US-based biotech company Willow Biosciences and Kalsec, provider of natural taste and sensory, colour, protection and hop solutions, have announced plans to extend their functional ingredient development programme for a large volume savoury foods opportunity.

After a successful phase one programme that applied Willow’s ‘BioOxi’ platform, Kalsec has agreed to continue full development toward commercialisation that includes additional R&D and scale-up work.

Willow develops and produces precision fermented functional ingredients for the food and beverage, health and wellness and personal care markets.

‘BioOxi’ is a bio-oxidation platform technology that complements Willow’s existing strain engineering and precision fermentation ‘FutureGrown’ biotech platform. 'FutureGrown’ allows large-scale production with sustainability at its core. Willow offers commercial partners cost-effective production of ingredients through biosynthesis, and now through ‘BioOxi’, bioconversion-enabled chemical manufacturing of ingredients from defined intermediates with the benefit of removing multiple chemical steps, significantly reducing cost and resources.

Chris Savile, Willow's president and CEO, said: "We appreciate the trust Kalsec has in Willow to help with their innovation pathway and are delighted to partner with them on this next step in our engagement on ingredient development. Looking forward, we are excited by the opportunity to engage with Kalsec's extraordinary team in bringing to market what could potentially be a number of sustainably sourced innovative ingredients that favourably enhance customers' products and the consumer experience."

Roger Nahas, EVP of global R&D and chief innovation officer at Kalsec, added: "Willow has proven its capabilities repeatedly during our engagement over the last few months and we anticipate a long partnership as the result of our success working together. Toward that end, our team has identified a number of savoury food and beverage ingredient targets where we can potentially engage with Willow to help bring the best products possible to Kalsec's customers with a keen focus on market-leading innovation and sustainability."

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