Genecis Bioindustries Inc.

Plastics are everywhere- they are cheap, durable, and versatile. Because of this they are widely used; however, they cause massive problems in terrestrial and marine environments. There is an existing solution known as polyhydroxyalkanoates, representing the best of the plastics industry: it has functionalities superior to commodity plastic, it has over 150+ applications, and it biodegrades in nature within a year. The problem is PHA production is simply too expensive. 

Our solution solves plastic pollution, by providing a biodegradable alternative with the required functionalities, and food waste issues by upcycling significant amounts of this waste product into a high-quality, shelf-stable product that sells for roughly $6500/tonne. Through our process, we can reduce the cost of production of PHAs by 40%.

If scaled globally, we would remove significant end of life attributes from the plastic and food waste industries, without needing consumers to change their consumption behaviour. 

Genecis creates bioplastics that increase equitable production of renewable recyclable raw materials for products and packaging. To do this effectively, we understand that large consumer brands need not choose between sustainability and price. In other words, the polymer industry we target is very sensitive to increases in price for polymers they purchase for specific applications. We create a polymer that has the same functionality, while significantly reducing the price.

Current PHA manufacturers use sugar feedstocks to create high-quality PHA polymers. We leverage organic waste destined for a landfill and mixed microbial cultures, reducing the overall cost of production. This equates to generating PHA for applications that require functionalities afforded by this polymer while maintaining a price point competitive to current suppliers of non-biodegradeable polymers.  

Our business model is to license technology to waste management globally. Effectively, this creates organic waste recycling centers around the world that produce a high-quality polymer that can replace many classical types of plastics that are detrimental to the environmental. In Ontario alone, our partners collect over 600K tonnes of organic waste annually that we can access. Imagine full-scale commercial facilities around the world doing the same, or larger, volumes of food waste diversion. 

If adopted globally as one of the primary means of food waste diversion, any population that uses plastics in everyday applications, or generates food waste, (>95% of humans globally), will be actively contributing to our solution and the world. Specifically, these populations will assist with reducing carbon emissions, particulate matter in the environment, decreasing outbound plastic waste that lingers in marine and terrestrial environments and stimulating the creation of many jobs in the waste industry classically held by a few keys players. 

Even through these achievements, one of the most significant and lasting parts of our solution is that consumers do not need to change their behaviors. 

Our solution is a two-stage fermentation process that takes in mixed organic food waste as an input and converts it to PHA as output. During the first stage of the process, we leverage the use of a specialized mixed microbial culture of bacteria that converts raw organic food waste into short-chain carbons. These short-chain carbons are then fed to another set of specialized bacteria that produce PHAs intracellularly. Upon maturity of these bacterial cells, an extraction process is conducted to remove PHAs from within cells and purify them into a final product that can be sold directly a plastics converter, who can use this raw material to make a variety of end-products used in everyday life. 

Our entire process is proprietary and utilizes a series of equipment that are assorted in a way to increase yield, efficiency, and minimize downstream extraction processes.

We serve populations that generate food waste. As per their usual disposal habits, they would throw out food waste into dedicated bins for compost or garbage. These waste materials are collected by waste haulers and sorted in their respective facilities. We engage waste haulers after the food is sorted, take the waste product and generate PHAs from it. In doing so through this method, consumers can have the comfort of knowing their food waste will be used to generate a high-value product while allowing them to maintain their typical consumer behaviors. For waste haulers, they are able to take advantage of lower fees for waste disposal they would originally accumulate if they were to get rid of the waste through the cheapest available current option: land-filling. 

PHA manufacturing is most commonly done through bacterial fermentation of sugar feedstocks. We use mixed organic food waste as a feedstock and create the same high-quality PHA polymers, at a fraction of the cost. 

The core technology Genecis leverages is fermentation technologies and biotechnology. Through fermentation technology, we create optimal conditions for bacteria to thrive and produce PHA polymers. Through biotechnology, we actively adapt our bacterial species to produce PHA polymers more efficiently and in the conditions created through fermentation.

In one of Genecis' pilot projects, we were able to:

• divert over 5,000 lbs of organic food waste;
• create 10,000 bioplastic spoon equivalents; and,
• divert over 2,000 kg of CO2 into the environment

This information was collected from one industrial building that produced food waste. When scaled successfully, Genecis' technology can divert significantly larger amounts of food waste, CO2, and produce bioplastic volumes that can affect communities, cities, and countries. 

Since food waste in every community, this solution applies to all those who live within them and can be scaled to address global food waste diversion and replacing plastic pollutants with a biodegradable alternative. 

• Current number of people served: 25K+
  We collect all food waste produced by several industrial buildings on a weekly basis. The sum of all these people in a year is ~25K.
• Number of people served per year: 100K+
  With our demo plant that we are currently commissioning, we will have processing capacity to address food waste diversion needs of several communites in Toronto (100K people)
• Number of people served in five years: 9.2M+
  When scaled successfully, Genecis aims to collect all municipal food waste in Toronto and Kuwait. Food waste processing is done by partnering with the largest waste managers in each respective region and charging the cheapest tipping fee for waste disposal.The sums of both population is roughly 9.2M people.

