ÄIO, an Estonian biotech company that develops sustainable fats and oils using fermentation, has received a €1.2 million grant from Enterprise Estonia to advance its new project FERM-OIL. The total project budget is €2.3 million.
Over three years, ÄIO will develop its Flavoured Fat; a lipid-rich yeast biomass with umami taste and good texture. The goal is to move from lab and pilot stages to industrial production. The project will gather safety and consumer data to bring the product to market. It aims to close the gap between lab innovation and food manufacturing.
The food industry needs sustainable lipid ingredients. Current lab alternatives often cannot be scaled or meet regulations. FERM-OIL aims to solve this problem by scaling lab innovations to industrial production.
Dr. Mary-Liis Kütt, Chief Innovation Officer at ÄIO, said: “Ferm-Oil tackles one of the hardest parts of food innovation — scaling from lab to factory.” She added that their Flavoured Fat performs well in prototypes. The project will test it on real production lines, gather safety data, and understand consumer responses.
The project will optimize fermentation processes, test second-generation feedstocks from food, forestry, and agriculture, and transfer production to a manufacturing facility. They will analyze quality, shelf-life, and safety. By the end of the project, ÄIO plans to reach TRL6, validate processes at industrial scale, and submit a safety dossier to the EU. They aim to build a 4,000-ton-per-year production facility and seek larger investments.
Kütt said: “This project is about making future foods real. We want fats and oils to be produced locally from local resources. Flavoured Fat is our contribution, and this grant speeds up our progress.”
