Biology

About Carbiolice

CARBIOS Active: the French enzyme that lets PLA plastic compost at home

Plant-based PLA plastic is often sold as compostable, yet in a garden heap it barely breaks down. Carbiolice, a subsidiary of the French enzyme company CARBIOS, hides a protected enzyme inside the plastic that stays dormant while the pack is in use and wakes up only in compost. With the EU's new packaging regulation in force since August 2026, the question is whether brands will choose compostable formats for the packs that cannot be recycled.

About MMC Holding International

Magical Mushroom Company: growing packaging to make polystyrene a thing of the past

Open a box holding a speaker, a lamp or a bottle of gin and you will probably find white polystyrene foam. A British company grows a replacement instead: fungal threads knit hemp waste into a moulded insert that protects the product and can then be crumbled into a garden compost heap. Six years after first production, it says it has reached price parity with polystyrene and expects to make about 10 million units in 2026.

Protix: the Dutch insect protein pioneer rethinking where to grow

In a factory in Bergen op Zoom, billions of black soldier fly larvae eat food-industry by-products and become protein and fat for pets, fish and farm animals. Protix proved insect protein can be made at industrial scale in Europe. In 2026 it decided its next factories belong in Asia, faced the world's first protest against insect farming, and defended its green claims before the Dutch advertising watchdog.

Solar Foods Solein: Finnish protein grown from air and electricity

A Finnish company feeds one naturally occurring bacterium with carbon dioxide and hydrogen and harvests a yellow, protein-rich powder. Solein is already on sale in the United States inside a sports protein powder, and Factory 02, forty times bigger than today's plant, is in final design. What it still lacks is approval in its home market: the EU novel food decision has now been pending for five years.

String Bio PRO-DG: the Indian protein for animal feed that is made from methane

Methane leaks from landfills, farms and gas pipes and warms the planet far faster than CO2. A Bengaluru biotech firm feeds it to bacteria and harvests a protein ingredient for shrimp, fish, poultry, pig and pet diets. PRO-DG cleared a US safety milestone in 2024, and in September 2026 the Gates Foundation backed the same platform's crop products for smallholders in Asia and Africa.