Sarnia's LCY Biosciences plant has moved away from producing succinic acid, used to make plastics, as global demand for its products has dropped.
The company is now focusing on nutraceuticals which are used in nutrition and animal feed.
That includes chemicals like carotene, astaxanthin, and lycopene.
Plant Manager Trevor MacLeod said the good news is they can still use their existing fermentation system.
"As part of our new product development, we've been partnering with both Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, Lambton College, and hopefully the Western Sarnia-Lambton Research Park as we work through the piloting and scale up of our product. They've been doing some fantastic work with us, helping us to understand the technical aspects of our scale-up activities."
MacLeod said demand for succinic acid could increase again in the future.
"That's definitely a possibility," he said. "We're not going to exit succinic acid permanently although it's all based on demand. If we see good demand and there's a good market then we'll evaluate the situation at that time and make a decision if we're going to go back to succinic acid."
Senior HR Manager Jennifer St. Jean said as a result of the shift, about 30 employees at the Vidal Street plant have been permanently laid off.
"We're not closing our doors," said St. Jean. "We've retained a core group of professionals that will escalate the development of our new bio-based pipeline products that have reached the mature stable state in the piloting and qualification stages."
St. Jean said the company is actively hiring for positions like executive sales staff, animal feed, fermentation and engineering scientists.
LCY Biosciences bought the plant for $4.34 million in 2019 as part of BioAmber’s court-ordered liquidation process.
