Holiferm open new biotech commercial plant in Wallasey

Holiferm, the University of Manchester biotech spin-out based at Sci-Tech Daresbury, has opened its new facility in Wallasey.

The 90,000 sq ft site will help Holiferm in developing environmentally friendly biosurfactants for use in detergents and toiletries, enabling it to produce 1,100 tonnes of biosurfactants annually for its growing client list.

Surfactants are a key ingredient in the manufacture of detergents and personal care products, but current mainstream goods primarily use petrochemical and tropical oil-based surfactants, which cause significant harm to the environment.

Holiferm has developed an approach which allows this yeast-based approach to be carried out as a semi-continuous process, allowing the delivery of green products to the mass market.

The Wallasey plant

The plant will employ 40 staff, over half of which are new jobs created by Holiferm’s expansion, with additional roles set to be created as the facility is further scaled up.

During the construction process over 500 jobs were supported as the plant took shape, with the majority going to people from Wirral and the Liverpool City Region.

From 2024, the plant will also produce rhamnolipids and MELs, with Holiferm looking to increase the capacity of the plant to at least 3,000 tonnes.

Holiferm is also set to launch new biosurfactant products and is working in collaboration with BASF on the next two molecules in its pipeline.

The plant was officially opened by Mayor of Wirral, Jeff Green.

Richard Lock, managing director of Holiferm, said: "We’re anticipating our customers will have a bigger need for our services as it becomes increasingly important for products to be more sustainable and produced in greener ways and important for end users too.

"The opening of this plant represents the culmination of a key chapter in the Holiferm story – along the way we’ve created jobs and developed innovations to protect the environment. We’re excited for what happens next."

'We’re fortunate to be home to some of the country’s leading bioscience innovators'

Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said: "We’re fortunate to be home to some of the country’s leading bioscience innovators who are blazing a trail in finding new and better ways of doing things.

"I want our area to harness our existing industry strengths and build new ones in order to create well-paid, secure jobs and training opportunities for local people and attract greater investment into our economy. To make that happen, we’re putting our money where our mouth is. We’ll be investing 5% of our GVA in research and development over the next few years – that’s nearly double government’s national targets.

"I believe we have the capacity, the capability, and the creativity to position ourselves at the forefront of UK innovation. By attracting companies like Holiferm we are well on the way to doing that."

Holiferm’s presence at Sci-Tech Daresbury and the new manufacturing plant in Wallasey was supported by a £400,000 grant from the Inward Investment Facilitation Fund (I2F2) set up as part of Mayor Rotheram’s £75m Business Growth Package.

Get the pick of the Wirral headlines sent straight to your inbox – click here to sign up.