White Dog Labs might be based in Delaware, but the biotech company has big plans for its future in Minnesota.
White Dog Labs aims to harness the power of microorganisms to address global challenges in food sustainability, climate change and general human and animal nutrition.
The company is currently raising funds from investors to reopen the Central Minnesota Renewables facility in Little Falls. By doing so, White Dog expects to restore at least 40 jobs to the city and support local farmers by buying 7.5 million bushels of corn.
The refitted Little Falls plant will use this corn to produce a new protein that can sustainably replace animal protein, initially for commercial fish feeding and eventually for human health and nutrition as well.
"We want to develop a plant in Little Falls that has unique capabilities," Sass Somekh, executive chairman of White Dog Labs, told Minne Inno. "This could really be an innovation hub for synthetic biology, process development and production."
Somekh is also a co-founder of Musea Ventures, a firm that he co-founded with his son Talli. Talli worked with Dr. Bryan Tracy to establish White Dog Labs in 2012. Tracy is now the company's CEO.
Prior to starting Musea, Sass was spent 24 years at Applied Materials in Santa Clara, Calif., where he helped the company become a leader in the semiconductor-equipment industry. He is a member of the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame and holds more than 50 U.S. patents.
White Dog recently announced that it cemented a deal with Wayzata-based Cargill to help the agriculture giant in their move to renewables. Currently, companies that farm fish like salmon have to catch sardines and grind them to feed their other fish.
"But catching fish to feed fish is not sustainable," Somekh said.
There's an immense demand, he added, to develop alternative proteins to make the process more efficient. White Dog Labs plans to accomplish this with a lot of corn and a little synthetic biology, the process by which scientists reprogram organisms to produce new materials.
White Dog Labs mines the microbiome to collect potentially beneficial microorganisms. Scientists select, culture and develop these organisms through a fermentation process, which is fueled by corn.
Corn is fattening, high in starch and has very little protein. By taking corn and converting it into sugar, White Dog Labs is able to feed it to special groups of microorganisms to help them grow. Through this process, the company is able to create a variety of high-protein products and biochemicals that can be used for everything from vegan cheese to road de-icer.
Somekh said that the company wants to test its road de-icing product with the Minnesota Department of Transportation next winter.
So far, Musea Ventures has invested around $15 million into White Dog. It has agreed to purchase the Little Falls plant and plans to raise another $15 million to get things going.
"We believe in this technology and we're ready to put our money where our mouth is," Somekh said.
In the coming months, White Dog Labs will focus on refurbishing the Little Falls plant. It hopes to begin production by the end of 2020.
