Food color seems like a minor ingredient. But the global food industry adds tens of millions of kilograms of synthetic dyes annually, most derived from petroleum. These dyes are facing mounting regulatory action — California banned several, the FDA revoked approval of Red No. 3 and major retailers like Walmart have committed to phasing them out entirely. The natural alternatives available today — beet extract, carmine and turmeric — can't survive real food processing. They fade under heat, shift color at different pH levels and require significant water and arable land to produce at scale.
Michroma produces natural food colorants through precision fermentation of filamentous fungi. Our lead product, Red+, is stable across the full food pH spectrum (3-9) and withstands pasteurization, baking and extrusion — a combination no natural colorant had achieved before. Fungi grow in bioreactors, not fields, which means 90% less water than plant-based alternatives, minimal land use, no seasonal dependency and no pesticides. We upcycle agricultural side-streams as feedstock, turning waste into value while lowering our production costs.
The social value goes beyond one ingredient. As climate variability increasingly disrupts crop-based supply chains, fermentation-based production offers food manufacturers a stable, geography-independent source of color. This matters especially in regions where food processing growth is constrained by access to reliable, affordable ingredients. Our platform generates red, orange and yellow colorants from the same biological system, collectively covering over 90% of the artificial colors currently used in food worldwide. We've validated production at industrial scale, run paid pilots with food manufacturers across multiple categories and are actively progressing toward FDA regulatory clearance for commercial use.