Pectin 360 partners with Scimita Ventures to onshore Pectin and Dietary Fibre Production
For decades Australian producers of jams and preserves, yoghurts, nutraceuticals and confectionary have been unable to claim that their ingredients are 100% Australian sourced. One critical ingredient is hardly a household name, but it has needed to be sourced from overseas to make these products viable: Pectin, a vegan setting (or gelling) agent derived from fruits.
With the support of Scimita Ventures as their innovation partner, Pectin 360 is seeking to manufacture pectin and dietary fibre in Australia.
Australia produces large volumes of waste from domestic fresh fruit, such as citrus skins and apple pomace. Both pectin and dietary fibres can be extracted from this waste stream via upcycling to produce higher value specialty food ingredients. The waste streams currently are either sent to landfill or used as low value animal feed.
Pectin 360’s goal is to develop an innovative, reduced energy manufacturing process to extract the pectin and dietary fibre, thus reducing food waste while producing these high-quality additives.
Pectin 360 approached Scimita Ventures in the latter half of 2021 to support developing a pectin production process and adopting a best technology-driven approach to market. Scimita was able to support Pectin 360 in preparing to launch by:
Performing a technology landscape analysis: Scimita ranked all current and emerging technologies based on their efficiency, environmental sustainability, operational flexibility, and economic viability.
Selecting the most promising technologies: Scimita completed an experimental proof-of-concept study manufacturing all commonly used pectin types for which Scimita designed and built experimental apparatuses for comparative evaluation.
Improved the process: Scimita simultaneously developed and optimised a process for pectin production. One of the key services that Scimita provided was to take its Technology Readiness Level / Commercial Readiness Level (TRL / CRL) framework and complete technical & commercial modelling for Pectin 360, establishing unit economy costs and profitability scenarios. This enabled Pectin 360 to have strategic discussions with potential industry partners and investors and discover new commercial opportunities.
Pectin 360 and Scimita have also been able to identify further innovation opportunities, which will translate directly a significantly improved unit economy for Pectin 360’s production, as well as greater differentiation and a superior IP position in the market.
Given the strength of the partnership to date, Scimita and Pectin 360 are committed to further work on an ongoing basis. “Scimita are a great team that has added material value to our organisation and substantially supported our technology development and commercialisation,” said Pectin 360 Founder and CEO, Martin Kaderavek.
Following the engagement with Scimita Ventures, Pectin 360 has a strong and differentiated foundation to build on. It has been able to create and demonstrate sample products and is now in the process of designing a pilot plant intended to reduce subsequent scale-up risk to commercial production facility as well provide pectin and fibre samples for customer trials.
By partnering with Scimita Ventures, Pectin 360 has been able to not only work towards and commercialisation, but find its competitive moat and point of difference early in the process, giving the company every chance to scale rapidly following launch.
“By using our TRL / CRL methodology to cut through the cross currents and complexity of this project, to discover the signal in the noise, we were rapidly able to distil both the technical and commercial keys that will drive Pectin360’s viability and help Australia restore a critical manufacturing process. We can be a world leader in this space,” said Mobin Nomvar, Scimita co-founder.
In February 2024 Scimita Venture completed a detailed techno-economic assessment for a pectin and dietary fibre plant in Australia. The results highlighted attractive economic returns and the production of pectin at a cost-competitive price to imported pectin. Scimita Ventures has also become a shareholder in Pectin 360.