Start-up Clear Labs Plans To Sequence The Food Supply

Over the past 18 months, a small team of scientists has been using next-generation genomic sequencing to quietly build what they call the world’s largest molecular database of food. Now, their company, Clear Labs, hopes to sell a food testing and analytics platform to food companies, saying it will make their supply chains more transparent and their products more valuable.

On Sept. 15, Clear Labs announced it has raised $6.5 million in venture capital funding from Khosla Ventures, Felicis Ventures, and others. Those investors are betting that food makers and retailers such as Whole Foods will pay to verify a food’s authenticity and test for genetically modified organisms, bacterial contamination, and allergens such as gluten.

Clear Labs was founded by genomics veterans: chief executive officer Sasan Amini was a researcher at next-gen sequencing equipment leader Illumina, and chief marketing officer Mahni Gharashi came from Bina Technologies, now owned by Roche.

The rise in consumer demand for simple ingredient labels paired with increased complexity in the supply chain will lead to more testing, Garashi tells C&EN. “Ingredients are sourced from all over world, from different suppliers. It can be hard to track and validate the integrity and safety of products,” Garashi says.

Food companies are already quite good at testing their own products for pathogens such as listeria, points out J. D. Hanson, senior policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, an advocacy organization. But if companies follow a “trust, but verify” system, they may also choose to test ingredients supplied by others, Hanson says.