The First Sixteen Podcast - EP 030

Marie-France: Kirk, do you ever feel that the people we get on this show give us a peek into the future?

Kirk: I do. Our guests and their innovations are shaping that future. Which might be closer than we think.

Marie-France: And that makes it even more exciting.

Kirk: Today, we're going to share with you some stories about innovators in our sector who have come up with some game-changing technologies. One solution started with experiments using a rice cooker.

Marie-France: And the other with experiments on caramel apples.

Kirk: And the solutions they came up with are going to impact the agricultural industry. From how food is grown and handled, to disease control and food safety, to converting food waste into a valuable biodegradable plastic.

Marie-France: Wow, game changer indeed!

Kirk: So, let's dig in. Welcome to the First Sixteen, a series that explores the freshest ideas in agriculture and food. I am your co-host, Kirk Finken.

Marie-France: And I am Marie-France Gagnon.

Kirk: Today's fresh stories come as the winners of the novel technology stream of the Food waste Reduction Challenge were announced recently.

Marie-France: You've heard about the Challenge a few times on our podcast. The novel technology stream was focused on science and tech solutions to reduce food waste.

There was a total of 238 applications were received from innovators across Canada and around the world, which led to 18 semi-finalists and, ultimately, six finalists chosen from across Canada.

Kirk: And those six were very innovative solutions, they rose to the top.

Marie-France: Yes, these six finalists then had one year, step by step, to advance and refine their prototypes and test them in an operational environment with at least one implementation partner.

Kirk: And then came the time to shine. Entries were evaluated against established criteria, including potential volume of food waste reduction, technology effectiveness, level of innovation and scalability, and environmental and economic benefits.

Marie-France: And in May 2024 the two winners were announced.

Kirk: Each of them will receive up to a million dollars in funding to help accelerate the advancement of their solutions and support their deployment in the Canadian market. So you know Marie-France, you can breakout that drum roll we used in the last episode

Marie-France: Yes (drum roll)

Kirk: The two winners in the novel tech stream of the Food Waste Reduction Challenge are...

Marie-France: Genecis Bioindustries of Toronto and Clean Works of St-Catherines, both in Ontario!

Kirk: I met with Genecis.

Marie-France: I met with Clean Works.

Kirk: And here are their stories, starting with Genecis and their CEO and Founder, Luna Yu.

Luna: I went to University of Toronto for a Bachelors and Master of Science. And graduated within 4 years. I always really loved the environment and biology. And after I graduated, founded Genesis right away, because I really wanted to figure out how we can use biology to make something new and better. I had a chance to work with the biogas industry during my master's and saw that they essentially converted food waste, which was a waste resource into a resource. And, really wanted to see what else we can do by converting food waste into something that's more higher value. So that was the genesis of Genecis.

Marie-France: That is the creative and entrepreneurial mind at work!

Kirk: Wait until you hear about their novel tech solution.

Luna: So what we do at Genesis is we use industrial biotechnology, which is really just engineered bacteria to convert various different kinds of feedstocks, including food waste, industrial waste and medical waste into PHA biodegradable plastics.

Kirk: Engineering bacteria? How do you do that?

Luna: Well, actually, it's really quite simple. The bulk of the work is really in identifying what parts of the DNA to change to achieve what you want to change. So that's more of like an analysis work, right? Bacteria is really great to produce items wherever it is really difficult to make naturally or via chemical synthesis. And the more steps along the way you have, just imagine having a chemical plant, the more expensive it would be to produce chemically. So where it's the most value is to use bacteria to product it in a matter of hours, in a single step, which is essentially just fermented in its body, then doing multiple chemical processes. But the actual act of engineering the bacteria, there's these CRISPR toolkits out there. It literally comes into like a small little box. And you can use the toolkit, uh, components in there to essentially use like a regular pipette, centrifuge, etc., to edit out DNA. So, you know, it might sound like it's like super sci fi, but the tools now, today has made it super democratized and very easy to access. And those kits you can buy for a couple hundred dollars at most. Technically, if you wanted to, you can engineer bacteria in your own, your own kitchen.

Kirk: Speaking of a kitchen, I heard that your first try at this was made using something that we might actually find in our own kitchens.

Luna: So the first time that we tried this we really wanted to be able to ferment the bacteria and feed it food waste and have it can produce the bioplastics. Back in the days, we were all just a bunch of recent graduate students. So we didn't have access to bioreactors, proper laboratories or anything like that. And a typical bioreactor cost at least $20,000 to buy. So we thought well, how do we essentially replicate the essence of a bioreactor with much more cheaper resources? So we thought, what was the closest thing to that? First we thought pressure cooker. And we tried a pressure cooker. At first, drilled holes into it, installed the sensors, mixers, etc.

