Based in Israel, NextFerm was founded by several senior executives from Enzymotec, a food ingredients company sold to flavor extracts company Frutarom in 2017 for $290 million. NextFerm uses microbial fermentation to develop specialty ingredients for the food industry. The Process: NextFerm differs from the other companies working in microbial engineering (Motif Ingredients, Geltor, Clara Foods, Impossible Foods) because these companies are genetically modifying yeast strains to produce specific proteins. Instead of genetically altering the yeast, NextFerm uses a technique called controlled evolution of yeast.