Finland-based Enifer, which makes use of leftover supplies that may go to waste from the meals and pulp business to create its novel PEKILO® mycoprotein product, has raised a complete of €36m in new funding. The spherical features a €15m Collection B spherical led by Taaleri Bioindustry, a €7m mortgage from the Finnish Local weather Fund, a €2m mortgage from Finnvera and a €12m grant from Enterprise Finland.
The funding might be used to scale up its operations and transfer right into a food-grade mycoprotein manufacturing facility within the Finnish village of Kantvik. The corporate says that it’ll be the world’s first industrial plant to provide a mycoprotein ingredient from aspect stream uncooked supplies as soon as accomplished in 2025.
Reviving historical past
Making mycoprotein — which is a sort of protein that comes from fungus — often includes feeding a sugar combination to a fungus which then grows right into a mass that can be utilized as the bottom for meals merchandise. Manufacturers like Quorn, for instance, use it to make vegetarian meat options.
Enifer’s course of makes use of waste from the paper and meals business quite than sugar, upcycles the leftover supplies and makes its novel mycoprotein. It’s hoping to produce meals producers with a food-grade mycoprotein to make use of in vegan merchandise.
The corporate plans to file for novel meals approval in Europe and presumably Singapore this 12 months, which might permit it to promote its product for human consumption. A choice is anticipated by 2026.
Whereas it waits for that second, it’s specializing in animal feed, together with for fish farms within the aquaculture business.
What the mycoprotein is used for is determined by the business it takes feed materials from: “Relying on the aspect stream, we may make a meals grade protein — as an example, we’re working with the dairy business or the starch business, [and] their byproducts could possibly be transformed into meals grade product — whereas from the pulp business or from biofuels, we might be making protein for animal vitamin,” says CEO and cofounder Simo Ellilä.
Making extra mycoprotein
Many of the new funding is earmarked for the event of a much bigger manufacturing facility to provide the protein at a industrial stage, says Ellilä. It’s estimated it’ll value round €33m to get it up and operating.
Whereas the corporate can presently make round 5kg of product a day, the upscaled facility will permit the creation of 500kg an hour. As soon as it will get moving into 2026, it plans to ramp as much as 3,000 tonnes of the mycoprotein a 12 months, which is sufficient to cowl the annual protein wants of round 40k individuals.
The geography of the brand new manufacturing facility was additionally chosen for practicality.
“It is subsequent to the ocean, which is necessary — not only for the view, however as a result of the fermentation [process] truly wants loads of cooling,” says Ellilä. The economic house that Enifer might be shifting into already makes use of seawater to chill the gear throughout the facility.
And whereas getting this manufacturing facility operating is the corporate’s subsequent main milestone, Ellilä is already serious about future initiatives.
“It is actually about ramping and scaling up, as a result of we anticipate [this factory] to be the primary of many. Behind the curtains we’re engaged on a number of future factories, and plenty of of them can be constructed along with another person. Getting these off the bottom sooner quite than later is an enormous job on our fingers.”
Rooted in historical past
The mycoprotein that Enifer produces is first-of-a-kind, however the course of it makes use of is definitely rooted in Finnish historical past.
Utilizing the aspect streams of the pulp and paper business to make proteins was a course of developed within the Sixties and 70s, says Ellilä, and was used for over 15 years to make mycoproteins for feedstock.
However when the paper business modified the supplies it utilized in its manufacturing course of, the aspect streams it produced — which have been used to feed the mycoprotein — additionally modified. Plus, the engineering agency supplying the knowhow went bust through the nation’s financial despair of the 90s, and so the method was phased out.
“That’s the bizarre half: how actively it’s been forgotten,” says Ellilä. “We studied biotech in Finland, and we had by no means heard of it.”
Eniver is reviving the method because of a analysis director who recalled the historical past and sufficient in regards to the course of to assist Ellilä and his cofounder determine the way it labored.
“We’re principally choosing up from the place these individuals left off, modernising this distinctive course of and relaunching it to serve new markets,” says Ellilä.
