Vinasse is produced on a massive scale. China is the world’s largest alcohol producer, generating over 30 million tons of vinasse annually, primarily from the brewing processes of baijiu, beer, and yellow wine. Globally, the annual production of vinasse reaches approximately 150 million tons, with beer spent grains accounting for the largest share at around 60%, followed by vinasse from whiskey and baijiu production processes.
The high volume of vinasse creates significant environmental problems. The high moisture content (70%-90%) of spent grains makes them extremely prone to decay when untreated, and direct discharge leads to eutrophication of water bodies, consuming dissolved oxygen and severely threatening aquatic ecosystems. Additionally, spent grains naturally ferment during storage, producing large amounts of methane, which has a greenhouse effect far exceeding carbon dioxide, exacerbating global climate change. The strong acidity of spent grains (pH 3-5) also causes soil acidification, disrupting microbial balance, and long-term accumulation affects crop growth. Although spent grains are rich in utilizable components such as proteins and fiber, the global utilization rate is less than 30%, with most being landfilled or openly disposed of, causing not only resource waste but further environmental pollution. Therefore, how to efficiently treat and utilize vinasse as resources has become an important issue for environmental protection and sustainable development.
vinasse contain rich proteins and lignocellulose, possessing high potential economic value. Spent grains can be converted into high-value-added products such as organic acids, enzyme preparations, and biofuels through microbial fermentation. Additionally, polyphenolic compounds in spent grains have antioxidant activity and development potential in functional foods and pharmaceutical fields.
Current chemical degradation methods still have deficiencies in efficiency and environmental compatibility. Existing methods for utilizing vinasse mainly include acid hydrolysis, alkaline treatment, oxidation, and solvent extraction. - Acid hydrolysis uses strong acids (such as sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid) to hydrolyze cellulose and hemicellulose in spent grains, producing reducing sugars for fermentation. But strong acids corrode equipment and generate large amounts of acidic wastewater with high subsequent treatment costs. - Alkaline treatment uses alkaline agents such as sodium hydroxide to destroy lignin structure and improve polysaccharide extraction rates, but alkaline treatment easily causes sugar degradation, producing black-brown difficult-to-treat waste liquids, and high pH conditions may cause environmental pollution. - Oxidation methods use oxidizing agents such as hydrogen peroxide and ozone to degrade organic matter in spent grains; reaction conditions are mild but oxidizing agents are costly and may generate toxic intermediate products. - Solvent extraction uses organic solvents (such as ethanol and acetone) to extract functional components from spent grains. Although selectivity is good, solvent recovery consumes large amounts of energy and poses fire and explosion risks. Furthermore, chemical degradation commonly faces problems such as severe reaction conditions and complex by-products, and post-degradation residues still contain difficult-to-treat organic compounds, easily causing secondary pollution. Therefore, developing green and mild chemical-biological synergistic degradation technologies is an important future direction.
While the general market for vinasse utilization is large, a more focused analysis reveals a highly attractive niche: the production of bio-succinate. This approach directly converts a waste stream into a high-value chemical, addressing the shortcomings of current methods. The analysis of this specific market illustrates the clear and quantifiable opportunity.
China Market Opportunity: The bio-succinate market in China is projected to grow at an accelerated Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.3%, expanding from \$11.0 million in 2023 to an estimated \$24.9 million by 2030. The Serviceable Available Market (SAM) is the portion accessible via a biological/fermentation production route. The SAM specifically for China is forecasted to reach \$20–\$25 million by 2030. By capturing a modest Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) of 0.5% to 3% of China’s SAM, our project is positioned to achieve an annual revenue between \$55,000 and \$750,000.
Global Market Opportunity: The global succinate market was valued at \$222.9 million in 2021 and is projected to reach \$512.8 million by 2030, reflecting a robust CAGR of 9.7%. Within this total market, the SAM is estimated to be between \$110 million and \$140 million. Our project targets a SOM of 0.5% to 2% of this segment, representing a potential annual revenue of approximately \$0.55 million to \$2.8 million.
Our primary customers are Chinese baijiu distilleries, which produce over 200 million tons of spent grain annually. With more than 1,500 licensed producers, baijiu is a key cultural and economic industry and one of the largest sources of lignocellulosic fermentation waste in China. As national policies increasingly promote green manufacturing and carbon reduction, mid-to-large distilleries face mounting pressure to adopt sustainable, value-added waste treatment technologies.
We focus primarily on leading national brands such as Kweichow Moutai, Wuliangye, and Luzhou Laojiao, which operate at industrial scale and have clear ESG mandates.
