This month, our start-up spotlight is on Summ Ingredients, a Danish food-tech innovator formerly known as Nutrumami. The company produces multifunctional fermented protein ingredients suitable for use across a range of plant-based applications. Frederik Jensen, the company's founder, tells us more.

What led to SUMM Ingredients’ establishment and what is its long-term goal?

A frustration with the status quo of industrial ingredients and their shortcomings in making food that is better for you and for the planet. Most ingredients are monofunctional, so formulators rely on complex flavour and texture systems, and other additives, to make food at scale. In 'better-for-you,' there’s usually a compromise – taste, texture, nutrition or a long, questionable ingredient list. Our vision is to enable a new category of multifunctional ingredients that shape a simpler, better way to create the foods we love.

How can your FermiPro solution range respond to a broad range of consumer needs across different food and beverage applications?

FermiPro is multifunctional across taste attributes, texture attributes and nutrition, with functions that matter across many key categories. We’re still focused on where we add the most value with our first ingredients: the savoury space – ready meals, sauces, plant-based cheese, hybrids/plant-based proteins, and snacks.

What potential benefits do your solutions have for the plant-based F&B industry in particular?

Plant-based has faced headwinds – some justifiable (e.g. taste) and some less so (including narratives pushed by lobbying that position meat as 'healthier than plants'). We aim to help move from plant-based to plant-centric, by enabling taste and texture from whole plants themselves, reducing reliance on additive-heavy systems to 'make it work'.

What is FermiPro made of? How does the fermentation method to develop these ingredients work?

We’re raw-material agnostic; currently we use faba beans and oats. Our approach is inspired by foundational fermentation – many different microorganisms fermenting together so complex flavours and functions can emerge. We use solid-state fermentation to build complex enzyme systems, and pair that with submerged fermentation where mixed microbes express the functions we seek. Then, we take the entire fermented material and dry it into a powder. Simple process, complex functionality.

Why was it important for SUMM to embrace a multifunctional approach?

We see it as the only way to unlock the next generation of food at scale – delivering taste, function and wholesomeness together, so you don’t have to trade one for another.

Can you tell us about the sugar-reduction and mouthfeel ingredient you’re working on? Will this also be made via fermentation?

Yes. We’re using the same cross-fermentation toolkit to provide complementary functions – including helping reduce sugar – alongside improved mouthfeel.

Currently, the solution is progressing through development and validation. We’ll share timing once performance with partners is fully confirmed.

What has been the company’s biggest achievement to date?

As a start-up, there are many wins (and probably more failures!). We celebrate the small wins, but it’s hard to declare a 'big achievement' until we’ve made clear market and consumer impact. To date, our technical progress with FermiPro – and how it enables tasty, nutritious, plant-centric foods – is a highlight. None of it happens without the team.

What has been the biggest challenge on SUMM’s journey so far? How did you navigate it?

Scaling – finding the right partners and infrastructure to do it cost-effectively – alongside the usual suspects in R&D and funding in today’s environment. We’ve managed by thinking creatively: not over-specifying an ideal set-up, but adapting our product and process to real-world facilities where possible.

What valuable advice would you share with aspiring food & beverage start-ups?

Food is tough. It doesn’t scale like software, and it’s not even like physical hardware – there’s shelf life, safety and health regulation to contend with. If you’re on a VC track, milestones and deadlines come fast. So what I at least find helpful is also to take time to think about the long game – 10, 20 years and beyond. Be clear about what you’re building and why; that perspective helps you prioritise daily decisions and navigate the noise.