Irish food ingredients company ClonBio Foods has announced plans to build a commercial-scale manufacturing facility for FibAX, its native corn arabinoxylan prebiotic fibre, at its existing site in Dunaföldvár, Hungary. The investment marks a significant step in bringing a research-backed gut health ingredient to global food and beverage manufacturers at commercial volumes for the first time.

As reported by Asia Food Journal, the facility is expected to be operational in the second quarter of 2027, and will be dedicated to producing fibres from grains, with FibAX as its first product. It represents an expansion of ClonBio Foods' Dunaföldvár ingredient production campus, which already houses the company's PurusPro barley protein operation.

FibAX is a high-molecular-weight corn arabinoxylan, a prebiotic dietary fibre made up of arabinose and xylose molecules. ClonBio Foods isolates the fibre intact from the cell wall of the grain, preserving its natural length and native branched structure, which determines how it is fermented by the gut microbiota and contributes to its slow, sustained activity in the colon.

The company currently produces FibAX at pilot scale. The new facility will allow commercial volumes to be supplied to premium brands for the first time, targeting applications in dietary supplements, prebiotic and probiotic blends, functional beverages and functional dairy.

Enda Ryan, CEO of ClonBio Foods, said: "Arabinoxylan fibres have been studied for years, and the science behind them is strong, but nobody has produced them at commercial scale in their native form. We have spent years working out how to make this fibre consistently and at high quality, and this facility takes it from a research-stage ingredient to one that brands can build premium products around."

Ryan also highlighted the ingredient's low-dose efficacy as a key differentiator for formulators, noting that FibAX delivers meaningful metabolic activity at doses that give product developers more flexibility while still supporting gut health outcomes.

Research indicates FibAX produces approximately three times more short-chain fatty acids than inulin over a 24-hour period, sustaining that production further along the colon. A controlled study of 53 participants found that a cake reformulated with 1.5% FibAX achieved a 30% reduction in sugar while also producing a lower post-meal glucose response than standard and resistant maltodextrin versions.