How waste feedstocks and biotech create circular cosmetic ingredients

AmphiStar is coupling waste feedstocks and biotechnological capabilities to enable a more circular innovation cycle in cosmetic products. The company produces its ingredients entirely from bio-based waste and side streams, reducing reliance on first-generation agricultural feedstocks.

Personal Care Insights sits down with Sophie Roelants, chief operating officer, and Sofie Lodens, product and project manager at AmphiStar, to discuss how eco-friendliness can be rethought, starting from the most fundamental level — the feedstocks.

The climate crisis, agricultural strain, and macroeconomic volatilities are leading to raw material shortages that have a direct impact on the personal care industry. In parallel, consumers are demanding eco-friendliness from products while regulatory requirements apply pressure from above.

AmphiStar is tackling these challenges by rethinking what sustainable ingredients manufacturing looks like. 

Circular feedstocks and biotechnology

AmphiStar uses biotechnology to turn waste and side streams into cosmetic ingredients.

According to Roelants, modern biotechnologies, such as microbial fermentation, synthetic biology, and bioengineering, enable manufacturers to produce high-performance ingredients with significantly lower resource requirements.

“Rather than extracting ingredients directly from crops, microorganisms can act as highly efficient cell factories producing targeted molecules with remarkable consistency under mild, water-based process conditions,” she says.

However, she adds that the real opportunity “lies not only in how ingredients are produced, but also in the resources used to produce them.”

Springboarding off this idea, AmphiStar approaches biotechnology and circular feedstocks as complementary innovations.

“Fermentation can dramatically improve the efficiency of ingredient production, while waste- and side stream-based feedstocks help address one of the biggest sustainability challenges of bio-based materials: their reliance on agricultural land and virgin resources,” says Roelants.

She explains that combining biotechnology with waste and side streams allows ingredient manufacturers to break the traditional link between production and raw organic materials. “This creates a pathway toward scalable, high-performance ingredients with a substantially lower environmental footprint, without compromising functionality.”

Lodens tells us that continuous biomanufacturing is beneficial as it boosts productivity and efficiency, and can support the cost competitiveness of new ingredients compared to traditional surfactants.

Furthermore, environmental impact can be mitigated by making ecologically mindful choices from a business model perspective, such as reducing the distance between production facilities and feedstock suppliers. Lodens explains that choices like this could reduce transportation emissions, improve supply resilience, and bolster regional value chains.

Tough times, creative silver linings

Roelants explains that natural ingredients are facing an increased strain as pressures mount, due to climate change, crop variability, land and water constraints, and increasingly volatile agricultural supply chains.

Upcycled ingredients can help reduce pressure on land and agricultural resources.

“Ingredients derived from virgin crops such as palm oil, sugar, or vegetable oils compete with food production, biofuels production, and the preservation of natural ecosystems for limited land resources,” she says.

Additionally, expectations for transparency are heightening, and regulatory guardrails are tightening. These sustainability and compliance expectations are forcing accountability and traceability regarding ingredient sources and production.

“Sustainability requires a broader assessment of sourcing, carbon footprint, land use, biodegradability, and overall lifecycle impact,” says Roelants. “As consumers become more critical, we see growing demand for transparency and evidence-based sustainability claims that help people make informed choices.”

Roelants argues that, while these factors create complexity in personal care manufacturing, they also create an opportunity to rethink sourcing models.

“The future lies in resilient, circular feedstocks that decouple ingredient production from agricultural volatility,” she says. “By valorizing waste and side streams that are already present within the economy, manufacturers can reduce pressure on natural resources while building more robust and regionally resilient supply chains.”

Meeting sustainability demands

Circular biotechnology could reshape how sustainable cosmetic ingredients are produced.

According to Lodens, growing consumer demand for ethically sourced beauty is pushing brands to scrutinize the environmental impact of cosmetics’ whole formulation.

“It is not enough to know that an ingredient is renewable or biodegradable. Companies also need to understand what it is made from, how it is produced, and which environmental impacts may have been shifted elsewhere,” she explains.

AmphiStar is seeing increased interest in mild, upcycled ingredients due to their use of existing waste and side streams instead of placing further pressure on land and agricultural resources. “We increasingly see interest in ingredients that are mild, effective, and biodegradable, but also produced from responsible feedstocks,” says Lodens.

“For surfactants, this means going beyond labels like bio-based or natural and instead considering whether an ingredient still depends on fossil resources or crops like palm oil grown specifically for chemical production.”

Lodens underscores that personal care is inherently a trust-based industry due to the tactile nature of its products. “As a result, expectations around safety, efficacy, and transparency are often higher than in many other consumer goods categories.”

“Brands can build trust through clear, evidence-based communication about how ingredients are sourced, produced, and tested. Importantly, ‘natural’ should not automatically be equated with either ‘safe’ or ‘sustainable,’” she concludes.