Interview: Cemalettin Kanaş 

Converting natural gas and biogas into high-quality single-cell protein, U-Loop® reactor technology offers a powerful alternative to fishmeal and soy protein concentrate in the global feed industry. Through its massive scale-up initiative with SIIG in Saudi Arabia, Unibio is delivering both cost predictability and a true game-changer for sustainable nutrition.

Olivier Hartz
CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER
UNIBIO

The feed industry is navigating one of the most challenging periods in its history for raw material procurement, driven by climate-induced harvest risks, quota limitations, and aggressive price volatility across commodity markets. As structural pressures mount on traditional protein sources like soy and fishmeal, biotech-driven alternative protein solutions are successfully moving out of the lab and into the heart of industrial-scale facilities. Striking a global chord with its proprietary vertical loop bioreactor technology for single-cell protein production, Unibio is now poised to expand its production capacity through its strategic partnership with SIIG in Saudi Arabia, launching at 50,000 tons in the first phase and scaling to 300,000 tons. By overcoming the critical bottlenecks of gas fermentation to deliver Uniprotein®, a highly stable, uniform, and digestible product, the company is not only injecting reliability into the supply chain but also unlocking new possibilities for precision nutrition in feed formulations. 

Your recent announcement with SIIG marks a major step in scaling single-cell protein production. To begin with, could you briefly outline Unibio’s core technology and how Uniprotein® is positioned within the global feed protein landscape?

To date, our U-Loop® reactor is the most efficient in terms of productivity. It is our proprietary vertical loop bioreactor built around methanotrophs, naturally occurring microbes that consume methane, and designed to maximise the efficiency of that conversion. We replicate microbiological processes that occur in nature every day, but we have succeeded in transferring this natural conversion into a viable bio-industrial process at scale. Using methane from natural gas or biogas as the primary feedstock, we achieve yields with the bacterium Methylococcus capsulatus that enable profitable commercial production.

Uniprotein® is an up to 70% single-cell protein concentrate with proven capacity to replace other ingredients. Our main focus is the partial replacement of fishmeal. Uniprotein® is a non-GMO product we develop through a natural fermentation process without any genetic manipulation. Because our feedstock is methane rather than harvested crops, we offer greater stability and predictability in both cost and availability compared to ingredients exposed to weather, harvest cycles, and commodity volatility. We produce protein without using any arable land and with minimal water consumption, which means cropland currently dedicated to feed production can be redirected toward food for human consumption or biodiversity.

SOLVING THE GAS FERMENTATION BOTTLENECK: CONTINUOUS CIRCULATION & MODULAR SCALE-UP

How should the industry understand the process of converting methane into single-cell protein using your vertical loop bioreactor technology, and what are the key factors that determine efficiency and scalability?

The process is straightforward in principle. We feed methane, oxygen, ammonia and essential nutrients into our U-Loop® vertical loop bioreactor, where the bacterium consumes the methane and multiplies rapidly. The biomass is then harvested, processed and dried into Uniprotein®. What makes our system different from conventional fermentation is the vertical loop design itself. It creates continuous circulation at high velocity, which ensures exceptional gas-to-liquid mass transfer. That is the critical bottleneck in any gas fermentation process, and it is where most competing approaches lose efficiency. Our reactor solves this by keeping the microbes in constant contact with the gas substrate, which drives consistently high cell densities and productivity per cubic metre.

When it comes to scalability, our U-Loop® is inherently modular, so we scale by adding reactor units rather than redesigning the entire system for each new facility. Methane as a feedstock works in our favour here too, it is globally abundant through both natural gas infrastructure and biogas from agricultural and industrial waste streams, and because fermentation runs continuously regardless of seasons or geography, we can deliver consistent output year-round. For feed producers and formulators, that means a reliable supply and predictable pricing, which is something the conventional protein market struggles to offer.

MANAGING DOWNSTREAM COMPLEXITY FROM FERMENTATION TO PACKAGING

The planned capacity from 50,000 to over 300,000 tons is ambitious. What are the main technical and operational challenges in reaching this scale, and how are you addressing them?

With our experience in industrial-scale production, the fermentation process is well understood and straightforward to scale, so reaching higher capacity is fundamentally a matter of adding more fermenters. The real engineering work sits in the downstream line, everything that happens after fermentation: processing, drying, handling, and packaging. That is where the complexity concentrates when you move from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of tons. To address this, we work closely with some of the largest global suppliers of equipment and integrated process lines. All our partners have extensive experience operating their equipment at exactly this scale. We bring the fermentation expertise, our partners bring proven downstream capability, and together we engineer a facility that can deliver reliably at the volumes the market needs.

DECOUPLING FROM COMMODITY VOLATILITY: COST COMPETITIVENESS & COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGES

From a commercial perspective, how does Uniprotein® currently compare with fishmeal and soybean meal in terms of cost, both per tonne and on a protein basis?

The honest answer is that it depends on what you compare against. If the benchmark is commodity soybean meal, no emerging protein technology is going to compete on a pure cost-per-tonne basis today. That is a product built on decades of fully depreciated infrastructure and enormous global scale. But commodity soy is not what our customers are replacing in their formulations. The relevant comparison is soy protein concentrate, wheat gluten, blood derivative products, potato proteins, skimmed milk powder, and fishmeal of different quality grades. These are the ingredients that aquafeed and premium monogastric formulators actually reach for when they need high protein density and a strong amino acid profile. Against those benchmarks, Uniprotein® is already competitive in the right applications.

