Twelve months ago, Pairwise, a gene-editing company based in North Carolina, launched its first commercial product in the United States under the Conscious Greens brand. Despite widespread hesitancy, if not downright hostility, to genetically modified (GM) foods, Pairwise hoped that the more nuanced genetic modifications enabled by CRISPR and other gene editing technologies would prove more palatable to U.S. consumers. The first Pairwise product was mustard greens that were edited to remove a wasabi-like bitterness that should boost their appeal.
“We know from research that most consumers in the U.S. don’t know much about CRISPR or gene editing but, when they learn about it, most feel positive. Especially if they can see the direct, tangible benefits to them,” Tom Adams, PhD, CEO of Pairwise told GEN recently.
“Prior to launching, we held sampling events at which more than 6,000 people tried our leafy greens. We were transparent about the technology used. Of the 3,000 who completed our survey, less than 1% cited technology as a concern.”
Pairwise introduced Conscious Greens in the summer of 2023 and received consumer feedback on the taste, look, and texture of the leafy greens. But Adams and his colleagues came to the conclusion that, while they had the scientific know-how, they lacked the marketing experience needed to get their greens to a wider market. In May 2024, Pairwise announced a product licensing agreement with Bayer to bring ten plant products to market.
“As with any young startup, we have to focus resources on where we can create the most value, and our core competency is in product development. The best thing for our greens was to find a partner with the right existing supply chain infrastructure to carry them forward, rather than continuing to build it ourselves from the ground up,” Adams told GEN.
He continued, “We introduced the first CRISPR food in North America, and the product was a success among consumers and chefs. Now that we’ve achieved several important milestones and laid the commercial groundwork, this new licensing agreement with Bayer is the next phase in commercialization.”
Anne Williams, head of protected vegetable seeds at Bayer, told GEN: “As one of the first vegetables coming to consumers bred using the new gene-editing technology, we face the challenge that many consumers don’t know what this technology is or does, so it’s important to be able to communicate and to share information about the technique and how it works. The technology enables us to target and accelerate breeding.”
“We anticipate bringing these mustard leafy greens to market in the late summer and fall of 2024 in North America, with other countries following,” she added.
The new licensing deal with Bayer is not the first time Pairwise has had involvement with the corporate giant. In 2018, Pairwise announced $25 million in funding from Leaps by Bayer, a corporate venture capitalist arm of Bayer. This funding helped Pairwise launch its research and product development endeavors. “Bayer has been an excellent partner for Pairwise over the last six years,” Adams said. “We have engaged in two five-year partnerships with Bayer to develop gene editing innovations for their row crop business.”
CRISPR draw
CRISPR-Cas9 and its derivative systems have been used for gene editing for more than ten years, with much of the focus on advances in the biomedical field. In recent years it has also been a star introducing the world to the opportunity of gene editing to improve produce quality and consistency.
Gene-edited tomatoes have been produced to increase the available vitamin D already produced in the crop, improving their nutritional value. In a 2023 report published in GEN’s sister journal, GEN Biotechnology, researchers in South Korea used CRISPR-Cas9 to knock down the function of two DWARF5 genes in tomatoes. This modification resulted in an increase in provitamin D3 levels, which could help combat the widespread vitamin D deficiency found in humans.
Pairwise, which was co-founded by a trio of genome editing leaders, published its CRISPR recipe to repress genes causing the undesirable flavors in mustard plants in a 2022 study published in the journal plants. Pairwise has utilized their Fulcrum™ platform to develop a mixture of leafy greens from mustard greens that eliminate the potent wasabi-like flavor, making these greens, which are more nutritionally valuable than lettuce, more accessible and palatable to more consumers. The platform combines two technologies: REDRAW™, RNA-encoded DNA replacement of alleles with CRISPR, which can make small edits in CRISPR-targeted locations; and SHARC™, which is a proprietary enzyme used in base editing with REDRAW editing.
But getting gene-edited foods to market and into the hands of those who need them is not only a matter of producing high-quality produce but also having the right team to successfully market and promote them. New food products that are genetically edited, like Conscious Greens, could face distribution setbacks. Pairwise has also shared plans for producing and distributing other produce including pit-less cherries, seedless blackberries, and mini pit-less mangoes. Getting these foods to market and consumers may be a challenge.
