LESAFFRE

Expertise

Working together to better nourish and protect the planet

A key global player in fermentation for more than a century, Lesaffre, with a 3 billion euros turnover, and established on all continents, counts 11,000 employees and 100 nationalities. On the strength of this experience and diversity, we work with customers, partners and researchers to find ever more relevant answers to the needs of food, health, naturalness and respect for our environment. Thus, every day, we explore and reveal the infinite potential of microorganisms.

To nourish 9 billion people, in a healthy way, in 2050 by making the most of our planet’s resources is a major and unprecedented issue. We believe that fermentation is one of the most promising answers to this challenge.

Within NEXT-STEP, we operate proprietary automated technology for Adaptive Laboratory Evolution (ALE) that aims at harnessing natural selection to improve microorganisms. Microbial suspension are continuously cultivation under conditions controlled by algorithms during extended periods of time of multiple months without interruption. The microbial strain being evolved adapts to changing conditions through the fixation in its genome of beneficial mutations that naturally occur during this period.