Public Funding for Ublii Ltd

Excessive sugar consumption has led to serious health issues. In the UK, 17 million people are obese and 5 million live with diabetes, of which 24,000 die prematurely every year. This has led health experts to advocate for reduced sugar intake, resulting in heightened public awareness and government policies to combat excessive sugar consumption. Consequently, there is a growing demand for healthy sugar alternatives that align with both consumer and governmental requirements for healthier living. While various sugar alternatives exist, they often come with significant limitations. However, sweet-tasting proteins have emerged as a promising solution. Derived from West African berries and processed like other healthy food proteins, they show a remarkable sweetness profile up to 3000x higher than sugar. Furthermore, they are suited for the industry thanks to the stability under different conditions and pleasing taste profiles. Despite their great potential, they are yet to become mainstream. The main obstacle is their commercially unfeasible cost and scale, resulting from farming complexities, low yields, and intricate extraction processes. To solve this, we're tapping into the transformative potential of engineering biology to create biological production systems. By leveraging cutting-edge genetic tools to engineer microorganisms, we are designing an optimal protein production platform. Our solution capitalises on our expertise with a high potential and safe non-model organism poised to disrupt current industry standards. In our engineered 'cell factories' we can produce these proteins cost-effectively and ecologically, to pave the way for the successful introduction of sweet proteins to the market at scale. This project presents a holistic solution to address the issues associated with sugar and sweetener consumption with a bio-based solution. By effectively tackling these challenges, it not only helps overcome the current problems but also drives the advancement of the bioindustry within the country, establishing a competitive edge on the global stage.