Ancient fermentation meets biotech: Working with microbes for cleaner cosmetic ingredients

21 Feb 2022 --- Fermentation has expanded from an ancient method of food preservation to now offering the beauty and personal care space cleaner, sustainable and affordable ingredients. PersonalCareInsights sheds light on the production method from industry experts specializing in fermentation and biotechnology.

“We have seen the demand for fermentation-derived ingredients rise even faster than the capability of biotechnology to deliver them,” observes Casey Lippmeier, Ph.D., vice president of innovation at Conagen.

“We see fermentation-based manufacturing as a key enabling technology for a more resource-efficient living,” adds Annie Tsong, chief strategy officer, products and ingredients at Amyris. Thus, Amyris is “establishing fermentation as a mainstream mode of manufacturing.”

On manufacturing ingredients, fermentation is a production method where rare and valuable molecules can be extracted from fermentation broths, similar to extracting alcohol from fermented corn, Lippmeier explains.

“When you drink a glass of wine, you are consuming a fermentation product directly. When you drink a fine bourbon, there is an extra purification step between the fermentation and you. Lastly, when you enjoy a margarita, there is yet one more step your bartender would call mixing but which we in industry would call formulation.”

Using the analogy, Lippmeier clarifies that “beauty products made with fermentation-derived ingredients are more like a margarita than wine in this way, but they are all made at the start in essentially the same way.” Conagen explores the metabolic activities of nature to engineer unique microbes using synthetic biology.

Petrochemistry to synthetic biology
Many innovations in fermentation methods have developed over the years, offering new personal care solutions. 

Traditionally, petrochemistry was the first significant step in sourcing compounds. However, the natural compounds were too scarce or diluted to meet demand sustainably, continues Lippmeier.

“In the last decade, Amyris pioneered modern technology like automation and machine learning, to fermentation. The result is that it accesses a much broader class of ingredients and molecules than could ever be produced before, at price points and quantities enabling use in consumer products,” describes Tsong. 

“Newer technologies, like synthetic biology and precision fermentation, for manufacturing rare or trace compounds only use agricultural inputs in their process and produce molecules in the same way nature does,” Lippmeier explains. 

New technologies allow the production of higher quality and quantity of compounds in an environmentally sustainable fashion. 

“The technology is a natural fit for the needs of beauty and personal care, where there is high demand for effective products that are made in an ethical and resource-efficient manner,” Tsong elaborates. 

“An additional benefit of fermentation is access to new types of molecules. Some of the most powerful molecules in nature are incredibly rare, and harvesting them from plants would be destructive and impractical. Through fermentation, we can manufacture vast quantities of these molecules.” 

Tsong shares that Amyris, for instance, has scaled-up production of Reb M, a rare molecule derived from Stevia that tastes closer than any other molecule to sugar. Another example is CBG, a rare cannabinoid with soothing qualities for the skin.  

At Conagen, “the biggest innovations are how it teaches its fermentable microbes to make these molecules,” says Lippmeier. 

“The growing future of biomanufacturing is clear, and with it, the quality and sustainability of beauty products will only get better.” 

“Fermentation capacity in the world is very limited, and investment in these kinds of facilities is at an all-time high,” he continues. 

Linking natural and economic benefits
There are two primary long-term human health benefits of working together with bacteria and yeast, suggests Lippmeier. Amyris believes in “working with nature” instead of depleting nature.

“Firstly, fermentation produces no wastes which cannot be easily processed by the environment. Fermentation is a carbon-neutral technology, and the primary liquid and solid leftovers are just water and biomass.”

“Secondly, fermentation only makes the natural form of any given natural ingredient compound, so there is rarely any question about the safety of an ingredient made this way.” 

With precision fermentation molecules can be replicated in the same way produced naturally using a “fraction of the land and water”; hence it is more economical, explains Lippmeier.

“For example, coconut fragrance only exists in coconuts in tiny quantities, but it is enough for us to taste and smell. If we were to only use coconuts as a source for this ingredient in a lotion, we’d have to harvest millions of acres of coconuts to supply the demand for coconut-scented lotions.” This, however, is not economically or environmentally viable and produces a lot of waste. 

Conagen produces several fragrance compounds like peach, sandalwood, vanilla and makes soaps, moisturizers, thickeners, and depigmenting compounds – all by fermentation, notes Lippmeier. 

