Green Bioactives is growing plant cells in steel bioreactors instead of digging up rare plants from remote forests, and they are now adding real-time chemical sensors to make the process reliable at industrial scale. This matters because many high-value ingredients for cosmetics—such as anti-aging compounds or natural preservatives—currently come from wild plants that are scarce, seasonal, or threatened by disease and political instability. Supply chains are fragile, and scaling up is nearly impossible. The company’s plant cell culture platform sidesteps those problems by growing the cells in a controlled, UK-based facility. But moving from lab-scale to commercial production requires tight monitoring of the cells’ chemistry to ensure every batch yields the same quality and quantity. The project, in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, adapts real-time metabolomic monitoring—a technique used in microbial fermentation—to plant cells for the first time. If successful, the approach could replace field-harvesting with a stable, environmentally friendly manufacturing process. The same technology could later extend to nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals, strengthening the UK’s capacity for sustainable biomanufacturing and creating skilled jobs in Scotland’s industrial biotechnology cluster.
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Green Bioactives, founded in 2019, is scaling and commercialising natural products made using a patent-protected plant cell culture-based biomanufacturing platform. This innovative platform enables the production of high-value bioactive ingredients for the cosmetics and personal care industries at yields that competitors cannot readily achieve. These bioactives are traditionally sourced from plants that are often rare, undomesticated, and/or grown in remote locations. Traditional harvesting methods face challenges such as seasonal availability, environmental degradation, disease, and geopolitical instability, leading to unreliable supply chains and limited scalability. The project brings together Green Bioactives and scientists from the University of Edinburgh and its EdinOmics research facility to develop a next-generation approach to improved biomanufacturing. The collaboration focuses on integrating advanced real-time metabolomic (RTmet) monitoring and control technologies into Green Bioactives' scalable plant cell culture platform. This adaptation will enable a transition from small-scale processes to larger scale biomanufacturing, delivering a value proposition that includes higher productivity, improved batch-to-batch consistency and uniform product quality. The project will demonstrate the viability of plant cell culture for the sustainable biomanufacturing of bioactive ingredients used in cosmetics and personal care formulations. By replacing traditional plant harvesting methods with bioreactor-based production, Green Bioactives aims to offer a UK-based, environmentally friendly, stable and scalable alternative that meets growing consumer demand for sustainable and ethically sourced products. The collaboration will also expand the scope of real-time monitoring technologies, historically applied to microbial fermentation, into the realm of plant-based biotechnologies. The resulting innovations will strengthen the Scottish industrial biotechnology cluster, create skilled jobs, and enhance the UK's capacity for sustainable manufacturing. The insights and technologies developed through the project have the potential to extend beyond cosmetics into industries such as nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals, demonstrating the broad applicability and long-term impact of Green Bioactives' innovative plant cell culture platform.
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