Copenhagen, Denmark-based Unibio has announced the signing of a partnership agreement with Stafilies, the holding company of Protelux, to continue collaboration on the company’s “Uniprotein” product at Protelux facilities.
Protelux, according to Unibio, was the first company to purchase the “U-Loop continuous-flow fermentation process” to begin using it in industrial-scale production of Uniprotein. The U-Loop brand, which is available under a license, allows large-scale conversion of methane into high-quality protein with a long shelf life.
Protelux, located in Ivangorod, Russia, is close to the border with Estonia – a member of the European Union – and sources of cost-effective natural gas. Currently, it has an installed production capacity of 6,000 metric tons (MT) of Uniprotein a year, which can be scaled up to 20,000 MT. The recent agreement will see Protelux purchasing shareholding in Unibio, in exchange for cash and intellectual property that includes “all of the knowledge gained over the past five years of how to install and operate industrial-scale production of Uniprotein.”
“Global population growth has made protein scarcity a critical issue, and unsustainable soy production and uncontrolled extraction of wild fish for fishmeal are causing major environmental degradation. After many years under development, Uniprotein is now in full industrial scale production and is ready to help address the world’s rapidly growing protein demand,” Unibio Chairman Jan Boeg Hansen said in a release. “The collaboration with Protelux is consistent with our strategy of building a presence where natural gas is in abundance and may be revalued.”
One of the key challenges for any protein technology, Unibio said, is effectively scaling up production from a laboratory to an industrial scale. The new partnership between Unibio and Protelux will allow the company to “showcase the proven technology and processes to potential partners and customers.”
“We are proud of all the technological innovation and hard work that we have put into scaling up production of Uniprotein at our Protelux facility,” Protelux founding shareholder Mikhail Serdtsev said. “The complex challenge of taking these ground-breaking processes and successfully commissioning them at scale should not be underestimated and has been the key hurdle where many other technologies have failed. We have always had faith in the importance of Uniprotein as a critical input for the meat and fish farming industries.”
Photo courtesy of Unibio
