Kerry, a global leader in taste and sustainable nutrition, is celebrating the one-year anniversary of operations at its Biotechnology Centre in Leipzig. This milestone underscores Kerry’s growing role as a key innovator in the global enzyme market, combining deep biotechnology capabilities with integrated application expertise to solve pressing customer challenges across the food and beverage, biopharma and biotech sectors.
The Kerry Biotechnology Centre in Leipzig, Germany plays a key role in further advancing Kerry’s biotechnology capabilities, giving our network of scientists access to state-of-the art bioinformatics, enzyme and strain engineering, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) modelling to enable the discovery of innovative biotechnology solutions, along with infrastructure to support fermentation and bioprocess development, scale-up, and production.
A Powerhouse for Enzyme Discovery and Scientific Innovation
The 10,000 m² Kerry Biotechnology Centre brings key technical teams under one roof, co-locating Enzyme Discovery and Enzyme Engineering in a shared laboratory environment to accelerate technical exchange and shorten development cycles. Over the past 12 months, Kerry’s Leipzig team achieved significant scientific and operational milestones, including:
- Fungal Expression Breakthrough: Successfully producing enzymes in filamentous fungal cultures for the first time.
- Proprietary ENESYZ Platform & Cloud Bioinformatics: Migrating KBC’s proprietary ENESYZ platform, supported by Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS), AI, and machine learning-assisted directed evolution, to a cloud-based architecture, democratizing advanced discovery tools across Kerry’s global sites.
- Fast and efficient Enzyme discovery: Automated screening of 17,500 enzymes to successfully identify matching enzyme candidates
- Commercialization of Next-Gen Biopharma Enzymes: Effectively launching CellTrypase, the first development launched directly from the new facility, and shipping Denarase® High Salt to 108 customer testing sites.
- Regulatory & Sustainability Milestones for Coffee: Securing a positive European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) scientific safety opinion for Acrylerase®, a revolutionary new-to-world amidase enzyme providing a simple drop-in solution for acrylamide reduction in instant coffee and coffee substitutes without altering yield or taste.
“The perception of enzymes have evolved from simple processing aids into strategic innovation tools that allow food, beverage, and biopharma manufacturers to overcome complex market pressures without compromising on taste or quality,” said Ronan Moloney, Vice President, Enzymes at Kerry. “By bringing discovery, strain engineering, and pilot-scale production under one roof in Leipzig and pairing that with our proprietary ENESYZ bioinformatics platform, we are using machine learning to map enzyme sequences faster than ever. We’re incredibly proud of our integrated end-to-end model that enables us to turn complex biological science into scalable, commercially viable solutions that solve our customers’ toughest formulation and sustainability challenges.”
In its inaugural year, the Centre hosted more than 400 external guests across five major industry events, establishing the site as an essential hub for biotechnology innovation and cross-functional collaboration. As regulatory frameworks evolve and global demand for sustainable, resource-efficient solutions accelerates, Kerry will continue leveraging its biotechnology network to co-create high-impact solutions with customers worldwide.
