Vitality is a recently formed start-up spun out of North Carolina State University’s Master of Microbial Biotechnology program. With the recent influx of alternative protein products and pressing need to create more sustainable food products to feed our growing population, Vitality recognized space in the market for high protein ingredients sourced from microorganisms. The executive team formed Vitality to provide food manufacturers with a quality protein ingredient to better serve their consumer base.

The first product Vitality plans to commercialize in their product portfolio is YEATS. YEATS is a protein ingredient derived solely from yeast biomass. Vitality’s innovation arises from the development of novel strains of yeast exhibiting attractive phenotypes for protein ingredients. To avoid potential regulatory and processing challenges, Vitality has chosen to move forward with Saccharomyces cerevisiae as the starting strain for their evolutionary platform. To better serve potential end users of food products with YEATS and keeping in mind a market shift towards clean labels in food products, Vitality has chosen to forego genetic modification of their proprietary strain, instead relying on natural evolutionary methods. This evolutionary platform will utilize error-prone PCR and mutagenesis to generate a library of variants that Vitality will screen with a high throughput robotic pipeline to select a lead candidate for YEATS. Vitality expects a lead candidate for YEATS will be generated within six to nine months.

To produce YEATS at scale for Vitality’s commercial clients, a partnership will be formed with a contract manufacturing organization. Vitality believes this is the most cost-effective and efficient option given the infancy of the company. While several contract manufacturers have been vetted and two organizations have been identified as target manufacturers, Vitality is still in negotiations to ensure an ideal company that aligns well with the strategic goals of the company and can process Saccharomyces cerevisiae variants is found. After completion of pilot studies, Vitality expects the technology transfer process to a contract manufacturer could take up to two months.

Utilizing a contract manufacturer for the production of YEATS eliminates the capital burden on Vitality, but there are several resources the team will have to source prior to beginning operations. Most of the costs will arise from the initial R&D efforts to develop the strain for YEATs, including lab equipment, space, and personnel. While alleviating much of the capital investment, the partnership with the contract manufacturer to produce YEATS will be an added expense for the first year.

Vitality has identified the best route to enter the alternative food market is by selling directly to food manufacturers to incorporate YEATS into existing or new food products. The target customer of YEATS is a food manufacturer specializing in savory food products utilizing alternative proteins. Atlantic Natural Foods is a local company based in North Carolina and has been identified as a first partner for YEATS. To generate new leads, Vitality will utilize trade shows, conferences, and customer relationships to secure new client contracts.

Vitality expects YEATS will be commercialized within the first year of business and looks forward to improving the human condition with yeast driven technology.