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The Verschuren Centre Inc. for Sustainability in Energy and the Environment, in Sydney, NS received $1,188,294 in funding for a project called Automation and Digital Twin Integration for Precision Fermentation Scale Up of Cell-Based Food Ingredients, with project partners Liven Proteins, NovoBind Livestock Therapeutics, Material Futures Lab, Dispersa, and Mara Renewables.
We spoke with Verschuren Centre CEO Beth Mason to find out more about the centre and this project.
Q: Please explain what your company does and how your products are improving the food industry.
A: The Verschuren Centre (VC) is an independent not-for-profit clean technology development and deployment facility, providing contracted services to industry and community in the areas of bioprocessing, energy storage and sustainable resource use. The VC’s National Biomanufacturing program comprises in-house fermentation expertise from bench to full scale, as well as the process engineering for all downstream from separation to drying at large scale. We operate one of the leading pilot bioprocessing facilities in Canada and provide an open-access engagement model that enables SMEs to develop scale-up operations that advance their process and separation technology in a cost-effective, supportive environment. The centre is collaborating with pioneering technology SMEs, to harness synthetic biology (synbio) for advancing cell-based food solutions through precision fermentation. Our partners specialize in producing an array of essential food molecules such as flavours, binders, pigments, proteins, oils, and polymers from natural sources, all with a common goal to decrease food industry’s carbon footprint, reducing waste, and lower our dependency on fossil fuels.
Q: What is your company’s mission?
A: Our mission is to bring clean technologies to bear for a sustainable future, addressing both reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets directly and greening the supply chain. To do this we build capacity to bridge the gap between innovation and deployment.
Q: Why did you apply for this funding and how will you use it?
A: In the clean tech and biotech sector capacity building is highly capital intensive, and is a major hurdle for scale up of innovative technologies that can provide solutions for today’s major challenges. We have led the way with our unique business model of shared, open-access facilities for scaling technologies that align with the needs of our partners. With CFIN’s support, the Verschuren Centre will be able to provide additional trailblazing tools that accelerate and de-risk the SMEs’ path through scale towards commercialization. Our ground-breaking endeavour involves constructing a unique 10,000-L precision fermentation facility with integrated AI advanced automation, digital twin technology, and machine learning. An overlay of enhanced automation and digital twin will result in rapid fermentation process optimization and maximal efficiency of materials inputs; hence, reducing costs, reducing carbon footprint, enhancing human health, empowering companies to streamline their market entry, and helping to establish a resilient and sustainable Canadian supply chain.
Q: What excites you most about working in this area of the food industry?
A: Food security and food production sustainability are two current global challenges – scaling of innovative technologies is crucial to provide real and timely solutions. Cellular food and synbio technology present great potential for the future of food systems as well as greener bioeconomies. A recent Natural Products Canada review called biomanufacturing the internet of the future due to its growth potential. The Verschuren Centre is the collective technical expertise base for bio-based product manufacture in the fastest-growing sectors of the global economy, driven by the global need to provide innovative alternatives to a variety of products, including food.
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: It is critical that as many discipline experts as possible are available to address the challenges of scale up to accelerate innovation in the food industry. The complexities of a multidisciplinary field such as industrial fermentation involves combining knowledge sets from microbiology (microbial synthesis), molecular genetics (optimizing novel microbial strains), analytical chemistry (molecule behaviour) and physics (fluid dynamics and gas diffusion), which is why the partnerships from diverse sectors (including AI, dynamic computer simulation, and machine learning science) can play a key role in technologies advancement. This can save time and money, as well as retain a constantly growing knowledge repository for successive SME companies to build from.
Q: Please comment on the importance of public funding to help companies clear innovation hurdles and access leveraged funds.
A: As mentioned earlier, capacity building in biotech sector is highly capital intensive, and is a major hurdle for scale up of innovative technologies. Public funding like CFIN’s Food Innovation Challenge program helps companies build capacity to scale, and with the support for the shared open-access facilities at the Verschuren Centre, it helps to break down barriers to growth for disruptive technologies such as precision fermentation.
Q: Looking ahead, what’s on the horizon for your company?
A: The VC is currently commissioning the 10,000-L (10X) precision fermentation line in a new facility (National Biomanufacturing Centre) specifically for scale up of a range of precision fermentation companies. On the horizon, a second 15,000- to 20,000-L fermentation line is contemplated for later next year. The proposed expansion of our capacity is to accommodate more complexity and more companies, advanced automation, skilled jobs and training, and investment in the sector. The long-term objective of our expansion is to provide expanded and digitized end-to-end, bio-based product manufacture for clients in the biomanufacturing and precision fermentation sector, establishing Nova Scotia and Canada as the leader in these sectors, specifically with focus on sustainable materials for manufacturing, green chemicals, and agri-food functional ingredients.
Q: What are your passions or hobbies outside of work?
A: Hunting and fly fishing.
Q: If you had to pick one person to make you a meal, who would you choose?