Bite-Size Climate Tech: The Science That Has to Ship
In short
Phytoform's edited potatoes look boring, which is the point
Lydia Chen asked the founders of NORMA and Phytoform how their science leaves the lab, and found that both want it to end up looking ordinary.
This year was Phytoform's second season of field trials for gene-edited potatoes and tomatoes. One of its founders admitted that the trials look very boring. They look like potatoes. Around the table that counted as a good sign, because edited plants should not look too weird. Lydia Chen's Bite-Size Climate Tech has a segment called the science has to ship, and in this live episode both companies gave versions of the same answer. A breakthrough has to become normal.
Mónica Larrazábal, co-founder and chief executive of NORMA, which first appeared on the show in season four, went first. NORMA is the first technology to merge carbon capture and energy storage in one device, Mónica said. Its cell charges like a battery but is a supercapacitor. One side turns positive, and the negatively charged CO₂ ions are pulled towards it, a little like a magnet, though Mónica conceded that the image is technically wrong. At scale, a fleet of cells passes electricity back and forth, which Mónica pictured as tequila poured between shot glasses. The fleet captures CO₂ from air or flue gas while reusing the energy.
NORMA left stealth about a year ago and has spent the time on performance in the lab. It already matches the energy levels of second-generation direct air capture technologies, Mónica said, but the speed matters more. In the latest sprint, over a couple of months, its energy per tonne fell by 60%. "The floor is nowhere close." The company targets less than $40 a tonne for capture at point sources and has a pathway to $100 a tonne for direct air capture, while a first-of-a-kind facility might cost about $200.
Phytoform, led by its co-founders William Pelton, the chief executive, and Nicolas Kral, the chief technology officer, improves single traits in crops. Conventional breeding takes 10 to 20 years per improvement, Nicolas said, and climate change no longer allows that. Phytoform uses gene editing, AI and other non-transgenic tools and adds no new DNA to its plants. It does what nature or selective breeding could do, only faster and more precisely. Its AI is a DNA model, a transformer trained on genetic letters instead of words.
Each product targets a cost. Glasshouse tomatoes grow as vines, and the human labour of harvesting and trimming them is the most expensive part. The feedback Phytoform heard was to make growing more like a manufacturing line, so it made a dwarf tomato plant that is nearly all fruit and a few leaves, which an investor nicknamed the bonsai tomato. In potato it has switched off browning, which could remove 10–15% of the waste in the supply chain. In corn it is changing the shape of the plant so that more fit in a field without their leaves shading each other.
For William, the lab is only the start. "The wet lab is a means to an end." Phytoform partners with seed companies, the natural channel to growers, from some of the world's largest to regional players. Food processors are increasingly interested, because they have specific problems such as browning. Biology sets the pace. One tomato plant yields thousands of seeds, and a glasshouse allows several generations a year. A potato plant gives perhaps 10 to 20 tubers and one field season. Phytoform expects its potato and tomato products to be scaled up and on the market over the next couple of years.
Regulation is moving too. Europe is more conservative about bioengineering than the US, but a law on new genetic technologies is due to take effect in mid-2028, one of the founders said. The misconception that grates most, William said, is that Phytoform still gets lumped in with GMOs, so controversial in the 1990s and 2000s, and with Monsanto, because it is biotech, even though it adds no DNA.
Mónica, hearing about the boring potatoes, added that NORMA's own name comes from the same aim, making technologies such as carbon capture normal. Lydia took that as the episode's hope, that breakthroughs like these will look normal in 10 or 20 years.
Recorded live at The Drop 2026 for Bite-Size Climate Tech, hosted by Lydia Chen, with Mónica Larrazábal, William Pelton and Nicolas Kral.