The home and personal care industry is facing a growing formulation challenge. A continuously expanding global population combined with rising living standards is putting increasing pressure on the availability of traditional natural feedstocks such as palm kernel oil and coconut oil. These raw materials have long played a central role in personal care and home care formulations, but their long-term scalability and ESG-related challenges are increasingly under scrutiny.
As a result, formulators and ingredient suppliers are being pushed to look for alternatives that are free from mineral, palm kernel or coconut oil. At the same time, the consumer will not accept compromises in performance, sensorial experience or product availability. Sustainability is becoming a decisive factor, but it cannot come at the expense of overall product quality.
Fermentation-based fatty acids as building blocks
So what if you make the exact same fatty acids without the worries about its origin? Produced by natural fermentation, from leftovers of the agricultural sector and food industry? This route offers a fundamentally different sourcing model decoupled from tropical oils and fossil feedstocks. Moreover, it enables also new possibilities in fatty acid composition. This is what ChainCraft is doing right now.
ChainCraft’s technology is GMO free and produces high purity medium-chain fatty acids from agri-food residues, such as potato juice, onion pulp and vegetable cuttings.
This approach is particularly relevant for the home and personal care industry for two reasons:
- Second, this new route makes it possible to create stability in price and availability, expanding the formulation design space and reliability in future availability.
- First, the use of upcycled fatty acids supports sustainability objectives by reducing dependency on virgin agricultural resources and imported oils. This contributes to lower carbon footprints and increased supply chain resilience by local sourcing.
Expanding the formulation toolbox with caproic acid
Let’s focus on one of the main acids that becomes available from this technology: caproic acid, also known as hexanoic acid. As a building block, C6 is a starting point for the development of a broad range of ingredient categories relevant to personal care and home care applications, such as polyglycerol esters, Guerbet alcohols and alkyl polyglucosides.
By designing polyglycerol esters (PGE) with caproic acid, HLB ranges 14 – 16 can be achieved, which overlaps with very commonly used PGE’s based on lauric acid and myristic acid, see table 1:
Our caproic acid will also be available as bio-hexanol. This can be converted into Guerbet alcohols as the basis for a.o. sustainable surfactants and SPF booster butyloctyl salicylate for home and personal care.
Sustainability performance that matters
Fermentation is a well-established source of sustainable ingredients in the home and personal care industry1,2. ChainCraft provides a distinct advantage in sustainability performance through the use of agri-food residues. By upcycling widely available residual streams, ChainCraft fatty acids avoids the release of carbon into the environment associated with disposal of the agri-food residues and reduces the need for feedstock grown on arable land. Moreover, it also allows to move away from supply chains that come with social or environmental challenges and require heavy ESG compliance efforts.
A recent life cycle assessment (Figure 1) shows that ChainCraft’s fatty acids have a global warming impact that is three to six times lower than palm kernel, coconut or petrochemical equivalents. Global warming impact refers to the total greenhouse gas emissions associated with a product across its life cycle, expressed in CO₂ equivalents. In addition, when biogenic carbon uptake is taken into account, the carbon footprint becomes net negative.
Biogenic carbon refers to carbon that is originally absorbed from the atmosphere by plants during growth, temporarily stored in the plant and released into the environment once the plant is converted into other products and disposed. Typical fermentation processes use sugarcane or corn which is grown on arable land, especially for the purpose of being used as a feedstock. By using upcycled agri-food residues instead, ChainCraft’s fatty acids deliver a double impact on carbon footprint reduction.
Together, these effects make caproic acid and its derivatives strong candidates for brands aiming to lower their Scope 3 emissions or improve their natural origin index.
For formulators, this means access to high-performance ingredients that are fully renewable, independent of palm supply fluctuations and compatible with emerging legislative frameworks such as the European Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Because ChainCraft uses upcycled agri-food residues, its fatty acids do not fall under the scope of EUDR, offering supply chain stability in a shifting regulatory landscape.
Looking ahead
The transition away from palm and fossil-based ingredients is reshaping formulation strategies across the home and personal care industry. With the availability at scale of fatty acids from fermentation with unique properties, new formulation pathways can be developed while ensuring sustainability requirements are met.
ChainCraft is excited to work with partners across the value chain to explore these opportunities and translate them into viable, compliant solutions. To learn more about the possibilities of circular, deforestation free fatty acids for home and personal care applications, contact us at sales@chaincraft.com.
(1) Cosmetics: when biotech is better than nature, (2022). Nature biotechnology. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-022-01318-x/. Published 2022-05-16.
(2) Unlocking the Potential of Fermentation in Cosmetics: A Review. Fermentation journal, MDPI. Available at: https://www.mdpi.com/2311-5637/9/5/463/. Published 2023-05-12.
