In 2023, rising egg prices provided an opportunity for alternative protein companies to demonstrate that they can compete with traditional egg manufacturers.
A year later, prices have calmed down, but activity to develop more sustainable egg products remains active. One place where we're seeing a lot of activity is Onego Bio, a food biotech company based in Finland. The company uses a fungus called Trichoderma reesei and precision fermentation to create an animal-free egg white alternative called bioalbumen.
Maiya Itkonen, co-founder and CEO of Onego Bio (pronounced on-e-go), spun off the company in 2022 with precision fermentation expert Kristofer Landovski from VTT (Finnish Technology Research Center) .
Maija Itkonen and Christopher Landowski, co-founders of Onego Bio. Image credit: Onego Bio
Itkonen told TechCrunch that the company's patented fungal fermentation technology process allows it to produce 120 grams per liter in a 250,000 liter fermentation vessel. With this capability, Onego Bio is approaching a competitive price point compared to traditional methods of producing egg protein, she added.
Onego Bio claims that bioalbumen is “biologically identical” to ovalbumin, the main protein in chicken egg white. It also contains all the essential amino acids and is high in protein at 90 grams per 100 grams of egg white. Additionally, the company can produce eggs with 90% less environmental impact compared to chicken eggs.
The company designs BioAlbumen to have a clean, neutral flavor that can be used to replace eggs in a variety of foods, baked goods, snacks, and sauces. The company plans to sell Bioalbumen to companies that manufacture food.
“What we're doing is different from the systems that other companies are working on, for example,” Itkonen says. “The microbial growth is a little slower, but the productivity is much higher. So you get a bigger yield, and the product is simpler in that it doesn't require specialized equipment. It all comes down to cost. It comes down to that, because to really compete with animal products, you have to have the same price.”
The company will first launch it in North America. Itkonen expects Onego Bio to receive self-affirmed GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status for bioalbumen this year and receive a letter of no objection from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2025. After that, we plan to expand in Europe, South America, and other regions. Asia.
In preparation for this, Onego Bio recently secured $40 million in Series A funding to bring bioalbumen to market and increase manufacturing capacity. The funds will be used to grow the company's U.S. commercial team, completing its own factory and partnering with co-manufacturers. Itkonen said the company is close to a single Onego full-scale production unit with a fermentation capacity of 2 million liters, which will essentially replace an egg farm with 6 million egg-laying hens.
The investment was led by Japanese-Nordic venture capital firm NordicNinja, with participation from equity investors Tesi and EIT Food, existing investors Agronomics, Maki.vc, Holdix, Turret, and a group of strategic partners.
The round also includes $10 million in non-dilutive funding from Business Finland, a public agency under the Finnish government that supports innovation that accelerates systemic change to solve major global challenges. It is. Itkonen touted Onego Bio's Series A funding as “one of his largest A rounds in Scandinavia,” bringing the company's total funding to his $56 million.
Nordic Ninja Managing Partner Sohara Tomosaku said in a statement: In less than two years, Onego is already working with major global food companies with plans to disrupt the $330 billion egg market, trigger system-level change, and accelerate the green transition. Masu. ”