Founded in Davis 21 years ago as an agricultural research company, Arcadia Biosciences Inc. appears to have moved its headquarters to Dallas.
Launched as a scientific venture to commercialize techniques to increase crop yields, Arcadia (Nasdaq: RKDA) now bills itself as a producer of branded plant-based health and wellness products.
Spokeswoman Sue Wandell declined to comment, saying that the company is in a quiet period leading up to its earnings release Nov. 9.
But recent news releases from Arcadia carry a dateline of Dallas, instead of Davis, and at least one recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission lists Dallas as the location of the company's principal executive offices.
Arcadia went public with an initial public offering in 2015 that raised about $68 million.
As of the end of 2022, Arcadia was the seventh-largest locally based public company on the Sacramento Business Journal’s list of public companies. That list is ranked by revenue, which for Arcadia was about $10 million in 2022.
In recent years, Arcadia has moved from being a scientific research company to being an ingredient company and now to being a producer of branded products derived from its research. It's trying to grow revenue from sales of its own products rather than trying to get licensing deals for its agricultural traits.
In July, Arcadia engaged Lake Street Capital Markets, an investment bank based in Minneapolis, to be its financial adviser to consider strategic options for the company’s future, which could be anything from an acquisition or a sale, merger or asset sale.
Arcadia’s primary products now are branded GoodWheat products, which use its patented GoodWheat strain of wheat that has four times the fiber of conventional wheat. GoodWheat products include pastas, baking mixes and pancake and waffle mix.
When Arcadia started out, it was working to use advanced laboratory techniques in biotechnology to increase crop yields. The company hoped to develop and license traits that enable plants to grow in poor conditions and reduce the impact of agriculture on the environment.
The company’s founders meant to bring promising academic research through the so-called “valley of death” between the university environment and profitable commercialization. Its larger mission was to make healthier foods available at a lower cost or under poor conditions. Arcadia worked, for example, to develop plants that need less water and tolerate salt, heat and herbicides.
It used a variety of techniques to create traits, including mutations, rapid prototyping and genetic modification.
GoodWheat is a product of rapid prototyping and not genetic modification.
