Algae Oils Continue Food Expansion with Solazyme, Bunge Joint Venture

Photo © iStockphoto.com/Tina_Rencelj

Microalgae firm Solazyme (San Francisco, CA) and food and agribusiness company Bunge Ltd. (White Plains, NY) are expanding their partnership with a joint effort to bring algae-based oils to the food and animal nutrition markets. With Bunge leading global marketing and commercialization, the firms will also enhance their co-funded research programs to develop new products in nutrition and specialty fats.

Algal oils have “one of the lowest carbon and water footprints of any broadly available vegetable oils and achieve substantially higher oil yields per acre than those of most oilseed crops,” the companies say. The joint-venture oils are produced via fermentation in Brazil.

The companies are offering three oil ingredients in their AlgaWise lineup, including:

• AlgaWise Ultra Omega-9 Algae Oil, a “clean tasting oil with the highest level of monounsaturated fats (>90%) on the market and the lowest level of saturated fat of any food oil (<4%). It is positioned as a healthier alternative to saturated fat.
• AlgaWise High Stability Algae Oil, which has “one of the highest stabilities of any oil on the market, over 87% monounsaturated fatty acids, and only 2% polyunsaturates, less than any other food oil,” they allege. The zero-trans-fat oil is well suited to industrial frying, spraying/coating, pan spraying, and blending and “can enable food manufacturers to remove added preservatives in everyday favorite foods such as dressings and mayonnaise, achieving cleaner labels with fewer ingredients, as well as completely removing partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.”
• AlgaWise Algae Butter is an oil with special value for confectionery, bakery products, and spreads, the companies say. It “has a composition and functionality mirroring high-value structuring fats such as shea stearin, with a high proportion of stearic-oleic-stearic triglycerides (~70%).”

“These healthier algae products have tremendous potential to make a positive impact in nutrition and functionality for our customers around the globe, and we’re excited about the potential to broadly commercialize them,” said Bunge’s CEO Soren Schroder, in a press release.

Jennifer Grebow
Editor-in-Chief
Nutritional Outlook magazine
jennifer.grebow@ubm.com