Dairy Dialog podcast 170: Kingdom Supercultures, Lactocore, SIAL America

We also have our weekly look at the global dairy markets with Charlie Hyland from StoneX.

Tradeshows launch inaugural Las Vegas Food & Beverage Industry Week

Tradeshow organizers Emerald and Questex will join forces for Las Vegas Food & Beverage Industry Week, an inaugural event featuring four food shows under one roof at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), March 21 to 24, 2022.

SIAL America, Bar & Restaurant Expo (formerly known as Nightclub & Bar Show), Pizza Expo, and World Tea Conference + Expo will occur concurrently, uniting decision makers from all sectors of the $1.5tn food and beverage industry as it continues to recover.

A collaboration between international trade show organizers, Emerald and Comexposium, SIAL America is the first-of-its-kind cross-category generalist food and beverage show supporting the food and beverage market. Attending will be importers, food service companies, distributors, retailers, wholesalers and restaurateurs looking to discover, innovate and learn. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) endorsed the inaugural edition of SIAL America due to SIAL’s long-standing reputation as a premier event host for the industry.

“We’re less than six weeks away from the first Las Vegas Food & Beverage Industry Week, March 21-24, presenting Bar & Restaurant Expo, World Tea Conference + Expo, Pizza Expo and SIAL America,”​ said Tim McLucas, vice president, Bar & Restaurant Group, Questex.

“We're excited to collaborate with Emerald and the LVCVA to bring key food and beverage buyers together in one central location to deliver a new, high value experience that combines key education, product activations and customer interaction.  Join us as we present a new customer engagement experience.”​

Since in-person meetings and conventions returned to the destination in June 2021, the LVCC has hosted 58 trade shows and events with more than 800,000 attendees.

Kingdom Supercultures

Kingdom Supercultures is a biotech company harnessing natural microbial cultures to transform the consumer packaged goods industry.

Kingdom designs and supplies a new class of natural ingredients, which it calls supercultures, which it said makes it easy for food, beverage, and personal care manufacturers to create healthy products that are more sustainable.

The supercultures are composed entirely of microbial strains found naturally in food, which Kingdom rearranges into new combinations with new functionalities. Manufacturers then use these Supercultures to create plant-based yogurts and cheeses that taste like dairy, lower-alcohol wines and beers with full flavor, and personal care products without artificial chemicals.

Kingdom said its vision is to replace artificial chemicals and GMOs with natural supercultures as the backbone of the modern CPG industry.

Last year, the company finalized a $25m Series A funding round led by Shine Capital. This follows a $3.5m seed round with participation from Sequoia, Y-Combinator, Lakehouse Ventures, and Brand Foundry Ventures in 2020. 

Kingdom said the investment will enable it to expand its portfolio of superculture ingredients that power products with unmatched flavors, textures, and functionalities in the plant-based and natural consumer goods categories.

"The last few years have seen tremendous growth in demand for consumer goods that are healthier and more sustainable.  This funding will allow us to meet the need for novel, natural ingredients by continuing to build out our world-class team and advancing our Superculture R&D,"​ said Kendall Dabaghi, CEO of Kingdom Supercultures.

"We are pioneering an entirely new field of science and class of ingredients by working with biology at the ecosystem and microbiome level. Our Superculture platform allows us to assemble natural microbial cultures into new combinations, delivering healthy and sustainable breakthrough ingredients to our customers -- all without genetic modification,”​ said Ravi Sheth, CSO of Kingdom Supercultures.

In addition to Shine Capital, this funding round was supported by Valor, Tao, Lux, SALT, Reference, Digitalis, and existing investors – along with recognized names in the future of food, including the founders of Daring Foods, Good Culture, Hungryroot, RXBAR, Waterloo and many others.

Milk ingredients have potential for psychiatric and diabetes treatments

Massachusetts-based biotechnology company Lactocore Group said it has identified novel milk-derived peptides that hold potential for developing safer and more effective treatments for a range of common psychiatric, metabolic and cognitive disorders.

Lead asset LCGA-17—with indications in PTSD, MDD, and anxiety—is currently at the pre-IND stage. In 2021, Lactocore Group applied for two patents related to peptide therapeutic agents that treat mental disorders and metabolic disorders as type 2 diabetes.

The privately-funded company has experience in peptide R&D with a proprietary computational peptide discovery engine with AI-enabled modules, utilizing rapid and cost-efficient proof of principle studies that cut the costs of drug discovery.

"This is an exciting time to be in the peptide space," said​ Lactocore CEO, Anton Malyshev, Ph.D.

"Peptides isolated from milk hydrolysates offer tremendous advantages over conventional pharmaceuticals for treating chronic diseases due to inherent safety, and Lactocore is poised to leverage its research to bring a new suite of safe and highly effective drugs to a burgeoning mental healthcare market."​

Lactocore's research has identified a previously unknown family of peptides with biological activity in anxiety and depression through the proprietary hydrolysis of whey and casein from bovine milk.

Through the use of mass spectrometry, bioinformatics analysis, and a proprietary 3D docking and scoring algorithms, Lactocore has been able to narrow the number of relevant peptides to those that best fit binding sites of pre-selected receptors thought to induce signaling cascades similar to "rapid" antidepressants. Based on these findings, a computational peptide discovery engine, Reptide, with AI-enabled modules for de novo peptide discovery is currently being developed to efficiently solve recurrent problems in structure optimization.

Lactocore is studying its peptides in vitro and in vivo, examining their efficacy, preliminary toxicity and safety, and mechanisms of action. Its leading patented candidate, LCGA-17, is targeted against anxiety and depression, with potential in also treating PTSD and neuropathic pain. LCGA-17 is a novel α2δ voltage-gated calcium channel (VGCC) subunit inhibitor with a differentiated efficacy profile and no safety liabilities when compared to current standards of care.

LCGA-17 intranasal formulations administered once-daily deliver rapid onset of action and prolonged effect. Based on Lactocore's preclinical research, the company said it would also carry few to no side effects (such as drowsiness), would be non-toxic, and would not be addictive.