Ecoxtract

Ecoxtract is a start-up offering a sustainable extraction technology for extracting lipophilic molecules from any biological substrate using Ecomeo - a vegetable-based, non-toxic and renewable solvent. 

Our solution is designed to meet today's challenges: how to feed the planet with the smallest possible footprint, how to reduce the environmental impact of food production processes, and how to guarantee healthy, clean food for all.

Our extraction solution recovers 30% more oil than a simple press, and is applicable on both small and very large scales (> 1000 T processed/day), unlike solutions such as supercritical CO2. It enables the production of well-defatted natural extracts, animal feeds or functional proteins for food (<1% residual fat), and eliminates the risk of food loss due to rancidity.

Today, the only way to achieve such efficiency is by extraction with hexane, but this is a neurotoxic and reprotoxic gasoline whose ingestion dose is unsafe and questioned by EFSA. Hexane has just been added to the intention list of Substances of Very High Concern.

Few effective alternatives currently exist on the market. Our solvent, Ecomeo, offers an economically viable substitute that is safe and sustainable by design. 

Ecoxtract is a new company founded in December 2023 by Laurence Jacques with the support of Anne-Sophie Pastel and Marc-Antoine Dubanton to further develop and bring to market the Ecoxtract technology she had led the development of within the Minafin group. 

As early as 2017, Laurence carried out an opportunity study including the technological locks to be lifted, the regulatory brakes, the technologies and plants impacted by the change, and the market potential.

In December 2017, she proposed to Minafin's Board of Directors to finance the high-potential but long-term Ecoxtract project, and obtained the project's GO. It was clear from the outset that it would take many years to gain initial food approval and resolve the first technological hurdles.

In the absence of extraction resources and knowledge within the Minafin group, Laurence set up partnerships with scientific and technical partners such as ITERG in Bordeaux and the University of Avignon (Green laboratory with Farid Chemat), regulatory affairs consultants, and from the outset met with prospects, users such as the Avril group and engineering companies specializing in plant design such as Desmet Ballestra or Crown Iron Works.

It gradually built up a team, purchased a patent and continued R&D activities, resulting in the filing of two further patents in 2018, and 2022.

In 2017 and early 2018, Laurence investigated and identified regulatory pathways for regulatory approval in food and feed in Europe and the USA, launched and monitored the toxicological studies needed to file for approval in food in Europe and feed in the USA with a dedicated toxicology consultant.

After a first filing in Europe in December 2019, the examination of the dossier by EFSA began in early 2021. EFSA issued a positive opinion in March 2022, and the European authorities finally included 2-methyloxolane (Ecomeo) in Directive 2009/32/EC in January 2023.

What's more, in 2021, thanks to a Horizon 2020 project, a first small pilot plant was converted. This plant, designed for hexane, can now use methyloxolane on a short-term campaign basis. The first soybean cakes and oils were produced in 2 10-day campaigns. These initial campaigns have shown that Ecoxtract technology is not yet equivalent to hexane technology in terms of results. To bring the project to a successful conclusion, several R&D campaigns will be needed to resolve the problems associated with the methyloxolane extraction spectrum and process stability.

At the beginning of 2023, the Minafin group, faced with the lack of short-term business prospects and the still substantial development needs, decided to refocus its activities and resources on pharmaceuticals, and to lay off or reassign members of the Ecoxtract team.

Laurence left the group in September 2023, joined forces with Anne-Sophie and both took over the project in April 2024.