Sun Bear Biofuture completes £25,000 pilot plant to validate low-cost scale-up strategy

Sun Bear Biofuture has completed its first successful production run at a new custom-built pilot plant in Oxford, claiming the facility was built for less than 10% of the typical setup cost for a precision fermentation pilot plant.

• Sun Bear Biofuture has completed its first production run at a £25,000 pilot plant in Oxford.
• The company said the facility could produce dozens of kilos of fermentation-derived fats and oils each month.
• The startup planned sensory testing in July and a demo plant installation in 2027.

The UK-based biotech startup, founded in 2022, develops yeast-derived alternatives to tropical fats and oils for use in cosmetics, food, and industrial applications. The new automated, end-to-end pilot facility cost £25,000 (US$33,700) and has capacity to produce dozens of kilos of ingredients per month.

Sun Bear Biofuture said the plant would support sample demand from food and cosmetics companies seeking more resilient and stable supply chains for lipid ingredients. The company described scale-up costs as a major concern for the UK and wider bioeconomy, noting that a conventional precision fermentation pilot plant typically costs £350,000-£1 million (US$471,700-US$1.35 million).

The company said its approach used readily available, lower-cost brewery and dairy equipment, creating a route to compete on price with commodity products such as cocoa butter. It added that the system validated a lower-capex scale-up pathway for fermentation-derived oils.

“Finally moving from lab scale to our brand new pilot plant in Oxford is a huge milestone,” said Ben Wilding, CEO of Sun Bear Biofuture. “This allows us to work on very exciting projects with some major brands. We are working with a globally renowned cosmetics brand to launch with our planet friendly products next year, which will be the real pinnacle of our efforts over the past 4 years.”

Sun Bear Biofuture was founded by Ben Wilding and Ben Williams after the pair met through Carbon13, the Cambridge-based venture builder focused on climate technology. The company was established with a mission to reduce the environmental impact of fats and oils, particularly those linked to tropical supply chains.

According to the startup, its ingredients could cut land use by up to 95% and reduce production-related carbon emissions by 90% compared with similar tropical ingredients such as palm oil and cocoa butter.

The company’s announcement has come amid increased attention on supply chain volatility in tropical oils. Sun Bear Biofuture reported that cocoa butter prices increased sixfold in 2025, creating pressure on manufacturers to identify alternatives that can offer greater supply resilience.

The startup has also focused on downstream processing, particularly oil extraction. It said innovation in this area has reduced both production and scale-up costs by removing several pieces of standard industry equipment from the process.

The company added that its extraction method did not require solvents such as hexane, which are commonly used in the existing fats and oils industry. Sun Bear Biofuture referenced a 2025 Greenpeace study that reported solvent residues in two-thirds of selected supermarket products tested.

Samples from the Oxford pilot plant will now be used to advance product development partnerships. In July, the company planned to carry out sensory testing with the Centre for Nutrition and Health at Oxford Brookes University to assess consumer responses to its ingredients.

Sun Bear Biofuture was also recently awarded Innovate UK funding to develop new product formulations with a major high-street cosmetics brand, alongside the University of the Arts London. Reformulation trials carried out to date have shown no performance difference between cocoa butter and the company’s yeast-derived alternative, according to Sun Bear Biofuture, supporting its use as a drop-in substitute.

Following the pilot plant validation, the company planned to install a demonstration plant in 2027 with capacity for hundreds of tonnes of annual production. Sun Bear Biofuture said its longer-term goal was to reach industrial scale by 2029, before pursuing global franchising of its process.