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It’s easy to get caught up in the news and activities of the industry’s global giants, but what about the smaller firms pushing boundaries with bold ideas? In this instalment of 'Start-up of the month' – which celebrates small and earlier-stage companies and their innovations – we speak to Ido Margalit, co-founder and CEO of Agrinetica: a US company applying its advanced CRISPR 2.0 tools to peanuts, creating next-generation varieties that reduce allergenicity, extend shelf-life, boost climate resilience and protect yields.

What led to Agrinetica’s establishment and what is the company’s long-term mission?

Agrinetica was established around a simple idea: peanuts are an important, nutritious and affordable crop, but there are several major problems limiting their value to consumers, food companies and growers. Allergy is the most obvious one, but there are also issues such as aflatoxin contamination, crop losses, climate sensitivity and opportunities to improve nutritional quality.

Our long-term mission is therefore broader than creating a single hypoallergenic peanut. We want to use precise gene editing to build a new generation of peanuts that are safer, healthier, more sustainable and more valuable throughout the food supply chain, from the consumer all the way to the growers. Ultimately, we see Agrinetica as a peanut innovation company, using genetics to solve problems that conventional breeding has struggled to address.

Can you offer our readers some detail about CRISPR technology and how it works? How does your CRISPR 2.0 platform address previous limitations of the tech?

CRISPR is essentially a very precise way of making changes to a plant’s own DNA, without inserting any foreign genetics. Rather than introducing a foreign gene, we identify a particular gene responsible for a trait and make a targeted change to it, thus enabling the expression of said trait. The resulting gene-edited plant therefore contains no foreign DNA.

The challenge is that first-generation CRISPR systems for gene editing were not originally designed for plants. These first-generation CRISPR systems are relatively large molecules, difficult to deliver into plant cells, expensive to deploy and dependent on complicated tissue-culture processes.

Agrinetica benefits from [parent company] BetterSeeds' second-generation compact CRISPR technologies. These gene editors are significantly smaller and are being combined with advanced nuclease delivery approaches designed specifically for plants. The objective is to make gene editing more efficient, easier to deploy across all crops and considerably more economical. That is particularly important if gene editing is going to become a practical commercial tool, rather than remain primarily a research technology as it is today.

Why did you choose to focus on peanuts specifically?

Peanuts are a particularly compelling crop because they sit at the intersection of health, food safety, nutrition and agriculture. They are one of the world's most widely consumed plant protein sources, yet peanut allergy remains one of the most serious food-allergy concerns. Meanwhile, the crop faces challenges including aflatoxin contamination, drought and heat stress, harvest losses and opportunities to improve its nutritional profile.

That combination, together with the fact that conventional breeding has been too slow and not able to generate the necessary solutions, means gene editing can create value at multiple points across the same crop – from the farmer all the way to the consumer. We also saw an opportunity to build a differentiated business around a portfolio of valuable traits, rather than developing a single trait and stopping there.

Was allergenicity the initial, core focus for the company when it was founded?

No. While reduced allergenicity was a cornerstone of Agrinetica from the outset, our vision was always broader: to improve peanuts across the entire value chain by addressing the needs of growers, food manufacturers and CPG companies, and ultimately consumers.

Allergenicity was an obvious and important challenge to tackle, but the [additional challenges faced by peanuts, mentioned above, are also significant]. We therefore built Agrinetica around a portfolio approach: using gene editing to improve multiple commercially important traits.

The goal was never to create a single improved peanut. It was to develop a new generation of peanuts that creates value from the field, through food production, all the way to the consumer.

So hypoallergenicity remains a flagship program, but the company today is much broader than a single-

trait business.

How can your technology deliver food safety benefits to manufacturers, brands, foodservice operators and consumers with regards to allergenicity?

Our approach is to address food safety risks at the source – in the peanut itself – rather than relying only on managing those risks further down the supply chain.

On allergenicity, we are doing two things. We are significantly reducing the overall allergen load, while specifically targeting the major peanut allergens associated with the most severe, potentially life-threatening reactions. The objective is therefore not simply to create a peanut that is 'less allergenic,' but to fundamentally change its allergenic profile by removing or substantially reducing the proteins that pose the greatest risk.

For consumers, the long-term potential is to reduce the risk associated with accidental exposure and ultimately enable peanuts and peanut-based products to return to environments where they are often restricted today, such as schools, airlines, hospitals, hotels and institutional foodservice.

There is also a very important benefit for manufacturers, brands and foodservice operators. Conventional peanuts create significant concerns around cross-contact, allergen residues on shared production lines, cleaning, segregation and, in some cases, the need for dedicated production environments. Reducing the overall allergen burden, and particularly the allergens associated with the most severe reactions, could potentially reduce those risks and make peanuts easier to manufacture, handle and incorporate into products.

We are also addressing aflatoxin, another major food-safety issue in peanuts. Aflatoxin is a naturally occurring toxin associated with serious health risks, including cancer. Peanut lots must meet strict safety specifications before entering the food chain, and excessive aflatoxin contamination results in lots being rejected, reprocessed or diverted to lower-value uses.

