The Australian food tech start-up, Eighth Day Foods, is looking for a buyer for its alternative protein proprietary technology. CEO Tony Cartwright is managing the sale process and has already had a significant number of inquiries from potential purchasers.
“Investment for scaling production is a challenge for younger businesses right now. So placing our technology in the hands of a mature company makes very good sense” Cartwright said.
Founders, Roger and Jen Drew have spent the last five years developing the proprietary Rapid Solid State Fermentation technology that opens the door for a whole range of pulses and seeds to be used. It also solves challenges other plant-based protein manufacturers have not been able to, particularly in regard to production costs.
Eighth Day initially developed Lupreme, a clean, nutritious, sustainable, and affordable protein derived from Australian grown lupin.
“Lupreme boasts a minimal environmental footprint, starting from its sustainable cultivation that restores soil health. The process of transforming lupin into Lupreme is highly sustainable, generating almost zero waste,” Roger Drew said.
Most recently, the company unveiled its plant-based alternative to whitefish.
The company’s biggest point of difference is that unlike most other plant-based protein companies that strip the seed or pulse down to extract the protein to then use it as one of many ingredients, Eighth Day uses the entire seed and a fermentation process.
“No-one else is doing this anywhere in the world. Our philosophy is to take Australian pulses and get them into the food industry for human consumption compared to the rest of the industry, which takes the pulse to extract the protein," Drew said.
For the plant-based protein industry, currently facing significant headwinds in attracting investment and consumer adoption, there are two attractive parts to the tech. The first is its use of whole beans and legumes, opening processing of Australian grown ingredients for product provenance and reducing carbon footprint of using imported soy. And the second is cost.
“We take a whole bean, we do everything in house, we use three to four ingredients and make a phenomenal product that doesn’t need binders or methyl cellulose or any other additives,” Jen Drew said.
At scale, Eighth Day's tech will enable plant-based protein to be produced at a fraction of the price of its competitors.
"Market size has not disappeared. The world still requires an enormous uplift in sustainable protein production,” Roger Drew said. “The opportunity is there for one company to hold the keys globally to a technology that provides quality products at sub-meat pricing – and with significant margins. That’s more than a solution – that’s an undeniable “unfair advantage.”
