Chlorella is a group of closely-related green microalgae species that shares a common ancestor with all land plants including the crops we grow from which we obtain a lot of our food and nutrition. Chlorella has been safely consumed globally for decades and since before 1997 in Europe, which brings advantages with respect to regulatory approval. It has a history of safe use as a food ingredient and supplement and widespread global approval as a food and supplement ingredient in many countries. Chlorella are freshwater microalgae that are flexible with regard to their growth and can be grown to high density by fermentation on carbon sources such as glucose.

Microalgae are often a very good potential source of high-quality plant-based protein, which can be used in plant-based products or hybrid products to reduce or even replace animal protein-based ingredients in these formulations. Microalgae are a good source of essential macronutrients and micronutrients, including antioxidants and minerals such as iron, zinc and manganese with many also being a good source of fibre. Most microalgae also contain vitamins and essential amino acids. Our bodies cannot produce these critical nutrients, therefore, it’s important that we obtain them from our diet.

Microalgae provide huge potential for the sustainable sourcing of food ingredients such as proteins and other macronutrients and micronutrients. Chlorella grows very fast when cultivated under controlled conditions in closed fermentation vessels. The use of fermentation allows for sustainable, safe, efficient, reproducible and consistent production of ingredients at large scale year-round. In addition, fermentation facilitates the efficient use of resources such as energy, land, and water. Harvests are not limited by season and, after the fermentation, the product is gently dried and provided as a whole-cell ingredient.

Chlorella accumulates large amounts of high-quality proteins that are rich in essential amino acids. Like vitamins, essential amino acids are important building blocks that are needed for good health. The body cannot produce these on its own, making it essential to obtain them from the diet. In addition, Chlorella is a good source of essential macronutrients, and micronutrients such as antioxidants, vitamins, including Vitamin B12 and folate, and minerals like manganese, selenium, iodine and zinc as well as being rich in fibre while being low in sugar.

Not all Chlorella sold on the market today, however, is produced to the same quality and transparency standards that we adhere to. We take this incredibly seriously.

All of our improvement approaches that we have used to develop our strains are non-GM.

At present, green microalgae have very limited applications as ingredients in food and beverage products and are used at very low incorporation/usage rates.

Due to its high chlorophyll content (10 to 20x the level found in spinach, for instance), the typical (dark green) form of Chlorella has limited applications as food and beverage ingredients – owing to the undesirable dark green colour, bitter taste and strong smell.

This led us to develop stable varieties of Chlorella with almost no chlorophyll to improve taste and appearance of the ingredient. In crop plants, varieties like these would be called cultivars. They are stable and breed true each time they are grown.  So, our white Chlorella grows as a white Chlorella. There are no chemical processing steps needed or extractions performed to make our Chlorella white. By developing best-in-class white Chlorella and aligning the bioprocesses to support the efficient growth of the organisms we arrive at a pleasantly-flavoured, versatile food ingredient that can be used at higher usage rates and across a wide-range of applications.

The uptake of plant-based ingredients within food and beverages as part of a flexitarian diet or even a vegan or vegetarian diet is best supported by products that have a desirable appearance flavour and smell. Consumers use a combination of multiple senses to enjoy food and make decisions over what they want to eat or feed their families.

Our range of Chlorella-based microalgae ingredients allows a wider application of these ingredients and potentially higher incorporation rate in foods than has traditionally been possible for microalgae. The taste and smell of the final food product will not be affected negatively as the microalgae-based ingredients will provide a neutral or pleasant taste and smell at the usage rates we recommend within a broad range of applications.

Algenuity’s EdenFlo™ and EdenPro™ were derived from a well-characterised strain of Chlorella sorokiniana (CCAP 211/8k, also known as UTEX1230). The original organism was biprospected from Waller Creek on the University of Texas at Austin campus in 1953. This organism was originally named Chlorella pyrenoidosa. It is now known to be Chlorella sorokiniana.   We confirm the identity of all our microalgae strains at DNA level. We claim to have the most completely annotated Chlorella genomes for Chlorella sorokiniana and bona fide Chlorella vulgaris.

No – we have used established non-GM plant-breeding methods to develop all of our Chlorella variants.

Our Chlorella variants are no-longer photosynthetic but grow very well in closed fermentation vessels using simple carbon-based feedstock such as glucose. We are producing our biomass at more than one site globally now, but always under food grade manufacturing conditions; the production process could be applied globally in a distributed basis and supports supply chain resilience. Our primary commercial scale manufacturing takes place in the Netherlands at a dedicated, state-of-the-art fermentation facility.

Traditionally, Chlorella as found growing in nature, will be green, owing to the green pigment, called chlorophyll, that the cells produce. 

Chlorella has 10 to 20 times the level of chlorophyll as compared to another chlorophyll-rich plant that we regularly eat, spinach. It’s the very heavy chlorophyll content that gives a an unpleasant taste that has been variably described as a ‘gag-factor’, with green Chlorella when wet also described as a “nauseating slime”. These descriptors generally don’t go well with the tasty foods that most people seek to enjoy within their regular consumption habit!

The Algenuity process is a non-GM crop improvement process that has carefully selected highly nutritious Chlorella cultivars that no longer make chlorophyll – they no longer grow outdoors using sunlight and the poor taste is gone, replaced with a neutral flavour while all the nutrition remains.

EdenFlo™ and EdenPro™ are our two flagship whole cell white Chlorella ingredients. EdenFlo averages 35% protein content by weight while EdenPro averages 55-60% protein by weight. In both cases the ingredients are a great source of complete, high amino acid score proteins. They are non-allergenic based on genomic sequence and predicted peptide-level analysis. The bioavailability has been assessed in vitro to arrive at a PDCAAS (Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score) average value of 0.90 for white Chlorella, where 1.0 would be considered a perfect score with regard to bioavailability and protein quality.