The economics also move in our favour over time, and that matters for anyone thinking beyond the next quarter. Fishmeal prices are volatile because wild-catch supply is structurally constrained and exposed to periodic disruptions. Soy protein concentrate carries a significant processing premium over commodity soy. Our cost trajectory runs in the opposite direction: as we scale, unit economics improve, and locating production where energy is abundant and affordable, as we are doing with our SIIG partnership, directly lowers our single largest input cost. On top of that, feed buyers increasingly evaluate ingredients through a wider lens of sustainability, including land use, water use, and supply chain reliability, and these are among our strongest differentiators.

THE STRATEGIC VALUE OF THE SAUDI ARABIA SELECTION: GAS PRICE STABILITY & GEOPOLITICAL EDGE

At what production scale do you expect your technology to become fully cost-competitive with conventional protein sources, and how does scale influence unit economics?

The facility we are building with SIIG is designed to operate at exactly the scale where unit economics shift decisively in our favour. The main cost drivers are energy, feedstock, and downstream processing, and all three come down significantly with volume. Location plays an equally important role, and this is precisely why we chose Saudi Arabia, where methane and energy are abundant and affordable, giving us a lower baseline cost structure before scale effects even kick in. That combination is what gets us to full cost competitiveness.

Given that methane is the primary feedstock, how sensitive is your production model to natural gas price volatility?

Methane is our single largest input cost, so we do not downplay its importance. But our exposure to price volatility is lower than you might expect. In Saudi Arabia, gas comes as a by-product of crude oil extraction, and its use is devoted to energy supply for the country’s needs. Saudi Arabia remains structurally decoupled from the LNG market, which links you to world market volatility. Prices are regulated and consistently at a slight discount over long-term price trends. At the moment, they are substantially below international market rates. That gives us a stable, predictable cost base, and it was a key factor in choosing this location. Our technology is also feedstock-flexible. We can run on pipeline natural gas, but equally on biogas or other methane-rich waste streams, and as biogas infrastructure develops globally, that optionality becomes increasingly valuable. It is also worth stepping back and comparing: fishmeal and soy prices can swing 30 to 40 percent in a single season because of weather, catch quotas, or trade disruptions, and our input costs simply do not behave that way.

PRECISION NUTRITION: ZERO ANTI-NUTRITIONAL FACTORS AND HIGH DIGESTIBILITY

From a formulation standpoint, how does Uniprotein® compare with fishmeal and soybean meal in terms of amino acid profile, digestibility, and consistency? Which application areas do you expect to see the strongest initial adoption?

The comparison depends on which ingredient you are looking at. We see Uniprotein® and soybean meal as fundamentally different categories. There is a 20 to 25 percentage point gap in protein content between the two, so in practice they fill different roles in formulations.

The more relevant comparison is with fishmeal. The amino acid profile is similar, at around 92% of total protein, and essential amino acid content is 9% higher than in fishmeal 65%. Digestibility figures sit in the high 85% and higher for most of the carnivorous fish species tested on this parameter. Where Uniprotein® has a clear advantage is consistency. Fishmeal composition varies with fish species, catch season, and processing conditions, while our product comes from a controlled fermentation process, so every batch is uniform and comes with almost no histamine, no TVN (Total Volatile Nitrogen), and no major anti-nutritional factors, contrary to vegetable protein sources.

For nutritionists building on precision nutrition, Uniprotein® gets them closer to an accurate formulation, which has real value. In terms of adoption, we expect the strongest initial pull from aquafeed and premium pet food applications.

Uniprotein® has received approvals in several markets, including the EU for feed use. Could you elaborate on current inclusion rates and any regulatory limitations that still need to be addressed?

Our recommended inclusion rates are always backed by science, both from in-house trials and from published research. As a rule of thumb, our recommendations fall between 5 and 15 percent inclusion of Uniprotein® for most species. The final decision always sits with the feed manufacturer and depends on the combination of ingredients, the target species, the economic targets and the specific needs of the client or farmer. On the regulatory side, we have EU approval for feed use which is the most rigorous framework in this space, as well as approvals in several other markets across different regions.

A DECADE OF FOCUS: NAVIGATING THE REALITIES OF LONG-TERM ECONOMIC VIABILITY

Many single-cell protein projects have faced challenges in scaling commercially. What differentiates Unibio’s approach in terms of industrial reliability and long-term economic viability?

Many single-cell protein projects started with the ambition to tackle the big-volume business, but this requires very large investment amounts and large feedstock bases at foreseeable and competitive prices. The reality check is always having to prove your case at an intermediary scale, which unfortunately does not offer the competitive base for exploring the big-volume business. Upon reaching this intermediate size, faced with funding limitations and the pressure to become profitable, many pivot toward the smaller-volume specialty business in animal nutrition or to the food space, only to discover, probably too late, that regulatory processes will add years before reaching the market.

What makes Unibio different is its constant commitment to the same animal nutrition segments for more than 10 years. We therefore understand the key drivers of success in each of them. Besides understanding our customers, we also understand our technology at scale, since we have had years of experience at 6 KTPA production size from which we have learned a great deal. Today, thanks to our accumulated experience and the alignment between our technology, commercial strategy, and external partners, we are executing on a 9x scale-up first, which is the low end of industry standards when scaling up.

Long-term economic viability also lies with our ability to establish long-term contracts at stable prices, thanks to the nature of our feedstock itself. We source methane from the natural gas industry, which offers long-term pricing stability, and that flows directly into our own pricing to customers. That means feed producers can plan ahead with confidence in a way that is simply not possible with ingredients tied to volatile commodity markets.