Novel fats face a new challenge: making enough of them at the right price

Novel fat technologies are beginning to move beyond proving that they can produce useful ingredients, but reaching meaningful food-industry volumes will require advances in manufacturing, downstream processing and economics, according to speakers at Alternative Fats and Future Technologies: Unlocking Performance, Resilience, and Scale, a Protein Production Technology International webinar held on 10 September 2026.

Produced in partnership with AAK, the webinar brought together developers, ingredient specialists and researchers working across fermentation, carbon-derived fats and conventional oils. While the technologies differ considerably, the panel agreed that producing a few kilograms of a promising fat is very different from making hundreds or thousands of tons consistently at a price food manufacturers can accept.

• Scaling novel fats will require progress across production, downstream processing and cost
• Savor is moving into manufacturing through its recently acquired facility in Batavia, Illinois
• Early commercial opportunities may depend on functionality and supply security rather than commodity-level pricing

For microbial fats, Adam Leman, Principal Scientist, Fermentation at The Good Food Institute, said the challenge stretches across the entire production process. “It’s how you turn feedstocks that we can get for the industry into fats,” he said.

That begins with identifying suitable carbon sources, but extends into the biology, equipment and recovery processes needed to produce fats efficiently at industrial scale.

Agricultural side streams and carbon gases could potentially provide alternative feedstocks, Leman said, although converting those resources efficiently and consistently remains a significant challenge.

The organisms themselves also offer considerable room for improvement. “For me, one of the breakthroughs is the biology, to start cranking out and making things a little bit more efficiently,” Leman said. “The more material you have to work with, the easier it is to separate generally.”

Once the fat has been produced, recovering it economically introduces another set of challenges. Some liquid fats can be relatively straightforward to separate, but others behave differently depending on temperature and composition. Solidification and oxidation can further complicate recovery.

Leman believes the sector will need efficient, standardized approaches for extracting fats and oils from production organisms, potentially adapting technologies already established elsewhere in the oils industry. That makes downstream processing a significant part of the economics rather than something to solve once fermentation performance has been optimized.

Equipment is another consideration. Novel fat producers ultimately need manufacturing systems capable of operating reliably at scale without adding unnecessary capital or operating costs. Leman described part of that challenge as finding “cheap and cheerful equipment” that can perform the required job.

For technologies built around fermentation, the route to lower costs therefore depends on several improvements happening together: productive organisms, economical feedstocks, suitable equipment and efficient downstream recovery.

Savor faces a different scale-up equation. Rather than using microorganisms to produce its fats, the company builds carbon chains from abundant carbon resources using established chemical unit operations. Chiara Cecchini, Senior Vice President, Commercialization at Savor, said that distinction means the company does not need to develop or scale a new biological production system. “We don’t work in biology,” she said. “All the unit operations that we use already exist.”

The challenge is instead bringing those operations together into a repeatable manufacturing process capable of supplying commercial customers. Savor has taken a significant step in that direction by acquiring a production facility in Batavia, Illinois, that was previously used to process fish oil. The company has retrofitted the plant for its own process and rehired members of the existing manufacturing team. “We are becoming a manufacturing company,” Cecchini said.

That transition changes the questions Savor needs to answer. Having demonstrated the underlying technology, its focus is increasingly on fine-tuning production and proving that the process can operate repeatedly at larger volumes.

The Batavia facility historically processed around 1,000 metric tons annually, Cecchini said, although Savor is currently operating at lower volumes. “Now we’re at a few hundred,” she said.

Reaching scale does not necessarily mean emerging fats must immediately match the price of the world's largest commodity oils. Leman said novel production routes could initially compete through the additional value they provide.

Functionality is one potential differentiator. Fermentation and other technologies can offer greater control over lipid composition, potentially allowing producers to target fats for particular food applications rather than simply replicating an existing commodity.

Supply security could prove equally important. Production of some tropical oils is concentrated geographically and can be exposed to weather, crop disease and other agricultural risks. Fats manufactured through fermentation or carbon-based processes could provide manufacturers with another source of supply and potentially greater price stability. That creates a different calculation for customers evaluating a new ingredient: the cheapest fat per ton may not necessarily provide the lowest overall risk or the greatest value.

For AAK, however, emerging technologies still need to demonstrate how they will progress from relatively expensive early production toward commercially attractive volumes and prices. Kim Olofsson, Global Head of Research & Development at AAK, joked that the ideal proposition would arrive with everything already solved. “That would probably be a one-ingredient label, all regulatory approvals done, better tasting, healthier, lower priced than alternatives out there already, thousands of tons already produced, ready to be shipped yesterday,” he said. “So, yeah, pretty easy.”

The reality is inevitably more gradual. AAK evaluates emerging technologies according to the value they can offer, which can include sustainability, reduced supply-chain risk, functionality and nutritional benefits. Olofsson said commercialization then needs to progress step by step, with suppliers and customers sharing some of the risk as production develops. That can involve agreed milestones, offtake arrangements and, in some cases, limited exclusivity as both parties work toward higher volumes and lower costs. Early production may therefore begin at relatively low volumes and higher prices before manufacturing expands and economics improve.

The next challenge for novel fats may consequently be less about demonstrating that unusual production routes are scientifically possible and more about executing them reliably enough for the food industry.

Different technologies will encounter different bottlenecks. Fermentation producers must improve organisms, feedstocks and downstream recovery. Carbon-derived technologies need repeatable manufacturing and increasing throughput. All ultimately face the same commercial expectation: consistent ingredients, dependable supply and an economic case customers can justify.

And while reaching the price of established commodity oils remains a formidable benchmark, the panel suggested that novel fats do not necessarily have to begin there.

If they can deliver functionality that conventional fats cannot easily provide, reduce exposure to volatile supply chains or solve a specific formulation problem, manufacturers may have reasons to adopt them before full commodity economics arrive.

The discussion formed part of PPTI’s Alternative Fats and Future Technologies: Unlocking Performance, Resilience, and Scale webinar, produced in partnership with AAK on 10 September 2026. If you missed the live broadcast, sign up to watch the complete session on demand by clicking here

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