Among them, Luzhou Laojiao Co., Ltd. is our most strategically aligned early customer. As one of China’s most established distillery, it combines high waste output with strong public commitments to green innovation. The company has formed a board-level ESG committee, deployed a digital environmental management platform, and invested in natural gas and biogas cogeneration. In 2023, it reported a 48.45% reduction in suspended solids per unit product and reuse of 35.78 million tons of solid waste, largely from spent grain converted to feed and fertilizer.
In addition to internal investment, Luzhou Laojiao is actively developing external collaborations. In April 2025, the company entered strategic cooperation discussions with Yongqing Environmental Group, aiming to enhance its waste-to-resource conversion capabilities and explore advanced solutions in fermentation residue valorization.
We have already established initial contact with Luzhou Laojiao’s innovation divisions and received positive preliminary feedback. As a first-mover partner, Luzhou Laojiao offers not only production scale but also brand visibility, serving as a critical demonstration site for validating the technical and economic viability of our process. This partnership will also serve as a reference case in our future licensing and technical service engagements with other vinasse.
Looking forward, we plan to expand into adjacent fermentation industries such as beer and wine. Though their byproducts is similar in lignocellulosic structure, they require tailored microbial or process adaptations. In parallel, we envision downstream integration through partnerships in the biodegradable plastics and green chemistry sectors, using our succinate. This strategy positions us at the intersection of industrial biotechnology, circular economy, and environmental compliance, building a scalable and sustainable value chain from waste to high-value bio-based materials.
Our innovation is the development of a Dual-Microbe Synergistic System that efficiently transforms industrial waste into high-value bio-succinate ambient temperature and pressure. This system utilizes two genetically engineered microorganisms in a seamless, “one-step” process. Trichoderma reesei is engineered to secrete specialized enzymes that gently and effectively depolymerize the complex lignocellulose in vinasse, and Pseudomonas putida is then metabolically engineered to efficiently assimilate the resulting small sugars and aromatic compounds, directing their conversion into the C4 platform chemical, succinate, which is secreted for simple recovery.
Our technology offers a compelling value proposition that positions us for significant market penetration and sustainability leadership. We achieve operational cost reduction by eliminating the need for high heat, high pressure, and expensive chemical catalysts. This results in a low-energy, low-corrosion process that significantly reduces OPEX and provides superior efficiency compared to conventional energy-intensive methods. Furthermore, we ensure high-value product yield through the precise, directional conversion to succinate, a stable commodity chemical priced at \$1,400–\$2,000 per ton with robust market demand. This approach maximizes revenue by replacing low-value waste outputs. Finally, our project establishes sustainability and compliance by adhering to green chemistry principles and producing a bio-based product that enables downstream partners to achieve carbon neutrality goals. This, in turn, mitigates regulatory risk and attracts investment aligned with ESG mandates.
The current competitive landscape is defined by three primary approaches to handling this waste stream.
Feed Resource Utilization is the most traditional method. This involves the direct sale of raw wet grains, drying it to create a more stable DDGS feed, or mixing it with residual liquid for higher nutritional value. While this is the mainstream approach, it treats the vinasse as a low-grade commodity, failing to unlock the significant economic potential of its chemical components.
Anaerobic Digestion for Biogas is another common approach. This “waste-to-energy” strategy is environmentally friendly, allowing breweries to reduce their carbon footprint and energy costs by generating heat and power. While effective for sustainability initiatives, its value is capped at the level of energy savings.
High-Value-Added Product Conversion is the most advanced segment, which represents the innovation frontier where our project operates. Current R&D focuses on food ingredients, biodegradable materials, and chemical extraction, with advanced companies like BASF and Lallemand possessing sophisticated biosynthesis technologies. However, most of these applications are not yet technologically mature or economically viable at scale, and foreign competitors often lack the raw material access and cost structure to compete in China. Our project holds a distinct advantage in this category, as we have developed a targeted, proven, and economically viable solution for direct succinate conversion, moving beyond exploration to execution.
While the high-value conversion space for vinasse is attractive, it is protected by significant Barriers to Entry, primarily spanning three critical dimensions.
New entrants in the vinasse resource utilization track face further challenges from market competition and the necessity for substantial capital investment across all stages, including technology R&D, product production, and market promotion. Established companies already hold market share, intensifying the competitive pressure new ventures must overcome.
Our project is uniquely positioned to overcome these challenges through a combination of core competitive advantages. We possess China’s first technology for the direct conversion of spent grains to succinate, creating a high, difficult-to-replicate technical barrier with our patented dual-microbe system. This technological lead is secured by our strategic market access through a partnership with Luzhou Laojiao, which provides a stable supply of raw materials and a crucial platform for real-world validation. This deeply integrated customer relationship is a powerful advantage new entrants cannot easily replicate. Capping this off is a superior cost structure, as our efficient bioconversion process operates with low energy consumption and without expensive catalysts, providing a sustainable production cost advantage.
We project three primary revenue sources, each serving distinct customer segments and timelines.
