US-based biotech company Checkerspot is not new to the challenges food and nutrition companies face when sourcing rare and hard to find fats and oils, and neither is the company’s new CEO – John Krzywicki – but the company’s direction under his leadership is, which is good news for manufacturers interested in sourcing ingredients more sustainably and reliably.
In recent years, inflation, climate change, geo-political shifts and other challenges have driven up the cost of many key ingredients while simultaneously limiting supply – prompting interest in alternative ingredients, including bioidentical options, that have a smaller environmental footprint, are less susceptible to weather patterns and can be produced locally to reduce reliance on imports that could be hit by tariffs and include additional shipping and logistical costs.
For more than 15 years, Checkerspot has used fermentation and microalgae, which Krzywicki affectionately called “the mother of all plants and nature’s original oil producer,” to address some of these challenges by cost-effectively, sustainably and locally biomanufacturing unique structural oils found in nature with the ultimate goal of transitioning “away from the global dependence on fossil fuels and other unstainable sources of oils.”
The company got its start in the outdoor recreation industry with the creation of high-performance skis made from algae via its WING platform, which allows it to design, develop, test and commercialize materials and ingredients across a wide range of industries. But it quickly expanded its production to additional materials and ingredients, including nutritionally valuable triglycerides, bioactive oils and rare fatty acids and an expeller-pressed premium culinary oil that it trademarked as Spotlight, which it said had a 47% lower carbon footprint than canola oil.
Now, with Krzywicki recently promoted to the helm, the company wants to focus solely on producing high-value, hard-to-source but in-demand fats, oils and other ingredients for the food industry.
In this episode of FoodNavigator-USA’s Soup-To-Nuts podcast, Krzywicki shares his vision for Checkerspot as the new CEO and how under his leadership the company plans to address some of the biggest challenges facing food and nutrition companies by offering a pathway to sustainably sourced, sought-after ingredients with traditionally limited supply or only available at a price point out of reach for many. He also explains how Checkerspot’s technology works.
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Checkerspot delivers environmental and economic benefits
Checkerspot may have been founded on providing environmental benefits, but Krzywicki explains it is strongly rooted in the reality of business – including delivering on its promises consistently and efficiently while also keeping costs down.
“We really do believe in the ability of microalgae to transform the world and provide valuable products to society, but we need to do it in a smarter, faster, cheaper and more capital efficient way,” he said.
He explained that replacing petroleum in materials was an early opportunity for Checkerspot, but nutrition and food was always planned as part of the story.
According to Krzywicki, the faster- and larger-than-expected opportunity for Checkerspot’s technology within food and nutrition was turbo-charged in part by persistent inflation in recent years, the dramatic impact of the infant formula shortage a few years ago, climate change threats to traditional supplies and geo-political pressure complicating shipping and pricing.
Checkerspot’s technology not only can alleviate threats to existing supply chains – Krzywicki said it also can help cultivate access to ingredients for which there are no reliable or sufficient supplies. For example, functional fats found in human breast milk.
Microscopic algae offers outsized benefit
Checkerspot is able to recreate high value fats and oils and hard-to-source ingredients through its WING platform, which has multiple pillars – the first of which is biotechnology that develops proprietary microbes via fermentation in industrial sized steel tanks to produce “specific chemistries of oil” consistently.
Checkerspot finds the microbes it uses “out in the wild” and then “nudges” it to produce a desirable fat or oil through conventional farming techniques as well as modern options, such as genetic engineering, according to Krzywicki.
Once the profile is established, Checkerspot extracts the oil with a press and refines the purity of the product so that is suitable for its end purpose.
A new direction
Another key pillar in Checkerspot’s WING platform is working with companies to develop proprietary materials and ingredients by quickly prototyping applications. Once a concept is proven Checkerspot will license the corresponding technology to its partners for production elsewhere.
Krzywicki explains that this pillar is fundamental to the company’s new direction along with doubling down on nutrition and focusing primarily on business-to-business partnerships rather than also on business-to-consumer opportunities.
“Checkerspot went through a period that a lot of startups go through - running a lot of experiments in parallel and trying to see what is the best way to get our technology to market,” he said.
As Checkerspot finetunes its business model, Krzywicki said the company is looking to enter into two to three additional partnerships like the ones it entered into with the Swedish plant-based oils company AAK last April to develop sustainable algae oil or with biotech Mara Renewables to create a sustainable fish oil alternative through precision fermentation.
Where is the most potential for Checkerspot within food and nutrition?
While the possibilities for Checkerspot’s technology are diverse, Krzywicki said he sees the significant potential to support the health of people, the planet and businesses within high-value fats and oils, such as replacing cocoa butter and tropical fats, and coconut and palm, which are popular within confectionery products.
He said he also sees room within high-value nutrition categories, such as infant formula or products to support healthy aging, sports and fitness and “straight” nutritional oils, such as omega-3, -6 and -9 fatty acids.
Finally, he added, Checkerspot’s technology also could help plant-based proteins and products overcome taste and texture challenges that are holding back sales, and could create culinary oils with functional benefits, such as a higher smoke point or neutral taste.
