At Lyckeby, we see all of this as an exciting opportunity to make a difference. We know that by building close relationships with you – our customers and partners – and becoming a part of your development process, we can help you customize your products for the future.
Our future
Hans writes about our future
The world we live in is constantly changing. We face many enormous challenges, not least those related to the climate and our use of fossil resources. At the same time the need for food and packaging materials is increasing, and demands for quality and functionality are becoming ever greater – yet we must simultaneously reduce our environmental and climate impact.
Lyckeby’s strategy is very clear. We will continue to grow by expanding our portfolio of modern, qualified and value-added products. We will create new products that offer even better function. We will adapt our processes and implement new techniques that allow us to deliver products sustainable over the long term. During the manufacturing process, our new products will consume less energy and chemicals, and as raw materials they will help you create climate-smart, healthy and safe foods.
Our vision for our long-term development is the creation of ‘the green starch factory’, and we have a number of ongoing research and development projects leading towards this.
Lyckeby Careful
Currently, our products are chemically modified – a process requiring large quantities of energy and chemicals. These starch products are declared with E numbers in the list of ingredients in the final food product. But in response to customer demand, we’ve developed an alternative product portfolio, named Lyckeby Careful. These starch products have been modified using a new production technique patented by Lyckeby. One that has a smaller climate impact, because we’ve succeeded in reducing both the energy and chemicals used during the manufacturing process. This means the products are clean-label friendly and can be declared without E numbers. As one of the key foundations for our future development, we are constantly improving Lyckeby Careful.
Modern plant breeding
Here at Lyckeby, we’re firm believers in the importance of ecodesign and modern plant breeding. That’s why we’re collaborating with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Alnarp, and the recently founded company SolEdit, to develop tools to give new characteristics to the potato varieties used in starches. The project involves using the Nobel-prize winning CRISPR Cas9 mutation technique, which is more widely known as ‘genetic scissors’.
We’ll soon be launching a new variety of potato that produces starch which is naturally stable during storage. This essentially means the starch processing we currently do in the factory will take place naturally in the potato while it’s still in the soil! When we combine this starch with our patented Careful technology, it opens up new applications so even more food products can be made using starch with a reduced climate impact.
We also see future opportunities to use CRISPR Cas9 to create potato varieties with better disease resistance. This would lead to less use of plant protection products in potato cultivation.
Enzyme technology
As part of our future strategy, we have also chosen to invest in biological modification techniques, and have seen considerable success in the area of enzyme technology. Enzymes are Nature’s civil engineers: an environmentally friendly way to change the properties of biological molecules. Our discoveries have resulted in exciting starch functionalization offering interesting new opportunities. Using this technology, we can create products with new functionality and better climate performance. The first products will be rolled out in about 12 months.
In a world faced by bigger than ever challenges, the demands on us as an industry are also stricter than ever before. We must take these seriously and adapt what we do to match the challenges of sustainability – both now and in the future!
