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By: Shoshanna Solomon - October 13, 2020
Israeli startup Phytolon has developed natural food coloring that combines plant genes with a fermentation process of the common yeast used to bake bread.
“We produce natural food colors from plants, but without using plants and agriculture,” said Halim Jubran, co-founder and CEO of the Yokneam, Israel-based startup. “Our technology allows yeast, which has no color, to produce colors like that of the beetroot, cactus, bougainvillea.”
Phytolon licensed the technology developed in the lab of Prof. Asaph Aharoni and Guy Polturak of Weizmann Institute of Science. In the process, the gene that determines the color of a certain plant is extracted and put into yeast which is then fermented. “We generate a strain of baker yeast that has the gene and is able to produce color,” Jubran said in a phone interview.
Read More: Times of Israel