Specialty ingredients · Fermentation platform
Many molecules. One living process.
We grow specialty ingredients from renewable side streams.
Extraction depletes.
Synthesis pollutes.
Fermentation does neither.
The starting point
Why fermentation, not extraction or synthesis?
Most specialty ingredients still come from one of two routes. Tropical wood extraction depends on harvest cycles, single-origin supply, and land-use change. Chemical synthesis often relies on petrochemical inputs and rarely qualifies as natural under EU food regulation.
Fermentation is a third route. It produces the same molecules under
- controlled conditions,
- with defined feedstock, and
- reproducible output
and a single platform yields ingredients across food, agriculture, and personal care.
The thread through all of it is robustness: stable strains, stable processes and short, resilient supply chains, built to carry from the lab bench to the factory.
Where it starts
We start with what others leave behind.
The bio-based economy mostly still rides on food-grade sugar and grain, commodities whose prices have swung two- to threefold in a few years and compete with the food supply. Our platform is built to draw increasingly on renewable side streams, the by-products and residues local industry would otherwise discard, keeping carbon in use instead of burned or thrown away.
Ingredients
What we make
Collaboration partners welcome
T³-Tensid
A new structural class of biosurfactant that performs at low dose, where rhamnolipid, sophorolipid, and SLS fall off.
Learn more
Samples now · Natural
Massoia Lactone
A fermentation-derived C10 lactone for food flavour, made in Europe with an audit-defensible supply chain.
Learn more
In development · Natural
δ-Decalactone
A fermentation-based C10 lactone for dairy, butter, and fruit profiles.
Register interestWhere they go
Across food, agriculture, and personal care
Food flavour
Dairy, plant-based dairy, bakery, butter and coconut notes
Personal care
Hair and skin cleansing, formulation aid
Agriculture
Adjuvants in crop-protection formulations
Home & industrial cleaning
Hard-surface and institutional cleaning
Water treatment
Industrial water applications
Who we are
A small team building European specialty fermentation.
Biophelion was founded in 2025 as a spin-out from the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology and RWTH Aachen University. Today we are a team of seven, supported by external advisors with senior industry experience.
Meet the team
For buyers
Looking for natural Massoia Lactone or δ-Decalactone?
Non-commercial samples are available now, with first commercial purchase orders from Q4 2026.
Contact usFor partners
Want to develop your product with T³-Tensid?
We work with industrial partners through joint development agreements.
Become a collaboration partner