Pow.Bio, the pioneer in AI-enabled continuous fermentation technology, and Bühler Group, the global solution provider for food, feed, and advanced materials, are teaming up to bring an integrated continuous precision fermentation platform to market.

The collaboration advances industrial biomanufacturing by accelerating process development, reducing unit production costs thanks to a continuous process, and improving operation performance. Bühler and Pow.Bio are now ready to begin onboarding customers.

Unlike traditional fermentation approaches that rely on batch or fed-batch processes – stop-and-start methods that require the tank to be emptied and cleaned between runs – the companies now offer an ultra-efficient and streamlined solution. The offering brings together Pow.Bio’s proprietary continuous fermentation technology with Bühler’s 165 years of engineering, delivery, installation, and commissioning services – all supported by advanced model-driven control software. The result is a platform that allows customers to establish precision fermentation capacity faster, with predictable performance, lower unit costs, and a direct path to scale.

The platform is designed for companies commercializing fermentation-derived products that are currently produced in fed-batch systems but constrained by cost, scalability, or inconsistent output. From established ingredients such as enzymes and organic acids to categories like functional proteins, specialty lipids, and bioactive compounds, the Pow.Bio-Bühler solution offers a continuous, more efficient production pathway. By replacing traditional fed-batch processes with a continuous, model-driven system, customers can achieve significantly higher productivity, improved process consistency, and more cost-effective manufacturing through an established, low-risk pathway from lab to pilot and full industrial scale.

“Our collaboration with Bühler sets a new benchmark for biomanufacturing: not just faster, but smarter and more robust,” said Shannon Hall, CEO and co-founder of Pow.Bio. “Clients can now capitalize on proven technology and global deployment expertise to unlock commercial-scale production with lower risk and unprecedented efficiency. This partnership solidifies Pow.Bio’s position at the forefront of industrial biotechnology, enabling us to deliver enduring value for our clients and the sector as a whole.”

The partnership fully aligns with Bühler’s innovation culture and its focus on applied scalable technologies. “Precision fermentation has the potential to impact the food, feed, and specialty ingredients industries. Companies are already using it to produce dairy, meat, and egg substitutes, alternative oils and fats, and even novel pet food – and we are only at the beginning of what this technology can unlock,” said Thierry Duvanel, Bühler’s North American Director of Innovation. “By joining forces with Pow.Bio, we take a clear step toward reducing unit production costs in biomanufacturing, combining complementary expertise to accelerate innovation and deliver a fully integrated system backed by experience, service, and reliability.”

Accelerating commercialization 

Following Pow.Bio’s successful 3,000 L scale-up with ATV Technologies, achieved with Bühler’s support, this partnership is now positioned to accelerate adoption across the industry. By giving companies a clearer route from development to commercial production, the joint solution addresses hurdles that have long slowed scale-up in the sector. “With the technology validated and the full system in place, we are prepared to onboard customers and support them through deployment and scale-up,” said Adham Rizk, Sales and Commercial Manager at Bühler Group.

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Innovation succeeds when the right people connect around the right opportunities, supported by technology that brings clarity, focus, and speed. From communities and global connections to structure, speed and intelligence, here’s how two Valley partners featured in the SFNV Navigator are helping startups and corporations to innovate faster and smarter.

Matthew Lashmar | Managing Director, MassChallenge Switzerland

Since 2016, MassChallenge Switzerland has supported more than 1,175 startups, helping them collectively raise over CHF 2.9B across food, climate tech, health, and sustainable industries. Their programmes are equity-free, and the next application call for the early-stage accelerator will open in mid-January. Experts who want to join the MC Experts community can register here.

Q: MassChallenge is known for connecting startups with the right partners. How do you describe your role in the innovation ecosystem?

At MassChallenge, our strength lies in our global network — founders, experts, and corporate partners who are deeply committed to turning bold ideas into real-world solutions. We support startups at the moment when human connection matters most: finding the right partners, gaining clarity on expectations, and understanding the market. Innovation scales when relationships are strong.

Q: What makes MassChallenge particularly effective for startups entering or growing within Switzerland?

Switzerland is an incredible place to innovate, but difficult to navigate if you’re new. We focus on the people needed to innovate effectively: connectors, collaborators, and relationship builders. Startups benefit from our experience supporting hundreds of founders and partners. We help them gain direction, confidence, and traction.

Q: If you could give one piece of advice to startups setting out in food, what would it be?

