DIC Subsidiary in the United States Opens New Facility for Cultivating Edible Algae with the Goal of Realizing Sustainable Smart Farming

Tokyo, Japan—DIC Corporation announced today that U.S. subsidiary Earthrise Nutritionals, LLC, a production base for Spirulina edible blue-green algae in the state of California, commenced operations in March 2025 at a new edible algae cultivation facility that was built with the goal of realizing sustainable smart farming.* Products from the new facility—investment in which amounted to approximately ¥1.2 billion—comply with California’s food safety regulations,† considered among the most stringent in the world.

State-of-the-art technologies
To realize sustainable smart farming, Earthrise Nutritionals has deployed the following five state-of-the-art technologies for the first time at its new production facility.
• a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system‡ that centrally manages cultivation for the entire facility, which has a total area of approximately 420,000 m2.
• collaborative robot arms that both reduce costs and ensure safe operations.
• an AI-driven system for assessing algae growth.
• a water control and management system that simultaneously achieves zero discharge of industrial wastewater off-site and outstanding product quality.
• a drone-based facility analysis system.

Sustainable, environment-friendly production
As a photosynthetic organism, Spirulina carries out photosynthesis, that is, it converts CO2 into the chemical energy necessary to fuel its growth. Earthrise Nutritionals is committed to sustainable, environment-friendly production, using more than 1,200 tonnes of refined CO2 procured from external sources annually to cultivate Spirulina and satisfying more than 50% of its energy needs with renewable energy provided by Imperial Irrigation District (IID),§ a public corporation that supplies water and power to local farmland. The company also uses state-of-the-art technologies to produce LINABLUE®, a natural blue food coloring made with a pigment extracted from Spirulina using water, enabling it to achieve zero discharge of industrial wastewater off-site.

The DIC Group views sustainability as a key aspect of its management policy. As such, it works actively to help address environmental issues, including by attaining zero discharge of industrial wastewater off-site at its algae cultivation facility in the People’s Republic of China, as well as at its new U.S. facility. Going forward, the Group will continue striving to provide superior environment-friendly products to its customers around the world.

* Smart farming is the use of advanced technologies to improve the efficiency and sustainability of agricultural practices. In addition to bolstering crop yields and crop quality by facilitating the real-time monitoring of growing conditions and environmental data, smart farming aims to enhance the sustainability of agriculture by contributing to energy and water conservation and environmental awareness. Governments around the world are promoting smart farming for next-generation agricultural production.
† California’s food safety regulations include Proposition 65, which seeks to protect the safety of drinking water and to protect consumers from hazardous substances. In addition to having its own unique environmental and hazardous substance standards that differ from those of other states, the state is known for the stringency of its regulations.
‡ A SCADA is a control system architecture for monitoring and controlling systems in production facilities, among others, which gathers and analyzes data, and transforms it into an accessible visual format.
§ IID is a public corporation in Southern California that supplies water to support irrigation and electric power.

– Ends –

Earthrise Nutritionals, headquartered in California, is a wholly owned subsidiary of DIC that produces Spirulina blue-green algae for use in health foods, as well as Spirulina-derived natural blue food coloring LINABLUE®. The company produces 550 tonnes of Spirulina annually and its outdoor algae cultivation facility, at approximately 190,000 m2, is one of the world’s largest. Earthrise Nutritionals is the only company in the continental United States to succeed in the stable outdoor mass cultivation of Spirulina. It has earned Food Safety System Certification (FSSC) 22000, under a prominent food safety certification scheme, and has been audited under the Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) program.

DIC Corporation is one of the world’s leading fine chemicals companies and the core of the DIC Group, a multinational organization comprising over 170 companies, including Sun Chemical Corporation, in more than 60 countries and territories. The DIC Group is recognized as a global leader in the markets for a variety of products essential to modern lifestyles, notably packaging materials, display materials such as those used in television and computer displays, and high-performance materials for smartphones and other digital devices, as well as for automobiles. Through such products, the Group endeavors to deliver safety and peace of mind, and color and comfort, to people everywhere. The DIC Group also seeks to contribute to a sustainable society by developing innovative products that respond to social change and which help address social imperatives. With annual consolidated net sales exceeding ¥1 trillion and 21,000-plus employees worldwide, the Group pledges to continue working in close cooperation with its customers wherever they are. For more information, please visit the DIC global website: https://www.dic-global.com/