Australian climate technology company Rumin8 has unveiled its new manufacturing demonstration plant in Perth, Western Australia, marking a crucial step towards commercialising the company's cost-effective feed and water supplements designed to minimise methane emissions from livestock. The Western Australia Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis was present to inaugurate this crucial development platform.

This plant is designed to offer comprehensive proof of concept, comprehending aspects like manufacturing processes, technical factors, and production costs, all tied to developing Rumin8's cornerstone product. The demonstration platform will be a practical experiment to validate the product's performance before scaling it for commercial operations.

As CEO of Rumin8, David Messina identified that the plant will help tackle the key obstacles on the path to commercialisation. "We know our product works in terms of reducing methane emission from livestock while retaining or improving productivity."

Messina emphasised the need to transition from laboratory to pharmaceutical manufacturing for refining the production of formulations. This shift aims to showcase various outcomes, including cost efficiency, product integrity, and adherence to quality assurance standards. The focus is on practical implementation in a manufacturing setting to demonstrate the viability and effectiveness of the formulations beyond the controlled environment of a laboratory.

"Now we need to refine the production of our formulations in a pharmaceutical manufacturing setting rather than a laboratory setting to demonstrate a range of outputs such as cost, product integrity, QA, etc," he explained.

Operating in an industrial environment is anticipated to provide a more realistic product test. Furthermore, once it reaches maximum design capacity, the plant's capabilities will allow for large-scale trials as it is projected to manufacture thousands of doses daily, according to Messina. He demonstrated strong confidence in achieving the set goals through the use of this demonstration plant.

In addition, Rumin8 has fostered partnerships with local academic institutions, the University of Western Australia and Murdoch University, whose laboratories will be contributing to the onsite operations for product testing and validation. This will offer valuable backing to the procedures performed at the demonstration facility.

The technology developed by Rumin8 opens up a broad spectrum of applications for methane reduction in various plants. The company's unique strength lies in its proprietary technology, including the patent-protected method of synthesising and stabilising the compound Tribromomethane (TBM), originally sourced from seaweed. This technique offers the advantage of being highly scalable, repeatable and cost-efficient. The target for Rumin8 is to decarbonise 100 million cattle by 2030, thereby averting the emission of 200 million tonnes of CO2-e into the atmosphere.

Besides the focus on methane reduction, Rumin8 is also keen on yielding productivity gains. To this end, the company has developed a gamut of product solutions tailored to cater to an extensive range of livestock management practices in feedlot and pasture applications. It's worth noting that Rumin8's prototypes have already been judged successfully in animal trials conducted in multiple countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and the United States.