility, expand the team to include a bioprocess engineer, and validate the use of multiple side streams in our collagen production (fermentation) process.
Q: What excites you most about working in this area of the food industry?
A: The potential sustainability impact of this innovation – craft designed protein ingredients to enable functionality without animals, and a novel process to convert lost food to valuable protein ingredients – is massive.
Q: Why is collaboration so important for accelerating innovation in the food industry? Is it difficult to find good collaborating partners, and what would make the process easier?
A: Innovation in the food industry requires the whole supply chain to be involved! There are many players so sometimes it is difficult to find the right fit. I hope there are more key connectors with domain expertise available to matchmake!
Q: Please comment on the importance of public funding to help companies clear innovation hurdles and access leveraged funds.
A: Public funding is instrumental for technologies at start up. Otherwise, it is challenging for companies such as Liven to secure funds from customers or investors to fund innovations that have not yet been validated.
Q: Looking ahead, what’s on the horizon for your company?
A: Scaling up production so food and beverage companies will be able to test out our ingredients!
Q: What are your passions or hobbies outside of work?
A: Jogging, trekking, camping – spending time in the nature.
Q: If you had to pick one person to make you a meal, who would you choose?
A: Daniel Humm, owner of Eleven Madison Park in New York. I’m really curious about his three-Michelin star vegan restaurant, and the secret sauce!
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