Wood to Food, Cosmetics and More
Montinutra featured in Nordisk Papper & Massa 3/2022
In the sawmilling industry, a significant proportion of wood ends up typically to by-products such as bark, wood chips and sawdust, which cannot usually be recovered other than for energy by incineration. Developing an ingredient for the cosmetic and chemical industries, and health-beneficial sugar from spruce, Montinutra Ltd. is looking for a better use for the wood residuals.
GALACTOGLUCOMANNAN (GGM), a polysaccharide of three sugar units and other hemicellulose and lignin rich compounds, is extracted from Nordic spruce (Picea abies) sawdust in pressure at baking temperatures with water as the only chemical solvent. “For us the purity is a genuine joy, and customers are very happy about it, too”, says Jaakko Pajunen, Managing Director. Since the spring of 2021, Montinutra Ltd. has prepared a pilot plant in Turku on the former Valio dairy premises. Production is now up and running, with hundreds of kilos in the first phase for sampling and small commercial purposes.
The main product group, Sprucegum™ is Norway Spruce hemicellulose extract. Sprucegum™, which Montinutra Ltd. offers as a multifunctional ingredient (film-former, emulsifier and stabilizer) for the cosmetics application has been very well received by the industry. “There is a strong need in the cosmetics industry to find natural ingredients. In principle, everyone is interested in it”, says Pajunen. For Sprucegum™, the cosmetic regulation work has already been done for large extent.
Another, perhaps unexpected application for Sprucegum™ may also be food ingredient. Whereas wood cannot be itself considered part of the food industry, the hemicellulose extract can serve as an example of how the waste of one industrial cycle can be used as a feedstock for another industrial cycle and in effect reduce the overall waste material. The use of wood-based derivatives and waste aligns with the circular bioeconomy framework and contributes to the sustainability of the food chain.
New and alternative sources of food and food ingredients, however, require approval in the corresponding regulatory systems before commercialization. In Europe, safety assessment is carried out according to the novel food regulation. For Montinutra Ltd., entering food chain is a mid-term target. Evaluation of composition, stability, allergenicity, and toxicology of ingredients can be a lengthy and costly exercise which calls for partners from food and ingredient industries.
Background in university research
At the beginning of the Millennium, interest in hemicellulose extracts arose in universities and the forest products industry. 15 years ago, an industrial research program in collaboration with the universities presented a wide variety of possible applications for the subject. Since then, the properties of the extracts have been studied in several universities. The story of Montinutra Ltd. is a typical example of such inventions of university research that may wait a long while before someone starts commercializing them. The biggest challenges in commercialization are often not due to the technology required for large-scale production as such, but to legislation and the product-market validation.
So far, Montinutra Ltd. has received funding from several angel investors and Metsä Spring, an industrial anchor investor and corporate venture arm of Metsä Group. With the help of the financing round in the beginning of 2021 and the support of Business Finland, the construction of a pilot plant was able to start. Collaboration with Metsä Group provides secure access to abundant raw material from their sawmills. Pajunen hopes that Montinutra Ltd. will find another anchor investor in the industry – in the food, chemicals, or cosmetics sector. Rapidly growing demand for natural raw materials and biobased solutions in all industries drives Montinutra Ltd.’s ongoing product development. In the future, derivatization of pressurized hot water extracted fractions can open new opportunities in biopolymers and biochemicals.