Products made from natural ingredients are the fastest-growing segment in the cosmetics and food industry. However, these industries are dominated by petrochemical-derived ingredients as opposed to natural ingredients. This is because the supply chain of natural ingredients is highly unreliable. Natural ingredients are extracted from botanical raw materials, making their supply unpredictable, high-priced, and with undesirable attributes such as seasonal variation.
Ardra is an engineering biology company producing natural ingredients using fermentation. Ardra’s platform uses designer biochemical pathways to produce a portfolio of high-value natural ingredients using renewable raw materials such as sugars. Ardra’s ingredients have lower production cost, consistent quality, and are free of harmful residues that may be found in petroleum-derived synthetic ingredients.
The investment from Ontario Genomics has helped Ardra advance its lead product – Natural Leaf Aldehyde: apple flavour ingredient used in the beverage industry. The investment enabled Ardra to scale up its process from bench to pilot, thereby producing samples sold to and validated by potential customers. Ardra is currently engaged in the scale-up of the process to demonstration trial and is in discussion for co-development partnerships to commercialize the process.
“At Ardra, we are harnessing the power of engineering biology to solve pressing problems in sustainable supply of natural ingredients.”
— Pratish Gawand, CEO & Co-founder, Ardra Bio, Inc.
