Two Oxford Brookes University-based startups awarded government funding to advance innovative food products

Two start-ups based at Oxford Brookes university have been awarded UK government grants to help advance food products using environmentally friendly processes.

Sun Bear Biofuture and Fermtech are both based at the university's enterprise centre at the Headington campus and received grants worth £500,000 and £50,000 respectively from Innovate UK - the flagship programme, which each year awards British businesses for tech and innovation projects.

Sun Bear Biofuture is developing a synthetic alternative to palm oil, widely used in in common foods such as cake and biscuits, while Fermtech is advancing technology to produce protein from food waste.

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The latter also received £50,000 from the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (OxLEP) and was voted the partnership’s most innovative company.

It uses fungi grown on spent grains from Oxford-based Tap Social Movement’s brewery to extract protein for use in vegan cheeses.

Fermtech CEO Andy Clayton said: "Fungi are the world’s natural decomposers. They are great at turning waste into things of value. In the near future we’re all going to experience more and more products that contain or are made by fungi.

"We are working on getting textures and flavours right with consumers, so we can start to scale up production. We will then target a wider range of plant-based foods and spreads, as well as complex proteins such as enzymes."

Meanwhile, Sun Bear Biofuture is developing a yeast strain that can produce commercially viable quantities of oil through fermentation. The firm estimates a land use saving of 80% and a carbon reduction of 80% on current oil palm production.

Ben Wilding, the company's CEO, said: "We are working with a company that has tonnes and tonnes of potato peel as a waste product we can use as a feedstock. Using waste from agriculture is good business for farmers and lowers our environmental impact. We are in the research and development stage and will be sending samples to potential partners and customers by the end of the year.”

Wilding explained that palm oil production in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia had resulted in extensive deforestation, destroying the habitats of many endangered and critically endangered species, including sun bears.

"In South East Asia there are only about 1,000 sun bears left due to deforestation. We have adopted a sun bear which is cared for at the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre," he added.

The Oxford Brookes enterprise centre provides companies access to office spaces, labs and facilities as well as expertise and professional networks. It aims to support the creation of 15 start-up companies and around 70 jobs over three years.

It is supported by Oxford Brookes University alongside funding secured by OxLEP through the government’s local growth fund.

Professor Simonetta Manfredi, director of research and innovation for Oxford Brookes University, said: "I’m delighted to see innovative start-up companies based in our Enterprise Centre attracting prestigious awards and Government grants.

"Their work is important to help the UK hit net zero climate goals and to create a strong cluster of related enterprises creating high-worth jobs here in Oxford."

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