Being a food startup is hard. Look for people who’ve walked your journey. This could be one of the many corporate partners who support MassChallenge – or one of the many expert mentors that give advice to startups in our programme. When you find someone who can help, be clear about what you want and what value you bring to the other entity, but stay open minded to learn and adapt your plan. Startup and partner collaborations only work if there is strategic alignment, so startups must put in the effort to make sure they fit and can be part of the corporate’s agenda.

However, when the conversation starts, MassChallenges experts and partners will likely have strong feedback about how to scale and operationalise the startups’ idea. At this point, the startup should listen and adapt to advice. Experience can save them significant time and money, and get their solution to market faster delivering impact and adding value to society.

Find out more about Masschallenge Switzerland

Olga Guerous-Roquebert | CEO, Innopearl

Innopearl is a next-gen platform that streamlines how corporations prioritise innovation needs, scout startups, and make decisions.

Q: For readers new to Innopearl, what challenges does your platform solve for corporates and innovation partners?

Working with large companies can be incredibly valuable for startups, but progressing from an introduction to a pilot, and then to a commercial contract, is often slow and unclear. That’s because the challenge isn’t just about the innovation. It’s structural.

Within a corporate, no single R&D or Innovation leader can champion an opportunity all the way through. It requires a joint, cross-functional effort. But each function, Marketing, R&D, Operations, Procurement, has its own priorities. When information is scattered and discussions happen in silos, aligning everyone around a clear use case can take months.

Innopearl solves this by creating a digital structure where there was none. Our AI-powered platform guides teams end-to-end. It turns fragmented inputs, such as strategic priorities, market shifts, technical requirements, into clear, actionable innovation briefs. From there, it enables teams to evaluate opportunities consistently, collaborate in one workspace, and make better decisions much faster. For startups, this means clearer expectations, fewer delays, and faster traction with potential corporate partners.

Q: How does Innopearl complement organisations that emphasize the human side of innovation?

These organisations bring strong knowledge and connections, which allow them to select high-quality startups; and let’s say around 10% of those go on to sign real partnerships. It is a great conversion rate. But the question is, why not more?

Too often, this is not because other startups are not good enough or mature enough. It’s because large organisations lack a systemic, powerful way to include partnerships into a holistic solution design. Combining the human side of innovation and technology helps bridge this gap by providing clarity on why innovation is needed, what solutions exist, and how to align internally to make partnerships work.

• Clarity on the WHY: Innopearl’s AI-powered opportunity engine analyzes internal priorities and market context, producing ready-to-use, strategically aligned challenge briefs for R&D in minutes instead of weeks.
• Clarity on WHAT is possible: Startup networks will identify the innovators that fit the organisation’s needs, drawing on their global community and experience. When uploaded to the Innopearl platform, AI-ranking will compare innovators to find the best solution.
• Alignment on the HOW: Innopearl’s Alignment Accelerator strengthens cross-functional collaboration and decision-making through structured assessments, insight-driven use cases, and clear next steps.

As society evolves and requires faster, bolder responses, companies that want to stay relevant need both: human insight and technology. Together, they accelerate innovation far more effectively than either could alone.

Q: What has surprised you most about how innovation teams use the platform?

What’s surprised us most is how quickly teams move from “discovery mode” to real operational decision-making once they have structured visibility. Many teams come in expecting inspiration; instead, they end up using Innopearl to validate assumptions, map internal and external needs, and make faster go/no-go calls.

Another pleasant surprise is the cross-functional engagement: R&D, procurement, sustainability, and strategy functions often end up collaborating on the platform far more than they anticipated. It shows that when information is transparent and contextualized, silos disappear naturally.

Find out more about Innopearl

Two distinct approaches, one shared mission

Although MassChallenge and Innopearl operate in different ways — one through human networks, the other through structured intelligence — both serve the same purpose: to help startups and corporates collaborate more effectively.

Their support allows startups to benefit from clearer corporate challenges, faster connections with the right partners and experts who understand their journey and technology that brings transparency and structure. At the same time, corporates benefit from well-defined innovation briefs, access to qualified, relevant startups, improved internal alignment and measurable impact on innovation projects. 

It’s a reminder that innovation moves fastest when people and technology pull in the same direction — and the SFNV Navigator is here to help you find the partners who make that possible.

The SFNV Navigator is your guide to scaling in the Swiss food ecosystem.

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By Jerome Barra

VP, Taste Global Marketing and Business Development, Health Nutrition and Care Unit, dsm-firmenich
Member of the SFNV Executive Committee

Consumers today expect their food to do more than ever. It should help them thrive during every phase of their lives, delight their senses and help protect the planet. But balancing health, taste, and sustainability isn’t just hard. It’s one of the food industry’s defining challenges of our time.

