TalentView: Katelijne Bekers, MicroHarvest

In just a few years, biotech startup MicroHarvest has taken its microbial protein products from a laboratory-based concept to near-commercial scale. Based in Hamburg and Lisbon, the company is using single-cell fermentation to develop novel protein ingredients, which CEO and co-founder Katelijne “Kate” Bekers explains tick all the boxes on the industry’s wishlist: fast, functional, scalable, and sustainable.

WeAreAquaculture spoke with the energetic startup CEO to learn more about her journey in biotechnology and business, MicroHarvest's story so far, and why their proprietary technology, billed as "the fastest protein production technology in the world", could be a game changer for aquaculture feed.

Kate explains that MicroHarvest was born out of her desire to make a real-world impact using her background in biotechnology, and out of a specific – and urgent – gap she saw in the market. 

A biotechnologist by background, after her studies at Wageningen University, Kate embarked on her own doctoral project – but soon realised that her talents lay beyond the university lab. "I'm not a hardcore scientist, but what I love is taking technology out of the lab and bringing it into society so that we can all benefit,” she explains. 

She began working in the industrial biotech industry as a fermentation scientist, making products for customers, followed by a move to Belgium where she worked in a pilot plant, focusing on scaling up lab-developed technologies for large-scale bioreactors.  

"After that, I worked in technical sales in the B2B ingredients industry, which was exciting because it's right on this interface between science and business. And then I also had a very exciting opportunity to do an executive MBA, because I think if you're on the interface you need to speak both languages - and at that time I could speak with the geeks, but not yet with the business people,” Kate laughs.

It was during this period that she discovered part of the motivation that would lead to founding MicroHarvest: demand for novel feed ingredients was growing, but no-one could provide the scale needed to integrate them into feed manufacturing. 

"I was not selling alternative proteins, but it was a hot topic for customers. They all said OK, in three to five years, we need to have novel ingredients integrated, just because of supply chain risk, with everything that is happening in the world - and this was even before the COVID-19 pandemic,” she recalls. 

“They also said that the only thing really available at scale is plant-based protein - and that has limitations in aquaculture for the carnivore species.”

Plant-based protein, she argues, currently cannot match the performance of traditional marine ingredients like fishmeal. And while plenty of startups are working on alternative proteins, few are capable of scaling quickly enough to provide a feasible alternative. 

“I really felt the frustration there. And I also figured this is really something that we need to address. Coming from biotechnology, I knew we can grow bacteria and we can grow them really, really fast. So I thought, let’s do that, and let's solve this problem.”

With this mission in mind, Kate founded MicroHarvest in 2021, together with co-founders, CTO Luísa Cruz, who previously worked for nine years at Corbion in various senior scientific roles, and COO Jonathan Roberz, whom Kate describes as a “serial entrepreneur”. “We're a very complementary and quite experienced team, which is also why I think we were able to move quite fast with what we're doing.” 

“We focus on the production of alternative protein ingredients using single-cell protein from bacteria,” Kate explains. “We grow the bacteria, inactivate them, dry them, and then we have a protein ingredient.”  

But the real innovation lies not just in what MicroHarvest produces, but the process they have designed, she points out: the company bills itself as "the fastest protein production technology in the world”.  

“Of course, we make great products by selecting the right strains, but we are also a company that focuses on the process, on how to produce those ingredients at a large scale and at the right price for the markets,” Kate says. 

Kate explains that MicroHarvest’s fermentation process yields two main products: a high-quality single-cell protein ingredient, MPX, and a nucleotide-rich extract, HILIX. The former offers complete amino acid profiles and excellent digestibility; the latter boosts animal health and feed performance. 

"For a startup, it's very difficult to compete purely based on protein content - you need to bring something more to the table,” she says.

“Fishmeal protein content is great, but fishmeal does much more than that. There’s a lot of goodies in there, some that we know that influence palatability, some that stimulate health, that stimulate digestion, and that's what we can also do - and that’s where we really differentiate ourselves from, for instance, a plant-based protein, by bringing these extra functionalities. 

“For our high nucleotide extract, we break the cells open, add enzymes, and modulate the product so certain compounds become more bioavailable,” she explains. These bioactive extracts then function as specialty feed ingredients, improving survival rates, resistance to disease, and digestive enzyme stimulation in shrimp, among other species, Kate explains. 

“We’ve already demonstrated that if we add our single-cell protein to shrimp feeds, feed uptake is increased and feed conversion rates are significantly reduced, by up to 15%.” 

The startup has already raised more than €10 million in investments and has grown to a team of nearly 40 people across two locations, operating a pilot plant in Lisbon, in addition to working with a contract manufacturer in Eastern Europe, enabling it to produce up to 1 metric tonne of microbial protein per day.  

"Normally to develop industrial processes, it takes 5-6 years, they need 1-2 years to scale and then you start going to contract manufacture. We did that within four years,” Kate points out. 

Microharvest is now actively fundraising to finance its next stage of growth, with plans to expand to other locations. 

“The production process of MicroHarvest is really quite unique because we have very high productivity, but the process is very simple and very robust. And this way it really allows for also more regional production.” 

Now, having registered its products on the EU feed material list, and having obtained GMP-plus certification, MicroHarvest is preparing to build its first proprietary production facility. “That will be in Europe. When it's your first one, you want it in your backyard. You want to be on top of it and learn everything you need to about it,” Kate smiles, noting that the facility will produce 10 to 15 kilotonnes of single-cell protein per year. 

Further down the line, Kate says MicroHarvest intends to set up production facilities in Southeast Asia and Latin America to supply customers locally. "That's something that’s really needed because of supply chain risk, but also to reduce working capital for the customers there. If there's an ingredient they need to get from across the globe, of course it needs bigger stocks than from a more local product.” 

“Another nice thing about our technology is that we can grow the bacteria on agri-food side streams, and we have a lot of flexibility on which side streams to use. So that way we can use the locally available agri-food side streams to produce the products that are locally needed in each region. We want to improve access to these types of ingredients and shorten supply chains.” 

“For me, sustainability, it's about CO₂ footprint. It's about land use. It's also about biodiversity - not fishing, emptying the oceans. But it's also about security of supply,” Kate argues. “I think economic sustainability is very important and shouldn’t be overlooked in the whole sustainability picture - and part of that is reducing the regional supply chain.”