Tackling food safety, food waste and shelf-life goals with a sustainable, natural ingredient.

The growing demand for clean label products cleard the path for this natural food and beverage preservative

The Opportunity

There’s growing concern with processed foods, especially artificial preservatives. Food manufacturers are searching for natural preservatives they can rely on to extend shelf life and provide label transparency. At the same time, food loss is a growing concern with over 50 percent of all food produced in Canada going to waste. Chinova had a solution with Chiber™, a natural food preservative derived from a fiber extracted from upcycled white button mushroom stems. 

The Challenge

Chinova developed an initial version of their product that gained industry attention. However, they needed to provide samples at significant scale to test with numerous prospective customers. At that time, they were raising a capital round with a lead investor and needed to complete the round to obtain the all-important close.  

NPC’s Solution

NPC was working with Chinova to help them optimize their product and their future commercialization path. Using its Investment Fund, NPC invested $500,000 to help complete Chinova’s first capital raise, which comprised of: DSM Ventures, Rhapsody and AgFunder. Since then, Chinova has continued its growth by opening a production facility that significantly increased their capacity, raising additional capital, introducing new ingredient solutions, and garnering multiple awards and partnerships.