I'm Leslie Hook, and this is the news in focus Podcast, where we offer our insights into the stories that matter for the first time will also be recording this for video on our YouTube channel.

So welcome today we're here to discuss microbial food, which is a word that some of you may not be familiar with.

I hadn't come across it before.

Um, an extreme oh, file is a microbe that can survive in extreme conditions.

And one startup in Chicago has found a way of turning these microscopic creatures into an edible protein, part of a growing trend towards a microbial revolution in food and agriculture.

Could microbes hold the key to feeding a growing population?

Here, with me in the studio to discuss this is Emma Coat, Arizona commodities correspondent, and Clive Cookson, science editor.

Thanks for joining today, Amoco to start with, tell us a bit about this company and what it is trying to do.

So sustainable byproducts is a start up in the U.

S.

On its turning a microbe that it is discovered in Yellowstone National Park into protein, so they're going to use precision fermentation, and they are going thio Turn this protein into alternative dairy and meat products like burgers and microbial based cheese.

Wow, um, has a garden, a garden, much interest from investors.

So overall, the search for alternative proteins is such a hot topic in food and agriculture these days.

And, ah, it comes as you know, increasing incomes in developing countries on when populations become all rich, They moved from carbohydrates to prestige products.

I meet, but people can't continue eating me because of the environmental and is also health concerns as well.

So I think, um, we've had the plant based meat products like impossible burger and beyond meat on dumb.

The search is on for alternative sources of protein among entrepreneurs and scientists.

Um and so, yes, investors are very interested.

Sustainable byproducts has raised 33 million early this year from companies including Frances de, known on and Archer Daniels Midland, which is a agricultural trade.

So I've got some really serious money behind them.

But what does, uh, what do these products actually tastes like?

Have you tried any yourself?

So, um, when you talk about proteins, um, you'll have ah, the protein which is a source off the product.

I e the vehicle for the taste.

So I think the idea there is to reduce the taste of the original.

Whatever you're using its source itself, like pre protein, which is used in beyond meet You don't want it to taste like peas.

Yeah, so you want the the protein to be pure?

It's possible with microbes.

I have not tasted what is actually not on the markets.

I have not tasted volcanic microbial burgers, but the other ah, use it.

Use of proteins is a za food ingredient to enhance the taste of a certain product or change the way the product tastes.

So Princess Impossible Foods uses a protein called heem, which is made from soy on dumb that is used with that is made from precision fermentation.

And it's it adds the meaty taste to the Berg.

Wow.

So how optimistic are you?

I mean, is this is this like pie in the sky?

Or do you think this is genuinely changing the way that we are going to source proteins in our food?

Well, I don't think it's pie in the sky tool because, um, you already have corn for instance on, and that is more not not Seo are exactly to you, O r n yeah, and that is made from micro protein, which is a sort of fungus, and that's been around forever.

Um, uh, Clive, you you know better than me where I think warn dates back to the 19 eighties, and it's a good thing to think of.

Anyone has had corn.

It is, as you said, a vehicle.

The taste corn is grown out of single celled fungus, which you can define us.

Microbe mean the definition of microbe is somewhat stretchy.

I think of it as any organism that you can't see with the native naked eye as the individual cells, and you have to look down a microscope to identify them.

That's so interesting.

I mean, microbes seemed to be having a bit of a moment recently.

And why have they sort of come into the spotlight now?

I guess spotlight might be the wrong word.

Maybe under the telescope and microscope, he asked the microscope, Um, what's the What's the wider scientific picture here?

Well, when it comes to food, one of the most important changes of the 21st century and in nutrition.

And even, I would say in medicine is understanding that the billions of microbes the bacteria that live in our guts play a gigantic role in our health.

Um, not just start, um, how we digest food.

That's the most important thing.

But even our well being psychologically, the microbes within our body are vital.

And therefore there's a big on growing industry to try and produce microbes not so much as food, but to populate our guts with friendly bacteria.

So that's that's a very big growth area.

Another.

It is that the microbes used to ferment foods are being extended a lot.

Everything from Kim Jae to sauerkraut two, um, the molds on our cheeses to beer and wine.

They depend on microbes one sort or another.

And so using microbes to produce a protein, I mean, could this be scaled up used worldwide?

I mean, are there inhibiting factors?

Well, I think we have to remember that, like all new foods, microbial foods don't grow on thin air.

They will need a lot of import of water nutrients, et cetera.

So from the environmental point of view, they're not going to be completely benign.

Now, they're probably going to be Maur favorable, more sustainable and then growing a cow, which spends a lot of its energy wandering around fields and belching and burping and emitting methane, which is a very powerful greenhouse gas.

But I think those environmental questions I need to be answered and they haven't yet been answered by the sort of new foods company is that making not only microbial foods like Chemical was talking about earlier but also cell based meat and fish products.

Where, rather than growing a cow or catching a fish, you'll grow the proteins and the muscle on the fibers, hopefully trying to capture the texture and taste in the lab.

Mmm.

And where does this fit into this other types of new food technologies?

Other types of agricultural breakthroughs?

I mean, um, where do micro bills fit in?

I think they're going to be seen alongside these other cell based foods.

A lot of progress is being made in taking, for example, stem cells from cows or cattle and getting them to develop into essentially into meat.

And if you combine that with three D printing, you can get something that's a good a good texture I mean, that's one possibility, but Emiko might have some ideas of how they fit into the overall have food industry more.

My understanding is that, say, this microbe eels and fermentation will boost cell based or lab based meat.

Um, but I guess this whole microbial fungus bacterial activity I mean, how how will consumers really react to it?

I mean, is there a York factor, You mean?

Yeah.

I mean, do you really want to eat a microbial burger?

Well, a lot of panic.

Burger?

I don't know.

Well, I don't know.

A lot of people object to meet not only on its environmental health grounds, because it's cruel to animals.

And I don't think cruelty to microbes is going to enter the picture.

But I think, you know, I mean remains to be seen.

I've be very interested to see sustainable, but by a product CEO has told me that he wants to get a product out into the market.

Um, either on a trial basis, um, or just stood ah onto the shelves, at least in about 18 months in the U.

S.

So it'll be interesting to see what sort of marketing strategy he takes a sort of fine next winter.

Christmas 2020.

We could be having microbial some something on the shelf in a test market.

I think it's probably not in London.

Yeah, um, a za final question.

I wanted to ask you both.

Do you think there's an argument that time and money would be better spent encouraging food and agricultural practices that are more sustainable rather than creating new products that sort of enable everyone to keep consuming in the same way?

I think that's a really interesting question.

Um, but I suspect that the horse is kind of left the stable.

The consumers want convenient food that they crave.

And, um also, you know, the new, newly rich, developing country population.

They also want that as well.

They expect that, and on the other hand, food companies and fast food companies, you know want to sell that.

So, um, can we continue killing cows and pigs and destroying the environment?

I think an important thing, as in so many areas of life, is to have diversity, I think, from a sustainability and health point of view, giving consumers as rich and diverse a mixture of foods as possible, whether they come from cells in labs or animals or plants in fields.

I think that's gonna be good.

Yeah, well, thank you both so much.

Um, thanks.

Cliven em, ACO.

And thanks for listening.

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