Collaboration with Better Dairy to transform production of nutritional protein
Our collaboration with precision fermentation company Better Dairy is set to accelerate the development of a valuable dietary protein—Osteopontin (OPN). OPN is a powerful bioactive protein found in breastmilk that can support infant growth and cognitive development, immune function, and gut health. This £249k Innovate UK-funded project aims to optimise and scale the production of OPN to demonstrate the protein’s commercial feasibility.
Why OPN matters
OPN is a critical protein found in human milk and plays a multifunctional role in early life development. As a result, it is recognised as a powerhouse ingredient in the infant formula industry, with several leading companies having already expressed interest in adding OPN to their formulations. Alongside this, it's gaining attention for its potential benefits in adult nutrition, with applications in sports and healthy-ageing supplements to support bone and tissue health.
However, despite its abundance in human milk, it is present at 15 times lower concentration in cows’ milk - meaning it would take 40,000 litres of cows’ milk to isolate just 1kg of OPN. This inefficiency has kept OPN from being used more widely in both food products and scientific research.
Finding a better way
Better Dairy aims to solve this supply challenge by harnessing the power of precision fermentation—relying on yeast hosts to produce OPN. While this technology has been used since the 1980/90s to produce human insulin and animal-free rennet, Better Dairy are leveraging their proprietary precision fermentation platform to express fully functional, human OPN in a bioreactor. And this is where we come in—using our precision fermentation and scale-up expertise, we have taken on the task of optimising and scaling up this production to 30 litres, optimising the cultivation medium and fermentation parameters over the course of the project.
Kate Royle, Director of R&D at Better Dairy, said:
This project presents an exciting opportunity for the health and nutrition sector. Our partnership with the BDC is essential to prove this can work at scale and get it ready for the market. We're not just creating a new ingredient; we're potentially revolutionising access to a protein that could benefit human health from infancy through to old age.
Rosie Nolan, Lead Technologist for the BDC, added:
We're excited about our partnership with Better Dairy on this innovative project. Our job is to help take this from lab to commercial production, rethinking how we approach complex protein production to make OPN more economically viable, unlocking its full potential for a huge range of food and medical applications."
About Better Diary
Founded in January 2020, Better Dairy is a London-based team of 20 scientific and commercial professionals on a mission to unlock the full potential of milk. Using a cutting-edge precision fermentation platform, they produce rare bioactive proteins and peptides, powerful components of human milk, to create ingredients uniquely designed to support human health and nutrition.
Let's work together
We have worked on 1,500 bio-based projects to date
We have several ways to work with us, including business advisory programmes and self-funded commercial options. We even have the option for you to hire our state-of-the-art laboratory equipment and office space.
