Biofermentation is producing real milk without cows and stevia without the plant; soon it will be creating a bio-identical honey that eliminates the need to intensively farm honeybees.
Fooditive, a Netherlands-based ingredients firm, says it will begin large-scale production trials of the world’s first 100% bee-free honey in the New Year. “Fooditive aims to create a scalable, provenanced supply,” the company said in today’s (Nov. 15) announcement. “As well as providing all the benefits of traditional honey, this will address consumer concerns about animal welfare and sustainability.”
Leveraging the same patented biotech process already used to create Fooditive’s vegan casein, which was launched last year, honey DNA is copied into a proprietary strain of yeast. When fed with nutrients and precision-fermented to replicate the metabolic processes that occur in the honeybee stomach, this yields a product with the same characteristics and functionality of bee-produced honey – “from taste, colour and viscosity to its health benefits,” the company writes.
The production trials will recreate the lab-proven concept in 1,000-litre fermenters, with samples to be made available for potential customers to try and test out in their own applications.