It can be argued that molecules can also be scaled up by petrochemistry; however, Lippmeier explains that molecules produced by fermentation differ in quality as it relies on biology.  

“This scent [coconut] is just one molecule called gamma nonalactone. This and many other molecules can be found in one of two mirrored forms, like your left and right hands. Only one of those two forms is found in nature, and that single natural form is the only one your brain interprets as “coconut” when you smell it,” describes Lippmeier. 

He further explains that it is difficult to distinguish between the mirrored and natural form using petrochemistry. So petrochemistry produces both forms. When the mixture is smelled, the brain can interpret the non-natural form as an artificial fragrance, not coconut.

Thus, fermentation is unique as only natural molecules are replicated, producing higher quantities and qualities closer to natural fragrance.

Lippmeier points out that “according to Innova Market Insights, the growth of natural claims is continually rising in personal care products. The fastest-growing market category with a natural claim (2016-2020 global CAGR) was led by fragrance at 42%.”

Sugarcane feed for resource-efficiency 
Lippmeier notes that consumers seek products that are “kind to the earth and people. Innova Market reported the “Top Ten Trends for 2022,” of which “Shared Planet,” a driver underscoring the notion that both consumers and brands have “joint responsibility” in sustainability.”  Amyris achieves clean chemistry through synthetic biology as a resource-friendly science.

An example of an environmentally unsustainable molecule is squalane, which is derived from shark livers or olives. “Shark sourcing destabilizes already fragile oceanic ecosystems, while olive material underperforms due to its impurity profile and cannot scale to meet demand,” explains Tsong.

Instead, Amyris engineers fermentation using yeast and sugarcane to scale squalane and “offset the killing of 2 million sharks per year” and is also a “key product performance differentiator for its own family of consumer brands.”

Several of the 13 molecules sourced from plants by Amyris are common ingredients in fragrances and home care, notes Tsong. 

“When we produce these molecules using fermentation of sugarcane instead of the traditional botanical plant source, production is dramatically more resource-efficient – requiring 8-220 times less land, depending on the ingredient. More importantly, we can decouple production from sensitive native ecosystems, which in many cases are already unstable.” 

On the question of how sustainable the sugarcane used for fermentation is, Tsong reports having attained a Bonsucro certification, “a global organization that promotes sustainable sugarcane production, ensuring that the Brazilian sugarcane used is sustainable and ethically produced and processed.” 

The crops are grown in Brazil, requiring little irrigation due to natural rainfall. Additionally, Tsong justifies that sugarcane is a regenerative plant that takes approximately nine months to develop and recovers quickly after harvesting. 

The materials used to feed microbial cultures are almost identical to what’s used to feed people, remarks Lippmeier.

Fermented food and fermentation in cosmetics 
The link between consuming fermented foods and applying products with fermented ingredients for beauty is often confused.Conagen biologically produces products unlike chemically synthesized products.

“The importance of these production and extraction methods when used for making bourbon, cheese curds, yogurt, soy sauce, or vinegar is obvious – they are well-proven, familiar processes that rely on easily obtained, sustainable inputs,” says Lippmeier. 

“Fermentation has been around for thousands of years – beer, bread, wine, kombucha, yogurt, kimchi are all products of fermentation,” agrees Tsong.

“Early in the 1900s, people realized they could isolate specific microorganisms and use fermentation to produce targeted molecules like amino acids and antibiotics. Later in the 1900s, scientists discovered they could combine biotechnology and fermentation to produce things like insulin, used to treat diabetes, and rennet, which is used in cheese-making,” she adds. 

The same concept used to ferment foods applies to precision fermentation, explains Lippmeier. This “will enable us to enjoy all the wonderful ingredients first brought to us by petrochemistry well after the world’s oil runs out.” 

In other news on fermentation, Biosyntia partnered with Wacker Chemie to develop a production process for fermentation-based biotin (vitamin B7); Givaudan bisabolol is crafted by white biotechnology through the fermentation of plant sugars; Synergio launched a botanical preservation system for personal care products which boasts skin microflora-benefitting properties; Ancient Nutrition produces collagen peptides from fermented eggshell membrane; Seppic debuted a beauty-from-within ingredient made from fermented wild bilberries; Amyris takes a fermentation-based manufacturing approach that uses engineered yeast and responsibly sourced sugarcane.

By Venya Patel