One of Yolo County’s newest biotech companies is planning a new research and development facility in West Sacramento.
TurtleTree on Friday announced it had secured a 24,000-square-foot building that will house its new R&D facility on Ramco Street. The building is currently occupied, but will be vacant next year. Then engineering and construction will take at least six months, said TurtleTree media specialist Rita Huang.
When it opens, the facility is expected to employ 40 people, and host the development of the company’s ingredient line made using precision fermentation.
“Establishing this R&D facility in greater Sacramento marks the first step towards bringing our unique products from development to market — one that we’re very glad will help unlock new opportunities within the local community,” TurtleTree CEO Fengru Lin said, in a statement. “We’re eagerly looking forward to working with the brilliant talent in the area and building a future generation of nutrition that we can all enjoy for decades to come.”
TurtleTree is a Singapore-founded startup that’s studying how to make nutrients that are naturally found in milk. This summer it announced that its first commercially scalable ingredient would be human lactoferrin, a highly nutritious protein found in human and cow milk. TurtleTree’s product is a lab-produced form of lactoferrin that can be used in infant and sports nutrition products.
For its first phase of product development, the company will offer ingredients for other companies to use in food and nutrition products. Ultimately, TurtleTree is working toward replicating whole cow milk completely in a lab, without the environmental impact associated with animal agriculture.
The company was founded in 2019 by technology entrepreneurs Lin and Max Rye. It's received more than $10.5 million in funding from investors around the world plus $11.5 million in prizes and grant money.
This summer, it launched its Yolo County headquarters at the Lab@AgStart incubator in Woodland.
“We really want to work with the local community, especially the great educational institutions around Sacramento,” Huang said. She said that’s not limited to TurtleTree’s work with University of California Davis. The company also looks to partner with all local universities to hire recent graduates.
“Positions will not only be science- and tech-focused, but engineering and other educational opportunities,” Huang said.