“As a new breeding technique, many countries are working to put in specific regulation processes to bring gene-edited varieties to market within a clear framework and ensure that plant breeders follow the same standards and practices. We’re working with a number of these countries to understand what information will be helpful and what timelines are likely,” said Williams.
A critical question remains about public acceptance of gene-edited foods, and successfully laying to rest public concerns over decades about genetically modified organisms. Melinda Kliegman, PhD, director of public impact at the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI), said that consumers appreciate the openness of companies producing foods using new technologies. “As more gene-edited foods reach the market, full transparency about the approach used to make the product will demonstrate to consumers that nothing nefarious is hiding in their food. It also gives consumers who oppose the technology the ability to opt-out.”
Kliegman aims to engage with the public to make sure that genome-editing innovations align with societal values. When discussing public sentiment and misconceptions about modern methods of food production with GEN, she pointed out that “GMOs do not equal gene editing and many gene edits are very small mutations that could have occurred naturally. Many people refer to these types of small gene edits as non-GMO or non-transgenic. It would be helpful if going forward, we try not to conflate the two. GMOs bring in transgenes from other species while gene-edited plants generally do not.”
The best thing that Pairwise and other food producers can do, Kliegman added, is “to develop products that directly benefit the consumer, and to solve problems for which few other solutions are available.” Examples include cacao, citrus, and banana crops that are under severe threat from various diseases for which gene editing may be the only viable solution.
Adams echoed this sentiment, “In our experience, consumers are more open to the product and the technology when we lead with the benefits.” He added, “Research shows that 67% of consumers who consider themselves early adopters of new foods feel that we need to find ways to meet society’s nutritional needs with fewer resources like energy, water, or carbon. This supports the idea that food, technology, and sustainability are connected in consumers’ minds in a meaningful way.”
History of human food manipulation
Since human agricultural practices began, humans have attempted to improve the quality, quantity, and consistency of produce. Selective breeding techniques were the first foray into genetic modification, resulting in the development of many staples in the American diet—corn from maize, full heads of wheat with easy-to-grind grains, the plethora of cruciferous vegetables from a single wild mustard plant (kale, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, Brussel sprouts, and cabbage), and many more.
The goal of conventional food production methods is to ensure that the growing populations are fed healthy food by developing sustainable growing practices. Although there have been many improvements in agricultural practices “only 1 in 10 Americans currently eat the recommended daily number of fruits and vegetables,” said Adams.
With improved technology and scientific understanding, farmers and plant breeders have been able to hyperfocus modifications on single traits, indeed on specific genes to improve the quality of food. “We are tackling many of the major challenges in agriculture and our food system, from adapting crops to changing environments to producing more nutritious fruits and vegetables that people want to eat,” shared Adams.
There are many examples of foods that have been modified by various modern technologies, the most famous of which is Golden Rice, produced by Syngenta, a genetically modified staple that increases the availability of vitamin A for many under-nourished people in Asia. (Golden Rice gets its name from the golden color of the grains with increased beta carotene/vitamin A.) Genes from maize and soil bacteria were introduced into rice to function in synchrony to produce beta carotene in a plant that is normally deficient in this nutrient. The process was initially completed through particle bombardment and bacterial transfer of the genes into rice embryos.
Despite being approved for commercial production in the Philippines in 2021, the approval for Golden Rice was overturned by a court decision in April 2024, fueled by misinformation over safety concerns promulgated by Greenpeace. Scientists labeled the court decision “a catastrophe”. Although appeals are expected, this ruling sets back the production of rice that would help feed and prevent millions of people at risk for vitamin A deficiency and potentially save thousands of lives.
In developed nations, controversy lingers on modern food production methods. Movements promoting “organic” and “non-GMO” foods often muddy the waters of public understanding of how food is produced on a large scale.
But while challenges remain, there are signs that gene-edited foods are being regarded by the public in a different light to prior modified foods. “It’s heartening to see that the first few genome-edited products hitting the market are specifically focused on consumer-preferred traits,” Kliegman said.
“While some of these traits may seem frivolous, they are paving the way for a wide range of traits that could help us better adapt to climate change, reduce emissions from agriculture, and provide food security to the several billion more people that will soon join us on this planet. It may also help us save our chocolate, lemons, and bananas.”