But quickly realized that the pressure cooker heated up way too quickly and actually killed a lot of the bacteria. W e went and got ourselves a rice cooker from um, Canadian Tire, modified it using Arduino Raspberry Pi to for the automation control. Took us like a month and a half to get that done. And the very first one worked pretty well. So we ended up then just buying six more and retrofitting six more so we can have six rice cookers going in parallel. And it was during that summer that we produced our first two grams of PHAs from the fermented food waste using those rice cooker reactors. And that was a great proof of concept. That was a really exciting moment.

Kirk: Oh that must have been. Ok, so now, a couple of years later, and after the challenge, can you describe your lab now? I imagine it's a little different.

Luna: Oh, our lab now is, uh, definitely a lot more closer to what you think of a lab. We got a lab in downtown Toronto that's roughly 4,000 square feet. It's got a lot of great equipment, bioreactors, proper ones. We also have a pilot facility in Scarborough, and, um. Yeah, it's definitely a lot more professional than the rice cookers were.

Kirk: And you can make over 2 grams of PHAs now?

Luna: Ha, yes, yes.

Marie-France: Kirk, can I interrupt for a moment? I love this origin story, but is a PHA a type of plastic?

Kirk: So, I had that question too. PHA stands for polyhydroxyalkanoates, all one word, and... well let me let Luna explain.

Luna: So, a PHA is really just a fat of bacteria. A lot of bacteria actually naturally makes PHAs to store energy when they have excess foods. Just like humans, we store energy in the form of fat cells. They store energy in the form of PHAs. And it just so happens that once you extract it out of the bacteria, it behaves almost exactly like plastics. So you can mold it, you can heat it up, you can stretch it, it can be made into thin films, cups, tablets, etc. And the great thing about PHAs is that once you mold it into any plastic products and you throw it back out into nature, depending on the thickness of the PHA, it will degrade. If it's really thin within less than a year in, uh, marine and soil environments or up to a couple of years if it's really thick. And that, compared to petroleum plastics, is a huge improvement because petroleum plastics takes at least 500 years to decompose.

Kirk: To say that is significant is maybe an understatement. What kind of food waste do you use?

Luna: We originally actually got them from restaurants. We used to go into green bins of restaurants and just like dig out, shovel out food waste. Fortunately, we don't have to do that anymore. We actually just directly get them from the biogas plants that we partner up with. They usually take at least like hundreds of tons of food waste in every single day. So there's a there's oversupply of that right now.

Kirk: I am hearing "we" a lot in your story. Can you tell me about your team.

Luna: Our team is a group of just extremely dedicated people. A lot of people come from different backgrounds, but we are all really just here to figure out how can we make the world a better place and do it in a way that makes sense and can financially grow to something larger and larger, so that that can amplify our impact.

Kirk: How about other partners, research partners?

Luna: We work quite a lot with the University of Toronto. University of Waterloo, Guelph, several other ones as well. We're super, super lucky to have the support of amazing set of investors, including Khosla Ventures, who's also the biggest backer for Impossible Foods, OpenAI and a couple of other really, really great companies. Amazon, Amazon Pledge Fund, amazing to have them, they've got a lot of great resources that they help us out with both business as well as talent acquisition.

Kirk: Now the big question: Where are we going to see the first applications of your bioplastic?

Luna: Well, it's going to be in the consumer products category, and I hope to be able to share more information soon. But it will be something that people will use on a daily basis. So we'll be launching in the next couple of months. And but until then, what we're going to be keeping that under embargo.

Marie-France: Ooh I like some mystery, but I am very impatient to see what they come out with. So, Kirk, while Genecis takes food waste and creates another valuable product, our other finalist is all about reducing food loss in the system from farm to the processor to the store.

Kirk: This sounds big.

Marie-France: And their technology also decontaminates foods, like apples, thus avoiding food recalls and the huge food waste that happens as a result.

Kirk: It's also starting to sound like a magic bullet.

Marie-France: In fact, in many ways, it is. Clean Works is onto to something pretty interesting. But first I want to show you a little video. Can you describe what you are seeing?

Kirk: It looks like a grape harvester driving through the rows of a vineyard at night….but what's under it is really unique. The best way I can describe it is... a giant scanner? It's these bright panels facing the plants... it's super futuristic looking.

