What is Biomanufacturing and Precision Fermentation, and why is it important?

Biomanufacturing is the process of turning plant material into high-value end products. Precision fermentation is an extremely flexible and valuable form of biomanufacturing.  

Fermentation is the same process that is used to create alcoholic beverages such as wine, beer, and mead. It is also used to make food products like soy sauce, kombucha, feta cheese, and hot sauces. The process involves feeding a sugar or grain to a single-celled microbial “factory” and having that single-celled organism turn the sugar into valuable (or tasty!) end products.

Advances in biology have allowed humans to tweak the fermentation process. Instead of just making beer or fuel ethanol, now fermentation can be used for a whole range of end products. Leveraging fermentation as a manufacturing technology means that traditional, resource-intensive manufacturing can be replaced with domestic, biology-based manufacturing. 

Specialized bioprocessing can create more advanced types of food protein, new types of textiles and fibers, polymers, and commercial grades of oils/lipids, pigments, and even cosmetics. This breadth in output allows for more market stability in bio-based businesses.

Lack of fermentation infrastructure is bottlenecking the industry.

According to a 2024 report released by BCG and Synonym, precision fermentation has the potential to become a $200B industry by 2040. One of the primary restraints in this industry reaching its potential is a lack of fermentation infrastructure. Quite simply, large, expensive tanks are required for startup companies to prove their technology. iFAB is trying to solve this bottleneck by creating multiple shared-use facilities that will allow small companies to test their technologies at every stage of the development cycle without having to build their own individualized infrastructure.

The U.S. has an opportunity to bring large-scale biomanufacturing back to facilities located in the U.S., offering faster turnaround, lower costs, higher ROI, and easier access to both resources and results.

Precision fermentation is at our core. 

We help companies scale fermentation processes and identify downstream processing technologies through pilot testing. Fermenters range from 19.5 to 1500L.

We are building a pipeline of de-risked companies for scaling:

• Demonstration testing (10,000 to 75,000L)
• Commercialization (100,000L+)
  

Limited pilot and demonstration scale testing are hindering industry expansion in Illinois.

Growing the Illinois bioprocessing hub.

• Pilot Plant Expansion: Double size – fermentation focus. Increase client and workforce throughput.
• Demonstration Scale Partnerships: Working with state, local, and industry leaders to develop demonstration-scale facility and infrastructure support in Illinois.
• Workforce Development: Expand student internship programs, train workers with a range of backgrounds, skill sets, and focus areas, expand educational programming to meet the needs of this growing industry.