We are LyteGro

LyteGro supplies microbial growth enhancers to the chemical, diagnostic, pharmaceutical and food and drink industries.

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What we do

We make ‘Baclyte’, an organic extract of waste bananas which sends bacteria and yeast crazy. It is a simple organic supplement which can be added to existing processes or products to improve the performance and yield of important industrial processes such as fermentation. Baclyte is used to formulate our products.
The UK’s Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) reported there are 1.4 million edible bananas  thrown away daily in the UK and which accounts for 83,000 tons of avoidable waste

We utilise this waste feedstock to produce our neat BacLyte extract by just adding water to the pulp, mixing, heating and doing some clever filtration

Propagreater

A simple easy to use pre-treatment for yeast used in alcohol fermentations.

Culture Boost

Culture Boost is a simple supplement to add to existing microbial growth media & diagnostics.

Banana Boost

This is our food grade product for use in the pro-biotic, cheese and fermented foods industries.

Generating New Ideas. Solving Big Problems

Baclyte is our core technology and is a novel and highly potent microbial growth enhancer technology developed by Professor Mark Lyte at Texas Tech University.

BacLyte is a market disruptor technology which has been trialled extensively (internally and by external evaluators) across a wide range of potential applications across a number of sectors and has consistently been demonstrated to provide truly unique growth and metabolism promoting effects with multiple industrially important bacterial and fungal species.

Our Technology

In Layman’s terms, Baclyte enables industry to grow microbes faster and cheaper and to improve overall product yield and purity in microbially driven processes

Faster is better

BacLyte reduces lag phase and accelerates microbial growth in industrial systems

More is better

BacLyte increases final stationary phase biomass resulting in increases in your final product yield

Cheaper is better

BacLyte enables growth in simpler cheaper culture media and reduces product purification costs

Applications

A wide and ever-expanding variety of microbes has been used since civilization began in the production of a huge array of foods including beers, yoghurt and cheeses, bread, and pickles. Today microbes are also used to produce everything from enzymes and medicines to high-value chemicals and the production of biofuels.

There are four most commonly used and economically important microbes:

  • Saccharomyces (Yeast)
  • Bacillus 
  • Lactic Acid Bacteria (LABs)
  • E.coli
Being that microbes are used across so many high value sectors such as food, pharmaceuticals and energy the global economic impact of these microbes is undoubtedly in the trillions of USD per annum – and their use is ever growing as demand for greener, cleaner and cheaper alternatives to chemically produced products rises on an annual basis.

Culture Media & Diagnostics

Brewing & Distilling

Protein production

(enzymes)

Biofuels

(Anaerobic digestion & bioethanol)

Chemical production

(lactic acid, F&F, amino acids etc.)

Dairy food production

Yeast Production

Pharmaceutical production

Achievements

One of the UK’s most sustainable start-ups

LyteGro were selected as one of the UK’s most sustainable start-up companies and were featured in the recent “300 Years of Leadership and Innovation” publication commissioned by the History of Parliament Trust and the royal publishers St James’s House to celebrate the 300-year anniversary of the opening of the Houses of Parliament

Most Innovative Clean Energy Solution

Lytegro were announced winners of the Tech For Good “Clean Energy Strategies Reimagined Challenge” – a competition seeking to identify the most innovative solutions in the green energy field. Lytegro’s proposal centered around the use of our BacLyte extract in reducing process time and improving yields in bio-ethanol and biogas production.

Innovate UK: Sustainable Innovation Fund Award

In 2021 Lytegro were awarded a Sustainable Innovation Fund grant to cover further scale up of the production of our BacLyte extract and the testing of our Propagreater product by 5 UK distillers. The project was a success with us increasing production levels by 250% and proving the use of Propagreater to boost alcohol fermentation yields for a range of feedstocks including grain, sugarcane, potatoes and molasses

Our Partners

Our successful growth has been driven through successful collaborations with key partners
We are always open to working with organisations wishing to test our products and keen to investigate new opportunities.

We are Scalable and Sustainable

Sustainability and the Circular Economy is at the heart of our business.  Not only do we produce our core technology BacLyte from a previously unused waste banana feedstock but our products drive improvements in the efficiency of many bio-based processes such as fermentation and bioenergy production. This not only results in the improved efficiency and profitability of these processes but by getting more end-product from the same resources it also reduces their water and energy footprint.

As our international sales grow we are keen to explore working with governments and companies in banana growing countries to set up local waste banana processing plants to produce our products for use by local businesses.

  • In any given year around 30% of the banana crop is deemed unsuitable for sale by banana exporters and is generally thrown into landfill
  • Using this waste in producing our products could supply a valuable revenue stream to local farmers who would otherwise have to dispose of their waste bananas
  • The establishment of such facilities would protect local farmers against crops being destroyed by adverse weather events/pests as even damaged bananas can be used to produce Baclyte
  • Such facilities would serve as sales/distribution hubs for Propagreater to local rum, tequila, cachaça distilleries thereby minimising transportation emissions

Local production will not only cut transportation costs and associated pollution but it will provide large volumes of our BacLyte and Propagreater  products which can be used in improving efficiencies across various industries in those (and neighbouring) countries. Such local production plants will provide farmers with an added revenue stream, reduce landfill and the products could then be used to improve local green energy projects. We have already started to engage with a number of governmental bodies in banana producing countries but would welcome further interest.

Targeting UN SDGs

The production and application of LyteGro’s technologies addresses a number of the UN’s SDGs
By improving fermentation  efficiency users get more from the same resource thereby reducing the water demand of their processes. BacLyte may also have uses in waste water treatment
BacLyte significantly improves the yield of biofuel production processes such as anaerobic digestion and bioethanol production
We plan to set up local production plants in (often poor) banana growing countries – providing farmers with an additional revenue stream from their otherwise unsalable waste
We produce BacLyte from the pulp of black bananas. This process not only reduces the amount going into landfill but also valorises a previously untapped waste stream
BacLyte can power many green chemistry applications such as enzyme production and microbially-driven chemical processes – increasing yield and reducing their energy footprint
By improving efficiency BacLyte’s industrial applications can collectively have a significant impact in the reduction of GHG emissions across a number of polluting industries

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