Debut Biotech and DIC Collaborate Over Novel Food Colors

Fine chemicals company DIC is a Japanese chemical company manufacturing inks, pigments, polymers, and other substances. The corporation has collaborated with Debut Biotech which a startup based in San-Diego. The collaboration is intended to explore the novel techniques of manufacturing food colors.

The technology focused on is a cell-free biomanufacturing system which is expected to facilitate the biosynthesis of colorants. The novel platform attributes unique proposition in achieving colors that are not easily found or inaccessible via natural means. The very first color extraction methods involved plants or flowers. Later as the need for mass-production increased, petrochemical-derived artificial or synthetic colors replaced the natural one’s. However, the return of natural colors is expedited by manufacturers using plants or unicellular microorganisms that produce pigments. These prevail with specific limitations such as color extraction from plants is not a sustainable process. Microbially derived colors cannot fulfill the needs of food industry.

Joshua Britton, CEO, and founder of Debut Biotech stated that the complexity of highly desired ingredients proposes a challenge to their mass-production. Debut Biotech offers the cell-free technology which will add significantly to the high-value ingredients. The cell-free platform will allow to decode the complexity all the while maintaining sustainability, historically absent in color manufacturing.

The company’s multi-million-dollar partnership with DIC will allow the two to leverage the superior biomanufacturing technologies. This will enable the production of natural color ingredients across a wide range of industries right from food sector to the cosmetic industry, and heath industry.