Vita Actives and Arborea partner to bring BioSolar spirulina to global nutrition market

Vita Actives and Arborea have announced a strategic partnership to bring BioSolar Spirulina to market, combining Arborea’s BioSolar Leaf cultivation platform with Vita Actives’ experience in research-backed nutraceutical and functional ingredients.

• Vita Actives and Arborea announced a strategic collaboration to commercialize BioSolar Spirulina for food, nutraceutical and functional nutrition brands worldwide.
• The ingredient was produced in Europe using Arborea’s closed BioSolar Leaf platform, which cultivated microalgae from carbon dioxide and natural sunlight.
• Arborea planned to showcase BioSolar Spirulina with Vita Actives at Vitafoods Europe 2026 on Stand 3C24.

The companies announced the collaboration on 4 May 2026, in London and Dublin, describing BioSolar Spirulina as a next-generation spirulina ingredient designed for food, nutraceutical and functional nutrition brands worldwide.

The partnership brings together Arborea’s patented BioSolar Leaf technology and Vita Actives’ expertise in formulation, regulatory frameworks, health claims and consumer trends. Together, the companies planned to develop BioSolar Spirulina ingredients and finished-product concepts tailored to customer needs, including bulk ingredient supply, customized blends, validated formulation guidance and turnkey concepts.

Arborea’s BioSolar Leaf is a photosynthetic 'breathing cultivation' platform that can produce photosynthetic microalgae from carbon dioxide and natural sunlight on barren, non-fertile land. According to the companies, the modular system does not rely on fermentation tanks, open ponds or conventional photobioreactors. Instead, it uses a fully closed, controlled cultivation microenvironment intended to reduce the risk of contamination from heavy metals, toxic organic compounds and other contaminants associated with open pond production.

BioSolar Spirulina, produced in Europe using this technology, offers purity, taste, safety and nutritional benefits, according to the companies. These include readily digestible protein with a complete amino acid profile, bioavailable minerals such as iron, magnesium, calcium and zinc, as well as vitamins and natural antioxidants. The companies also highlighted production traceability as a key feature of the ingredient.

“At Arborea, we are transforming how the world grows nutrition,” said Julian Melchiorri, Founder & CEO of Arborea. “The BioSolar Leaf unlocks the full potential of photosynthetic microalgae through a cleaner, more consistent, and truly scalable approach. In Vita Actives, we have found a partner that shares our ambition to turn breakthrough science into products with wide market impact. Together, we can accelerate a new generation of functional ingredients defined by purity, performance, and purpose.”

The companies stated that Arborea’s closed-system approach delivered a clean flavor profile, which had been validated as best-in-class by major global spirulina buyers in blind tasting. They suggested this could allow formulators to use spirulina at higher inclusion levels and in applications previously limited by flavor constraints.

“The spirulina category has had a quality and taste problem for a decade – inconsistent batches, contamination risks from open ponds, and a flavour profile that has capped how much formulators could ever include,” added Deepak Sharma, CEO of Vita Actives. “The BioSolar Leaf solves all three at the source, it mechanistically eliminates the contamination risk; controlled inputs deliver consistency that brand label claims can actually be built on; and the resulting flavour is clean enough to unlock inclusion levels and applications the category has never had access to.”