Life after Roquette...
But what about Solazyme’s joint venture with French ingredients giant Roquette, which was set up in 2010 but abruptly disbanded in 2013, leaving both firms to approach the market with algal food ingredients independently?
With lawyers for both sides still locked in an arbitration process, should customers worry that they might end up backing the wrong horse? And can Solazyme reassure them that it owns the intellectual property pertaining to its algal food ingredients?
Yes, insists Rakitsky. “There is no question that Solazyme is and will be in this business for a long time to come. We developed the technology and perfected it and filed the IP around it, and the only question is whether or not Roquette will be able to continue in this business.”
But if Solazyme had all the answers, why did it team up with Roquette in the first place?
Lots of reasons, he says, including the fact that Roquette had established contacts and customers in the food industry.
But a lot of things have changed since then, he says, noting that Solazyme has built up its own applications team dedicating to helping customers work with its ingredients, and now has industrial scale manufacturing facilities in place to produce them.
More generally, he says, there is room in the burgeoning algal ingredients market for multiple players.
And while the barriers to entry are high given the unique challenges of working with microalgae and the capital expenditure required to manufacture any ingredient on an industrial scale, more competition is good.
Picture: Solazyme at the IFT show this summer.