This transformation isn’t about choosing one priority over another. It’s about uniting what is essential, desirable, and sustainable — and doing so at speed. Since the creation of dsm-firmenich almost three years ago, we’ve seen firsthand how these forces are reshaping the food and beverage sector. The lessons learned reflect broader industry shifts, and point to a bigger truth: progress depends on relentless innovation.

Why global diets are transforming

Across the global food ecosystem, one trend in particular stands out. Conscious eating is no longer a niche movement; it is reshaping mainstream expectations. People are making deliberate choices that align with personal values, health goals, and environmental concerns. To meet these expectations, companies need two things: deep insight into what drives these choices and the technical muscle to turn those insights into breakthrough products.

Three priorities dominate this shift:

1. Essential health

Food is increasingly seen as a daily act of self-care. People are more aware than ever of how diet influences long-term health, and governments around the world are tightening regulations on sugar, salt, and saturated fat. Manufacturers are responding by reformulating products to reduce these ingredients while enriching them with fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

2. Desirable taste and texture

The shift towards more plant-based diets has opened new opportunities — and challenges — for food producers. Consumers expect these products to match traditional proteins in taste, texture, and nutrition, pushing companies to explore new ingredients and flavour technologies that make sustainable eating a pleasure, not a compromise.

3. Sustainability

Sustainability is becoming a core design principle across food, beverage, and nutrition portfolios. Producers are reducing reliance on finite resources by prioritising plant-based and fermentation-derived ingredients, which carry a lower environmental footprint than traditional animal sources. Plant-based omega-3 solutions, for example, help protect marine ecosystems by eliminating the need for fish oil while still delivering essential nutrients. Circularity is advancing through upcycled raw materials, and production processes are being optimised to cut energy use and minimise waste.

Fully addressing these priorities requires more than tweaks. It calls for strategic thinking, new tools, and the power of science and technology to accelerate progress.

Forces shaping the next phase of food innovation

Looking ahead, I see three interconnected forces that are set to define the next phase of food innovation:

• Everyday wellbeing: While consumers will keep looking for products that help them feel balanced, energetic, and fulfilled, people are also becoming more educated about how an extra nutritional push can help during certain stages in life – for example, during pregnancy, lactation, aging, and the first 1,000 days of life.
• Preventative health: Societies are shifting from treating illness to maintaining health, placing nutrition and wellbeing at the center of every food and beverage solution.
• Lifespan vitality: The boundaries between food, beauty, and biology are blurring as people seek not only to live longer but to live better.

These trends will also open new opportunities for collaboration between researchers and industry partners, across local and global innovation ecosystems.

How science can bring progress to life

Advances in food science and R&D — two pillars of Switzerland’s innovation ecosystem — are key to creating solutions that unite health, taste, and sustainability. These shifts are already reshaping innovation pipelines.

Here are four ways that I see these trends coming to life in 2026 and beyond.

1. New innovations for brain health, immunity and healthy ageing solutions

Dietary supplements and functional nutrition are expanding rapidly, as consumers seek convenient ways to support brain health, immunity, and healthy aging. Innovations such as plant-based omega-3s, advanced probiotics and new delivery formats like gummies and powders will help integrate wellness into daily routines.

2. Tailored solutions for early-life nutrition

In early-life nutrition, science is helping narrow the gap between formula and the biological gold standard of breast milk. Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) and tailored maternal nutrition solutions will increasingly support healthier beginnings for both infants and mothers.

3. Increased focus on recovery and independence

For senior adults, preventative healthcare is becoming essential. Nutritional solutions tailored to recovery and independence — combined with formats that improve taste and adherence — are helping improve quality of life.

4. Tackling hidden hunger in vulnerable populations

Globally, fortification initiatives will continue to address hidden hunger in vulnerable populations, ensuring access to essential vitamins and minerals through cross-industry and public-private partnerships.

Together, these opportunities also signal a broader shift: the future of food will not be defined by scientific breakthroughs alone, but by how effectively we collaborate to scale them.

Making good food the easy choice — together.

Feeding a growing population within planetary limits will demand unprecedented collaboration. To thrive, every player in the food ecosystem must ensure products are healthy, sustainable, and enjoyable. Because no matter how responsible a product is, if it doesn’t taste good, it won’t make it off the shelf.

As nutrition becomes a cornerstone of disease prevention, the challenge and opportunity is clear. We need to create convenient and affordable choices that don’t just add years to life, but life to years.

When taste, nutrition and sustainability come together, we can make good food the easy choice — for people, for the planet, and for generations to come.

Hungry for more food for thought?