Marie-France: This is one of the pre-harvest technologies that Clean Works developed during the Challenge. We will make sure to post the video.

Kirk: I imagine you are going to explain what this thing does right?

Marie-France: Well it's best hear it from the source and turn science fiction into science fact. I had the pleasure of speaking to Denise Van De Veen, the director of business development at Clean Works.

Denise, can you describe the technology Clean Works is building for the fruit and vegetable crop industry? In terms I can understand because I am not an engineer.

Denise: I am not as well so I am probably the right person to try and describe it. Our technology applies a hydrogen peroxide micro mist along with ozone gas and UV light. This combination of these three inputs produces something called a hydroxyl radical. These are incredibly antimicrobial and oxidative, which makes them very effective in eliminating harmful microorganisms like pathogens, viruses, molds, and mildews. But the beauty about hydroxyl radicals is then they will revert back into oxygen and water, which means that we're not leaving any harmful residues or creating any byproducts.

So for this challenge, we created two units. One is like a tow behind a tractor. And that's what we used in the spinach field. And that is, it doesn't look maybe as sci fi as the one on the grape harvester.

The one on the grape harvester was a little, a little more interesting. Probably my engineers would say a little more of a mechanical engineering challenge. Because the grape harvester is going over the vines. We needed to figure out how to attach that to that grape harvester while, um, ensuring that it goes all the way over the vines. And these vines are going to be growing at different sizes, um, different heights. But it all faces inwards towards the grape vines so it's getting treated from both sides.

Marie-France: You know I can't wait to show other people the video you sent me. It looks so sci-fi.

Denise: Thank you for that. Yeah, it's definitely a little like sci-fi look.

Marie-France: I understand the origins of this process is an interesting one. It came from caramel apples?

Denise: Yeah, we've got a great origin story in my opinion. So the Court Holdings and Paul Moyer are the owners of Clean Works. Paul Moyer and his family have been farming in the Niagara region since 1799. And with the support of their partners, Court Holdings, he diversified into caramel apples. In 2016, there was a listeria outbreak. It was awful and although Moyer's Apples wasn't implicated in the outbreak, it was a very evident that a solution was needed. And of course, it needed to be a waterless solution because you can't, coat a wet apple with caramel. So working with Dr. Keith Warner at the University of Guelph, the hydroxyl radical process was developed over years of trials and validations. And this now patented solution worked so well for the caramel apple industry that the decision with Court Holdings and Paul Moyer was to make it commercialized and available for the produce industry worldwide.

Kirk: Ok Marie-France, my turn to ask for a quick clarification here. What is a Hydroxyl Radical?

Marie-France: I had to ask Denise that question too. They are created when you combine UV light, Hydrogen peroxide vapor and ozone gas. They are short lived antimicrobial agents that can inactivate and kill things like bacteria and mold spores. Denise gave a good example. What our technology does is the same thing that's happening in our ozone layer, protecting pollutants from escaping and damaging our ozone layer. So we're taking the gas, sunlight, and creating something that destroys, the nasty pathogens, the nasty molds on, on your food.

Marie-France: And, Kirk, what you need to understand is that the Clean Works technology is being used on crops but there are possible applications with proteins, so, like in egg, meat and seafood processing.

Kirk: Hold on a second. I know we have said it a couple of times, but that is a game changer!

Marie-France: It is!

Kirk: So, anyone in farming will quickly deduce that this solution will not only increase the yields, (since) you know there will be more edible produce coming out of the fields, more for the farmers to sell, but it will also extend shelf life of these fruits and veggies. But the protein industries, too! You know reducing food borne pathogens, as a way of reducing food recalls, which are huge sources of food waste.

Marie-France: It's magical the only by-product of the technology is oxygen and water.

Kirk: Wow it just blows me away. Please, continue! I want to hear more of that interview.

Marie-France: How did the challenge help you develop this technology?

Denise: This challenge was what sparked our idea for this. Our more seasoned technology is in post harvest. So we create tunnels that either can fit into people's production lines as is. So put a tunnel over top of a conveyor system, a shaker table, um, brush beds and this tunnel is for the produce to go through and create enough space, enough movement for that gas phase decontamination to get all the way around the produce. For this challenge we were able to investigate pre harvest. So attaching that same idea of the tunnel but creating um engineering for it to be attached to, uh, pretty typical farming tools so it can be used right in the field. The fact that it was a multi year challenge really helped us tackle this in bite size pieces, um, and create a better go to market plan and giving us that time and space to really ensure we have the science backing. We have the right partners not even just on the science side on the engineering component, understanding how these farming tools work in the field even what the wind is going to do for it.