The first major revenue stream stems from the sale of our engineered microbial culture kits, designed to convert lignocellulosic residues into bio-based succinate. These kits are supplied to vinasse either on a per-batch basis or through subscriptions, forming a reliable income source as adoption scales. Early installations at high-profile vinassesu ch as Luzhou Laojiao will serve as market validation, while standardized strains will allow for efficient distribution across a wide customer base. In the longer term, we plan to license strain usage to regional operators to facilitate decentralized growth and increase reach.
The second revenue stream comes from technical maintenance and support services, offered through annual or multi-year contracts. These services include microbial replenishment, system performance monitoring, on-site adjustments, and remote diagnostics, forming a recurring revenue base that enhances customer retention. We also offer optional dashboard services that provide clients with continuous visibility into fermentation outcomes, making our system an integral part of their production process.
The third revenue pillar is our premium custom strain development offering. In these cases, we develop tailored microbial strains capable of producing high-value compounds such as ethanol, lactic acid, or amino acids from lignocellulosic feedstocks. Revenue is generated through upfront R&D and pilot fees, with the option to negotiate technology transfer terms or revenue-sharing models upon commercial scale-up.
In the longer term, we anticipate an additional revenue stream from sales or royalties of bio-based succinate to downstream partners in biodegradable plastics, green solvents, and industrial coatings.
Our commercialization path is a focused business-to-business (B2B) strategy targeting China’s mid-to-large-scale distilleries. We will initially concentrate our efforts in the provinces of Sichuan and Guizhou, the heartland of Baijiu production, where a high density of potential customers provides an ideal launch market. Our target early adopters are forward-looking fermentation companies actively seeking sustainable and value-added solutions for their waste streams. To this end, we are already engaged in preliminary discussions with industry leaders like Luzhou Laojiao Co., Ltd., whose partnership would offer both a logistical advantage and a powerful brand endorsement for our technology.
Market entry will be spearheaded by establishing pilot deployments at Luzhou Laojiao and one to two additional distilleries to validate our system’s real-world performance. Our role will be that of a full-service technology partner, delivering the engineered microbial starter cultures and providing comprehensive technical support, including installation, training, and ongoing maintenance. A critical component of these pilots will be the rigorous documentation of both the environmental benefits and the economic returns, creating compelling case studies that will serve as the cornerstone of our broader marketing and partner development efforts.
To build credibility and trust within this traditionally conservative industry, we will leverage technical publications and third-party validation studies to substantiate our performance claims. Simultaneously, we will increase our visibility and forge strategic connections by participating in key industry exhibitions, such as the China Alcoholic Drinks Association (CADA) conference and various biotech innovation forums. These events will be crucial for showcasing our solution and attracting the long-term manufacturing and licensing partners necessary for scaling our operations.
Following the successful completion of our proof-of-concept pilots, we will execute a phased regional rollout designed for sustainable growth. This will begin with multi-site deployments across distillery clusters in Southwest China, leveraging our initial successes to drive customer acquisition in neighboring provinces. As demand increases, we will transition to a more scalable model, using licensing or contract manufacturing partnerships to expand our reach efficiently. The long-term vision extends beyond distilled spirits; we plan to enter adjacent fermentation sectors, including beer and wine production. Ultimately, we will integrate vertically by establishing downstream partnerships with companies in the biodegradable plastics and green chemistry sectors, positioning our bio-based succinate as a key sustainable feedstock and completing the value chain from waste.
Given the highly technical and B2B-oriented nature of our offering, our sales strategy emphasizes relationship-building over mass-market outreach. Rather than relying on conventional advertising, we adopt a targeted, trust-driven approach, led directly by the founding team and scientific officers.
Sales efforts are supported by tailored pitch decks and technical whitepapers that clearly articulate the scientific validity and economic value of our microbial system. We will host demonstration workshops and invite prospective clients for lab visits to experience system performance firsthand. Furthermore, our presence at leading environmental and biotechnology conferences—through peer-reviewed publications and presentations—will establish credibility and help drive inbound interest.
To accelerate adoption and build market momentum, we prioritize anchor customers with high visibility and industry influence, such as Luzhou Laojiao. As one of China’s most established vinasse, their early adoption of our technology is expected to set an industry precedent, shortening sales cycles with other potential clients through reputational leverage.
We plan to partner with regional integrators and service providers with strong access to fermentation and waste management sectors, which will expand our market reach and reduce long-term reliance on internal sales resources.
Given the technical nature of our offering, customer trust and satisfaction are critical to retention. We invest in relationship-building through:
To manage costs while maintaining high service quality, we implement a range of sales and support efficiencies.
Based on the technical characteristics and market positioning of the project, we have constructed a strategic partner network covering both market application and technical production fields, forming a complete industrial ecosystem from raw material supply to product sales.
