Latest news with #Hoofprint
NZ Herald
01-05-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
AgriZeroNZ puts millions into US start-up reducing methane emissions
AgriZeroNZ chief executive Wayne McNee said Hoofprint was aiming to launch its first product in early 2027, subject to approval from the Ministry for Primary Industries to use the supplement on New Zealand farms. 'They're developing two different things,' he said. 'One is an enzyme blend that you mix into supplementary feed, which looks to reduce emissions by about 80% while at the same time improving milk yield and meat yield. 'The great benefit for a farmer would be if you can make more meat and milk with the same amount of feed, and also reduce emissions, that would be ideal. 'This [enzyme] still needs to be fed as a feed supplement, but only a small amount once a day.' The enzyme could work for dairy cows, which come into the milking shed once or twice daily. 'The company is also looking to develop probiotics which would enable it to be fed less often, maybe weekly or monthly, which could then be used for a much more extensive system like a beef or sheep system.' McNee said Hoofprint representatives had been visiting New Zealand looking for research partners to run an animal trial. Methane from livestock makes up almost half of New Zealand's annual tally of greenhouse gas emissions. AgriZeroNZ is a joint venture aimed at getting that tally down by investing in new methane-cutting products. It is half owned by the Government and half owned by a group of companies including The a2 Milk Company, ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Fonterra, Rabobank, Ravensdown, Silver Fern Farms and Synlait. Its latest investment takes AgriZeroNZ's total investment in Hoofprint to $13 million, its largest investment to date. It has also invested in several other potential methane-cutting products, including another US start-up, ArkeaBio, trialling a methane vaccine. The first product likely to reach farmers is a slow-release bolus out of New Zealand that releases bromoform into an animal's gut. New Zealand company Ruminant Biotech has developed a small metal capsule (bolus), which delivers a potent methane-squashing medicine, which McNee said should be ready in 2026, before Hoofprint's enzymes. Fonterra has also been trialling its own 'Kowbucha' probiotic to cut methane from dairy cows. Meanwhile, New Zealand scientists have been working on their own vaccine and methane inhibitors for years, McNee having a range of alternatives on the market would help keep prices competitive for farmers. There was also potential for additional benefits from adding together different products - but it was too soon to know whether that would work, he said.
RNZ News
01-05-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
AgrizeroNZ puts millions into start-up reducing methane emissions
US-based company Hoofprint Biome said its animal feed supplements will also improve farm animals' gut health. Photo: 123rf New Zealand climate investor AgrizeroNZ has put another $8.7 million into an American start-up that is promising to lower the climate-warming impact of cow burps. AgrizeroNZ said it is happy with the initial results from small US trials feeding animals enzymes that are aimed at reducing their methane emissions. US-based company Hoofprint Biome said its animal feed supplements will also improve farm animals' gut health and make livestock around five percent more productive of milk and meat. However, the product still needs testing in larger trials, including a planned trial in New Zealand. AgriZeroNZ chief executive Wayne McNee said Hoofprint was aiming to launch its first product in early 2027, subject to approval from the Ministry for Primary Industries to use the supplement on New Zealand farms. "They're developing two different things. One is an enzyme blend that you mix into supplementary feed, which looks to reduce emissions by about 80 per cent while at the same time improving milk yield and meat yield," he said. "The great benefit for a farmer would be if you can make more meat and milk with the same amount of feed and also reduce emissions, that would be ideal. "This [enzyme] still needs to be fed as a feed supplement but only a small amount once a day." The enzyme could work for dairy cows which come into the milking shed once or twice daily. "The company is also looking to develop probiotics which would enable it to be fed less often, maybe weekly or monthly, which could then be used for a much more extensive system like a beef or sheep system." McNee said Hoofprint representatives had been visiting New Zealand looking for research partners to run an animal trial. Methane from livestock makes up almost half of New Zealand's annual tally of greenhouse gas emissions. AgrizeroNZ is a joint venture aimed at getting that tally down by investing in new methane-cutting products. It is half owned by the New Zealand