Cremer’s FermBase Launches High-Performing Yeast Blend for Fermentation Startups
German agrifood giant Cremer Group’s recently launched FermBase platform has rolled out a new line of trace element blends to simplify yeast fermentation processes.
Extending its solutions for the next-gen fermentation industry, Hamburg-based Cremer Group has launched the first product under the FermBase platform it introduced in February.
It’s kicking off a new product group of standardised trace element blends with the Y-Base Blend, which is developed specifically for yeast fermentation processes using defined media.
“With our Y-Base Blend, we help yeast fermentation companies significantly simplify a complex and error-prone part of their processes,” said Gerlis von Haugwitz, product manager at Cremer.
“Instead of sourcing, storing, weighing and dosing several individual salts separately, our customers receive an optimised, standardised and readily soluble trace element blend that can be used from laboratory scale through to industrial production.”
Y-Base Blend selected from over 50,000 combinations
FermBase is described as a “competence centre and one-stop shop” for fermentation media, serving applications in the food, feed, cosmetics, and industrial sectors.
It aims to tackle the sourcing, scaling and cost challenges facing advanced fermentation companies, connecting them with the carbon and nitrogen sources, minerals, and premixes they need to scale up.
The platform combines reliable feedstock access and procurement with globally scalable, resilient supply chains, which enables clients to focus on research and growth and leaves the operational complexities of the supply chain, from pilot scale through to industrial production, to Cremer.
The company’s discussions with fermentation firms revealed that many work with similar requirements, but each formulates their trace element solutions individually. That leads to higher development costs and additional challenges around reproducibility, scaling, and procurement.
Trace elements are, as the name suggests, only used in small quantities, but they can still have a significant impact on growth and process stability. This formed the starting point of Cremer’s development of the Y-Base Blend.
The innovation combines select minerals and trace elements in one standardised formulation. Cremer analysed more than 50,000 possible trace element combinations, which were initially narrowed down to 3,300 experiments carried out with different yeast strains. The final blend for use in bioreactors was selected from nine high-performing formulations at microlitre scale.
Cremer’s solution built for volumes across different scales
In an early-access trial with select partners across a variety of fermentation processes and products, the Y-Base Blend performed comparably in all instances, and outperformed clients’ in-house blends in more than half of the cases.
“For us, it was particularly important not only to develop Y-Base Blend under laboratory conditions, but also to validate it in customer processes using bioreactors,” said von Haugwitz.
“The fact that our standardised blend often performed even better than individually developed in-house blends confirms our approach,” he added.
The innovation builds on Cremer’s expertise across the entire supply chain, from raw material sourcing and processing to international logistics. For the development of biotech products, FermBase works with Munich’s Differential Bio, a spinoff from the Technical University of Munich, which holds expertise in automated fermentation experiments and data-driven evaluation via machine learning.
The Y Base Blend was designed for scalability from the outset, with the product available from quantities as small as 1kg for initial lab trials, to 25kg units for pilot and scale-up operations and several tonnes for industrial applications. Across all volume sizes, its composition and specification remain identical.
With the new innovation, Cremer is targeting biotech and fermentation companies working with yeast to produce functional ingredients for applications such as food, feed, cosmetics and technical uses.
It has long been involved in planet-friendly nutrition solutions. Its Cremer Sustainable Foods division, for instance, operates a 1,000 sq m facility for alternative proteins, which can produce 1,300 tonnes of product per year.