Unibio signed a partnership agreement with Stafilies, the holding company of Protelux, to further deepen their collaboration in developing the industrial-scale production of its high-quality Uniprotein® at Protelux.
Protelux is the first industrial plant that has brought Unibio’s patented U-Loop® continuous-flow fermentation process into industrial-scale production. Protelux is located in Ivangorod, Russia, close to the border with Estonia, an EU member state. This location has access to cost-effective natural gas, as well as close proximity to the European Union and the Baltic Sea for shipping.
Protelux currently has an installed capacity of 6,000 tons of Uniprotein® per year, which can be scaled up to 20,000 tons. Under the agreement, Stafilies, the Protelux parent company, will buy a shareholding in Unibio in exchange for cash and intellectual property. The intellectual property includes all of the knowledge gained over the past five years of how to install and operate industrial-scale production of Uniprotein®. Unibio has also secured an option to acquire a stake in Protelux in the future.
Since 2016, Unibio and Stafilies have worked closely together to develop solutions and operational guidelines that will benefit future projects and plants all over the world. With the commencement of industrial-scale production at Protelux, Unibio will benefit from being able to showcase the proven technology and processes to potential partners and customers. It will also use the facility to accelerate further product and production improvements and the global roll-out of its technology.
“Global population growth has made protein scarcity a critical issue, and unsustainable soy production and uncontrolled extraction of wild fish for fishmeal are causing major environmental degradation. After many years under development, Uniprotein® is now in full industrial-scale production and is ready to help address the world’s rapidly growing protein demand. The collaboration with Protelux is consistent with our strategy of building a presence where natural gas is in abundance and may be revalued,” said Jan Boeg Hansen, chairman of the Board, Unibio.
“We are proud of all the technological innovation and hard work that we have put into scaling up production of Uniprotein® at our Protelux facility. The complex challenge of taking these ground-breaking processes and successfully commissioning them at scale should not be underestimated and has been the key hurdle where many other technologies have failed. We have always had faith in the importance of Uniprotein® as a critical input for the meat and fish farming industries. We are delighted to become a shareholder in Unibio and build further on their success,” said Mikhail Serdtsev, founding shareholder, Protelux.
