Phytolon, Ginkgo Bioworks take biological production of food colours to next level

The companies seek to leverage cell programming to produce betalain pigments across the full yellow-to-purple spectrum

Phytolon, an Israeli startup company making natural food colorants, has announced a partnership with US-based Ginkgo Bioworks, to produce vibrant cultured food colorus via fermentation of yeast.

Under this partnership, Phytolon is leveraging Ginkgo’s ability to engineer biology at scale to work together on the production of vibrant betalain pigments, the healthy and colorful compounds found in foods like beets and cactus fruit.

The project aims to take Phytolon’s colors across the full ’yellow-to-purple’ spectrum to the next level, and to potentially maximize the business opportunity of Phytolon’s vibrant colors for applications in the food and cosmetics industries.

Phytolon has developed a proprietary process for producing betalain pigments through precision fermentation of certain yeast strains. Together, Phytolon and Ginkgo are partnering with the goal of maximizing the production efficiency of purple and yellow betalain-producing strains.