Bond Pet Foods & Wilbur-Ellis Nutrition to Develop Enhanced Pet Food With “Brewed” Chicken Proteins – vegconomist
Precision fermentation company Bond Pet Foods has partnered with previous investor Wilbur-Ellis Nutrition, a leading provider of innovative animal nutrition solutions, to develop tailored, non-animal-derived ingredients for pet food applications.
Based in Boulder, Colorado, Bond Pet Foods “brews” customizable meat proteins (chicken, turkey, and fish) using yeast and precision fermentation technology instead of raising livestock or fishing.
“Precision fermentation is an increasingly attractive tool to produce proteins”
Through the collaboration, Wilbur-Ellis will formulate innovative pet food products incorporating these customized chicken proteins to improve the nutritional value or enhance other benefits of pet food products, offering a new range of multifunctional pet diet solutions.
The collaboration is Wilbur-Ellis Nutrition’s first of its kind, and it is Bond’s second strategic partnership with a global player to introduce its sustainable ingredients in the pet food industry.
Nick Braden, Vice President of Wilbur-Ellis Pet Nutrition, commented, “As the pet food industry focuses more on sustainable solutions, precision fermentation is an increasingly attractive tool to produce proteins, flavors, and blends that perform. This collaboration with Bond, and their deep fermentation expertise, will allow us to further advance our ingredient portfolio.”
A new class of products
Animal-derived ingredients contribute significantly to environmental impacts and raise animal welfare concerns. However, they are the mainstay of dog and cat diets.
As pet health and sustainability trends in the pet food industry continue, brands are expanding their ingredient sources to introduce new products with enhanced benefits: more fiber or amino acids, or less fat and zero allergens.
In a testament to the new trends, Bond Pet Foods delivered two metric tons of animal protein to Hill’s Pet Nutrition this February for test product formulation and regulatory review (brewed proteins are novel ingredients).
According to Rich Kelleman, founder and CEO of Bond Pet Foods, they produced the proteins at a 45,000 L scale, highlighting it as a significant milestone in the Bond-Hill’s collaboration. The collaboration between the two companies began in late 2021 when Hill’s was looking for an alternative to its most used meat proteins.
Bond’s fermented proteins for the pet food industry have attracted multiple investors, including ADM Ventures, Cavallo Ventures (Wilbur-Ellis), Genoa Ventures, Lever VC, Thia Ventures, and iSelect Fund.
Kelleman shared, “We look forward to developing a new class of products through this JDA program that will provide pet food manufacturers with more sustainable, functional formulary alternatives.”