This is not a marginal problem – on average, roughly 10% of US edible peanut lots fail aflatoxin specifications each year, and the situation can become much worse under unfavourable growing conditions, such as in 2019 when the disqualification rate reached 30% of peanut lots in the southeastern United States.

By reducing the peanut’s susceptibility to aflatoxin contamination, our aim is to address that risk before the crop even reaches the food manufacturer. For growers and processors, that could mean fewer rejected lots and less waste; for manufacturers and brands, it could mean more consistent raw-material quality, greater supply reliability and lower food-safety risk.

Which of the other traits you’re working on do you foresee as offering the most commercial impact for the food and beverage industry?

We see hypoallergenicity as the leading category for the peanut-based industry, because peanut allergy is such a significant issue for both consumers and the food industry. It affects where peanuts can be sold and served, how manufacturers manage production, and how consumers perceive risk. If we can materially reduce that risk, the commercial implications are substantial.

The next most important trait is aflatoxin reduction. Aflatoxin is a major food-safety issue for both manufacturers and consumers, and contaminated peanut lots can be rejected, reprocessed or diverted to lower-value uses. Reducing that risk at the crop level could provide a significant benefit in terms of food safety, supply reliability, waste reduction and cost.

Beyond those two, drought and other climate-stress tolerance are extremely important, particularly from the grower’s perspective. Peanuts are increasingly exposed to heat, drought and other climate pressures, and if peanuts are to remain a major crop in the US, improving resilience will be essential. These traits may be less visible to the end consumer, but they are critical to maintaining reliable production and long-term supply.

So from our perspective, hypoallergenicity is the leading commercial category for the peanut industry, followed by aflatoxin reduction, with climate resilience also becoming increasingly important for the future of peanut production.

You’ve launched a commercial partnership with Nurtured Nuts Company. Could you tell us a bit more about this partnership and how you’re working collaboratively? Do you have plans to partner with any other food and beverage brands/companies?

Nurtured Nuts is our downstream commercial partner and gives us something that is extremely important for an agricultural biotechnology company: a direct route from genetics to a consumer product.

Agrinetica is focused on developing and producing the improved peanut genetics, while Nurtured Nuts is focused on transforming those peanuts into branded consumer products, beginning with peanut butter. They are already working on formulation, manufacturing processes, segregation, quality control and third-party testing in preparation for commercialisation.

That allows both companies to concentrate on what they do best while working very closely across the entire value chain.

And yes, we absolutely intend to work with additional food manufacturers and brands. Our strategy is not to limit these peanuts to one consumer brand. Ultimately, we want our traits and ingredients to be available across multiple food categories and commercial partners.

What have you observed about consumer understanding and acceptance of gene-edited crops in the food and beverage industry?

There is still some confusion between gene editing and traditional GMO technology, but that distinction is becoming much clearer. Modern gene editing can make precise changes to a plant’s own DNA without introducing foreign DNA, and once a consumer understands that, the discussion tends to shift from the technology itself to the benefit it creates.

The regulatory direction is also a strong signal. In the US, gene-edited crops are treated differently from traditional GMOs, and the EU – historically the most restrictive market toward GMOs – has just now adopted a new framework that also distinguishes gene-edited plants from conventional GMOs and enables commercialisation of such products with no labelling requirements. We believe this regulatory shift reflects not only advances in science, but also a broader change in public and market perception.

Ultimately, we believe acceptance will be driven by benefit, transparency and trust. If consumers see clear value – such as lower allergy risk, reduced aflatoxin risk or improved climate resilience – gene editing becomes a tool for solving real problems rather than an issue in itself.

What has been the company’s biggest achievement to date?

For us, the biggest achievement is that we have moved beyond proving that gene editing works in peanuts and have developed a genuine commercial pipeline.

We have already received a USDA non-GMO regulatory determination for our gene-edited hypoallergenic and improved fatty acid composition peanuts, progressed the material into field-scale seed production in the United States, and expanded the platform to additional commercially important traits including yield, drought resilience and aflatoxin reduction.

We are also moving the allergy program toward clinical validation and commercialisation. That progression, from an idea in the laboratory to genetics being multiplied for real commercial products, is probably the milestone we are most proud of.

If you could offer one piece of advice to aspiring start-ups in the food and beverage industry to help them navigate the sector’s challenges and opportunities, what would it be?

Start with the problem, not with the technology.

It is very easy for technology companies to become fascinated by what they can build. The more important question is whether you are solving a problem that somebody genuinely cares about – and eventually will pay to solve.

In food and agriculture, you also have to understand the entire value chain. A great technology is not enough. The farmer, processor, manufacturer, retailer and consumer may each need a reason to adopt it.

Our experience with Agrinetica has reinforced that the strongest innovations are those where the technology creates measurable value at several points along that chain.