Vegetable and Plant Peptones: Alternatives to Animal-derived Peptones in Microbiology

Animal diseases such as BSE, TSE or foot-and-mouth disease are causes for concern, so it is important that there are alternative non-animal ingredients for microbiological culture media. Sourcing 100% vegetable protein means there is no risk of BSE/TSE contamination and no problems with certificates and regulations. And there are further reasons for using plant-based, vegetable peptones: they have a lower CO2 footprint than animal-derived peptones, and no animals are consumed or need to suffer. Several tests have shown that plant peptones can achieve better growth and yields, helping microbiology QC laboratories to save time and money.

Applications allowing plant-based vegetable peptones to be used are drastically increasing, and there are thousands of older standard methods that, when updated, are likely to pave the way for further applications. Plant peptones eliminate the risk of carrying animal and human diseases into fermentation processes or any produced materials or their processes. Many vaccines, for example against COVID-19 or swine influenza, and more and more other medicals and materials are produced by fermentations. Fermentations are becoming more important in our everyday lives, and today we all come into contact with fermented products like probiotics (yoghurt), beer, wine, cheese, antibiotics, biological pest control agents, biological plastics, biological detergents, and enzymes.

Table 1 below lists plant peptones that have specifically been tested as replacements for animal-based peptones in microbiological growth media. Their formulations are based on mixtures of different plant peptones to generate similar peptide and amino acid profiles, similar growth promoting properties, and the same or better growth characteristics. Typical plant sources for peptones are corn, beans, potatoes, peas and wheat.

The advantages of plant-based vegetable peptones:

• Free of animal derived material
• Free of animal and human diseases
• No import and export permits needed
• Lower CO₂ footprint
• Ethically acceptable

Discover our range of plant peptones:

Soy bean based plant peptones
Potato based plant peptones
Wheat based plant peptones
Other plant based peptones
Plant peptone test kit with 20 different plant peptones