Protein. A small word with a huge impact on the ecosystems of the Earth. Proteins are essential building blocks of all living organisms, which explains why humans use an enormous amount of resources to grow them, for example through the production of meat, beans and seeds. But protein can also be extracted from methane gas found in animal slurry. Sounds complicated? Henrik Busch-Larsen, CEO of Unibio, explains:

"Essentially, the method utilizes the so-called methanotrophic bacteria that can be found in soil and freshwater lakes, among other places. When these bacteria ‘eat’ carbon from methane, they grow rich in protein. These proteins can then be harvested by removing the water and drying the product. What is left is a brownish granule that resembles cocoa powder that can be led directly back into the food chain as animal feed."

The foundation for this advanced technology can be traced back to 1980, when a professor at the Max Planck Institute in Germany decided to explore why there in certain places arose gas bubbles from the bottom of a lake. This became the starting point of an enduring development process led by Henrik Busch Larsen’s father, who collaborated closely with a group of Danish biotech researchers at the Technical University of Denmark. In 2001, Unibio was founded to finalize the technology by using a so-called vertical loop fermentor, and Henrik Busch-Larsen assumed the role of CEO in 2012:

"Unibio’s most important task was to make the process both manageable and profitable on an industrial scale. This has required many years of research and substantial investments. We are now ready to reap the rewards. Apart from an American competitor who has bought the rights for an earlier version of the technology from a Norwegian company, we are the only company in the world that is capable of extracting these proteins on a large scale."

According to Henrik Busch-Larsen, between 6 and 30 percent of animal feed protein can be replaced by industrially produced protein. In the future, this would enable a circular model where protein extracted from methane gas from animal slurry is added directly back into the feed. This is a crucial advantage, especially in places without central gas collection infrastructure:

"Building infrastructure to collect and distribute biogas to consumers is extremely expensive and cumbersome. Our method is far more decentralized and based on local plants. We are in fact able to both produce the proteins and direct them back into the animal feed at the individual estates. This opens the door to brand new opportunities in developing countries, where infrastructure is fragile."