Luzhou Laojiao Co., Ltd. is our core strategic partner. As one of China’s oldest baijiu enterprises, Luzhou Laojiao not only provides us with stable spent grain raw material supply, ensuring raw material needs for early-stage R&D and subsequent scaled production, but more importantly, its brand influence provides strong market endorsement for our technology. We adopt a mutually beneficial business model of “environmental technology services + raw material recycling,” solving their environmental compliance pressure while obtaining stable high-quality raw material supply.
To further expand raw material sources and reduce single-industry dependency risks, we actively establish cooperative relationships with regional agricultural waste recycling centers and large-scale planting enterprises. Through technical adaptation, we expand our business scope to other lignocellulosic waste treatment fields such as straw and bagasse, achieving diversified raw material supply layout.
Downstream, we are negotiating cooperation with domestic and international biodegradable material production enterprises to provide high-quality bio-based succinate for their PBS (polybutylene succinate) and other biodegradable plastic production. Through establishing long-term supply agreements and conducting joint technical development, we are committed to connecting the complete green industrial chain of “waste → high-value raw materials → green materials.”
In core technology R&D, we have established deep cooperative relationships with top research institutions such as Tsinghua University’s synthetic biology team and the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. These collaborations provide us with key technical support in engineered strain optimization, metabolic pathway modification, and enzyme activity enhancement. Through jointly building industry-academia-research joint laboratories and undertaking major research projects, we can continuously maintain technological leadership advantages.
Meanwhile, we conduct technical collaboration with leading synthetic biology companies such as BlueCrystal Microbes, combining academic frontier innovation with industrial practice experience to achieve breakthrough progress in gene editing optimization and industrial-grade strain stability enhancement.
In production technology, we establish cooperative relationships with professional engineered strain suppliers to jointly solve key issues such as customized engineered strain propagation and freeze-drying technology optimization. Through establishing comprehensive activity preservation monitoring and batch consistency control systems, we can meet strict strain quality requirements from customers in different regions.
In equipment technology, we cooperate with fermentation equipment manufacturers to develop customized dual-microbe co-culture fermentation systems, ensuring real-time parameter monitoring, full-process automated control, and long-term stable operation to meet personalized equipment needs of customers of different scales.
In product separation and purification, we deeply cooperate with professional separation and purification technology suppliers to jointly develop efficient and low-cost succinate separation and purification processes. Through customized equipment configuration and process optimization, we can provide products of different purity specifications while significantly reducing energy consumption and improving product recovery rates.
Our execution strategy is structured into four distinct phases, guiding our progression from technology validation to full industrialization over the next five years. This phased approach is designed to systematically de-risk our venture by achieving critical technical and commercial milestones at each stage before committing to larger-scale investment.
This initial phase is fundamentally about proving our core technology works in a real-world setting. The primary objective is to move from a validated lab concept to a functioning small-scale pilot. During this time, we will secure our intellectual property by submitting the first batch of core patent applications. We will complete the construction of our dual-strain engineering system and, in parallel, establish our first-generation strain library and the standard operating procedures (SOPs) that will govern its use. The capstone of this phase will be the launch of a small-scale pilot at our partner facility, Luzhou Laojiao, allowing us to validate performance and begin collecting crucial data on environmental and economic benefits.
With the basic technology validated, Phase 2 focuses on proving its commercial viability and scalability. We will secure a long-term cooperation agreement with Luzhou Laojiao and leverage it to construct a pilot-scale fermentation production line of 1000L or greater. The key technical goal is to complete the commissioning of our integrated succinate separation and purification system, enabling the continuous output of products with a purity of ≥99.5%. This phase is dedicated to intensive process optimization, stability testing, and demonstrating consistent, high-quality production at a commercially relevant scale with our flagship partner.
Once our model is proven and optimized with our initial partner, the focus shifts to replication and market expansion. We will onboard our second and third partner breweries, deploying our system and conducting comparative performance analyses to demonstrate its adaptability and build a portfolio of successful case studies. Concurrently, we will build the commercial infrastructure necessary for growth, including establishing regional sales channels and launching a prototype of our remote monitoring and support platform. This phase proves that our solution is not a one-off success but a replicable and scalable business model.
The final phase is centered on achieving full industrial scale and market leadership. We will aggressively expand our footprint in key regions like Sichuan and Guizhou through a flexible model of technology licensing and contract manufacturing partnerships. We will also begin strategic diversification by developing targeted strain adaptation solutions for other fermentation by-products, such as those from beer and wine production. Critically, we will close the loop on the circular economy by establishing downstream cooperation pilots, supplying our high-purity succinate as a sustainable feedstock to the biodegradable plastics industry and cementing our role as a central player in the bio-based materials ecosystem.