LiDestri Foods and Fermentum announce joint venture to provide first commercial-scale precision fermentation in the USA

LiDestri Foods, a USA-based private label and food contract manufacturer, and Fermentum, Inc, the fermentation capacity and scale up expertise provider, have announced a joint venture. Together, the two companies will help ease the bottleneck in customers requiring capacity for precision fermentation by providing USA-based commercial scale years earlier than expected.

LiDestri is providing Fermentum Inc US$8.5 million in lease and construction financing as part of the collaboration. The Rochester, New York site is operational, available immediately, and provides everything from lab to pilot and commercial scale fermentation with six 70,000 liter tanks already installed on site.

"This is a natural fit," explained Giovanni LiDestri, Chairman of LiDestri Foods. "We have always been about innovation, and our track record of delivering for customers, including leading national brands, will help support the precision fermentation industry, which needs to execute at scale to produce cost competitive animal-free proteins as well as non-fossil fuel-based consumer products. The resulting products and foods have a much smaller carbon footprint, which will help slow climate change."

"We could not have hoped for a better, more capable partner," noted Phillip Johansen, Chief Commercial Officer at Fermentum, Inc. "Innovation is in LiDestri's DNA, and their unsurpassed resources, ability to execute, as well as national reach, packaging, distribution and import/export abilities will provide the precision fermentation industry the ability to get out of the lab, and compete in the marketplace at scale."