April 6, 2021

By Lynda Kiernan, Global AgInvesting Media

Food tech is astounding. We’ve discussed eggs without chickens, protein from volcanoes, and milk without milking cows, just to name a few innovations that only a year or two ago would have sounded like science fiction. 

Today we’re going to speak of honey without bees.

California startup MeliBio has raised Pre-Seed funding to do just that. After coming out of the Big Idea Ventures accelerator program, the startup was successful in raising capital from nine investors: Big Idea Ventures, Joyance Partners, 18.ventures, Sparklabs Cultiv8, Sustainable Food Ventures, Capital V, angel investor Courtney Reum and two mission-driven family offices.

Founded in 2020 by Aaron Schaller Ph.D. and Darko Mandich, MeliBio is developing a proprietary technology based on synthetic biology, precision fermentation, and plant-science that replaces honeybees as the medium for honey production.

“We are thrilled to have support from the investors who believe in the world our company wants to create,” said Darko Mandich, co-founder and CEO, MeliBio. “That world is the place where the most delicious and nutritious food is accessible to everyone, but not at the expense of the sustainability of our planet. I thank all of the people who work diligently to bring MeliBio’s honey made without bees into many homes and communities.”

The same year that MeliBio was founded, honey surpassed sugar as the preferred sweetener by U.S. consumers, according to the National Honey Board, due in large part to its perception as an unprocessed, natural ingredient that can not only replace sugar, but offers antioxidants that have the potential to benefit cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

Despite this, production has decreased between 2001 – 2019, from 44.5 million pounds to 37 million pounds, while the price of production climbed by 200 percent over the same number of years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. 

“I realized that after we make burgers without cows and we make milk without cows that we also should make honey without bees,” Mandich told Food Dive in October 2020. “It’s a very important product that we need to think of alternative ways to produce it in order for it to be sustainable.”

Today the global honey market, which relies solely on honeybees, is valued at $9 billion – but the negative impacts on ecology and bee biodiversity are notable. By applying technology to produce real honey without involving bees, MeliBio is at the tip of the spear, revolutionizing and disrupting one of the most ancient foods and helping to save 20,000 of the world’s key wild and native bee species.

“We’re absolutely delighted to support the MeliBio team in improving our food ecosystem,” said Holly Jacobus, investment partner, Joyance Partners. “Their novel technology could have an outsized impact on not only honey production in the US, but the entire ecological community.”

Initially, the startup will focus its energies on common honey, with eventual plans to expand into more specialized varieties such as New Zealand Manuka honey, or Acacia honey from Europe.

The company will see a soft launch of its first product at the end of this year, targeting the supply of food service companies with its plant-based honey as an ingredient. And while MeliBio is currently in talks with multiple potential partners across several countries, at least 15 food and beverage companies have already committed to using MeliBio’s honey once it hits the market. 

“Big Idea Ventures is focused on investing in companies with transformative technologies which have the power to positively impact a global industry or category,” said Andrew D. Ive, founder and general managing partner, Big Idea Ventures. “MeliBio has the real potential to change not just the honey category but the whole sweetener and skincare industries with a new and sustainable way to create real honey without the bees. MeliBio has created the first truly vegan honey.”

– Lynda Kiernan is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.