HAMBURG, GERMANY — Sustainable microbial protein supplier MicroHarvest recently announced that it has achieved a key milestone in scaling its production by 10 times its current capacity. According to the company, this validates its ability to deliver microbial protein in significant quantities that can meet commercial demands. Additionally, the company has plans for a full-scale facility with a production capacity of up to 15,000 tons annually by the end of 2026. 

According to MicroHarvest, trial results confirmed that strain performance and process parameters for full-scale production are consistent with smaller scale production, allowing the company to reach industrial scale.  

“Producers of feed and food face high pressure to adopt novel ingredients within three to five years, but scaling these ingredients has been a bottleneck for the B2B ingredients market,” said Katelijne Bekers, chief executive officer of MicroHarvest. “First, trials require hundreds of kilos or even tons of product to test with, followed by consistent, large-scale production in the magnitude of thousands of tons. 

“While many biotechnology startups struggle to scale their production beyond small pilot volumes in the range of a few kilos, we’ve always successfully run pilots with 50 kg to100 kg of product,” she added. “In addition, we have also found a solution to address the urgent industry need to diversify protein sources at scale now. Our demonstrated process stability at scale put us in a unique position to actually match market demand in 2026.”    

The supplier ran its first pilot trial less than six months after starting in the lab. Now, three years later, it is moving toward production at a commercial scale. MicroHarvest shared that the success of this new large-scale trial puts it on track to meet long-term commercial production goals.

“We see that new demo factories more than often have troubles in their start-up phase, as the process is sensitive to contaminations or to technical perturbations not expected at lab scale,” said Jonathan Roberz, chief operating officer of MicroHarvest. “This leads to delays that can take more than a year. In the worst case, they make profitability unachievable as production losses make a considerable dent in good unit economics. Our R&D and pilot teams focused from the start on minimizing these problems. Our technology minimizes the risk of contamination and focuses on quickly recovering production upon technical problems. Having overcome any remaining technological barriers, MicroHarvest is committed to reaching its kiloton output target.”   

According to the company, its microbial fermentation process produces protein with a fraction of the carbon footprint that traditional animal- and plant-based proteins carry. MicroHarvest uses agricultural side-streams as feedstock, minimizing the need for additional fossil fuels or land and significantly reducing its environmental impact. 

Earlier this year, MicroHarvest collaborated with animal-free pet food producer VEGDOG to launch Pure Bites, a microbial protein dog treat. In addition to this, the company is currently working on validation and application trials for its ingredients in salmon and shrimp with several global aqua feed producers, covering an estimated million metric tons of feed.

Moving forward, MicroHarvest plans to expand into human nutrition, with a goal to become a well-rounded player at the forefront of sustainable protein innovation.