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."
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