Project description
Healthy food for our future
Food security is an emerging concern particularly as we consider the rapidly growing human population. Food must be sourced that is nutritious, abundant, and safe for the ecosystem. One of the most successful actors in the field is a French start-up company Kyanos that was awarded the Most Novel Protein Process & IT award in 2018. Thanks to their Cyclotrophy technology, they can produce environment-healthy, contaminant-free, safe, and effective food. Based on processed protein from AFA microalgae (Aphanizomenon flos-aquae), their product does not require much space to grow. Thanks to the EU-funded AFactory project, the first products will be ready for market in two years.
Objective
"By 2050, providing food for 10 billion people will become critical. Current protein sources cannot scale up without jeopardizing the environment.
French start-up Kyanos has developed a disruptive plant-based protein production technology with no environmental downside. Its unlimited supply potential is in line with the food industry requirements.
With unprecedented yields, cost effectiveness and health safety conditions, this industrial process, called ""Cyclotrophy"" caters for the growing market expectations for healthy, environmentally-friendly products.
Cyclotrophy won the Most Novel Protein Process & IT award at the Protein Summit 2018. It boosts the production of microorganisms such as microalgae and eliminates the unpredictability and the contaminants that affect traditional microalgae production. The process relies on smarter, more compact and more efficient production infrastructure and takes 20 times less space for a similar output. A fully functional lab-scale pilot is already running using AFA microalgae (Aphanizomenon flos-aquae). Thanks to a partnership with Altran Group, Kyanos is now about to ramp-up to the industrial scale.
The production capacity of the first factory is devised to quickly grow to reach 100 tonnes of AFA microalgae per year by 2023.
Kyanos will first target the high-margin dietary supplements market before addressing the massive food-ingredients demand. Drawing on existing distribution channels and health prescription dynamics, the initial product, AFA microalgae powder, will be sold to global health supplements companies. Kyanos will initiate EU distribution from year 2 onwards. In 2023, exports throughout Europe will represent 95% of the production, presumably gaining a 10% market share and inducing up to 110 indirect job creations in France and Europe
The objectives of the SMEi1 are: to secure full-scale design for the Cyclotrophy process scale-up; IP, FTO analysis and global market survey to schedule commercialization actions."
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
31100 TOULOUSE
France
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.