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Michael Locascio initially conceived his company, Arbela Labs, as a "sustainability play." Well-aware of the health and resource crises facing our current global food system, Locascio and his team "were looking at ways of making protein without food and water and fertilizer," he recounts– all deleterious aspects of producing protein at present demands. "ere's a lot of pesticides, fertilizers[...]there's huge water issues, big issues with biodiversity, a lot of deforestation," explains Mike. In response to these concerns, Arbela Labs set out to find ways of making protein without the need for the aforementioned inputs–and stumbled upon Pichia yeast. After "many years of research and development looking at how to quickly grow this yeast, and how to grow it at low cost," Mike shares, "we came up with our core technology using Pichia, coupled with some very interesting bioprocessing technology." us, Avaia was born. Avaia, using a first-of-its-kind formula called Pichia Protein+™, is more than an exceptional protein powder. "As we were progressing, we found that it was very rich in protein, had all the amino acids, but we looked a bit further and found that it was also quite rich in fiber and something called beta-glucan," Mike explains. "ey're really, in addition to the protein, very healthy for your gut, really good for your microbiota[...]it reduces systemic inflammation, reduces blood pressure, blood glucose level, cholesterol, good for losing weight, good for your skin–it's really just good for a lot of things." VUENJ.COM 95

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