Upcycled Agricultural Waste Techniques
Kyomei Relies on Molecular Farming for Sustainability
Kalin Ned — November 13, 2025
Kyomei is a biotechnology company that employs molecular farming to convert agricultural waste — specifically leftover crop leaves — into valuable food ingredients for 'clean label', better-for-you foods. This venture was initiated at the University of Oxford.
Kyomei's technology centers on using plants as natural bioreactors. The company bio-engineers crops to generate specialty proteins within their leaves and then extracts these proteins alongside other functional ingredients that are naturally present.
The molecular farming approach is designed to integrate into existing farming systems, as Kyomei aims to augment them by creating additional revenue from biomass that is typically discarded. In other words, the company focuses on producing ingredients that are challenging to source sustainably at a large scale to provide the food industry with a supply that is both scalable and more sustainable.
