Belgian biotech Zymofix has secured €1.9 million from VLAIO, the Flemish Agency for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, to fund a research project aimed at making microbial agricultural products more consistent and predictable.
The grant supports MicroFix, a €3.2 million collaboration with Prof. Tina Kyndt at Ghent University’s Faculty of Bioscience Engineering. The three-year project will investigate how manufacturing conditions affect microbial traits and, ultimately, crop performance.
Microbial products are increasingly used in sustainable agriculture, but their effectiveness in real-world conditions can be hard to predict. MicroFix takes a different approach to the problem, looking at the production process itself rather than focusing only on strain selection.
“Microbial solutions have enormous potential, but their performance is still too unpredictable,” said Emile Redant, CEO of Zymofix. “With MicroFix, we aim to understand how our manufacturing technology influences microbial function, allowing us to design more reliable and effective biological products.”
At the heart of the research is Zyft, Zymofix’s proprietary solid-state fermentation platform. It uses thermally processed solid substrates from agricultural sidestreams as both a growth medium and formulation matrix. Unlike liquid fermentation, microorganisms are cultivated directly on a solid substrate that can stay part of the final product.
The project will build a data-driven framework linking manufacturing conditions to microbial characteristics and plant responses under stress. Researchers from microbiology, plant science and modelling will combine expertise across the collaboration.
Beyond its scientific scope, MicroFix is expected to create high-skilled R&D jobs in Flanders and support the valorisation of agricultural sidestreams, contributing to the region’s broader bioeconomy and circular agriculture goals.
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