Webinar | Project Monarch: Resilient Domestic Feedstocks for the U.S. Precision Fermentation Industry
Locally resilient and globally competitive domestic fermentation feedstocks are crucial to the American bioeconomy and commercialization of its bioproducts. However, a lack of standardized methods, benchmarks, and metrics to measure the performance, costs and final specifications of fermentation-derived products obscures an understanding of how specific feedstock choices may benefit the US bioeconomy relative to commercially available alternatives.
This project uses Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a tool to standardize and measure the wide-boundary impacts of dextrose (from corn and wheat), sucrose (from sugarcane and beets) and lactose [from sweet whey (hard cheese) ultrafiltration (UF) permeate] sourced domestically or globally from conventionally grown or less resource intensive and more resiliently produced versions of the same sugars. The fermentation requirements and sourcing impacts from these feedstocks are then used to calculate the peak performance specifications possible from an example bioproduct manufactured from each of these feedstocks (a refined, bleached, and deodorized algal oil representative of standard vegetable oils, equatorial structuring fats and specialty nutritional oils), both for domestic production at a typical manufacturer as well as an off-grid facility representing a globally competitive manufacturing alternative.
By highlighting increasingly improved feedstock performance, frequently not prioritized due to the price and historically widespread availability of global commodities, this project seeks to improve the long-term viability of an advanced domestic biomanufacturing industry and respond to consumer choice while improving supply chain resilience, traceability, and markets for American-grown crops. Using accurate LCA data will allow BioMADE members to benchmark and compare the performance of their sugar feedstock(s) to better understand its impact on their own finished products.
Join BioMADE and Checkerspot on October 28, 2026, at 10:00am PT to learn more about this project. Register here.