IMPLEMENTATION

Status quo

Through conversations with farmers, regulatory institutions and seed coating companies, we identified the most pressing issues in arable farming. Interestingly, all parties share similar goals: they want to increase efficiency while reducing environmental impact. However, we have noticed a disconnect between key stakeholders (farmers, companies/researchers, policymakers) problems, awareness, and plans, within the seed sector. This is also due to a lack of communication lines between them. This disconnect hinders the sector from effectively achieving shared goals, and tension can arise.

At present, new regulations ban available materials because of their climate impact, before alternatives are available. This forces farmers to resort to older methods, which can cause greater harm to nature and human health, while also decreasing yields. The core issue is related to the availability of materials. For example, a ban on microplastics in agriculture is approaching fast, while over half of seed coatings are currently still based on microplastics. Similarly, as the adverse effects of active compounds become increasingly known, they are banned to protect the environment. As much as we agree with the need to move towards sustainability, we need to work together with all stakeholders to develop solutions that can actually make this possible.

Our solution

When a seed coating material or additive is banned, seed coating manufacturers will require years for R&D and field trials before bringing an alternative on the market. With BCoated, this timeline is greatly reduced. Because all of our seed coatings are made from the same core material, we do not require new regulatory approval when bringing a coating with different properties to the market. This flexibility allows us to fill these gaps in the market much quicker than our competitors, and help farmers reach their sustainability goals.

The strength of BCoated lies in its modularity. For us, this simplifies the production of coatings with diverse properties. For our customers, this streamlines the seed coating market and allows for fast adaptation to new or niche problems.

Practical use

Our seed coatings are easily adaptable to all applications. Our customers can select the properties they need to make their crops thrive, and we will produce the bacterial cellulose accordingly (Figure 1). With our use cases, we have demonstrated that the coating can deliver active components. We can tune the slow-release of additives, and we can incorporate proteins for extra functions. This makes it suitable for tackling problems such as striga and wireworm, issues stressed by our stakeholders in farming and academia. Importantly, these results are a proof of concept for many more applications, which we will keep exploring together with stakeholders.

Overview of the implementation of BCoated
Overview of the implementation of BCoated.

When implementing our seed coating production platform into a real-life setting, ease of use for end users, farmers and seed developers, is essential. To facilitate a smooth transition, we will collaborate with trusted seed sellers. We aim to add our product to the available set of coating materials on the established sales platforms. This allows farmers to focus on what they do best: growing tomorrow’s crops.

During our wet lab experiments, we have investigated two approaches to deliver the bacterial cellulose (BC) to the outside of the seed: ex situ and in situ. For the ex situ coating, the BC is first harvested from the culture medium and subjected to downstream processing (DSP). After DSP, the BC is shelf stable and can be processed into a seed coating at the customer’s convenience. In the in situ approach, the seeds are instead coated by Komagataeibacter sucrofermentans directly in the culture, growing the BC around the seed. Both approaches have benefits and disadvantages, which are summarised in Table 1.

Table 1: Overview of the advantages and disadvantages of the ex situ and in situ coating approaches. Considerations are based on our own wet lab results.

Approach Advantages Disadvantages
ex situ
  • More straightforward set-up
  • Easier storage conditions
  • Some of the modified BC properties might be lost in the downstream processing
  • BC can be difficult to process due to its high material strength
in situ
  • Less intensive downstream processing
  • Difficult and labour intensive to scale-up
  • Seeds can germinate in the bioreactor
  • Coatings have to be washed and dried, which can impact seed performance
  • Coatings will contain GMO, which have to be neutralised

Although in situ coating is a promising approach to coat our seeds, as it retains all potential modifications, this method is currently not ready for large-scale practical use due to its high labour intensity. Scaling up to the desired production capacity in line with our entrepreneurship timeline would not be realistic at this stage. In addition, more research needs to be done on the fundamental parts of this technology to guarantee optimal quality for our customers. The ex situ approach is a more traditional, straightforward coating approach. Taking this into account, BCoated will focus on ex situ coating approaches for the large-scale production of seed coatings in the upcoming years, whilst our R&D shall be focused on improving the in situ coating approaches. In this way, we hope to offer our customers reliable and ever-improving seed coating technologies to ensure higher yields and happier crops.

Future prospects

Agriculture is a fast-changing field, and our project must develop alongside it. A changing climate, changing regulations and technical innovations will continue to bring opportunities and challenges. BCoated coatings will be adapted to comply with these rising issues and possibilities. By continuing to work with all stakeholders, we aim to identify difficulties and continuously adapt our coatings to them. This way, we don’t just bring solutions now, but also for future crops.

Although we have focused on developing modular seed coatings, our production platform can produce BC with different properties for a variety of industries and applications (Figure 2). Examples of this are the medical industry, where BC is used to treat burn wounds1, or the packaging industry2. Although we will not be expanding into other industries ourselves, we are firm believers in collaborative science, and we believe that our solution can make a difference in these other industries as well. Even though we will be patenting our process to protect our IP and our business, we are always open to collaborating with other companies, and may grant licenses to use our production platform if our values align. In this way, BCoated is not just providing immediate solutions; it is building a foundation for sustainable, adaptable innovations that will support agriculture and beyond for years to come.

Different properties of bacterial cellulose to develop a modular polymer beyond seed coatings
Different properties of BC that will be explored to develop a modular polymer that could be used even outside the scope of seed coatings!
(1)
Joseph, A.; Umamaheswari, S.; Vassou, M. C. Bacterial Cellulose: A Versatile Biomaterial for Biomedical Application. Carbohydrate Research 2025, 552, 109350. Epub 2024 Dec 2, PMID: 40090210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carres.2024.109350.
(2)
Cheng, X.; Fan, M.; Gao, Y.; Xiong, Z.; Li, L. Bacterial Cellulose: Modification and Application in Food Packaging. Carbohydrate Polymers 2025, 370, 124450. ISSN 0144-8617. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2025.124450.