Food technology company Novella, is turning a new page in climate-resilient environments by cultivating vegetation. The company is using patented technology to grow nutritious plant ingredients, leaving the whole plant out of the equation. This new platform in the world of plants will help increase global access to nutrient-dense ingredients.

By meeting the growing demand for botanical micronutrients, the new technology overcomes supply chain disruptions, circumvents climate change and extends plant life cycles.

“We don’t need the whole plant to access specific bioactive compounds. We also don’t need to throw away up to 99% of the plant and generate tons of agricultural waste just to extract specific nutrients. We have a technology where we can narrow down the harvest of an entire field because of its plant nature into a single bioreactor.”

Explains Kobi Avidan, CEO and co-founder of Novella.

The traditional field-to-bottle protocol for nutraceutical production involves a long, complex and often tedious process of prolonged cultivation and labor-intensive harvesting of sensitive plant products, as well as the use of vast tracts of agricultural land.

The supply chain for botanical extracts is constantly subject to natural plant growth cycles, changing environmental conditions, climatic fluctuations and social and economic constraints.

Instead of growing the entire plant, Novella screens specific plant tissues – including stems, fruits, leaves and flowers – to determine the highest concentrations of desired active substances. A cell culture (callus) is formed from these tissues and amplified in bioreactors. This results in a pure, pesticide-free powder product composed of plant tissues with the natural nutrient complex intact.

Novella can grow any type of plant tissue, but is currently focused on growing several high-quality plant products, including some widely consumed vegetables that feature potent concentrations of nutrients such as vitamin C that cannot be extracted by existing methods.