Palm oil sits in half of all supermarket products, but clearing tropical forests for plantations releases over 500 million tonnes of CO₂e each year—more than 1% of global emissions—from 19 million hectares of land. Sun Bear Biofuture is engineering yeast to ferment sugar-beet side-streams—low-value leftovers from British Sugar’s refining process—into an oil that mimics palm oil and cocoa butter. There is currently no alternative that matches palm oil’s performance. If the process works at pilot scale (250-litre fermentation), the substitute could cut emissions and land use by 90% while acting as a drop-in replacement in foods. That would directly reduce the UK’s agricultural emissions, which account for 20% of the national total. The project also strengthens a local supply chain: British Sugar works with 2,300 beet growers in Eastern England, and turning their waste streams into a high-value oil could make fermentation cheaper and more commercially viable. If successful, the partnership could scale up alongside existing sugar production, replacing an imported, environmentally destructive ingredient with a home-grown one.
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Palm oil is in 50% of our supermarket products. It is unique in the vegetable oil market; it melts in your mouth, is great for cooking and is a high-yielding crop. However, palm oil is one of the biggest carbon emitters due to tropical rainforest and peatland loss to make way for plantations - it contributes over 500 million tonnes CO2e, over 1% global emissions, from 19 million hectares of tropical land. It has caused significant habitat loss, including for the Sun Bear. The UK Government has committed to reaching Net Zero by 2050; 20% of UK emissions stem from agriculture and food, and these emissions must be tackled. There is no existing alternative to palm oil with performance similarity. Sun Bear Biofuture (SBB) uses yeast and synthetic biology to produce an oil similar in composition to palm oil and cocoa butter, saving 90% of emissions and land. SBB's alternative acts as a drop-in substitute, providing the functional benefits without the environmental or consumer concerns. SBB will sell their oil into food markets, proving our process at scale and transitioning to a licensing model. Feedstock is the largest fermentation cost driver. British Sugar is the only sugar producer from British sugar beet, working with 2,300 British beet growers, predominantly in Eastern England (British Sugar, 2023). Their production process results in a range of large-scale sugar products and lower value side-streams, such as low green extract and molasses. In this project SBB will optimise their bioprocess, targeting utilisation of British Sugar's side-streams at lab-scale and validating the upcycling process at pilot-scale (250L fermentation). This is key for making their process the most commercially viable, and for adding value to British Sugar's production process. British Sugar and SBB are exploring future collaboration opportunities. The project output will be a proven fermentation process utilising sugar-derived side-stream feedstocks, derisking SBB's technical suitability with British Sugar and enabling scale-up in Eastern England, alongside existing sugar production capacity. SBB brings expertise in modifying their oil-producing patent-pending yeast strain, and will use synthetic biology and lab-scale fermentations to improve the yield of their oil substitute. This project builds on a successful SMART award (10062619) that allowed Sun Bear Biofuture to develop their optimised strain at lab-scale. British Sugar brings many decades of experience in processing and refining consistent sugar-derived products, and scaling fermentation processes in their bioethanol plants, which will inform scale-up design decisions in this project.
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