KANSAS CITY — Technological advancements may impact several areas in the baking industry: shelf life, nutrition, sustainability and reducing sugar or sodium. Precision fermentation applies to several of those areas, one baking consultant said.
“As a baker, I see it as an advanced form of fermentation where, instead of developing bread flavor or texture, we’re developing high-performance ingredients such as enzymes, proteins or organic acids,” said Richard Charpentier, chief executive officer of Baking Innovation. “These ingredients can then be added to doughs and batters to improve performance, shelf life or nutritional value.
“For bakers, it’s similar to how we rely on yeast to produce gas in bread dough — except in this case, the microbes are designed to produce exactly what we need, with precision and consistency.”
Traditional baking fermentation involves using Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast) that influences flavor, rise and texture.
“It’s influenced by time, temperature, humidity and flour type,” Charpentier said. “There’s a craft to it, but also some variability and inconsistency due to the environment and process.
“Precision fermentation, in contrast, is highly controlled. It’s carried out in bioreactors with set conditions to ensure that only a single, specific compound is produced. This could be a protein that acts like egg white or an enzyme that keeps bread soft longer. For bakers, it’s the difference between letting a sourdough culture naturally evolve versus programming a yeast strain to do one job perfectly, every time.”
Precision fermentation may assist in producing clean label bakery products, he said. It may produce enzymes that improve dough elasticity, proteins that replace eggs or milk in vegan formulations, or acids and peptides that extend shelf life without synthetic preservatives.
“In practice, this means bakers can formulate breads with better volume, softness and mold resistance, while meeting consumer demand for simpler labels and plant-based alternatives,” Charpentier said. “It allows industrial bakeries to maintain consistency at scale, and artisan bakers to access functional ingredients with better control over quality.”
He added that precision fermentation may help in developing high-protein or high-fiber products, which often suffer from off-flavors or dense, dry texture.
“Precision fermentation can help solve that by producing plant proteins that are neutral in taste or creating enzymes that improve dough structure and hydration,” he said. “For example, if I’m formulating a high-protein bread using pea protein, I might encounter bitterness or gumminess. A precision-fermented protein could provide similar nutritional benefits without the unpleasant taste, and a complementary enzyme might help improve dough extensibility and crumb softness, making the final product more enjoyable to eat.”
Other research has focused on egg replacement. Helsinki-based Onego Bio raised $40 million in a Series A Round funding, which will help fuel its North American go-to-market strategy that includes scaling up production and expanding its US commercial team. Onego Bio is working for self-affirmed Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) status for Bioalbumen and expects to receive a “no objections” letter on the GRAS status from the US Food and Drug Administration later in 2025.
NordicNinja, a Japanese-Nordic venture capitalist, was the lead investor.
“Onego Bio is taking all the right steps to commercialize in record time,” said Tomosaku Sohara, managing partner for NordicNinja, “They are a next-generation precision fermentation company, with a clear path to industrialization, go-to-market and profitability."
"With technology that is designed to scale and such a strong team, they really stand out. In less than two years, Onego is already working with major global food companies and is staged to disrupt the $330 billion egg market and create system level change, accelerating the green transition.”
Bioalbumen, a non-animal egg protein powder, is a bioidentical to ovalbumin, the major protein in chicken egg white, according to Onego Bio. Bioalbumen contains all the essential aminos, has a protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS) of 1.0 and provides over 90 grams of protein per 100 grams. It offers the same nutrition and functional benefits of egg white, Onego Bio said.
Bioalbumen has a 90% lower carbon footprint compared to traditional egg production, 10 times better yields and 95% less land use, according to the company.
MarketsandMarkets, Inc., Delray Beach, Fla., projects the global precision fermentation ingredients market to have a compound annual growth rate of 44% by value, rising to $36.3 billion by 2030 from $2.8 billion in 2023.
Predicting Shelf Life
Corbion, which has a US office in Lenexa, Kan., has a natural mold inhibition model to predict shelf life.
Companies can provide input such as the amount of water and flour in the formulations as well as pH, said David J. Charest, senior vice president of sustainable food solutions for Corbion. In one example, formulators may want to find out how an ingredient compares with calcium propionate. If a product containing calcium propionate has 15 days of shelf life, how much of a cultured wheat product would be needed to replace calcium propionate in a formulation to reach that shelf life? The natural mold inhibitor model would provide a graphical representation of shelf life for both the product containing calcium propionate and the product containing cultured wheat.
Companies can provide such input as the amount of water and flour in bread formulation as well as pH, and then Corbion's natural mold inhibition model will predict its shelf life. Source: Corbion
“Then you don’t necessarily have to do all those bakes, so it saves you a lot of time and a lot of effort in the labs,” Charest said.
He added, “In the end, you probably want to do a test in your lab, but you’ve narrowed down your parameters to what’s really important.”
“So typically, the lower pH that you can have, the better the organic acids work,” Charest said. “So you can say, well, I can go from 5.2 (pH) to 4.9 (pH), and I don’t need as much inhibitor."
Reducing Sodium, Sugar
Sensient Flavors & Extracts, Hoffman Estates, Ill., offers Smoothenol, a flavor-masking agent that addresses issues like bitterness, astringency, metallic notes, chalkiness and sourness while enhancing positive attributes like taste and aroma. Such technology assists in reducing sodium or sugar in products.
“We simplify the process by focusing on the aspect of the baked good that is most important to our customer,” said Bob Ferraro, principal application scientist for Sensient Flavors & Extracts. “For example, in a bread or roll application, if sodium reduction is the most important thing that the customer wants to address, we would come up with a custom solution that reduces the sodium without sacrificing flavor. This is accomplished with our masking technology (for example: if you use potassium chloride to replace a portion of the sodium chloride), and our enhancement tools to improve the sodium perception in low sodium baked goods. We also have similar tools that can reduce sugar in baked goods without sacrificing sweetness perception.”