Goal within the next year include commissioning our demonstration plant and producing sufficient data, both technical and economic, to allow us to license our technology to partners in the waste and food service industries. 

Over the next five years, Genecis aims to develop a database of synthetic bacteria that convert low-value organic waste into a variety of high-value chemicals and materials. Currently, we are commercializing our first product-line, PHA biodegradable polymers, and will work on scaling other waste- value items we have in our pipeline, including cosmetics, fragrances, and chemicals. 

11 Full-time staff

7 part-time staff

>20 advisors (business and technical)

2 contractors who help with certain tasks

Our team is comprised of award winning scientists and engineers. Our scientists have a combined 30+ publications in various high-impact factor journals. Our engineering team is very versatile and we have expertise in bioresource engineering, chemical engineering, material science, and AI & robotics.

This team of scientists and engineers is complimented by a strong management team. Our CEO- Luna Yu, has founded two profitable startups, attained her masters and bachelors all before she was 22. Abdul, the COO, has experience in environmental consulting and over five years of experience in operations management, managing over 70 staff members and multi-million dollar deals. Our CFO- Brad Witt, has over 20 years of experience in financial planning and managerial accounting. Brad was also part of the founding team at NatureWorks, a company that commercialized PLA (another type of bioplastic), giving him unique experience on the plastics and financial side. 

We are currently partnered with a number of universities, research institutes, waste haulers, and a food service provider. We will highlight our partnership with the food service provider since they encourage us to advertise the opportunity we are cultivating together.

With Sodexo, one of the largest food service providers in the world, we are working with a number of Sodexo- managed cafeterias throughout the Greater Toronto Area. With each of these cafeterias, we collect their food waste and produce biodegradable plastic. The long-term goal of this partnership is to scale sufficiently to become a potential plastic supplier or to potentially license the technology outright, giving them the ability to produce some of their plastic needs from discarded food materials that are destined for landfills. 

We have two streams through which we generate revenue:

1. We can license bacteria strains to large chemical companies who have the infrastructure in place to take our bacteria and produce the high-value chemical targets they are looking to produce
2. We license our technical know-how, bacterial strains, and guarantee off-taking contracts with large waste management companies or food service providers. Through this, we can charge an upfront fee and collect yearly royalties by supporting these companies on the technical side, deliver the latest and most developed bacteria, and securing customers for the product.

For now, Genecis is venture-backed and is able to take advantage of a variety of grants provided through the Canadian government. 

To achieve financial sustainability, we would require the successful execution of two licensing deals within the next 18 months. We have already executed our first technology licensing deal for an upfront cost of $300K and 25% royalties over the next eight years. In our first deal, we will also work alongside our licensee to ensure they are provided the appropriate amount of technical support, a continuous stream of bacterial updates, and securing the downstream off-taking contracts. 

Through commissioning our demonstration plant, which will provide industrial proof of concept on a scale large enough to produce economic and technical data required by many waste managers in Canada, we will be able to integrate our technology with private and public waste management companies who are looking to reduce their reliance on landfills, valorize organic waste streams, and generate revenues in addition to tipping fees.

Since Genecis works primarily with low-value organic waste, the applications of our technology can have significant effects on waste produced through agricultural sectors, valorizing these wastes into valuable products that can be reintroduced into the agricultural value chain.

Furthermore, the long-term strategy for Genecis is to re-program bacteria to generate a variety of high-value products from low-value organic waste. By working closely with the appropriate stakeholders in the agricultural sector, we may be able to identify unique products and solutions that have a significant effect on multiple industries within the agricultural sector. A good example of this would be the production of isoprene or valine, both of which are extensively used in agricultural applications and can be created by leveraging existing metabolic pathways in bacteria. Having the networks in place, that we hope to acquire through the Solve Network, will help the overall development and long-term growth of Genecis.

We look to work with:

• large chemical companies (such as Dow, P&G, BASF, etc.);
• Food service providers (Aramark, Compass, etc.); and,
• Large waste management companies (GFL, Progressive Waste Solutions, Waste Connections Inc., etc)

N/A

Through this challenge we aim to fulfill:

• Increased and equitable production of renewable and recyclable raw materials for products and packaging.

The world will always need plastic and will produce food waste on a continuous basis. Our solution is looking to solve both of these issues without having to change consumer behaviours. 

Clean technologies, polymers, and hardware technologies like the one that our solution is built upon, require significant investment and commercialization dollars to back them to success. 

If selected as Solve winners, we will use the prize money to fund our next level of growth. Specifically, we want to experiment with different sources of low-value organic feedstocks including yard waste and lignocellulosic mass. Our current process already supports the conversion of these products into PHAs; however, we have not fine-tuned the process with specialized bacteria at this point and will be using prize money from this challenge to advance efforts towards this goal. 

N/A

N/A