In 2023, rising egg prices provide an opportunity for alternative protein companies to demonstrate their ability to compete with traditional egg manufacturers.
A year on, prices have calmed, but the wave of activity in producing more sustainable egg products is still booming. One place seeing a flurry of activity is Onego Bio, a food biotech company based in Finland, which is using the Trichoderma reesei fungus and microfermentation to create an animal-free egg white alternative called Bioalbumen.
Maija Itkonen, co-founder and CEO of Onego Bio (pronounced on-eh-go), will spin off the company with microfermentation expert Christopher Landowski of VTT (Technical Research Center Finland) in 2022.
Onego Bio co-founders Maija Itkonen and Christopher Landowski. Image credits: Onego Bio
The company's patented fungal fermentation technology process enables it to produce 120 grams per liter in 250,000-liter fermentation vessels, Itkonen told TechCrunch. In this capacity, Onego Bio is close to reaching competitive price points for traditional methods of making egg proteins, she added.
Onego Bio claims that Bioalbumen is “bioidentical” to ovalbumin, the main protein in chicken egg whites. It also contains all essential amino acids and is rich in protein: 90 grams per 100 grams of egg white. Additionally, the company can produce it with a 90% smaller environmental footprint compared to eggs from chickens.
The company designed Bioalbumen to have a clean, neutral flavor that can be used to replace eggs in a variety of foods, baked goods, snacks, and sauces. The company plans to sell Bioalbumen to companies that will then manufacture nutritional products.
“What we do is different, for example, from the systems other companies work on,” Itkonen said. “The microorganisms grow a little slower, but the productivity is much higher. So it generates a greater yield, and the product is simple because it doesn't require specialized equipment. It all comes down to cost, because in order to really compete with animal products, they have to be the same price.”
The company will launch first in North America. Itkonen expects Onego Bio to receive GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status for bioalbumin this year and a letter of no objection from the US Food and Drug Administration in 2025. It will then follow this up with expansion into Europe, South America and Latin America. Asia.
In preparation, Onego Bio recently secured $40 million in Series A funding to bring Bioalbumen to market and increase manufacturing capabilities. The funds will go towards growing the US commercial team and will collaborate with participating manufacturers while finalizing its own factory. Itkonen said the company is close to setting up a single large-scale Onego manufacturing unit with a fermentation capacity of 2 million liters, which will effectively replace an egg farm of 6 million laying hens.
Japanese-Nordic venture capital firm NordicNinja led the investment with participation from equity investors Tesi and EIT Food, existing investors Agronomics, Maki.vc, Holdix, Turret and a group of strategic partners.
The round also includes $10 million in non-dilutive financing from Business Finland, a Finnish government public organization that supports innovation to accelerate systemic change to help solve major global challenges. Itkonen touts Onego Bio's Series A funding as “one of the largest A funding rounds in the Nordics,” bringing the company's total funding to $56 million.
“Onego Bio is taking all the right steps to commercialization in record time… with a clear path to manufacturing, entry to market and profitability,” Tomosako Suhara, managing partner of Nordic Ninja, said in a statement. “In less than two years, Onego is already working with major global food companies.” , is organized to disrupt the $330 billion egg market, create system-wide change, and accelerate the green transition.
