Earlier this month, the House of Lords passed the Precision Breeding Act which has opened up a new world of opportunity for researchers and food biotech companies at Norwich Research Park.
The Act allows for the gene editing of plants and crops in England, something Tropic, a food biotech company that has been based at Norwich Research Park for several years, is pioneering with crops grown in tropical regions of the world such as bananas and rice as well as closer to home with sugar beet.
Gene editing enables precise, targeted changes to plant DNA to make improved varieties that are resistant to disease, last longer or improve yields. Although the technology is highly advanced, it simply replicates the natural process that occurs in traditional plant breeding and accelerates the results which would otherwise take decades to achieve.
Tropic recently announced that it has developed a variety of the world’s most consumed Cavendish banana whose flesh will remain yellow and firm, whilst retaining its taste, for up to 48 hours after it is peeled and sliced. It will also stay fresh for longer.
The impacts of this breakthrough are immense. Adopting this new variety of the Cavendish banana will cut down food waste, make growing and distributing bananas more cost efficient, help to preserve the banana industry and open up new markets for bananas to be used in.
It is estimated that 1.4m bananas are thrown away daily, in the UK alone, because their skin blackens and the flesh browns quickly once peeled. A large proportion – up to 50% – of these bananas are thrown away before they even reach supermarkets’ shelves. That’s because they have to be shipped from growing regions in the tropics such as South America. They are harvested when they are green and kept refrigerated during transportation before being ripened when they reach their destinations – such as the UK. Many get damaged en route, and a single damaged banana can cause the whole container to go brown and are unusable by the time they arrive. And when they are ripened and hit the shops, bananas only last a few days.
Because the new variety will remain fresh and firm after peeling, it means that not only will you be able to return to a peeled banana in your home, but you’ll also start to find them in fruit salads, snackpots, milkshakes and smoothies sold in shops, cafes and restaurants. The team at Tropic have also found that this new banana is not affected by being kept alongside other fruits, specifically kiwi and melon.
Andrew Dominy, VP Product Management at Tropic, said, “Bananas are the most popular fruit in the world, billions are grown and eaten each year. Bananas are highly nutritious, a great source of vitamins, minerals and energy, and of course – they are delicious! However bananas are sterile, and don’t produce seeds which means they can’t be cross-bred to produce new varieties, like you would see with apples for instance, and so any changes need to be made by editing its DNA. This is a perfectly safe but highly complex process that has taken years for us to develop, and now that the Precision Breeding Act has been approved in England it will open up great opportunities for bringing these improved products to consumers here.
“Precision bred products are already available in the US, Canada, Japan and many other countries so we have already started work to get these new bananas on the shelves there and now expect them to be available next year to consumers in England. The global banana industry is massive but we need to make it more efficient by reducing waste, extending crop life and helping to create more disease-resistant varieties. We’re developing improved varieties with benefits to growers and consumers, better for people and for the planet.”
Tropic, which employs more than 150 people at its headquarters at Norwich Research Park, isn’t stopping with its non-browning banana. It is also working on an extended shelf-life variety that will increase the crop’s ‘green-life’. That means these bananas will be able to be harvested later, will grow bigger, will bruise less and will be able to be shipped over a longer time period. It will lower emissions and bring benefits to growers such as those in Ecuador who will then be able to ship their harvests further distances.
Tropic is also developing disease-resistant varieties. Bananas are susceptible to two potentially devastating fungal diseases – Panama and Black Sigatoka – which are very harmful to the soil in which bananas are grown and that is very difficult to recover from. The naturally resistant varieties Tropic are developing will help to reduce the amount of pesticides required to keep crops healthy, as well as ensuring secure and stable supplies of the world’s most consumed fruit.
It is also undertaking collaborations on improving disease-resistance and improving crop yields with rice and is working on a project with British Sugar, the John Innes Centre (JIC) and the British Beet Research Organisation (BBRO) (JIC and BBRO also based at Norwich Research Park) to develop a way to help one of Norfolk’s most important crops, sugar beet, become resistant to the disease Virus Yellows that can devastate a crop.
Roz Bird, CEO of Anglia Innovation Partnership, the campus management organisation at Norwich Research Park, said, “It’s tremendous news that the Precision Breeding Act has been passed enabling companies like Tropic and researchers at the John Innes Centre to positively impact crops and plants for the benefit of the global society. It is really exciting that the way is now clear for Tropic to bring its first product to market and that those of us in England will be able to directly benefit when they become available to buy here next year.
“We are really proud to have some of the world’s leading minds, in precision breeding and plant genetics, on our campus. We want to make sure that this work continues to attract interest from scientists, researchers, and entrepreneurs internationally. We are looking for new collaborations with other research communities and large corporates, and to we are looking attract start-ups, and their investors, to join our campus and benefit from our leading expertise. I am sure we will receive lots of enquiries as Tropic’s new banana varieties enter the market and attracts attention.”