EVERY says new US patent extends its ovalbumin protection from the ingredient to finished foods

What Happened

US precision fermentation company The EVERY Company says it has received US Patent No. 12,767,701, which covers finished foods made with recombinant ovalbumin, the main protein in egg white. The company says this is its 65th granted patent worldwide. EVERY's earlier patents, US 12,096,784 and European patent 4017287, cover the ingredient itself. According to EVERY and vegconomist, the new patent covers end products such as baked goods, which the company calls its core market, and processed foods. The reported claims cover ovalbumin produced in Pichia pastoris, Trichoderma reesei and Aspergillus niger. They also cover blends with other egg proteins and ingredients, formulations said to match or beat egg white in gelling, whipping, emulsification, foam stability, humectancy and browning, and low-fat powdered egg white compositions. On the commercial side, the company reports finishing a nationwide Walmart rollout this year and an agreement with Huvepharma to quadruple capacity. In July it signed a deal with ADM to make OvoPro at commercial scale in Clinton, Iowa, which is meant to move part of its production to the US.

Why It Matters

For food manufacturers, the IP question shifts from who supplies the protein to what can be made with it. Brands thinking about using recombinant egg-white proteins in bakery or processed foods may need a freedom-to-operate review. How far the patent actually reaches depends on the claim text, which we did not review here.

Patenting finished foods moves the competition from the fermenter to the formulation bench.

FET's Takeaway

FET analysis: Because the claims rest on functional parity with egg white, test methods become the key question. Foam overrun and stability, gel strength and Maillard browning depend on pH, ionic strength, sugar content and leftover host-cell components. A powder can match egg white in one recipe and fall short in another. Scale-up brings its own variables: glycosylation can differ between host organisms, and downstream purification affects both cost and batch consistency. The evidence includes no cost, yield or side-by-side test data. Regulatory status is not documented either. The press release calls the ingredients "FDA-approved," but that wording should not be read as a confirmed formal FDA approval.