government and half owned by a group of companies including The a2 Milk Company, ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Fonterra, Rabobank, Ravensdown, Silver Fern Farms and Synlait. Its latest investment takes AgrizeroNZ's total investment in Hoofprint to $13 million, it largest investment to date . It has also invested in several other potential methane-cutting products, including another US start-up - ArkeaBio - trialling a methane vaccine . The first product likely to reach farmers is a slow-release bolus out of New Zealand that releases bromoform into an animal's gut. New Zealand company Ruminant Biotech has developed a small metal capsule (bolus) , which delivers a potent methane-squashing medicine, which McNee said should be ready in 2026, before Hoofprint's enzymes. Fonterra has also been trialling its own "Kowbucha" probiotic to cut methane from dairy cows. Meanwhile, New Zealand scientists have been working on their own vaccine and methane inhibitors for years, McNee having a range of alternatives on the market would help keep prices competitive for farmers. There was also potential for additional benefits from adding together different products - but it was too soon to know whether that would work, he said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Hoofprint Biome boosts cow nutrition while slashing methane burps
Sometimes, answering a long-standing problem is a matter of finding a new perspective. Take methane from cows: For years, people have been trying to eliminate the gas from cow burps in an attempt to limit the livestock's impact on the climate. But they haven't made a dent. That's in part because they were looking at the issue from the perspective of a climate scientist, not a farmer. Kathryn Polkoff, co-founder and CEO of Hoofprint Biome, has been thinking about the problem more like a farmer, though. 'The first time I heard about this methane problem was animal science 101,' Polkoff, who has a PhD in animal science, told TechCrunch. It wasn't in the context of climate change, but of animal health and productivity. Polkoff and her co-founder Scott Collins have stumbled upon a novel way to modify a cow's microbiome using enzymes, slashing methane while boosting the nutrients available to the cow. That discovery has netted Hoofprint a $15 million Series A round led by SOSV, the startup exclusively told TechCrunch. Other participating investors include AgriZeroNZ, Alexandria Venture Investments, Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund, Breakthrough Energy Fellows, Good Growth Capital, Ponderosa Ventures, and Twynam. The new round will help the company trial its enzymes on farms. 'We've spent thousands of years breeding the animals to make them as efficient as possible and to increase the yield, and but there have not really been that many attempts to change a microbiome,' she said. 'That'd be like if you were engineering a car but had never changed the engine — that's where all the energy comes from.' Hoofprint's feed additive tweaks the microbiome in a cow's rumen and suppresses the growth of microbes that generate methane, a potent greenhouse gas that warms the planet 84 times more than the same amount of carbon dioxide. Rumen is a 'hodgepodge assembly line,' said Po Bronson, the SOSV general partner who led the firm's investment in Hoofprint. The stuff cows eat tends to be very hard to digest and extract nutrients from. Over the millennia, cows have evolved alongside a complex microbiome in the rumen that helps break down the forage, releasing nutrients in the process. The cow absorbs some of those nutrients, but not all. Another group of microbes steals some of those nutrients to drive their own growth at the expense of the cow's, generating methane as a byproduct. 'It's a very specific subset of microbes that are making the methane,' Polkoff said. Hoofprint's enzyme suppresses those microbes. The startup will use yeast to make the enzymes, similar to how other industrial enzymes are made, including those used in cheese, detergent, and other products. For Bronson at SOSV, the fact that Hoofprint's enzymes are derived from the rumen itself was key. One previous methane-reducing product, Bovaer, faced a wave of disinformation when a large food company announced trials in the UK in December. He doesn't think that Hoofprint will face the same backlash. 'The core concept is that their product is a natural protein. They degrade just like any other protein an animal would eat. They're sort of natural to the rumen.' Hoofprint is targeting a 5% improvement in 'feed efficiency,' Polkoff said, or how many more pounds a cow can put on for a given amount of feed. By improving the efficiency of a cow's rumen, Bronson is confident Hoofprint will be able to succeed with farmers where other startups have failed. 'Knocking down methane is table stakes,' he said. 'To make it a more productive thing is what they will pay for.'
