Programmable sugars for industrial biotechnology
Programmable sugars span commodity glucose through specialty, niche, and rare sugars that are hard to source conventionally. Producing them from carbon and energy lets the molecule be tuned to the application at a modelled lower carbon intensity than agricultural sources, widening what biomanufacturing and ingredient makers can build on.
What programmable sugars are
"Programmable sugars" describes the ability to produce a range of sugar molecules to specification, rather than only the single commodity glucose that crop processing yields. Because the carbon-to-sugar route builds sugar from simple inputs through engineered biology, the output can be tuned, in grade and in molecule, to what the application needs.
The grades
- Commodity, high-volume glucose/dextrose for mainstream fermentation.
- Specialty, sugars with specific properties for particular processes.
- Niche, lower-volume sugars for targeted applications.
- Rare, sugars that are difficult or expensive to obtain from natural sources.
Why niche and rare sugars are hard to source
Many specialty and rare sugars exist only in small quantities in nature, or require costly extraction and purification. That scarcity makes them expensive and supply-constrained, which limits the products that can be built on them.
How carbon-to-sugar enables tuning
Producing sugar through engineered biology from carbon and energy means the platform is not limited to whatever a crop happens to yield. The same infrastructure can target different sugars, at lower carbon intensity than agricultural sources, and with supply that scales with built production capacity.
Applications
Programmable sugars feed the broad bioeconomy, materials, chemicals, fragrances, and ingredients, wherever a specific sugar unlocks a product or improves its economics.
Where Solarferm fits
Solarferm's platform produces programmable sugars across these grades and licenses the technology to produce them elsewhere, supplying ingredient makers and biomanufacturers with sugars tuned to their formulations.
Many specialty and rare sugars can be produced enzymatically from common sugars through isomerisation, epimerisation, and oxidation-reduction, the Izumoring strategy (Granström et al., 2004). A flexible, programmable feedstock platform is valuable precisely because it can target these harder-to-source sugars rather than only commodity glucose.
Fructose is the other major commodity monosaccharide; in the United States it is produced as high-fructose corn syrup from the same corn wet-milling complex, with more than 70% of it sold as HFCS-55. A programmable platform can target glucose, fructose, and the harder-to-source specialty and rare sugars from a single process.
Frequently asked questions
What are programmable sugars?
Sugars produced to specification across grades, from commodity glucose to specialty, niche, and rare sugars, made possible by building sugar through engineered biology rather than only extracting what a crop yields.
What is a rare sugar?
A sugar that occurs only in small amounts in nature or is costly to extract, making it expensive and supply-constrained through conventional sourcing.
Why are specialty sugars expensive?
Because they are scarce in nature and often require costly extraction and purification, which limits supply and raises price.
Can specialty and rare sugars be made from carbon?
Yes. Producing sugar from carbon and energy through engineered biology lets the platform target different sugars, at a modelled lower carbon intensity and with supply that scales with built production capacity.
Who uses programmable sugars?
Ingredient makers and biomanufacturers across materials, chemicals, fragrances, and ingredients, wherever a specific sugar unlocks or improves a product.
References
- McKinsey & Company. The third wave of biomaterials: when innovation meets demand. McKinsey & Company. 2021. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/chemicals/our-insights/the-third-wave-of-biomaterials-when-innovation-meets-demand Accessed 14 June 2026.
- Good Food Institute. Driving down costs of fermentation-derived ingredients: a meta-analysis of techno-economic models. Good Food Institute, Washington, DC. 2025. doi:10.62468/trxj5734
- Jiang W, Hernández Villamor D, Peng H, Chen J, Liu L, Haritos VS, Ledesma-Amaro R. Metabolic engineering strategies to enable microbial utilization of C1 feedstocks. Nature Chemical Biology. 2021;17(8):845–855. doi:10.1038/s41589-021-00836-0
- Granström TB, Takata G, Tokuda M, Izumori K. Izumoring: a novel and complete strategy for bioproduction of rare sugars. Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering. 2004;97(2):89–94. doi:10.1016/S1389-1723(04)70173-5
- USDA Economic Research Service. Corn and Other Feed Grains: Feed Grains Sector at a Glance. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. 2025. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn-and-other-feed-grains/feed-grains-sector-at-a-glance Accessed 14 June 2026.