Microbial production of custom-made, pure and sustainable anthocyanins
The colour industry is undergoing a radical change as it moves from harmful, synthetic colorants to natural, plant-based colour compounds. This change creates several problems as natural colours are poor in quality, they are impure and they compete directly with agricultural land use and food. To overcome these limitations, at N-CHROMA we have developed a new revolutionary technology to produce colour compounds suitable for the Food & Beverage and Colour Cosmetics industries. We do this by using microorganisms to produce custom-made, high quality and pure anthocyanin compounds in a sustainable and cost effective manner. To achieve this we are using baker’s yeast as a microbial cell factory to produce stable anthocyanins. This class of colour compounds shows advanced characteristics in terms of stability to pH changes, making them more attractive to the target markets. 

With the SME instrument phase 1 grant, we aim to assess the functionality of our ingredients to existing products. Also, the cost-in-use of our highly pure compounds will be assessed during the technical feasibility study. In addition, we will perform commercial feasibility studies for the use of anthocyanins in the cosmetic, personal care and nutraceutical markets. Such markets have not been investigated so far but they hold great potential for anthocyanins due to their high antioxidant activity and biological function.