StartLife partners Cosun and Oost NL team up to jointly invest €8M in Wageningen-based foodtech scaleup Revyve to boost the development of sustainable, upcycled and local food ingredients, derived from sidestreams of beer breweries.
Revyve (formerly FUMI Ingredients, StartLife alumnus) uses natural micro-organisms to produce animal-free food ingredients and has developed a proprietary mild and scalable process to
recover unique compounds from microbial biomass such as brewer’s spent yeast.
Upcycled ingredients
The upcycled food ingredients, with low CO2 footprint, are highly functional and ideally suited to replace animal proteins and E numbers like methylcellulose and egg white. Revyve’s ingredients are highly versatile and can be used in different food applications such as meat analogues, fried snacks, pasta, sauces and bakery products. Revyve is currently working to scale up production to over 100 ton per year in order to enable multiple commercial launches with its customers.
“Until now, food manufacturers needed to rely on animal-based ingredients and E numbers to create texture. At revyve we have developed a unique process to produce highly functional ingredients from brewer’s yeast. Our ingredients have great gelling, emulsification and foaming functionality which provide a sustainable, clean label and delicious alternative to unlock amazing texture. We are proud of this new partnership with Oost NL and Cosun Protein and excited to contribute to a better and more sustainable food system.” says Cedric Verstraeten, CEO of revyve.
Strategic Collaboration
Revyve’s upcycled ingredients contribute to reducing the CO2 footprint from food and offer more clean label solutions for food producers. This closely aligns with Cosun’s Unlock25 strategy focused on green & health promoting ingredients, upcycling co-products and building a future-proof sustainable chain.
Thijs Bosch, Director Cosun Protein: “This investment is fully in line with Cosun’s sustainability agenda and our ambitions for alternative protein. We look forward to deepening our collaboration with revyve through our knowledge and expertise as a producer of plant-based protein and other functional ingredients to create sustainable food ingredients for future generations.”
The Wageningen Ecosystem
Oost NL invests from Perspectieffonds Gelderland (PFG), a fund focused on necessary transitions for a sustainable future. Oscar Elderink, investment manager of Perspectieffonds Gelderland at Oost NL recognizes the potential positive impact of revyve’s innovative technology and emphasizes the important role of Wageningen University & Research and its surrounding ecosystem (of which StartLife is a part) plays in food innovations.
“The Wageningen ecosystem is an important hub for food innovation towards a sustainable and healthy food system. We are proud that with our investment, revyve can take steps towards the development of sustainable and local food ingredients. We believe that revyve’s product can have a significant impact on creating a circular food chain and facilitating the transition to protein alternatives,” explains Elderink.
StartLife is excited to see this collaboration between our partners, Cosun and Oost NL, and our alumnus revyve. This really is a promising development for the Wageningen-based scale-up and the transition to sustainable proteins and food ingredients.
