Arcadia Biosciences partners with US farmers network to expand specialty wheat growth

28 Jun 2018 --- Arcadia Biosciences, an agricultural food ingredient company, will partner with an independent farmer-to-farmer organization, Farmers Business Network (FBN), to expand the grower base of Arcadias premium and specialty wheat varieties: GoodWheat.

Arcadia’s GoodWheat is a non-transgenic (non-GM) portfolio of innovative wheat quality traits, including high fiber resistant starch and a recently launched reduced gluten, among others. GoodWheat was developed to add value to the entire wheat supply chain, from seed to table, by enabling a wider range of healthy choices to meet evolving consumer demands, the company state.

Arcadia believes farmers can improve their economies by growing such premium specialty grains instead of commodity wheat. In addition, food manufacturers can differentiate their products by integrating these new GoodWheat varieties directly into their food formulations.

“With their commitment to innovation and growing network of premier farmers, the FBN is an ideal partner to help us build capacity for our specialty wheat varieties,” says Raj Ketkar, Arcadia’s President and CEO. “Arcadia’s GoodWheat branded ingredients will provide consumers with healthier choices in their favorite foods and the high demand for these premium products will enable improved economics for wheat growers.”

This agreement is a “critical milestone” in the development of Arcadia’s supply chain and its ability to scale its specialty wheat production to meet the demand anticipated following commercial launch in 2019. The FBN network has been rapidly growing its analytics, agricultural inputs, distribution infrastructure, farmer member base and geographical reach, now representing over 24 million acres in the United States and Canada.

“This important partnership with Arcadia provides our members access to grow specialty, identity-preserved GoodWheat and enables them to earn a premium over commodity wheat,” says Amol Deshpande, CEO and co-founder of the FBN network. “Together, we are working to improve the economics of wheat production for farmers and bring wheat buyers a unique high-value crop.”

GoodWheat
Earlier this year, Arcadia Biosciences announced the addition of its reduced gluten (RG) lines to its GoodWheat Portfolio. The company’s CEO told NutritionInsight that although the gluten-free food market is estimated to grow to US$7.59 billion by 2020 in the US, only about 1 percent of the population suffers from celiac disease, which necessitates a gluten-free diet. However, the demand for gluten-free products clearly goes further than being just those who are celiac.

Furthermore, Ketkar added that even with the popularity of wheat in the diet, “there hasn’t been a lot of activity in wheat. Despite that about 25 percent of our daily calories coming from wheat products, whether that be bread, pasta or crackers, wheat has not seen a lot of innovation in recent years.”

Therefore, Arcadia Biosciences is seeking to change this. “We have been working for several years on ways to improve the quality of wheat from a nutrition standpoint, through our non-GM tilling process, which is a breeding process we developed several traits that are now maturing and getting closer to market ready,” he says.

“We have reached some important technical milestones, both for our resistant starch wheat, our high-fiber wheat and our reduced gluten wheat. Our first move was to brand these ingredients under the GoodWheat name,” Ketkar says.“GoodWheat is an umbrella brand, [including] high fiber GoodWheat, extended shelf life GoodWheat, reduced gluten GoodWheat. We will be adding other traits in the future.”

The partnership with FBN hopes to expand the grower base for the GoodWheat varieties, set for the commercial launch in 2019.