Fermentation: From Bioreactors to Your Plate

Let’s travel through time, looking at the history and future of a field where food and science meet, fermentation! Fermentation uses microorganisms that act like tiny chefs to convert simple ingredients into delicious flavors. Fermentation has given us everything from tangy yogurt to fluffy bread. Yet, as technology leaps forward, we are entering a new chapter: precision fermentation. This innovative approach merges the ancient art of fermentation with cutting-edge science, allowing us to engineer microorganisms to craft new products that were once unimaginable. In this article, we embark on a journey to explore the magic of traditional fermentation all the way to precision fermentation, uncovering their rich history, delightful creations, and the exciting promise they hold for the future of food and keeping our world healthy.

What is Fermentation?

Before we dive into the modern wonders of precision fermentation, let's take a step back in time to explore the ancient art of traditional fermentation. Long ago, before refrigerators and electricity, people uncovered a remarkable secret – the power to transform ordinary ingredients into extraordinary treats. This fascinating process is called fermentation! Fermentation is a natural process that starts with simple ingredients and transforms them into delicious foods with the help of microorganisms. Microorganisms are extremely tiny life forms like bacteria, yeast, or other fungi like molds. These microorganisms are so small that you need a microscope to see them.  But don't let their size fool you - they hold immense power in creating some of the most delicious foods that we enjoy today. Microorganisms are able to eat sugars found in fruits, vegetables, or grains, and through this process called fermentation microorganisms can transform the sugars into products like alcohols, gasses, or other compounds. Throughout history, we've harnessed this natural magic by feeding microorganisms sugars and plants to produce the foods and flavors we love. Think of these microorganisms like tiny little chefs, taking raw ingredients and transforming them into something completely different! For instance, think of the process that turns plain flour and water into deliciously tangy sourdough bread, all thanks to the work of natural yeasts. This same process gives us kimchi, cheese, pickles, and so many of our favorite foods!

Why do we love fermentation?

Fermentation isn't just about creating delicious flavors; it's also a genius way to preserve food (Figure 1). Take pickles, for instance. They can last far longer than raw cucumbers, thanks to the power of fermentation. In the past, fermentation was a lifesaver, allowing people to store fruits and vegetables throughout the year, even when they weren't in season. But how does fermentation keep food fresh? The microorganisms involved break down sugars and other components in food, creating acids, alcohol, and other substances that prevent harmful bacteria from growing and spoiling our food. This not only extends the shelf life of our foods but also retains their nutritional goodness, all year round!         

And speaking of nutrition, fermentation can actually make food even healthier! Consider yogurt, which is full of probiotics – live microbes that help our digestion. When we eat yogurt, these probiotics move into our guts, aiding in digestion. Fermentation also makes nutrients in some foods more accessible to our bodies. For example, it breaks down certain components in foods, allowing us to absorb minerals like calcium and magnesium more efficiently. Plus, the compounds released during fermentation make food easier to digest, making it gentler on our stomachs!

From Tradition to the Future: Precision Fermentation

Fermentation traditionally has provided us with so many healthy and delicious treats, but here's where it gets even more exciting - scientists and chefs are always discovering new ways to make our food even better! They've taken the ancient art of traditional fermentation and added a sprinkle of scientific wonder, and that's how precision fermentation was born! Imagine blending the ancient art of fermentation with the power of science, creating microorganisms that produce exactly what we want. This innovative technique takes fermentation to a whole new level. By engineering microorganisms in labs, we can instruct them to create specific compounds or proteins. These tiny microbe factories can then grow and produce products that are usually taken from animals like proteins, all while using less resources and being kinder to our planet.

Why is Precision Fermentation So Exciting?

Precision fermentation has incredible potential to make so many new products, it just takes smart scientists and engineers to dream up how to get there! Precision fermentation has been used to make medicines, food products, and so much more. It helps us produce large amounts of these products too, as opposed to taking them from nature. But that's not all – precision fermentation provides control over the production process, ensuring consistent quality, taste, and function from the microorganisms every time!

Another place where precision fermentation has potential is in making products that we usually get from animals. By using precision fermentation instead of animal agriculture, making these products requires less land, water, and of course no animals! Think about whey protein, commonly found in milk, it is super nutritious and often used in protein powders and shakes for its amazing ability to help heal our bodies. Through precision fermentation, we can create this protein without relying on as many cows. Additionally, precision fermentation could also help in areas where fresh and nutrient-rich foods are hard to come by. Imagine creating milk or meat proteins in places where raising cows isn't possible. And as our population grows, we'll need innovative solutions to feed everyone. Precision fermentation takes up very little room: think of a big vat, maybe you’ve driven by a brewery or factory where they have these big cylinders made of steel. We can grow the microbes in there and make meats in just a few feet of space instead of needing a huge farm for animals to graze and walk around.

