Pruning Waste to Food Security
BioPrep™ · MycoSSF™ · ~30 days · Farm scale · Patent pending
We convert municipal, agricultural, and utility pruning waste into MycoFeed™ — verified ruminant roughage in an established feed category. Gate fees on intake, product sales on delivery, optional carbon upside — climate, food security, and circular economics in one process.
The problem
Two crises — same biomass
One side of the world pays to grow and ship roughage on scarce land and water. The other pays to dispose of pruning waste — often by burning — with no scalable biological outlet.
Globally, roughage markets exceed $40B+ in annual trade; arid regions depend on imported alfalfa and fibre. In parallel, roughly 1 billion tonnes of lignocellulosic pruning waste are generated every year — with no commercial-scale biological processing at farm gate.
Israel in focus: the country imports ₪2B+ of animal feed annually (roughage, alfalfa, fibre) while municipalities and growers face rising disposal costs for prunings — often ₪300–400/t or more to manage green waste.
Feed gap
Ruminants need dietary fibre continuously. Alfalfa travels thousands of miles; prices rise as irrigation is restricted in producing regions.
Waste mountain
Cities, utilities, and orchards pay to move and dispose of wood waste. Same lignocellulose ruminants need — locked behind lignin until pretreated.
BioMill connects the second problem to the first — MycoFeed™ from pruning waste.
Our solution
One process — MycoFeed™ out
92 peer-reviewed studies establish the biology. Innovation is outdoor, tractor-operated scale-up: BioPrep™ opens the substrate; MycoSSF™ delivers the digestibility step — negative input cost when gate fees stack.
BioPrep™ — alkaline thermophilic conditioning
Incoming prunings — municipal, agricultural, utility, or industrial — are chipped, conditioned, and brought through a proprietary pH and temperature regime. Hygienisation and substrate normalization set the stack for fungal work.
Pruning waste (any approved source)
Conditioned substrate ready for SSF
MycoSSF™ — outdoor fungal bioconversion
Pleurotus-driven outdoor solid-state fermentation: proprietary strain selection, aeration, and outdoor inoculation — the core IP bridging lab proof to farm-scale piles and bunkers. Targets ≥30% Klason lignin reduction and ≥70% IVDMD.
Conditioned chips / substrate
Pretreated substrate → MycoFeed™
MycoFeed™ — verified roughage + circular add-ons
Primary output: MycoFeed™ ruminant roughage supplement — established regulatory category, ergosterol fingerprint for fungal origin. Co-product streams (e.g. organic amendment, mulch, optional insect routes) add circular upside where markets support them.
Pretreated substrate
Roughage to dairy, beef, sheep · co-products as needed
The process
From pruning waste to MycoFeed™
Gate revenue on intake → preprocessing → BioPrep™ → MycoSSF™ → MycoFeed™ roughage. Co-product streams optional by market.
Economics
One input — three revenue streams
Conventional feed producers rarely combine negative-cost intake, branded roughage sales, and climate-linked upside in one asset footprint.
Gate fees — intake
Generators pay BioMill to receive pruning waste before the first batch runs — structural disposal obligation in many markets. Model reference: ~$70/t intake at full scale (impact brief).
MycoFeed™ — product sales
Verified ruminant roughage supplement in an established category — competes with imported alfalfa and fibre. Model reference: ~$140/t delivery at full scale (illustrative; market-dependent).
Carbon credits — upside
Every tonne processed instead of open burning avoids ~1.8 t CO₂e vs that baseline (illustrative). Voluntary markets: upside not carried in base financial model — see Data Room for assumptions.
Circular & operational add-ons
Organic amendment, mulch, preprocessing services, and other streams remain part of the plant model where buyers exist — detailed splits and year-by-year revenue are in the business plan and financial models in the Data Room, not duplicated here.
Illustrative full-scale unit (impact brief)
~$7M/yr revenue · ~36% EBITDA · < 3 yr payback
Per ~30,000 t/yr MycoFeed™ output installation — before carbon upside. Figures are presentation metrics; diligence uses model files.
Why MycoFeed™ wins structurally
Impact
Climate · Food security · Circular economy
MycoFeed™ is an impact thesis you can meter: avoided burning, domestic roughage, and waste liability flipped to food-system input.
Avoided vs open burning (deck basis)
Climate — illustrative 30k t plant
Food security — same reference plant
Global import market tension
Climate mitigation
Processing prunings instead of field burning cuts particulates and CO₂e; displacing shipped alfalfa saves embedded transport energy — ambient SSF, no refrigeration.
Food security
Domestic roughage in import-dependent regions — supply that does not depend on long ocean lanes or freshwater irrigation in producer countries.
Circular economy
Gate fees turn disposal liability into working capital; residual substrate and co-products can return organic matter to soils where markets exist.
Aligns with SDGs: Zero Hunger · Climate Action · Responsible Production — quantified further in the impact deck.
The Team
Proven Collaboration, Complementary Expertise
26+ years combined experience. Co-founders scaled Yemoja together — Erez as CEO, Pini leading R&D. Today: two founders, clean cap table, commercial partners under contract (no partner equity) — Shamir, Ardom, Ambar.
Erez Ashkenazi
Co-Founder & CTO
20+ years building complex biological systems end-to-end -- design, scale-up, commissioning, operations. Founded & scaled Yemoja (microalgae biotech, 2017-2023), achieving 3x scale-up with >90% yield improvements. National Yigal Alon Award winner for pioneering leadership in biotech innovation.
Pini Marco
Co-Founder · COO / Head of R&D
PhD in Plant Sciences (Tel Aviv University). Former VP R&D at Yemoja — microalgae and bioprocess scale-up, solid-state fermentation depth, and applied mycology (Tel Hai mushroom programme). Bridges lab assays to outdoor SSF execution.
Commercial partners (contractual — no equity)
Shamir Research Institute
R&D facility · analytics — site agreement
Ardom Agri Cooperative
Feedstock partnership — prunings & gate logistics
Ambar Group
MycoFeed™ offtake — contract purchase
Why BioMill Galilee
Negative-cost feedstock
Gate fees on pruning waste intake — structural generator obligation in many regions. Paid before product ships.
BioPrep™ + MycoSSF™ — the IP
Outdoor farm-scale SSF with proprietary conditioning and aeration — the gap past 92 lab papers.
MycoFeed™ — established pull
Ruminant roughage category exists today; we unlock it from a new, underpriced feedstock base.
Simpler operations
Chip → condition → ferment → deliver. No live insect rearing in the base case.
Three revenue streams
Gate + product sales + voluntary carbon upside — rare combination for feed producers.
Battle-tested team + partners
Yemoja-scale founders; Shamir, Ardom, Ambar aligned by contract — IP retained by BioMill.
Get in touch
Build MycoFeed™ with us
Investors, grant partners, municipalities, and offtake groups — we run outdoor SSF in Israel first and license the toolkit globally.
The ask — seed & impact capital
€2.5M seed
Plus non-dilutive pathways (EIC Accelerator, PRIMA, BIRD, Horizon themes) — detailed in the impact deck & Data Room.
Gate 2 targets (programme): ≥30% lignin reduction · ≥70% IVDMD · first commercial deliveries — see pilot spec in Data Room.