As I walked out of a late afternoon education session at this year’s Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) EDGE conference, I couldn’t stop thinking about a new technology introduced by Jo Marini, chief executive officer and co-founder of the biotech company Mothership Materials. Mothership uses patented technology called Targeted Molecular Recovery (TMR) to extract specific molecules like sugars, cellulose, essential oils, and lipids from waste streams and turn those biomaterials into a variety of products, including food, textiles, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.
The company uses a portable centrifuge stack to capture specific molecules from land waste. Essentially, this unique technology is like a coin sorter for molecules. “When we spin the waste at a low RPM in this disk stack—in a tower that’s about the size of a photo booth and costs about $50,000 to build—we can then organize these molecules by density gradient in continuous flow and capture up to five outputs from one input,” Marini explained.
Running largely on solar power, Mothership’s mobile technology can process approximately 20 tons of biomass per hour and then monetize those outputs, creating a circular bioeconomy that’s not only better for the environment but is also efficient and profitable.
Marini used the example of a company that uses oranges to make juice and other products to explain how Mothership’s technology can transform a supply chain. It is more expensive to dispose of orange rinds after you process an orange for juice than it is to acquire the orange from a third party, she said. Orange rinds are very acidic, and disposing of a large mass of rinds can make transporting the waste a logistical nightmare. But this waste is actually loaded with pectin—a natural plant-based fiber found in the cell walls of fruits and vegetables that can be used as a gelling or thickening agent in food.
With the growing popularity of “clean” products in the marketplace, manufacturers are using pectin as an alternative to synthetic or animal-based thickeners. With Mothership’s technology, manufacturers can now process the orange rind waste on site and extract that valuable pectin to resell, creating an efficient circular supply chain.
Pectin is just one example of a valuable resource that is in high demand. According to Marini, Mothership has customers desperate to buy sugar for precision fermentation, protein for different types of bio manufacturing and polymer creation, lipids for beauty products, and lignin for biofuels. The list goes on and on.
What impressed me even more about this new technology was that it was originally intended for use in medical therapeutics. In the beginning, Marini’s co-founder wanted to create a unique device to help sickle-cell patients in remote areas of the world. Yet during development, she realized the technology could serve an even greater need—transforming supply chain “waste” into profit.
While that shift to tackling waste may have steered Mothership in a new direction, the co-founders have not abandoned their long-term goal of helping sickle cell patients across the globe. With the success of its waste processing capabilities, the company can now develop those devices for medical therapeutics and reach an even greater number of people.
As we close out 2025, I am thankful for companies like Mothership Materials that are reimagining the way we handle waste and for their commitment to making the world a better place.
