Estonian biotechnology start-up Äio has teamed up with research organisation TFTAK (Center of Food and Fermentation Technologies) to launch a three-year R&D project focused on microbial oil production.

Äio develops fermentation technologies that transform low-value, organic side-streams from the food, agricultural and wood industries into high-value oils and fats with applications across food, cosmetics and other industries. These can provide alternatives to conventional ingredients such as tropical oils and animal fats, reducing dependence on agricultural land, climate conditions and volatile supply chains.

The project, DigiFoundry 2.0 – Bioprocess Efficiency Increase via Digitalisation (DF2.0), has received €1.94 million in funding through the Applied Research Programme of the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency (EIS). With a total budget of approximately €2.53 million, the initiative was ranked first among the applications approved in the programme’s 10th funding round.

DF2.0 builds on the results of the original DigiFoundry project, an existing collaboration between Äio and TFTAK that ran from 2023 to 2026.

The first project focused on creating a prototype platform for automated microbial strain design and establishing a Design-Build-Test-Learn cycle to accelerate the development of microorganisms capable of producing specialised fats through precision fermentation.

It also included pilot-scale precision fermentation, sensory analysis and techno-economic assessment of the production process.

Äio said DF2.0 goes further by connecting biological development with improved fermentation, automation and digital process control. It aims to establish the technological foundation for efficient, scalable and cost-competitive production of Äio’s microbial oils while reducing development and manufacturing costs and enabling faster new ingredient development.

According to Äio, its company data shows that its fermentation process can reduce land use by up to 97% and water consumption by up to 90% compared with conventional production methods.

Petri-Jaan Lahtyee, co-founder and COO of Äio and professor at Tallinn University of Technology, said: “Our goal is to make microbial oil production not only sustainable, but also highly efficient and economically competitive at an industrial scale”.

“By combining improved fermentation with automation and data-driven process development, we can learn faster, optimise faster and ultimately produce better ingredients with fewer resources.”

TFTAK is a privately owned Estonian research organisation focused on accelerating food and biotechnology innovation. It works across bioprocess optimisation, food research, analytics and product development, supporting projects from laboratory research and pilot-scale development through to testing in industrial production.

In the original DigiFoundry project, TFTAK contributed to developing the Design-Build-Test-Learn workflow and methods for evaluating microbial products, including sensory analysis and identification of unwanted flavours and aromas.

In DF2.0, it will continue contributing its synthetic biology expertise, precision fermentation and bioprocess development to help connect strain engineering with automated and data-driven production.

Steven van der Hoek, scientific lead at TFTAK, said: “By integrating synthetic biology, fermentation and digital tools, we can generate much more information from every development cycle and use that knowledge to make the next cycle better. This collaboration allows us to build technologies that are scientifically ambitious but, importantly, designed from the beginning with industrial application in mind.”