Power Your Workout: Locally-produced amino acids energize people around the world

Monday, October 19, 2020

In 2019, the CRN Consumer Survey on Dietary Supplements found nearly 77% of Americans consume supplements, the highest overall dietary supplement usage recorded to date. As it turns out, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of amino acids, an element that makes up protein and goes into supplements, is here in Southeast Missouri.

BioKyowa, on Nash Road in Cape Girardeau, manufactures 10 of the 21 amino acids that are the building blocks of protein and make up structures in the body. The Cape plant manufac- tures arginine, citrulline, glutamine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, ornithine, threonine, tryptophan and valine, producing them for businesses that add these amino acids into their products as ingredients.

BioKyowa’s parent company, Kyowa Hakko Bio Co., Ltd., is located in Tokyo. The Cape Girardeau plant itself supplies 189 jobs with benefits to the Southeast Missouri region. The products from the Cape Girardeau plant are shipped throughout the world spanning several countries and four continents.

“We strive to produce the highest-quality amino acids knowing that these too are used and consumed by our families and our community,” says Pat Feeney, plant manager.

They didn’t start off with such diversity of products, however; when the plant opened in Cape in 1984, they started off manufacturing lysine, a supplement for livestock feed. The region was the perfect location for the plant: in this area, farmers grew corn, which is used as the glucose source in the amino acids, and there was also a large pork industry. As the company has expanded, it remains beneficial for them to be here because they receive the corn syrup by railroad from a plant in the Midwest, which saves money in proximity; also, electricity, one of the company’s largest expenditures, is much less expensive here than in Japan.

Corn syrup, which provides the essential glucose for the production of amino acids, arrives at the Biokyowa facility in Cape Girardeau by rail.

Producing each of the 10 amino acids is a long process, which BioKyowa carries out in two plants. The process starts out with a tiny tube filled with frozen cells that is cultivated into a large biomass. The biomass continues to grow through cultivation until it is large enough to be transferred into an 80,000-gallon tank. This is where the fermentation process converts raw materials to the amino acid chains.

From there, the fermentation broth goes through multiple purification steps including filtration, evaporation and drying to isolate the amino acid from the broth. This leaves the amino acid as a white crystalline powder which is packaged into supersacks or drums and is ready to ship.

The plant uses a large amount of water each day and has its own water treatment facility just down the road from the plant. There, it purifies the process wastewater, assuring it meets all applicable regulatory standards. They send it through a five mile-long pipeline back into the Mississippi River.

While many people associate supplements with sports training, the products made at the Cape Girardeau plant are used for much more.

“There’s a huge diversity of things amino acids go into,” says Stephen Chiusolo, senior technical superintendent. “There’s also a large diversity in the workforce needed to produce those amino acids. It takes people from backgrounds like biology, chemistry, engineering, specialized production technical skills, logistics and finance.”

In addition to supplements for athletes, BioKyowa’s amino acids can also be found in everyday household items. Companies that purchase their amino acids use them in items such as toothpaste, baby formula and pharmaceuticals, health care products, shampoo and protein supplements. And the company still supplies amino acids for animal food: their proteins even help treat cataracts in salmon, so the fish can see to eat more and become bigger.

At the core of it all is helping create a healthier world.

“We are really fortunate to have this company in Southeast Missouri not only for having the employment value but also what we’re doing for the world here,” says Krystal Culbertson, senior quality superintendent. “We’re helping to increase people’s health, at the end of the day. And that’s one of the missions of the company in general is to supply people with high-quality amino acids. There’s so many reasons why people take it, and it goes into so many different things. It impacts everybody’s life in a different way. To have that coming out of Southeast Missouri, it’s really cool.”

BioKyowa

Now hiring with competitive salary and full benefits.

5469 Nash Rd, Cape Girardeau, MO 63701 (573) 335-4849