Qualitas Triples Algae Production Capacity with New Partnership

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Qualitas Health (Houston), an algae-ingredients supplier, announced a new, long-term production partnership with commercial crop producer Green Stream Farms. According to Qualitas, the agreement is expected to triple Qualitas’s algae production capacity, helping it achieve a “critical mass to become a sustainable omega-3 alternative at commercial scale.” Partnering with Green Streams’s New Mexico–based algae farm expands Qualitas’s total cultivation farmland to 150 acres and complements algae production out of the Qualitas’s original site in Houston, including of its flagship ingredient, Almega PL.

Algae can prove difficult to cultivate due to the high cost associated with farming algae in significant amounts. Qualitas says that this new agreement will enable it to cultivate enough algae to be sustainable and to “meet growing national and international demand.” In addition, it says, algae can flourish in arid climates like New Mexico, where it can utilize salt water and CO₂ to grow.

Qualitas’s flagship ingredient, Almega PL, features the omega-3 fatty acid EPA naturally bound to polar lipids, which the company says gives it a greater degree of digestibility and absorption. All of its ingredients are 100% vegan.

“We are proud to produce a new category of sustainable omega-3s from algae-Almega PL-at a scale that will give us global impact,” said Rebecca White, PhD, vice president of operations, Qualitas Health, in a press release. “This partnership confirms that we are poised to meet demand at a massive scale, and jumpstarts us as we prepare for exciting moves coming up later this year.”

Tom Richard, CEO, Green Stream Farms, added: “We are proud to partner with Qualitas Health to produce algae on a commercial scale. Our partnership will lead the industry in taking a true farming approach to algae production. We plan to continue to find innovative ways for algae to become a more sustainable product.”

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