Norwich Research Park has a long-held reputation for its expertise in food science, be that plant science at the John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory, food security at Quadram Institute or the numerous programmes undertaken at the University of East Anglia (UEA). And now, as pressure on the world’s food supply and security increases, we are seeing a number of new companies being established by researchers or partners of these institutions that are aiming to address some of the specific problems being faced. In this article we look at just a sample of the vibrant new businesses that have emerged.
The starting point for the heightened activity in spin-out and start-up businesses is the Enterprise Strategy launched by Anglia Innovation Partnership, the campus management company at Norwich Research Park, which had the aim of encouraging individuals based on the Park who have a business idea to develop it into a fully-fledged company.
Identifying entrepreneurs with business ideas has been successful with several companies being set up to translate research into viable commercial businesses.
Ediform – 3D printed food
Ediform is a company aiming to create 3D printed food that can be loaded with specific nutrients, proteins, vitamins and flavour to deliver healthy food to places where people need it most such as in hospitals, care homes, deprived areas and locations of the world suffering from floods or drought.
The idea for the business emerged from research undertaken at UEA under the stewardship of Prof Sheng Qi, Professor of Pharmaceutical Material Science & Technology and Associate Dean for Innovation (Faculty of Science). Working with entrepreneur John Farley, they were able to help researchers pinpoint the core sectors that would most benefit from the food and to work out precisely how to manufacture it so that it meets the needs of consumers.
The manufacturing process creates a paste from potatoes that can then be shaped, have texture added to it and flavoured. When the paste is printed it holds its form well so it won’t fall apart. The 3D printed food is easy to eat and digest because it is soft which means that the nutrients it contains get absorbed into the bloodstream quickly to provide much needed goodness.
Hospitals are one area that could really benefit from the Ediform food because it could provide healthy food to patients to hasten their recovery and enable them to be discharged from hospital more quickly. This will help to relieve the issue of ‘bed-blocking’, whereby patients remain in hospital occupying a much needed bed, simply because they are they are not eating well enough to get the nutrients and energy they need to go home.
Another breakthrough benefit could be in helping people with dementia to have a healthy diet. Research has shown that dementia patients respond better to food served on a blue plate so Ediform’s food can be created in different colours to encourage them to eat it.
Ediform, currently in its research and development (R&D) stage, is focusing on refining the design and manufacturing process and working with customers, in the key sectors, to undertake trials. It hopes to be up and running later this year and to secure some seed funding to grow the business.
PfBIO – helping to create sustainable agricultural practices
PfBIO is a spin-out from the John Innes Centre that is developing bacteria-based products as alternatives to synthetic agrochemicals, to promote plant health and protect crops from major agricultural diseases.
Many pesticides have been, or will soon be, withdrawn from the market because of the detrimental impact they have on the environment. As a result, farmers are having to move away from pesticide-dominated agriculture to more sustainable and eco-friendly methods.
PfBIO has developed technology that helps to identify the best natural biocontrol bacteria strains for the creation of its bioproducts. Because each strain of bacteria is different, PfBIO works out how best to tailor them to specific crops and crop diseases. The resulting plant treatments are not harmful to humans, plants, animals or the environment.
Its customers, who are berry growers, farmers and food manufacturers, are now looking for biological products for crop protection as alternatives to chemical pesticides so that they can operate in a more sustainable way and meet the high demands for organic food.
The first products PfBIO is focusing on are for use on strawberries and other berries with subsequent products targeting crops such as potatoes and cereals.
PfBIO has been awarded a grant of nearly £100,000 from the Innovate UK Launchpad programme that will help to fund a commercial prototype product designed to naturally stimulate plant rooting and fruiting.
It is important that it can run field trials to prove to investors that the concept works in commercial settings. If successful, it can then raise further funds from investors and form new partnerships with specialist manufacturers that will be able to help scale up production.
Alora
Alora is the first company in the world that is aiming to grow rice and other crops on the surface of the ocean. It has developed a patented genetic design that will enable its rice crop to grow in an ocean’s high saline environment. This means that crops can be grown without fertiliser or freshwater whilst achieving increased yields and incurring lower production costs. It has already developed a salt-tolerance trait allowing rice to grow in environments of up to 50% the salinity of the oceans.
Using marine nutrients, a symbiotic approach and custom-engineered soil replacement material, Alora’s Ocean Agriculture has higher yields than both traditional and modern methods of growing food, with the engineered platforms alone increasing yields by up to 70%.
‘Ending world hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture’ is the United Nations’ no.2 goal. And, it’s the one that inspired Alora co-founders Luke Young and Rory Hornby, both 28, to create a business together to initially grow rice on the surfaces of the world’s oceans. There were many avenues open to the friends but the one that really got them excited was how to help solve the world’s hunger crisis. Ocean agriculture was the vision that they shared.
Rory explains, “The first question we needed to answer was why the world’s food shortage is such a crisis when billions of pounds are poured into it each year. The answers lie in the limitations of agriculture. One, is the amount of fertile land that is available which contains all of the nutrients needed to grow crops and the other, is the available source of good fresh water. We realised both of these can be found in our oceans and started designing our solution.”
The biggest issue they faced was that ocean water has a high salt content which is not normally a good environment for growing staple crops. The solution was to engineer salt-tolerant varieties of rice that would adapt to the ocean environment, being able to absorb the nutrients available and survive in water that has much higher salt content than a land-based environment.
They did this by employing gene editing techniques to identify and ‘switch on’ the salt-tolerant genes in the rice varieties which they patented. The plant’s stem cells are then transformed and can then be regrown with an active salt tolerance. The rice is grown on ocean surface ‘farms’ which consist of a number of covered pods to protect the growing rice from birds and the weather.
This method of growing rice also has a positive environmental impact. Rice grown on land is responsible for creating 1.5% of all global greenhouse gas emissions which is linked to the bacteria in the soil that thrives in rice paddy fields. That issue is removed by growing rice on the ocean’s surface.