How Does Precision Fermentation Work?

To understand how precision fermentation works, let's start with the basics (Figure 2). First: in order to create the final product that you want, you have to think about your input. To create the desired product, scientists carefully choose which microorganisms, known as strains, and design their genetic makeup. By selecting the right strains, we're like architects designing the perfect microbe factories. Additionally scientists have to think carefully about which ingredients to feed the microorganisms, we call these the “feedstocks”. If you wanted your final product to be something like the milk protein whey we talked about, you may want to give the microorganisms something like wheat which has a bunch of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins!

Next, you have to grow your microorganisms with their food, and let them feast! Growing microorganisms at a large scale involves ‘scaling up’. This can mean going from one test tube, to one gallon, to one ton! Maybe you have seen the giant two-story steel vats at factories or breweries, in theory we want to be able to grow our microbes to that scale so that we can generate a ton of our product! This is where the magic happens, as microorganisms multiply and create the desired compounds.

Once the process is complete, we need to separate our final product from the microorganisms and their food. We often call this downstream processing or ‘purification’ because we purify what we want from the rest of the stuff. For some products, like yogurt, this is simple, but for others like medicines it requires careful isolation. Then at the end we have our final product that is ready to eat, use as is, or incorporate into something else!

What are Some Products That Can be Made from Precision Fermentation?

You might be surprised to learn that precision fermentation is already creating a range of remarkable products (Figure 3). Take insulin, a medicine used by people with diabetes. Before, it was hard to produce enough insulin from cows and pigs. In 1978 a scientist discovered that he could use bacteria to make insulin in really large amounts through, you guessed it, precision fermentation! Nowadays, precision fermentation is also used to make proteins, enzymes, and chemicals for medicines, like those developed by Gingko Bioworks and many other companies world-wide.

But the wonders of precision fermentation don't stop there. Have you ever tasted an Impossible™ burger? These plant-based burgers taste amazingly like meat, and it's all thanks to precision fermentation. Scientists identified a molecule found in traditional beef, called Heme, that gives meat its meatiness. Through precision fermentation, they got bacteria to produce Heme, adding that familiar taste to plant-based burgers.

Precision fermentation isn't limited to food and medicine. There are companies that use precision fermentation to make a wide range of products that we use in our everyday lives! A company called Geltor uses it to create animal-free collagen– a molecule that is used for skincare and dietary supplements. There are companies like Modern Meadow that focus on using precision fermentation to produce bio-fabricated materials. Think of fabrics like animal-free leather! By growing certain proteins, they can create sustainable and animal-free leather alternatives. Another innovator is Ecovative which is focused on creating sustainable packaging materials and products using precision fermentation. They use mycelium, the root-like structure of mushrooms, to grow and shape biodegradable packaging materials that can replace traditional plastic foam. Overall, precision fermentation is an incredible way to harness the power of science to meet the growing demand for eco-friendly and animal-free alternatives while pushing the boundaries of innovation in the food and biotechnology industries.

Are Products Made from Precision Fermentation Safe?

As with any new product, it is super important that we make sure they are safe before they are sold. Precision fermentation combines food and science with rigorous safety checks. Scientists spend time engineering microorganisms to ensure they produce desired compounds without posing health or environmental risks. Throughout production, scientists continuously monitor to ensure safe products with no harmful byproducts. The principles and techniques used in precision fermentation are grounded in established scientific knowledge of biology, chemistry, and genetics.

Thankfully, before any precision fermentation product hits the shelves, it undergoes rigorous testing by government agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its equivalents in other countries. Based on the current knowledge and regulatory oversight, there are several products derived from precision fermentation that are considered safe for consumption like insulin and Heme in Impossible burgers. This means that they have passed the FDA’s rigorous testing and been approved for sale in the US market. So keep an eye out for more precision fermentation products, they may be in stores soon!

Is Precision Fermentation the Future of Food?

Precision fermentation has quickly set itself as a major player in the future of food for all the reasons we went through above! While it holds immense promise, it's important to remember that it's just one piece of the larger puzzle of food innovation. The future of food is likely to involve a mix of different approaches, such as precision fermentation, plant-based foods, vertical farming, and other practices. As science and technology continue to advance, precision fermentation is expected to play a growing role in creating a more diverse food landscape. However, factors like regulatory approvals, public acceptance, and price will also play a role in determining the extent and speed of precision fermentation's transformation of our food systems and other products.

 

Author’s Note: all graphics/figures are original and were generated in Tome (embedded graphic 1, graphic 5) and Canva (graphics 2-4).