If San Marcos–born company Plantible has its way, the story of food’s future will begin with two friends who met as kids in the Netherlands. Tony Martens Fekini was in agricultural commodity trading. Maurits van de Ven was an investment banker—but they wanted more. Could they start a company together? They brainstormed. A banking app? Nah. Software of some sort? Maybe, but what? Renewable energy? It’s already so commoditized!
Then, as one does, they decided they wanted to change the world by reimagining the agricultural supply chain via the introduction of a novel ingredient that could revolutionize how bakers emulsify and chefs bind, all while keeping an eye on sustainability.
You know, no big deal.
The company’s trademark Rubi can replace animal proteins for a fluffy meringue without the eggs.
After much research, they landed on RuBisCO (the much shorter abbreviation for the mouthful that is ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase). It’s likely the most abundant protein on the planet. It’s older than oxygen. Pound for pound there is more RuBisCO on Earth than there is human mass. You’ve consumed it before; it’s in your salad. It’s the catalyst for photosynthesis—it captures CO2 and converts it into sugars, which enables plant growth. It’s also a complete protein, with all nine of the essential amino acids the human body needs but does not make on its own.
Also, it just so happens that RuBisCO, when isolated, is kind of like the valedictorian of proteins. Free of the FDA’s top eight food allergens (plus 12 more common ones), it acts as a weirdly fantastic egg substitute, foaming agent, and sensory-enhancing addition to plant-based dairy and meats. In trials, it can even make gluten-free baked goods—drum roll—moist. “They usually taste so dry, right?” Martens (his preferred name) says.
RuBisCO, Martens and van de Ven fantasized, could take the place of other functional ingredients—animal proteins and hydrocolloids like methylcellulose—that impact food consistency. “The digestibility is better, and you need less of it for the desired effect,” Martens explains.
But if the duo was going to sell RuBisCO, they needed a sustainable source of it. Then they heard of lemna, a small aquatic plant that doubles in size every 48 hours. It doesn’t need arable land (unlike, say, soybeans), can be cultivated year-round, and uses up to 90 percent less water than many other crops.
“So, we connected these two dots, [lemna and RuBisCO],” Martens says. “And then we quit our jobs.”
Through their network, they learned about a defunct algae farm in San Marcos in North San Diego County. The owners offered it for free to these Dutchmen with a dream. “We packed all our stuff up, and here we are,” Martens says. “Honestly, if [the farm] had been in Alabama, we’d be in Alabama.”
The plot just off Twin Oaks Valley Road is lined with greenhouses, a couple trailers, and some dusty RVs. Martens jokes that it looks like the perfect starter set-up for a cult, but no—it’s the world headquarters of the duo’s company, Plantible.
When they first arrived in 2017, however, they had a big problem: “We had no idea how to extract RuBisCO,” Martens says.
Martens spent the first year-and-a-half in an RV, trying to crack the code—he had beakers and Vitamixes galore, even mini spin dryers stuffed with juice-filled vacuum bags. He felt like Walter White from Breaking Bad (sub green smoothies for meth).
Then, the pandemic struck. Plantible’s six (very) devoted employees podded together on the farm and perfected the process: Harvest the lemna, rupture the chloroplast cells, toss the mixture into a centrifuge, do some other top-secret chemistry stuff to separate the RuBisCO from its chlorophyll, and dry what is left— then, voila, the company’s trademark Rubi Protein.
Plantible grows lemna year-round in its San Marcos greenhouses.
Six years after its humble beginnings, Plantible expanded into a new 100-acre commercial facility in Texas and now employs 70 people. Last November, the company scored $20 million in series B funding. It has already promised several hundred metric tons of Rubi Protein this year. Martens can’t divulge which companies currently use Rubi, but he can say that Chipotle and Kellogg invest.
Recently, he gave me a tour of the OG farm in San Marcos. We entered a quiet, humid greenhouse where tiny plants floated around a pond of water like it was a slow-mo lazy river. I envisioned myself jumping in and chilling like a contented capybara in a Japanese onsen.
Rubi Protein
Martens dipped his finger in and presented some tiny green specks—lemna is adorable. The taste is crisp and planty, like watercress or purslane. I knew it was all going to become white dust, but if given the opportunity, I’d pesto the crap out of that stuff, get it all up into a sandwich.
Plantible is now setting its sights on more Rubi discoveries: Could it work in body products like masks or scrubs? And, more importantly, can the company develop Plantible farms all over the world to help populations maintain their own renewable protein source?
Though the product is not yet available to the casual consumer, Martens also envisions a world in which Rubi Protein becomes a household name and a shopping-list regular. He can almost hear it now: While you’re picking up the milk, can you also grab more Rubi?
