Brewing Palm Oil in a Lab: Tom Collier on the Future of Sustainable Ingredients with Levur

Brewing Palm Oil in a Lab: Tom Collier on the Future of Sustainable Ingredients with Levur

Brewing Palm Oil in a Lab: Tom Collier on the Future of Sustainable Ingredients with Levur

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Episode Summary:

🌿 Brewing a Sustainable Future with Lab-Grown Palm Oil – Mick Liubinskas sits down with Tom Collier, CEO and co-founder of Levur, to uncover how precision fermentation is transforming the palm oil industry. Palm oil is found in 50% of supermarket products and 70% of cosmetics, yet its production is a major driver of deforestation, biodiversity loss, and carbon emissions. Levur is tackling this crisis by using synthetic biology to brew palm oil in a lab, eliminating the need for rainforest destruction. Tom shares his journey from molecular biology to entrepreneurship, the challenges of scaling biotech solutions, and why global regulations and corporate demand are accelerating the shift to sustainable alternatives. From waste-to-feedstock innovation to mass fermentation at industrial scale, this episode explores how lab-grown palm oil could reshape the future of food, cosmetics, and climate tech. 💡 Tune in to learn why regulation, consumer pressure, and cost-efficiency are aligning to drive massive change—and why sustainable solutions must not only be greener but cheaper and better to win the market!

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction: Live from Macquarie University’s Synthetic Biology Lab
00:24 – Meet Tom Collier and Levur’s mission to brew palm oil
01:07 – The devastating impact of palm oil production
02:05 – Why global demand for palm oil is set to quadruple by 2050
03:12 – How microbes and precision fermentation create sustainable palm oil
06:11 – Why palm oil is used in everything from chocolate to shampoo
08:43 – Scaling up: From lab samples to industrial fermentation
12:03 – Overcoming biotech manufacturing bottlenecks
16:01 – The challenge of making sustainable products cost-competitive
18:44 – How waste feedstocks can power a circular economy
19:38 – Why Europe’s palm oil regulations are a game-changer for Levur
22:08 – The $70M ton problem: Can lab-grown palm oil scale fast enough?
24:14 – 2025 goals: Delivering first samples and proving market fit
26:29 – The path to mass adoption and commercial success

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