The Untapped Potential of Superfruit
Mission
Clever is a developer of fermented biotic health ingredients. We sell to pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and functional food brands. Our mission is to enhance the health of society by increasing the potency of fruit polyphenols through fermentation. Clever’s ingredients bring the body’s microbiome back into balance.
Polyphenols are a category of naturally occurring organic compounds. They are most plentiful in fruits, vegetables, and even animals. They are important because they have powerful antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial properties. Our bodies use these properties to protect themselves. Many Polyphenols have direct and specific powerful health benefits.
Fruits have complex polyphenol profiles. This has earned them a long list of ‘historically recognized’ health benefits. The greatest fruits are called superfruit. The wild blueberry is the world’s #1 superfruit. It contributes positive health benefits to six of the world’s top 10 health pandemics. These polyphenols are powerful health aids.
Polyphenol is a complex word and often used synonymously with other complex words. Words like phytonutrients and phytochemicals. “Phyto’ simply means green. There are over 8,000 different types of polyphenols, many with even more complex names. To simplify things, we refer to the value of polyphenols as the ‘goodness’ of fruit.
Problem
The problem we are solving is our body’s ability to absorb the goodness of fruit. What is called bioavailability? The goodness in fruit, like all plants, can be incredibly valuable. Indeed critical to the human body. And yet the fruit’s goodness is not that easy for the body to absorb.
Ironically, we work with fruit as it:
- Has the most plentiful goodness
- Some of the most valuable (richest) goodness
- It’s the easiest plant or animal from which to extract that goodness.
And yet, at the same time, the complex chemical structures of raw fruit inhibit our body’s absorption. For instance, most of the fruit’s goodness is its skin. To extract that goodness your body needs enzymes that are not as prevalent in today’s modern diet. Even when successful, the body receives only a small amount of that goodness. A recent macro study suggests the body uses only .03% of fruit goodness
Vision
Clever believes solving the bioavailability of superfruit’s goodness will change the world. Change the world’s understanding of nutrition absorption. And change the world by creating enough supply of critical health-promoting compounds. A supply that can be economically manufactured and shipped anywhere in the world.
Clever’s proprietary fermentation technologies aim to change that. We can alter the bioavailability (absorption) of fruit’s goodness. To turn goodness into greatness. We can use fermentation to create the compounds known to protect the body. To protect it from inflammation, and improve cell, gut, skin, heart, and brain health.
Fruit Waste
Fruit farming also has the unglamorous notoriety as a large user of rare commodities. Including important raw materials like water and earth nutrients. The structure of the fruit industry is centered on fresh fruit. On delivering a perfect whole-natural fruit to your shopping basket. Like a beautiful fresh apple.
Unfortunately, that industry’s design creates a lot of waste. In most jurisdictions that is 25-35% of the annual harvest. In some jurisdictions, it is as high as 65%.
We are not referring to the loss of fruit in the supply chain. We refer to farm loss. Fruit that never leaves the farm or primary processing facility.
Clever aims to rescue that fruit. We focus on the superfruits of the world,. This is where the goodness of the fruit is the richest and most valuable to humans. That fruit is too ugly or not ripe enough for stores. Ironically, that fruit has more goodness than perfectly ripe fruit.
The world has over 1 billion people with not have enough to eat. Not enough nutrients is the cry of those fighting food insecurity. We can help solve that problem.
GHGs
Population forecasters suggest we have an extra 2 billion people coming. So we are feeding 7 billion and need to feed 3 billion more. Farming makes up 10% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Using the same farming practices will make GHG reductions impossible.
Upcycling superfruit farm loss solves a lot of problems. And it has generous economics to support the effort.
Partners
Clever’s business model is to work with farmers and grower associations to find value in their farm loss. Clever aims to create products at least 5 times more valuable than the original fruit. See our Products & Partners Page for more information.
Why Metabolites & the Microbiome Matter
Clever’s fermentation mimics the body’s digestive system. When we digest food, our bodies break down food compounds into smaller molecules. Our bodies transform the chemistry of food compounds to create something new. This change, often called biotransformation, is at the cellular level.
The smaller food compounds are metabolites. The more scientific term is a microbial metabolite. There are over 253,000 different types of metabolites. They play critical roles in our bodies. Like feeding the brain, forming new cells, managing cellular connections, and communication. They keep us alive.
Pathogens found in our food systems or viruses like COVID-19 thwart metabolite production. This is inflammation. The body can suffer if it is deficient in a specific metabolite. It can also suffer if a specific metabolite is out of balance with other metabolites.
Yes, it’s complicated, and yes it’s new. Managing personal health, through our microbiome, will change everything. And every part of the drug, nutraceutical, and food industry we invest in and rely upon.
Phenolics
Fruits are full of food compounds that are antioxidant, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory. When our bodies transform these compounds, they are phenolic metabolites. These phenolics get created in our colon, playing an active role in our microbiome.
Phenolics are a critical class of metabolites that underpin our immune system. Phenolics both protect the body and fight inflammation. Or as we like to say, they supply the deficient and fight the underlying inflammation problem.
Products
Clever designs ingredients to bring the body’s microbiome back into balance. The product does so by ensuring enough supply of specific metabolites. There are few limits to the design of fermentations to create metabolite combinations. There are many different superfruits and many different fermentation microbes.
One could eat more fruit. The difference is fermentation delivers a consistent supply of key metabolites and phenolics. Whereas digestion is often thwarted by digestional tract issues. And/or the body lacks important enzymes to manage the biotransformation.
Metabolite deficiency is the real home of degenerative disease. Fermented products will never stop active cancers. But they can help to STOP them from STARTING.
Our fermentation technology enhances the bioavailability and potency of superfruit goodness. Our technologies create designer arrays of metabolites. These metabolites are well-researched and also have ‘historically recognized’ beneficial health effects.
Microbiome modulation is an emerging category of biotics. We intend to develop nutraceuticals. We begin with fermenting wild blueberry to create an Age-Related Cognition Decline nutraceutical.
Our vision is 10 Superfruit – 10 Nutraceuticals
Fermentation Microbes & SynBio
Each fruit has a distinct polyphenol profile(goodness). The fruits with complex polyphenol profiles receive the moniker ‘superfruit’.
Fermentation is about microbes (yeasts, bacteria, and enzymes). These microbes do the heavy lifting, they biotransform the fruit. For each fruit, we design different microbes. We design specific microbes to create targeted metabolites.
The era of synthetic biology (SynBio) has completely altered the world of microbes. We can now design microbes to generate very specific metabolite combinations.
In this way, we can design ingredients for specific nutraceuticals. We have done most of our early science with the world’s #1 superfruit the wild blueberry. We have chosen age-related cognitive decline as the target use case for this fruit.
We are also interested in the highbush blueberry for diabetes and the cherry for pain. These health benefits are already ‘historically recognized’. We are not asking fruit to do more than it can or more than it has historically done. We design a fermentation approach to give each fruit a chance to show off its greatness.
In this way, we can design ingredients for specific use cases. We have done most of our early science with the world’s #1 superfruit the wild blueberry. We have chosen age-related cognitive design as the target use case for this fruit.
Economics
Our ingredients upcycle the world’s greatest superfruit fighting the underlining problem inflamation. Products can have tremendous health impacts. A very small dose will do the job. Fermentation is an inexpensive process. The microbes do the work. Superfruit waste – farm loss has an economically attractive supply chain. Check out of Products & Partners Page to learn more.