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Israeli molecular farming company PoLoPo has announced its new SuperAA platform, which can produce proteins in common plant crops.

The platform is currently deployed in potatoes at greenhouse scale and can generate both a native protein (patatin) as well as egg protein (ovalbumin) through proprietary metabolic engineering techniques.

The cutting-edge SuperAA platform turns the potato plant into a micro-'biofactory' that manufactures the target amino acids in the plant and stores them in the tuber. PoLoPo harvests the tubers when they reach sufficient size, extracting the proteins before drying them into powder. The resulting powders are said to ‘seamlessly’ integrate into current food processing lines and formulations.

PoLoPo started with potatoes due to their resilience in diverse climates, low growth costs, short maturation time, relatively large storage capacity in the form of tubers, high yield per land use and compatibility with existing harvesting and processing technology.

PoLoPo’s CEO, Maya Sapir-Mir, said: “The SuperAA platform uses plants as living factories and leverages their natural productivity and storage organs to grow proteins that are identical to protein derived from a chicken’s egg. The high-scale production of proteins in plants via molecular farming has the potential to economically transform not only potato farming and processing, but broader agriculture and ag-tech, for a more resilient and sustainable food system.”

Currently being used to develop patatin and ovalbumin, PoLaPo’s ovalbumin can be used in packaged foods for its functional properties, including texture and stability, as well as for enhancing nutritional value and increasing shelf life. Patatin powder can be used as an allergen-free protein for a variety of products such as plant-based meat and dairy, baked goods, cereals, snacks, beverages, sports nutrition and nutraceuticals.

PoLoPo says its proteins will soon be available to the food industry for testing.