Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Colourganisms (Microbial production of custom-made, pure and sustainable anthocyanins) Reporting period: 2020-02-01 to 2020-10-31 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project The colour industry is undergoing a radical change. Unhealthy, synthetic colours are now being replaced by natural plant-based colours. Whilst this change is considered healthier than the existing synthetic colours, it creates several problems for the colour industry as plant-based colours are poor in quality, they are highly impure and they compete directly with agricultural land use and food. To overcome these limitations, N-CHROMA innovates by developing revolutionary bio-technologies to produce colours suitable for the Food and Beverage and Colour Cosmetic industries. N-CHROMA is using the common baker’s yeast as a factory to produce natural colour compounds called anthocyanins. This class of colour compounds is interesting for the Food and Beverage and Colour Cosmetic industries as it has a dual function: Wide colour portfolio from blue to purple, red and orange and; Very strong antioxidant activity. The dual function and the existing anthocyanin market (€654 Mn by 2026) make anthocyanins a perfect target molecule for N-CHROMA.Current production of anthocyanins is relied purely on their extraction from plant tissue. The extraction process is extremely inefficient and uses harmful chemicals. In fact, less than 1% of the plant raw material is converted into colour, with the rest being pure waste. Moreover, anthocyanins extracted from plant-tissues are very unstable, something that can affect the shelf life of coloured products and therefore contribute more to a wasteful, unsustainable industry. Through thorough market analysis, N-CHROMA defined a clear gap in the market and the need to create a revolutionary solution for the production of sustainable, healthy and high quality anthocyanin compounds.Throughout the SME Instrument phase 1 grant, N-CHROMA focused on developing further its technology but also on assessing the legislation for introducing its anthocyanin products in the Food and Beverage and Colour Cosmetic industries. Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far The project was separated in two parts: Technological Feasibility and Legislative Road mapping.The main objectives for the technology development included: Optimization of the current production system and upscaling of fermentation. For the optimization of the current production system, extensive metabolic engineering was performed including the test of different genes for increased production of anthocyanins and the production of different types of anthocyanins. Several genes showed promising results and they were included in the current production system. Also, N-CHROMA expanded its colour portfolio to include red, magenta, orange and yellow colours in its portfolio. The main objectives for legislation included: Assessment of current legislation on anthocyanins for the market of interest and build of roadmap for market entry. Through the great coaching provided by EU, we successfully identified all legislative issues that our product may encounter and created a realistic and cost effective roadmap for market entry in the Food and Beverage and the Cosmetics industries. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) During the SME Instrument phase 1, N-CHROMA expanded its colour portfolio to include red, magenta, orange and yellow colours. The technology developed by N-CHROMA is destined to provide a healthier, more sustainable solution to the current colour revolution. More importantly, the basis of this technology can provide the gateway for the production of myriads of healthy products including colours, antioxidants and even pharmaceuticals. Therefore, the advances developed during the SME Instrument phase 1 are applied to future developments that will greatly impact the environment and our society. n-chroma-novel-colours.jpeg
