Materials & Packaging

New Genomatica-Cargill Collaboration Will Bring More Renewable Chemicals to Market

Sustainable chemical technology company Genomatica announced today it has partnered with Cargill to accelerate the production of renewable chemicals for industrial applications. The collaboration will give chemical producers, distributors and users access to a reliable, cost-effective source of carbohydrate feedstocks, co-location support services and production partnerships, based on GENO™ process technologies.

By Sustainable Brands | Published 9 years ago | About a 2 minute read

Sustainable chemical technology company Genomatica announced today it has partnered with Cargill to accelerate the production of renewable chemicals for industrial applications. The collaboration will give chemical producers, distributors and users access to a reliable, cost-effective source of carbohydrate feedstocks, co-location support services and production partnerships, based on GENO™ process technologies.

The companies will co-market Cargill’s feedstock and production services to current and prospective Genomatica licensees, and chemical users and distributors. To further strengthen the collaboration, Cargill made an equity investment in Genomatica and secured rights to make additional investments.

“Cargill’s production services give Genomatica an innovative way to accelerate deployment and better serve the chemical industry and needs of our customers,” said Christophe Schilling, CEO of Genomatica. “This is a natural complement to the innovation, sustainability and cost-advantaged production enabled by our technologies.”

Combining Genomatica’s GENO process technologies with Cargill’s global strength in carbohydrate feedstock, risk management, operational expertise and readiness to build, own and operate plants worldwide for select customers, has the potential to help the bioeconomy expand more rapidly.

“As Cargill continues to strategically expand its presence in the industrial biotechnology space, our collaboration with Genomatica broadens our portfolio of sustainable production solutions,” said Cargill Corn Milling VP Brian Silvey. “Companies will be able to produce or distribute chemicals used for industrial applications faster, more reliably and more cost-effectively.”

Industry participants can gain the following benefits:

Chemical producers can get started faster by having a ‘ready-to-go,’ reliable source for renewable feedstocks; and save time and money by locating next to a Cargill site for additional co-location services and potential production services.
Chemical users considering backwards-integration (production of their source chemicals) can now do so faster and more cost-effectively. Or, they can enter a long-term purchase agreement, without having to become a producer.
Chemical distributors can secure long-term supplies of high-quality, more sustainable products to supply to their customers to use in existing product value chains.

Last fall, in addition to announcing bio-based feedstocks for nylon intermediates as the focus of its third publicly disclosed development program, Genomatica published the results of a major survey of sustainability issues in the mainstream chemical industry that showed the topic is now considered a high priority in the field — 81 percent of the 958 respondents worldwide said it’s very or moderately important to be a frontrunner in sustainable chemicals.