Brewing Palm Oil in a Lab: Tom Collier on the Future of Sustainable Ingredients with Levur

Episode Summary

🌿Brewing a Sustainable Future with Lab-Grown Palm Oil – Mick Liubinskas sits down with Tom Collier, CEO and co-founder of Levur, to uncover how precision fermentation is transforming the palm oil industry.

Palm oil is found in 50% of supermarket products and 70% of cosmetics, yet its production is a major driver of deforestation, biodiversity loss, and carbon emissions. Levur is tackling this crisis by using synthetic biology to brew palm oil in a lab, eliminating the need for rainforest destruction. Tom shares his journey from molecular biology to entrepreneurship, the challenges of scaling biotech solutions, and why global regulations and corporate demand are accelerating the shift to sustainable alternatives.

From waste-to-feedstock innovation to mass fermentation at industrial scale, this episode explores how lab-grown palm oil could reshape the future of food, cosmetics, and climate tech.

💡 Tune in to learn why regulation, consumer pressure, and cost-efficiency are aligning to drive massive change—and why sustainable solutions must not only be greener but cheaper and better to win the market!

⏱️ Time Stamps

00:00 – Introduction: Live from Macquarie University’s Synthetic Biology Lab

00:24 – Meet Tom Collier and Levur’s mission to brew palm oil

01:07 – The devastating impact of palm oil production

02:05 – Why global demand for palm oil is set to quadruple by 2050

03:12 – How microbes and precision fermentation create sustainable palm oil

06:11 – Why palm oil is used in everything from chocolate to shampoo

08:43 – Scaling up: From lab samples to industrial fermentation

12:03 – Overcoming biotech manufacturing bottlenecks

16:01 – The challenge of making sustainable products cost-competitive

18:44 – How waste feedstocks can power a circular economy

19:38 – Why Europe’s palm oil regulations are a game-changer for Levur

22:08 – The $70M ton problem: Can lab-grown palm oil scale fast enough?

24:14 – 2025 goals: Delivering first samples and proving market fit

26:29 – The path to mass adoption and commercial success

Resources Mentioned

🔗Levur – Brewing sustainable palm oil with precision fermentation

🤝Levur’s Linkedin🙋🏻‍♂️Tom’s Linkedin🌱 EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) – Banning unsustainable palm oil imports

📊 Australian Genome Foundry – Supporting synthetic biology startups

🔬 Macquarie University’s Synthetic Biology Lab – Cutting-edge research in bioengineering

📖 Net Positive by Paul Polman – How businesses can lead sustainability transformations

🌍 Ready to discover more innovative climate tech solutions? Here's what you can do:

▶️ SUBSCRIBE to never miss an episode featuring amazing founders solving climate challenges! →    / @climatesalad.  .

🎧 Follow The Mix on your favorite podcast platform to listen on the go → https://the-mix-fm.captivate.fm/listen📧 Visit dayone.fm/shows/the-mix/newsletter and sign up for our newsletter to have these stories delivered straight to your inbox

🔄 Share this episode with others who care about climate innovation!

---

The Mix is part of the Day One podcast network - dedicated to founders, operators and investors building a better tomorrow.

🌐 Website: https://dayone.fm/

The Mix is powered by Climate Salad. Join the Australian

Climate Tech Community.

Together, we help Australian companies build innovations to solve global environmental problems.

🌐 Website: https://climatesalad.com/

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
Spotify Ad Analytics - https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/