If we didn't have the different seasons and the step-by-step process with this challenge, I don't know if we would have been able to develop it in the same way. It also helped guide us to the right partners, you know the research partners that we wanted to work with. And that in itself, was so valuable for us. We've now really developed our relationship with Vineland Research and Innovation Center. And then lastly, of course, the interest and awareness created through this challenge is undeniable.

Marie-France: Do you have any other research partners?

Denise: The research actually began out of the University of Guelph looking at hydroxyl radicals, how UV and hydrogen peroxide interacted with each other, and then working with Clean Works and adding the ozone to see that efficacy raise. They have a unit in their lab. So they're able to do quite a lot of testing and understand, um, how it works, what works, what are the best and most optimal parameters for it to work? So they have been undeniably a huge part of the scientific research behind Clean Works. We've also worked really closely, especially, in the pandemic with McMaster University. They have a level-three lab where they were actually able to look at certain viruses and stuff like that. We're working with the University of Manitoba, and we have a testing unit at the University of Dalhousie as well.

Marie-France: We have a special place in our hearts on the show here for people who jump in to try out something new early? Can you talk to us about your early adopters?

Denise: Yeah so, our early adopters on the pre-harvest side, on the wine side is Vineland Estates. Alan and Brian Schmidt, they are incredibly knowledgeable in grape growing and the wine industry. And then on the other side, E and J Collins, they are awesome. We were working with them originally on post-harvest, so looking at their spinach after it's been harvested and then decontaminating that before it goes on to further processing. And we started talking about in the field, and they immediately raised their hands and said, we want to be a part of this.

Marie-France: This is a really great tool for producers to have in their toolbox.

Denise: Yeah, definitely. I mean, we even saw it last season. Fall was a very wet fall and a lot of our partners in the vineyards were telling us that they a lot of folks had already reached their cap of chemical spray use. They're only allowed to use so much within a season, and their plants would have to go unprotected for the last couple of months, when it's all when it's so rainy. So it became very evident that there needs to be a different solution for the growers.

Marie-France: How are people in the industry responding to this new technology?

Denise: We have had a tremendous response so far from like growers to processors and even retailers that we work with. So of course, we looked at leafy greens and, and wine, but now we also have partners that are we're looking into strawberries with and broccoli and cauliflower. And agronomists in particular. I think it was in fall of last year, the Niagara-Hamilton chapter of Ontario Institute of Ecologists, the OIA actually invited us to present at their branch meeting, um, and the feedback and insight from that group was tremendous.

Marie-France: That's neat. So, what's next?

Denise: So we're going to be continuing, um, research, uh, this season in the fields with our commercial partners and, and research partners. And then Wendy McFadden-Smith out of Brock University is joining us in Vineland Estates. And then we are looking to launch this product commercially next year.

Kirk: Marie-France, this is amazing!

Marie-France: And you need to know that they can use their technologies, and are selling their solution, to food processors and even retailers. They can use their technology to decontaminate those re-useable bins that are used in the food industry, and any equipment in a processing facility. This is huge.

Kirk: No kidding. I am blown away by both Genecis and Clean Works!

Marie-France: As we mentioned at the top, there were six finalists. The four other finalists each had very different technologies. They, too, are amazing.

Kirk: They are and deserve another shout-out. Food waste is being put to many other uses. ALT TEX is using it to create biodegradable and carbon-neutral textiles with the aim of replacing polyester. Aruna Revolution Health is creating feminine hygiene products from it. And Carbon Lock Tech converts food waste into a stable form of biocarbon that sequesters atmospheric CO2 and prevents future landfill methane emissions. That's kind of a long way of saying they create these little chunks of carbon and put them to other uses. And finally, Chinova Bioworks Inc. has developed a solution using mushroom stems to improve the shelf life of food and beverage products.

Marie-France: Those companies are thriving and moving forward with their solutions.

Kirk: Yeah, I can imagine. It makes me proud to work in this sector.

Marie-France: And it makes me want to do like we tell everyone in each episode.

Kirk: Yes, indeed. It makes us want to try something new.

Marie-France: Like retrofitting my rice cooker. If you didn't listen to our last episode about the other winners of the Food Waste Reduction Challenge. I really encourage you to do it. It was with the winners of the business solutions stream.

Kirk: Definitely, have a listen and our other episodes too. And what's coming up. You are going to be surprised.