Moolec Science presents 'Piggy Sooy'

The science-based food ingredient company focused on producing animal proteins in plants through molecular farming technology, Moolec Science, has announced a milestone achievement in its Meat Replacements Program for the Soybean platform, as its new 'Piggy Sooy' produced a significantly high amount of pork protein.

The animal protein reached a high expression level up to 26.6% of total soluble protein in soy seeds, four times higher than initially projected by the company. The result can be directly observed due to the pink color of Moolec's soybeans, the same color as the pig. Following the feat, the company decided to rename its soybean platform as 'Piggy Sooy'.

The breakthrough has led Moolec to file a new patent utilizing a novel approach aiming to provide the company with a frictionless regulatory pathway going forward.

"Piggy Sooy represents tangible and visual proof that Moolec's technology has the capacity to achieve significant yields in plants to produce meat proteins," said Moolec's CEO & Co-Founder Gastón Paladini. "With this groundbreaking achievement, Moolec consolidates its position as a category creator and a pioneer in Molecular Farming for the food industry. Our plant biology team is writing the history of science in food, I couldn't be prouder of them."

This scientific milestone consolidates the molecular farming path as one of the most valuable alternative technologies to produce animal proteins, given that plants can function as animal protein factories in a more efficient manner than initially expected. This enhanced efficiency of plants has the potential to improve the economics of the company's business model.

Moolec Science is producing several meat proteins in plants as functional ingredients to improve the taste, appearance, texture, and nutrition of meat alternatives. Due to its enhanced functionality and final application, the company also highlighted that these food ingredients could also be potentially commercialized within the ~US$600 billion traditional processing meat industry.

"This achievement opens up a precedent for the entire scientific community that is looking to achieve high levels of protein expression in seeds via Molecular Farming," added Amit Dhingra, Ph.D., Chief Science Officer of Moolec. "Moolec has developed a unique, successful, and patentable platform for the expression of highly valuable proteins in the seeds of economically important crops such as soybeans. This platform has the potential to be used across a wide variety of proteins of interest for a broad range of industries, such as the pharma, cosmetic, diagnostic reagents, and other food industries."